by Unknown
It had.
They were fated, Emily knew that then, but the king let out a derisive laugh.
“So,” the king said, “all that means is you were destined for one final…”
“I have told you once,” Ashim warned and went to stand. “Not to speak of her in that way.”
“I’m fine.” Emily said. No, it was not the words of a martyr; she looked up and into the king’s eyes and she wasn’t scared anymore of him.
She recognised them.
Not that they were the same amber as his son’s, it was more that she saw something she had seen in her own reflection many years ago.
Grief.
“The banquet looks beautiful.” Emily acknowledged the lavish spread. There was a bouquet in the center and at first she had thought it was flowers but on closer examination it was sculpted fruit and there were plates piled high with the most delicious feast. “Thank you.”
The king gave a small nod but he would not be won around.
She ate fragrant rice and tender meat with a mouth that was impossibly dry and as she reached for a goblet the king addressed her again.
“Your husband died a year ago?”
“He did.” Emily said and she took a sip of a fragrant drink.
“In Alzaquan, we marry for life.”
“I did,” Emily responded. “I was married for the rest of my husband’s life.” And she gave a part of herself that she hadn’t to Ashim. “Stephen, my late husband, had an accident on our honeymoon when I was twenty.”
She could not look at Ashim as she said it but she heard his intake of breath and then Ashim spoke. “You never told me that.”
“I wasn’t ready to.”
“You don’t have to share this with my father.”
“Oh, I think I do.”
Emily licked dry lips but even her tongue felt dry and so she took another drink and then put down the goblet. “The man I knew, the man I married, died then. He became like a child and I cried every day for the first two years. Apart from work, I just locked myself in my home. Our home,” she added.
She looked straight at the king as she remembered that time.
“I hated how our lives, or even how my life, had changed. I never, ever thought I could be happy again.”
“And what would your husband think if he knew you were here?” Oman asked.
Ashim watched Emily pause to ponder the question and he was about to say enough, he did not want Emily to have to go through this but then he saw her smile. It was a smile he had never seen on her face and one she had never worn till now—it was a smile of recall as she thought of the man she had married, the man that Stephen had been before his accident.
“I think he would be incredulous,” Emily said. “As am I. I have served kings but never dined with them.”
She didn’t need his help, Ashim saw, for he watched his father, who had long ago lost his humor concede a small smile.
But then she was serious.
“I can’t answer that question for my husband. I really don’t know what it would be. Perhaps it was something we might have discussed—what we would want for the other if one of us was left behind? We never had that conversation though, we were happy and hopeful for the future, we thought we had so much time…”
There were no coincidences; Ashim knew that for sure then.
She was wise, she was kind, and she was meant to be queen.
His father would not have it though.
“Your company was pleasant,” Oman said when the meal was concluded and he rose. “However, I shall not be meeting with you again, it would be disrespectful to my son’s future wife.”
Ashim rose in anger.
“Don’t.” Emily said. “Let him go.”
They had tried.
Rules were rules and Ashim must abide by them till he rewrote them.
In the same way, she must abide by the rules of her own heart.
It was tempting though, so, so tempting but his lover she could not be.
“I’m leaving.” Emily stood and left the banquet and headed to her suite but Ashim followed her there.
“Stay tonight. We need to speak. You never told me about your husband’s accident.” Oh, he understood her so much better now. Nine years alone, nine years of want, nine years of guilt where she had resisted cheating on her husband, even in her thoughts. “Emily, you can’t leave now.”
“Yes, Ashim, I can.”
They would not just talk for she wanted to reach out to him now. She wanted to be held by those strong arms but neither could she bear to lie in that bed and be made love to tonight. Neither could she bear to lie in that bed on future nights when he left his wife to be with her. “I’m leaving. You said that I could leave at any time. Well, that time is now.”
The plane was prepared and it would take her to London. As Jamal packed her things, Emily stood looking to a fiery, orange desert as like their love, the sun sunk from view but would forever be there, waiting to rise again.
“The plane is ready for you,” Ashim said.
“Can you do one thing for me?” Emily asked and she turned to him. “Please, don’t ever get in touch with me.”
She would weaken, Emily knew.
The sun could not rise again.
Chapter Seventeen
Jamal came in to escort Emily through the palace and there would be no tender goodbye for them—Ashim was livid. As Emily stood at the palace doors, he strode up the stairs.
He had held back from hitting Gene that night on the beach and that had been easy. He had held back with his father tonight and that had been hard.
He would not hold back now.
He strode through the palace and the king lay there in bed hearing his son’s angry strides approach, but Oman came out fighting and they stood at the top of the stairs.
“You do not confront me,” Oman roared. “I am king. Remember that. You wanted ten years and I gave you that, now you go back on your word.”
“You speak as if I have spent the last ten years only partying. I have attended functions that you refused to go to. I have represented our family when you could not bear to leave this palace. I have stood at weddings and sat in parliaments as our ambassador.”
“Enough!”
“No.” Ashim would not be silenced. “I am here,” Ashim said. “I am ready to take over duties and to rule alongside you but I want a wife that I love by my side.”
“I will not allow it.”
Ashim gauged carefully and he chose wisely and now he had chosen Emily to be his wife. “I shall be marrying, Emily.”
“Then Khalid shall be king.”
There was a shocked gasp from the elders who stood in the reception but Ashim just laughed in the king’s face.
“Good luck finding him and sobering him up.”
“Exile!” The king was proud and would not stand down. “If you insist on marrying her then you shall leave Alzaquan now.”
“Her name is Emily.”
Maids started to weep.
They wanted Ashim’s rule, they needed him, and Emily could hear their wails as he shepherded her past the elders.
“If you are going to abdicate,” Omar stood at the top of the stairs, still exerting his command. “Then you have no right to use the royal jet.”
“I’ll go to the airport then and we will walk if you refuse a car,” Ashim said and then he marched back up the stairs and faced his father. “You lost your country the best king. Know that. And you lost your country a wonderful queen.”
“And you have now lost all the trappings of being a royal.”
“I have made my own fortune. Half of Alzaquan I designed. Don’t ever worry about me for I shall live a rich and wonderful life with the woman I love. Worry for your people who have to live under your jaded rule.”
“Ashim!” Emily’s voice rang out quiet but clear. “Don’t speak like that to him; your father is grieving…”
“How long?” Ashim more quietly said to Oman.
“How long must people suffer for your grief?”
“Take the jet,” Oman roared. “And get out.”
Ashim did.
The maids started wailing and Jamal clutched at her chest. Even the staid elders were panicked and one broke into a run to catch up with Ashim.
“Your highness, wait…”
“You heard you king’s order.” Ashim responded. “I have been exiled. If you have an issue with that then I suggest you take it up with King Oman.”
Ashim took her hand and walked out into the night to board the plane.
“You can’t just leave,” Emily begged, but it would seem that was exactly what Ashim had in mind.
The captain was pale as he bowed and even the rigid Nishi was fighting tears as she greeted them.
Oman stood on the royal balcony and watched the royal jet prepare to take to the sky.
“Call him back, your highness,” his senior aide pleaded. “Revoke your order.”
“Never,” Oman said. “The announcement shall go out at dawn. A king does not change his mind.”
Oman did not want change.
He watched as the cabin door closed and the engines came on and then he watched as the plane took to the sky.
He lied.
Oman did want change.
He wanted it to change back to how it had been before—his wife’s laughter singing in the palace and her delight in their young family. He wanted to change back to the time when he and his queen were happy and hopeful for the future.
Emily was right; he had thought that they had had so much time.
Chapter Eighteen
“Cognac.” Ashim said to Nishi. “Two.”
And Emily watched Nishi’s shaking hands as she served them and she looked up and saw that tears were rolling down Nishi’s cheeks.
The wails that had followed them out of the palace were still ringing in Emily’s ears. She took a sip of the warm drink and it burnt as she swallowed it and she took another, bigger sip but nothing would right this.
The engines were firing and Nishi came and collected their glasses and Emily looked at Ashim’s features but they gave nothing away, even when his eyes met hers. “It’s done,” Ashim said. “The announcement will go out at dawn.”
And Nishi stopped crying quietly and started to sob as she took her seat.
Ashim didn’t scold her.
They just sat to the background of Nishi’s cries that were dimmed as the jet hurtled down the tarmac and then the plane lifted into the sky.
Emily looked out of the window and waited for that sensation of relief.
Yet it never came.
This, Emily knew, was a very selfish love. They needed him more than she.
Or did they?
She didn’t know.
Emily just knew what she had to do.
“I’ll be your mistress.”
“Emily…”
“I will.”
“But you want to be my wife.”
“Yes,” she admitted, “but you know you can’t leave your people behind.”
He looked down to the skyline that in part he had designed and then he called to Nishi to bring him the menu.
How could he even think of eating, Emily wondered? She actually felt sick.
“I will be your mistress,” Emily said again, “and I’ll obey all the rules.”
He gave a soft laugh.
“I’m serious, Ashim.”
“You wouldn’t make a good mistress,” Ashim’s voice was a touch scathing. “I’m quite sure that you would be a very jealous one.”
“No.”
“And when my wife had babies would you be okay with that?”
Emily felt sick but she nodded.
“So you wouldn’t be jealous? And, when I came to you at night you would not bombard me with questions…”
He smiled at the impossible thought of that and admired that she tried.
“Yes,” she said. “I mean no, I would not bombard you.”
“You’ll speak only when spoken to?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll do as I say?” Ashim checked and she nodded but stopped talking for Nishi had come over with the menus.
It didn’t stop Ashim from speaking with Emily though.
“Go and undress and lie on my bed.”
“Ashim!” Right now sex was the furthest thing from her mind but Ashim had other ideas.
“These are the rules you are saying that you will adhere to,” Ashim reminded her. “And, given that we are flying over Alzaquan, the rules apply. Go and lie naked on top of my bed and I will come to you at a time of my choosing.”
“Go,” Ashim said and dismissed Emily with a flick of his hand.
Could she?
Emily stood and she looked at Ashim who now stared out of the window and then she looked to Nishi. Emily could not fathom that he did not even care that Nishi was there listening as he ordered her to bed.
Nishi wasn’t crying now, her brown eyes were wide with surprise as the prince she so admired tested his mistress out.
Emily gave Nishi a small roll of her eyes.
No smile was given back.
Nishi, Emily knew was conflicted.
As was she.
Slap him or…
Emily went into the master bedroom and put on the lights and went to turn back the bed only she remembered she was to lie on top of it.
The cognac wasn’t helping but she removed the soft, velvet dress and undressed and then naked she lay on his bed and then reached over and turned out the lights.
She lay in the dark and waited and she told herself that she could do this. She pretended that she lay on the bed in his yacht, only that didn’t help. So she took herself to another place she knew well, a lonely hotel room where a nameless, faceless man came in.
Except she still couldn’t get there, because her object of desire had a face and name now.
And that name, Ashim, would marry a woman and leave her bed and come to be with her.
Emily lay fevered with jealousy at the very thought of him with another and the babies he would be proud to stand beside, unlike hers.
She could not be his lover, she wanted to be his wife and yet, if she was, would all he had just given up come between them?
He should be king.
That elegance, the assuredness she had first glimpsed she now understood, he was a ruler and how could she take that from him?
The door opened and then closed she lay there listening to him disrobe but then he flicked on the light.
“Ashim…”
“You don’t address me,” Ashim’s voice was dark.
“Please, can you just turn off the light?”
He answered by not taking care of her request.
Emily closed her eyes and dragged in the fragrance of him and that base scent was pure male and there was still that dark, woody scent of black musk and over that the sharp, clean tang of bergamot and there were notes she did not recognize but it was still an intoxicating blend.
And she could do this.
His eyes took in her body and saw the freckles on her thigh and he wanted to lower his head and kiss them but instead came and lay on top of her, resting his weight on one forearm.
He did not kiss her, he just lay over her and he thought she would fight, that she would run from the bed and deny she could go through with it, but she just lay there. His hand ran up her thigh and he parted her legs but he did not check that she was ready.
Roughly, he entered her. Ashim expected to be greeted with dry resistance, yet as he slid into her, he found she was oiled and warm; he closed his eyes to her heady moan.
“Always ready for you,” Emily whispered and she sought his lips but his mouth moved to her ear as he moved inside her.
“No kisses, no caress, no words from you,” Ashim stated as he moved inside her and he could feel the wet of her tears on his cheek and she was the bravest woman he knew. “No days spent with our children,” Ashim said
. “No lazy breakfasts in bed.”
Emily sobbed, she was crying for all that would be lost to them yet still her body desired him.
His skin was like silk as it moved over hers, his breath still delicious in her ear and the friction of him, the strong, muscled body taking hers was enough. She stirred beneath him and her hips rose to his movement but he pinned her down. No, their mouths could not meet but she kissed him with her sex, caressed him intimately, pulsing around him, a deep come that started to milk him and yet he held back.
“Oh, baby,” Ashim said and he wrapped his arms beneath her and he started to kiss her and Emily struggled for that meant; they were breaking the rules.
“No.” She fought to push him off. “Ashim.” She took a breath to scream for him to stop but his hand came over her mouth.
“It’s not your fault,” Ashim said, his voice was rough, his body less than tender, and he took her hard. Emily gave in fighting then, she just came over and again to the man who man she loved, a man who thrust harder and then spilled inside her and one who understood her at her very cores.
And Emily broke the rules, too.
“I love you,” she said as his hand came from her mouth and she kissed him back but Ashim halted her kiss.
He lifted his head and looked deep into her eyes. “Then know you are taken care of now and that I will make everything right.”
Emily just didn’t know how.
“We are bound to each other,” Ashim said.
They were.
She lay in his arms, the happiest she had ever been, and yet she was the saddest she had been, too, for all the people that would be hurt by their love.
“Are we wrong?” Emily asked.
“I am never wrong,” Ashim answered.
The phone buzzed and she felt his soft laugh and looked up.
“Ashim?”
“You’ll see,” he said, still ignoring the phone but then a moment or two later someone knocked on the door.
“Your highness…” Nishi opened the door and looked down and spoke to Ashim and he lay there very still, listening to what she said, and then he answered her in Arabic but then switched to English. His voice was not angry but decisive and calm.
“You can go now,” Ashim said and Nishi nodded and then closed the door.