The Last Prince of Dahaar(41)
She grasped his hands with hers, and a longing of the most intense kind swirled into life inside him. His gaze stayed on their hands, his throat dry.
She looked down at their hands and stilled. The tension around them could have detonated with the smallest spark. She slowly pulled her hands back as though afraid of just that, but he felt the tremor that went through her.
He leaned back against the wall, and after a second’s pause, she did the same at his side. “You like her,” he said, surprised. “Even with all the rituals she makes you go through.”
She stretched her arms across the wall, a thoughtful expression on her face. The movement stretched the white shirt tight across her breasts and he looked away guiltily. “It’s hard not to like her. She is so...strong. She bears so many responsibilities, she has been through so much and yet, through it all...” She cleared her throat. “She’s your father’s strength too, isn’t she? She doesn’t let him rule over her. With her by his side, I’m not surprised he was able to weather everything he has with such dignity.”
Ayaan had always thought of his father as the strong one. Not that he thought his mother weak. To Ayaan, she was a woman, a mother and nothing more. And yet no one would have been able to stay standing after what had happened five years ago, but his father had kept going.
Because he’d had his wife. And he had taken on immense pain by lying to her. Zohra might not understand it but Ayaan understood why his father had done it.
When you had something or someone so precious, you had to protect her from any pain. In a different reality, he...
He quashed the thought before it could take form. This night, these stolen moments with her, this was his reality.
Even this was wrong. But for one night, he didn’t want to be honorable.
He wanted to be just Ayaan. Not the son of grieving parents, not a shadow left behind of a beloved brother, not the wrong man to have survived, not the crown prince who was choking under the joy of his people.
He pulled up her hand and placed the envelope in her palm. “This is more of a thank-you than a ritualistic gift.”
She took it with trembling hands, the envelope slipping from her grip. He held her fingers in a steadying grip and heard the slight catch in her breath. His own breathing balled up in his throat. She turned it over and over in her hands.
“After a few unsuccessful ideas, I called Saira,” he said, to puncture the seductive allure of the silence, to fight the intimacy the evening weaved upon them. “Luckily, she informed me you had no love for jewelry before I settled on a behemoth rock.”
Whatever lingered on her lips never found a voice. She opened the seal and the small slip of paper fluttered in her hands. She scanned it quickly, a frown knotting her brows. “What is this?”
“Your itinerary. Saira told me how much you’d always wanted to see Monaco.”
Shock widened her beautiful eyes. “My father refused to let me go and I didn’t have enough money to go on my own.”
“Maybe he was worried you wouldn’t come back.” Suddenly, he couldn’t imagine this world, his world, without her. Unease skittered up his spine.
“I turned eighteen six years ago and I have American citizenship. I have a little money to my name and an uncle who lives in Boston. If I had truly wanted to leave, I think I would have left by now.” She frowned, as if realizing the import of her own words.