‘Yes.’ Aarif spoke heavily. ‘Kalila, I will not lie. When you held me in your arms, I wanted you. I needed you.’ His mouth twisted, and Kalila blinked back a haze of tears. ‘I’ve never felt…so…right as I did then.’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps in time I could have loved you. I have not known many women…I have not allowed myself to. But you…you were different.’
Kalila felt the cold trickle of tears on her cheeks. She held out one hand in supplication, but it was ignored. ‘Aarif—’
‘No. I tell you this now to spare you pain. I realise in these last few days you have thought yourself in love with me, although I can hardly believe you would love a man such as me—’ He stopped, swallowed, and then shook his head when Kalila made to speak. ‘And I have reacted with small kindnesses because I still wanted to be near you, to—’ he swallowed again, his voice low ‘—even just to see you smile, to see the light in your eyes. But such things were unfair to you, because they gave you hope. There is no hope, Kalila, for us. There is no us. There never can be.’
Kalila’s mouth was dry, her heart pounding even as it seemed to break. She forced herself to speak, her voice low and aching. ‘Because I am engaged to your brother?’
Aarif nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘And if I wasn’t…?’ Kalila asked.
Aarif’s brows pulled together in a dark frown. ‘There is no point even considering such a thing.’
Kalila knew she shouldn’t say it—say anything—but she felt desperate and reckless and so very sad. ‘What if I broke the engagement? What if I refused to marry him?’
Aarif’s breath came out in a surprised rush, yet he did not speak. The night had fallen completely now, and the sky was inky and scattered with stars. ‘If you did such a thing,’ Aarif said slowly, ‘then you would not be the woman I love.’
The woman I love. Was he saying he did love her? How could such a wonderful thing cause her such emotional agony? Kalila closed her eyes briefly, and she felt Aarif’s fingers caress her face. She leaned into his hand, craving his touch, needing the comfort.
‘Come now, ayni.’ The Arabic endearment slipped off his tongue and made Kalila feel somehow all the more bereft. ‘The hour grows dark and we must return to the palace.’
And with that return, Kalila knew she would lose Aarif for ever. Yet how could she lose something she’d never really had in the first place?
Except now, with the lingering memory of his fingers caressing her face, his words the woman I love echoing through her heart, she felt as if she’d lost something very precious indeed.
Wordlessly she allowed him to help her up from the hard sand, and they walked in silence to the Jeep.
The lights of Serapolis glittered on the horizon, and in only a few minutes they had driven to the front of the palace. A servant leapt to open their doors, and Aarif handed him the keys. Silhouetted by the light spilling from the open palace doors, he turned to Kalila with a sorrowful smile.
‘Goodnight, Princess.’
Kalila’s throat was too clogged with tears to respond, and in desperate silence she watched him walk away.
CHAPTER NINE
THE days slid by in a miserable, endless blur. Kalila was conscious of things changing as the wedding day drew nearer. People arrived, guests, more servants, Aarif’s brothers and sisters, although not Zakari. He, at least, still saw fit to stay away, and Kalila could only be glad.
Her heart was too full—too broken—to even consider her future, or the wedding that loomed closer every hour. And yet she could not stop the marriage from taking place, the future slowly and surely becoming the present.
The long, empty days in the palace were gone, replaced with a sudden, frenetic activity as everyone in Calista began to prepare and anticipate one of the biggest events of the decade. Her marriage.
There was a flurry of dinners, parties, lunches and teas. The parade of faces were no more than a nameless blur, although Kalila tried to commit them to memory, to greet and chat with Aarif’s siblings, although it felt like a parody, no more than play-acting.
Aarif stayed distant, never approaching or addressing her. It was, Kalila thought numbly, as if the past were nothing more than a dream…a wonderful yet terrible dream, for she knew it would torment her every hour of her life.
Two days before the wedding her father, King Bahir, arrived at the palace by helicopter. Along with half a dozen palace servants and Aarif and Kalila met him at the helipad in the palace courtyard. She sneaked a glance at Aarif, but he was turned away from her, standing to attention as the helicopter made its descent.
Her father emerged from the helicopter, and the sight of his familiar face with its kind, dark eyes and ruddy cheeks, the sparse white hair blowing in the wind, made sudden tears sting her eyes and she started forward.
‘Papa!’ The endearment from childhood sprang naturally to her lips. ‘I’m so glad to see you.’
Bahir embraced her before holding her away from him, his eyes narrowing as he took in her appearance. ‘And I am glad to see you, daughter.’ But Kalila saw the displeasure flash in his eyes, his lips tightening, and she wondered what had made him angry. Had he heard of her desert escapade…or worse?
Aarif cleared his throat before sketching a bow. ‘King Bahir, we are honoured.’
‘Indeed.’ Bahir’s gaze was still narrow. ‘I may assume by your presence that King Zakari is still away on business?’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’ Aarif’s voice was toneless, and his expression did not flicker for a moment.
‘I see.’ Bahir nodded, his eyes ever shrewd. ‘Then I will take tea in my room, if it can be arranged, Prince Aarif. It was an unsettling flight and I detest flying in helicopters.’
Aarif nodded briskly. ‘It shall be done.’
‘And the princess,’ Bahir continued, ‘shall take tea with me. I’m sure we have much to say to one another.’
Upstairs in her father’s suite of rooms, Kalila stood nervously by the door while a servant wheeled in a tea trolley. Her father sat at a table by the window, the late afternoon sun creating a golden halo around his head, one leg crossed elegantly over the other.
He waited for the servant to depart before he gestured for Kalila to pour them both tea. She moved forward, her hands shaking just a little bit as she poured the tea out. Bahir watched her silently, and Kalila kept her gaze averted from his all too knowing one.
‘You are well?’ she finally asked, handing him his glass. Bahir accepted it and took a sip, his eyebrows arched over the rim.
‘Yes, I am,’ he said after a moment. ‘But I would rather hear if you are well.’
Kalila’s startled gaze flew to his. ‘Y-y-y-yes,’ she said, wishing she hadn’t stuttered like a guilty child. ‘I am.’
Bahir set his glass down carefully. ‘Because, Kalila,’ he continued gently, ‘you don’t look well.’
Kalila’s gaze moved inadvertently to the mirror hanging above the bureau and she was surprised by her reflection. She hadn’t looked at herself properly in days; she’d been moving through the hours like a ghost or sleepwalker, simply tracking time. Now she saw how wide and staring her eyes were, her face pinched and pale. She looked back at her father and saw him looking at her with far too much perception. Perception, she realised, and compassion.
Whatever her father might have heard about her escape to the desert—and Aarif’s finding her—he was not angry. He was worried.
‘Naturally I am a little tense,’ Kalila finally managed. She sat down across from her father and forced herself to take a sip of tea. ‘The wedding is only in two days and—’
‘You still have yet to meet your bridegroom,’ Bahir finished, and there was a hard, grim note to his voice that surprised her. Of all people, she would have expected her father to understand where Zakari’s duties lay. Bahir wouldn’t expect a king to waste time paying court to his fiancée, not when there was royal business to attend to, diamonds to find, kingdoms to unite.
Bahir was silent, his gaze shadowed and distant. Kalila knew her father well, and she understood now that he would speak in his own time. She was content to sit in silence and watch the sun’s last golden rays sink to the endless stretch of sand, painting the desert in a rainbow of vibrant yellows and oranges.
‘When your mother and I arranged your marriage, Kalila,’ Bahir finally said, his gaze still focused on a distant memory, ‘we did so with your best interests at heart.’
‘Of course, Father—’
He held up one hand, and Kalila fell silent. ‘We chose Prince—King—Zakari not only because he was from a good family and heir to an important principality, but because he was young and handsome and from what we could see, a man of honour.’ He turned to face her, and there was a sorrow—and regret—in his eyes that took Kalila aback. ‘Kalila, we wanted the best for you, for your happiness. Of course there were other considerations. I will not pretend otherwise. There always are such things when you are a king or a queen, or a princess.’ He smiled sadly. ‘But your mother and I wanted your happiness. I still do.’