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Kaden observed Julia from under hooded lids. He was in no hurry to answer her question or engage in small talk. It was more than disconcerting how right it felt to have her here. And even more so to acknowledge that the vaguely unsettled feeling he’d been experiencing for what felt like years was dissipating.
She intrigued him more than he cared to admit. He might have imagined that by now she would be far more polished, would have cultivated the hard veneer he was used to in the kind of women he socialised with.
Curbing the urge to stand and pace out the intense conflict inside him as her vulnerability tugged at his jaded emotions, Kaden struggled to remain sitting and remember what she’d asked.
“Samia? She’s twenty-five, and she’s getting married at the end of this week. To the Sultan of Al-Omar. She’s in B’harani for the preparations right now.”
Julia’s eyes widened, increasing Kaden’s levels of inner tension and desire. He cursed silently. He couldn’t stand up now even if he wanted to— not if he didn’t want her to see exactly the effect she had on him. He vacillated between intense anger at himself for bringing her here at all, and the assertion that she would not be walking out through his front door any time soon.
Kaden was used to clear, concise thinking—not this churning maelstrom. It was too reminiscent of what had happened before. And yet even as he thought that the tantalising prospect came into his mind: why not take her again? Tonight? Why not exorcise this desire which mocked him with its presence?
“The Sultan of Al-Omar?” Julia shook her head, not liking the speculative gleam in Kaden’s eyes. Blonde hair slipped over her shoulders. She tried to focus on stringing a sentence together. “Samia was so painfully shy. It must be difficult for her to take on such a public role?”
An irrational burst of guilt rushed through Kaden. He’d seen Samia recently, here in London before she’d left, and had felt somewhat reassured by her stoic calm in the face of her impending nuptials. But Julia was reminding him what a challenge this would be for his naturally introverted sister. And he was surprised that Julia remembered such a detail.
It made his voice harsh. “Samia is a woman now, with responsibilities to her country and her people. A marriage with Sultan Sadiq benefits both our countries.”
“So it is an arranged marriage, then?”
Kaden nodded his head, not sure where the defensiveness he was feeling stemmed from. “Of course—just as my own marriage was arranged and just as my next marriage will be arranged.” He quirked a brow. “I presume your marriage was a love match, and yet you did not fare any better if you too are divorced?”
Julia hid the dart of emotion at hearing him say he would marry again and avoided his eye. Had her marriage been a love match? In general terms, yes—it had. After all, she and John had married willingly, with no pressure on either side. But she knew in her heart of hearts that she hadn’t truly loved John. And he’d known it too.
Something curdled in her belly at having to justify herself to this man who had haunted her for so long. She looked back at him as steadily as she could. “No, we didn’t fare any better. However, I know plenty of arranged marriages work out very well, so I wish Samia all the best.”
“Children?”
For a moment Julia didn’t catch what Kaden had said it had been uttered so curtly. “Children?” she repeated, and he nodded.
Julia felt another kind of pain lance her. The memory of the look of shame on her husband’s face, the way he had closed in on himself and started to retreat, which had marked the beginning of the end of their marriage.
She shook her head and said, a little defiantly, “Of course not. Do you think I would be here if I had?” And then she cursed herself inwardly. She didn’t want Kaden analysing why she had come. “My husband—ex-husband—couldn’t … We had difficulties … And you? Did you have children?”
That slightly mocking look crossed his face again, because she must know well that his status as a childless divorcee was common knowledge. But he just shook his head. “No, no children.”
His mouth had become a bitter line, and Julia shivered minutely because it reminded her of how he’d morphed within days from an ardent lover into a cold stranger.
“My ex-wife’s mother suffered a horrific and near-fatal childbirth and stuffed my wife’s head with tales of horror and pain. As a result Amira developed a phobia about childbirth. It was so strong that when she did discover she was pregnant she went without my knowledge to get a termination. Soon afterwards I started proceedings to divorce.”
Julia gave an audible gasp and Kaden saw her eyes grow wide. He knew how it sounded—so stark. His jaw was tight with tension. How on earth had he let those words spill so blithely from his mouth? He’d just told Julia something that only a handful of people knew. The secret of his ex-wife’s actions was something he discussed with nobody. As were the painstaking efforts he’d made to help her overcome that fear after the abortion. But to no avail. Eventually it had been his wife who had insisted they divorce, knowing that she could never give him an heir. She hadn’t been prepared to confront her fears.
Kaden’s somewhat brutal dismissal of a wife who hadn’t been able to perform her duty made a shiver run through Julia. The man she’d known had been compassionate, idealistic.
To divert attention away from the dismay she felt at recognising just how much he’d changed, she said quickly, “I thought divorce was illegal in Burquat?”
Kaden took a measured sip of his amber-coloured drink. ?
?It used to be. Things have changed a lot since you were there. It’s been slow but steady reform, undoing the more conservative laws of my father and his forebears.”
A rush of tenderness took Julia by surprise, coming so soon after her feeling repelled by his treatment of his wife. Kaden had always been so passionate about reform for his country, and now he was doing it.
Terrified that he would see something of that emotion rising up within her, Julia stood up jerkily and walked over to the window, clutching her glass in her hand.
She took in the view. Kaden had told her about this apartment, right in the centre of London. Pain, bittersweet, rushed through her. He had once mentioned that she should move in here when she returned to college in London—so that he could make sure she was protected, and so she would be waiting for him when he came over. But those words had all been part of his seductive patter. Meaningless. A wave of sadness gripped her.
She didn’t hear Kaden move, and jumped when his deep voice came from her right, far too close. “Why did you divorce your husband, Julia?”
Because I never loved him the way I loved you. The words reverberated around her head. Never in a million years had she imagined she would be standing in a room listening to Kaden ask her that question.
