by Tara Pammi
For as long as he could remember, she had been the one woman who hadn’t cowed in front of him, who hadn’t thrown herself at him, the one woman who had always spoken her mind, pushed him into broadening his.
Whether it was philosophy they had discussed, or the state of education for women in Dahaara, he had never been the Prince of Dahaar with her. Her answers, her arguments, they had held a piercing honesty that had been as compelling as her artlessness. For all his impulsive and passionate nature, he hadn’t fallen in love with her overnight.
He had fallen in love over a period of ten years, or even more, maybe—slowly, unknowingly, tempered into it like water chipping away the surface of a rock, molding it to its will. One morning, he had woken up in his hotel suite after a night of raucous partying and suddenly wondered what she would say if she saw him then, what words she would use to skewer him, and with a fire in his blood, he had realized he had fallen in love with her, that he had found his future queen, that nothing in the world would stop him from making her his.
Except he hadn’t realized the iron will of the woman herself.
And when she left, she had not just broken his heart or dented his ego, though it had been that, too. She had ripped away a piece of him that had belonged only to her and taken it with her, had left a terrifying emptiness that he’d had no idea how to fill.
Bitter jealousy vented through his veins as he studied her. Because now, now she was even better than before, now she was magnificent, everything he had imagined she would grow into and more.
Age had only refined her beauty, and from the little he remembered of when she had held on to him in the hammam, she was in incredibly good shape. But even better than physical beauty, she had seen the world, she had held her own in a foreign country and she had achieved everything she had set her mind to. And he…he was barely a man.
His curiosity wasn’t going to simmer down quietly. He didn’t even pretend he could control his emotions, or himself, when it came to her. All he could do was limit the damage to himself and her.
This…might have begun with the debilitating need to hurt her, but it wasn’t anymore. In a cruel twist of fate, which didn’t even surprise him, she had become the only way out for him.
“Why didn’t you marry?”
She stilled, her hand midway to her mouth. He saw her fingers shake as she put the last piece of the date cake on the small silver plate. She made a show of wiping her fingers. Buying herself time, he realized. Why? “Are you expecting an honest answer?”
He frowned, trying to make sense of her, of everything he knew about her, of everything she had done eight years ago. Because as much as he wanted to consign it to the back of his mind, the fact that she was here in Dahaar, seeing him through this, it had to mean something.
Whether he wanted to face it when his life was already in such turmoil, he didn’t know. “When have I ever asked you for anything but the truth? You’re successful, you’re beautiful, and as your father mentioned, you’re not bound by Dahaaran traditions or customs. So why are you still single?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, her shoulders unsteady.
His heart slammed hard against his rib cage. “Or do you have a boyfriend tucked away somewhere, Dr. Zakhari, just waiting for your signal to show up?”
Something moved across her face—defiance, a challenge. Her spine locked, her mouth settling into a stubborn line that he detested. “And if I did?”
He gripped the armrests of the chaise, perverse fury filling his veins. “I have no wish to see you and your lover parade through my palace.”
She leaped from her seat as though propelled toward him by a desert storm. She bent toward him, bringing her face close to his, her gaze blazing with resolve. An expression he had never seen on her before—a reckless willfulness, danced in it. And he felt the strangest little thrill gripping his insides. “I thought I didn’t have to choose between my career and personal life.”
She was taunting him, she was relearning what effect she had on him and testing it. And yet, he rose to meet it.
He clasped her cheek. “Do not pretend to misunderstand me or be so reckless as to challenge me, Nikhat.
“You are the woman I loved once, the woman I chose for my future queen, the woman I wanted to give birth to the future heir of Dahaar. Everything’s changed in eight years, hasn’t it? But the thought of you with another man, the image of any man possessing your body, staking his claim on you, it will always reduce me into a savage that would make my marauding ancestors proud.
“What I consider mine once, I would not share it, even in thought. So unless you want to add to my long list of sins, Nikhat, tuck your lover away until I leave.”
He pushed himself to his knees with a savage force that sent a shock wave through his leg. He could not bear to look at her, he could not bear to look inside himself. He had thought after all these years, after everything that had happened, there was nothing left in him that would react to her, and yet, there still was.
He had wrought destruction on himself, on his family, he was directly responsible for the death of his sister and for the atrocities his brother had suffered, because of how broken, how reckless he had become when Nikhat had left him.
“I was engaged three years ago, to a colleague,” she said behind him, and he halted. The very thought crept into his head and taunted him.
That she was telling him this was not to assuage his pride or to balance the scales between them. That she was offering a piece of truth was something else. Something that stole into him with an insidious inevitability that filled ice in his veins. But he would not accept it, he could not go down that path ever again, and certainly not with her. “But it didn’t work out.”
“Why not?” he said, the question falling from his lips before he could stop it.
She shrugged, and he instinctively knew whatever she was going to say was not the truth. “He broke it off a week before the wedding, changed his mind about what he wanted in life.” Pain streaked across her gaze. “I am not…made for relationships.”
Without waiting for a response, she left him in the garden, his mind roiling with every little word she had spoken.
You have no idea what I have faced, what I still face, to be standing in front of you without shattering into a million pieces.
Maybe he didn’t and, for once, Azeez was thankful for his ignorance. Because the rate at which they were going, it wouldn’t be long before they ripped each other to pieces.
With a self-preservation instinct that had kept him alive until now, he realized he didn’t want to face any more truths.
CHAPTER SIX
SHE HAD NOT come for two days.
Two long days that Azeez had spent wondering why he cared and then eviscerating himself for the fact that he did. First he had had to check if Princess Zohra was in good health.
She was fine, the Princess had informed him with a ferocious glint in her eyes, obviously surprised that he had cared enough to check for himself.
But there was something about riling the fierce princess that loosened the chain of guilt around his neck. She had not only glared at him but had also had the temerity to warn him that Nikhat was under her protection.
Before informing him finally that Nikhat hadn’t seemed well yesterday morning. And the thought of Nikhat all alone in the palace, because he was sure she wouldn’t have asked anyone for help, had finally dragged him out of his suite.
He stood outside her suite now, staring at the dark wooden door with its intricate designs. They had finally settled down into a sort of routine.
He visited the hammam in the morning, followed by a strenuous bout of physiotherapy—in which the madwoman drove him like the very devil intent on punishing him for all his sins. Sometimes she would stay and have lunch with him. They ate in silence—not compl
etely awkward. But not pleasant, either, as though they were still reeling from the words they had thrown at each other two days before.
He had caught her casting puzzled looks at him, seen the way she caught herself when she was irked by his politeness, astonished that he was even capable of it with her.
Now, standing outside her door, he questioned his sanity again. He needed to treat her like any other employee, any other servant that his brother had. Let her come find him whenever she was well and offer him an excuse.
But he couldn’t stop wondering about what would cause the ruthlessly efficient woman to be absent.
He pushed the doors and stepped in. It was early evening, but the French doors to her suite were still open, and brought a chill inside.
Frowning, he closed them. The suite bore her stamp clearly. The subtle scent of jasmine and her skin, wafted over him, knuckling him in the gut, unlocking a million memories inside his head.
There were medical journals, an iPad and a scarf dangling on the table in the lounge. An old framed picture of her with her three younger sisters sat next to the scarf.
A low, keening moan came from the bedroom. He turned instantly, a slow chill racing up his spine. He pushed the bedroom door open.
She lay in the middle of the bed, dressed in loose white pajamas that hung low on her hips and a loose cotton tunic in faded yellow. Her thick, wavy hair fanned out against the white sheets shone like copper-gold silk. Lying on her side, her arms clasped her belly so tight that her knuckles showed white. She moaned again and this time, the pain in the sound made the hair on his arms stand.
He got onto the bed slowly, making sure not to put too much weight on his right hip. She looked so pale, the golden hue of her usual color all but gone. Her eyes were red and swollen. That she had shed tears was a fact he couldn’t believe even when presented with evidence.
Nikhat never cried. He remembered the day when her mother had died. She had been twelve. And yet Azeez only remembered her resolve to be strong for her younger sisters. Shifting closer to her, he pushed the sweat-slicked hair back from her forehead. His breath left him in a long exhale, thankful that her skin wasn’t burning up.
She stiffened suddenly, as if a hot poker was lancing her next to him, and then shivered uncontrollably as another wave of pain hit, he realized. He clasped her fingers with his tightly, willing her to draw strength from him. He felt the tremble slowly fade from her body, heard her breath leave in a jagged exhale. The whimper of relief that accompanied it caught the breath in his throat. “Nikhat, ya habeebiti, look at me,” he said. Watching her like this, he felt powerless and, at the same time, gripped with a fierce determination to see her through it.
She jerked her head back, her gaze flying to him. He thought she would stiffen and move away, demand to be released, tell him she didn’t need his comfort.
“Azeez?”
“Yes, Nikhat.”
Fresh tears welled up in her beautiful eyes, and he felt as if someone had kicked him in the gut. She scooted closer to him on the bed, and her arms went tight around his waist. “It hurts, Azeez. So much. Every time that wave comes, it feels like I will die.” Her tears leaked out of her eyes, drawing wet tracks onto her cheeks.
He wiped them with a shaking hand, his heart jammed in his throat. “Why, in God’s name, haven’t you summoned help? I’ll have them fly a specialist in, anything you need. Is it some kind of fever, an infection?”
She shook her head and hid her face in his abdomen. But not before he caught a shadow of something in her eyes. He sunk his fingers into her thick hair, rubbing her scalp in a soothing manner. “I’m going to get my period soon,” she said with no hesitation that belied the way she hid her face.
And suddenly he remembered how she used to disappear every month for a few days, and shy away when he asked her about it. Knowing that it would only make her retreat from her, he had never pressed her about it. “Have they always been so painful?” he asked now. It galled him to imagine her suffering like this every month for so many years.
And he thought he knew everything there was about pain.
She nodded, and her nose tickled his abdomen. He tightened his muscles, willing his body not to betray its automatic reaction to her nearness. “As far as I can remember.”
“So what do we do?”
“I have learned to manage it with medication and exercise, and breathing techniques. It’s so stupid, but I…forgot to renew my medication on time before I left. It’s on its way from New York. Should be delivered tomorrow morning.”
“And until then?” he said, his throat dry.
“Until then, I just bear it the best I can. It’s really bad only for a few hours,” she whispered in a small voice. He pulled himself up until he was sitting a little straighter. Her palm moved from his abdomen to his chest, and his heart thundered like a wild animal under her tentative fingers. The thin cotton of his tunic was no barrier to the feel of her touch.
“Azeez?”
Her breath feathered over his neck, the scent of her drugging arousal into his blood. He felt engulfed by her, as if he was standing on shifting sands that could pull him under any minute.
“Yes, habeebi?” he finally said through a throat as dry as the desert.
“Will you stay with me tonight?”
He froze. She had never asked him for anything when he would have given her the world. No matter, she didn’t have the right now, the saner part of him argued back.
“Please, Azeez.”
“You will hate me tomorrow for seeing you like this, Nikhat. You have never liked sharing your pain or grief,” he said, remembering what a stoic little girl she had always been. It was that very strength that he had found endlessly fascinating.
But circumstances had forced her to become like that and she had never complained. He had watched her learn to cook and manage her sisters at a young age, ecstatically happy that she was being allowed to do the one thing she most wanted—to study by Amira’s side. It had taken very little for her to be happy.
She sighed and hugged him tighter. Her chest grazed his, the soft push of her breasts against his muscles was more torture than he could take. His blood sang at the pleasure, but it was seeing her like this—pain-ridden and vulnerable—that tightened his gut.
“I won’t, Azeez.” He heard her sniffle. “The strange thing is, I could never hate you whatever you do or say. You…have this power over me. I’ve always considered myself a strong woman, I am a strong woman. But when it comes to you, I…” She exhaled, and burrowed closer to him.
Eviscerated by her admission, he chanced a look at her. She looked drowsy, her eyelids swollen. “Did you take any painkillers, Nikhat?”
“Hmm…” she whispered, blinking. “Yes. These just take longer to kick in. Will you stay with me?” Her lush mouth curved into a smile. “Can we also pretend that you don’t hate me for a few hours?”
He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her. She was so soft all over, her fragility a complete contrast to the steely core of the woman.
He had never held a woman close like this, never offered comfort. Except with Nikhat, he had only ever wanted and taken only physical release from women.
“You make the most outrageous demands of your Prince, Dr. Zakhari,” he said, holding her that way costing him. “But I will try.”
She melted into him with a sigh. And the satisfaction in that sound, coupled with the way she held him, hard and unrelenting, sent ripples of powerful hunger through him. “I like it when you call me that, even as you shred me to pieces doing it.”
He moved his fingers over her arm in a slow ripple. “I’m the one who paid the price for that degree, ya habeebiti. Of course it sounds special when I say it.”
He felt her smile just before she gripped him hard again.
Her bod
y writhed against his, her hand bunching over her lower belly, as though to fight that pain. She made a long, gasping sound with her throat and stiffened against him.
Ya Allah, what he wouldn’t give to take that pain away from her. Clutching her tightly against him, Azeez held her hard. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from her, couldn’t uncouple himself from her pain, from her strength.
Just as he heard her breath even out, something inside him, something that he had no control over asked the question. “Nikhat, this condition you have, does it have a name?”
“Stage four endometriosis.”
His mind latched onto the word, and Azeez knew it would never leave him alone.
* * *
Your Prince.
He had referred to himself as her prince. It had a very nice ring to it, Nikhat decided, snuggling languorously into the solid warmth of his body.
He was hers, the man who had promised to make every silly little dream of hers come true.
Against all odds, Azeez bin Rashid Al Sharif, the magnificent and breathtaking Crown Prince of Dahaar had somehow fallen in love with her. He had laughed all her doubts away when she had said she was not suited to be queen, he had forsaken all other women, the prince who had women throughout the world falling over him, for her, had promised her that he would always love her and keep her happy.
She would have to be the queen, of course. But with him by her side, Nikhat felt she could rule the whole universe, if that’s what was required.
An echo of a dull ache spread through her lower belly, and suddenly all her dreams shattered into a million pieces around her. It was the bitterest kind of reality to wake up to, but it was her reality, her life.
Her happiness, she had realized, hadn’t been in his power or hers.
Opening her eyes, she saw that she was coiled around Azeez like a vine. Delicious warmth spread under her skin. Licking her dry lips, she glanced at the bedside digital alarm clock. It was half past two. The bed lamp was still on.