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‘It’s all ancient history,’ he dismissed. ‘It hardly matters now.’
‘Doesn’t it? This is why you’re seeking the throne, as—’
‘As revenge?’ He filled in. ‘No, Elena, it’s not for revenge. It’s because it’s my right.’ His voice throbbed with conviction. ‘I am my father’s first-born. When he set my mother aside he created deep divisions in a country that has only known peace. If you’ve wondered why Aziz does not have the support of his whole country, it’s because too many people know he is not the rightful heir. He is popular in Siyad because he is cosmopolitan and charming, but the heart of this country is not his. It is mine.’ He stared at her, his chest heaving, willing her to believe him. Needing her to.
‘How can you be sure,’ she whispered, ‘that your mother didn’t have an affair?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’ He heard his voice, as sharp as a blade. Disappointment dug deep. No, a feeling worse than disappointment, weaker—this damnable hurt. He took a steadying breath. ‘My mother knew the consequences of an affair: banishment, shame, a life cut off from everyone and everything she knew. It would not have been worth the risk.’
‘But you would have just been a boy. How could you have known?’
‘I knew everyone around her believed her to be innocent. I knew her serving maids cried out at the injustice of it. I knew no man ever stepped forward to claim her or me, and my father couldn’t even name the man who’d allegedly sired me. My father’s entire basis for banishing both my mother and me was the colour of my eyes.’
Elena stared at him, her own golden-grey eyes filled with not confusion or disbelief but with something that was nearly his undoing: compassion.
‘Oh, Khalil,’ she whispered.
He glanced away, afraid of revealing himself. His jaw worked but he could not form words. Finally he choked out, ‘People protested at the time. They said there wasn’t enough proof. But then my mother died before he actually married Hamidyah, so it was, in the end, all above board.’
‘And what about you?’
He couldn’t admit what had happened to him: those years in the desert, the awful shame, even though part of him wanted to, part of him wanted to bare himself to this woman, give her his secrets. To trust another person, and with more than he ever had before, even as a child. He suppressed that foolish impulse and lifted one shoulder in what he hoped passed as an indifferent shrug. ‘I was raised by my mother’s sister, Dimah, in America. I never saw my father again.’
‘And the people accepted it all?’ she said quietly, only half a question. ‘Aziz as the heir, even though they must have remembered you...’
‘My father was a dictator. No one possessed the courage to question his actions while he was alive.’
‘Why did Sheikh Hashem make such a strange will?’ Elena burst out. ‘Commanding Aziz to marry?’
‘I think he was torn. Perhaps he realised the mistake he’d made in banishing me, but did not want to admit it. He was a proud man.’ Khalil shrugged again. ‘Forcing Aziz to marry would make him commit to Kadar and give up his European ways. But calling a national referendum if he didn’t...’ Khalil smiled grimly. ‘My father must have known it was a chance for me to become Sheikh. Maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part, but I’d like to think he regretted, even if just in part, what he did to my mother and me.’
‘And do you think people would accept you, if you did become Sheikh?’
‘Some might have difficulty but, in time, yes. I believe they would.’
He stared at her then, willing her to tell him she believed him. Wanting, even needing, to hear it.
She looked away. Khalil’s insides clenched with a helpless, hopeless anger.
Then she turned back to him, her eyes as wide and clear as twin lakes. ‘Then we really are alike,’ she said quietly. ‘For we are both fighting for our crowns.’
CHAPTER FIVE
KHALIL’S GAZE HAD blazed anger but Elena saw something beneath the fury: grief. A grief she understood and felt herself. And, even though she didn’t want to, she felt a sympathy for Khalil, a compassion and even an anger on his behalf. He’d been terribly wronged, just as Leila had said.
She thought of him as a boy, being banished from his family and home. She imagined his confusion and fear, the utter heartbreak of losing everything he’d known and held dear.
Just as she had.
She’d been a bit older, but her family had been wrenched from her in a matter of moments, just as Khalil’s had. She was fighting to keep her rightful title, just as Khalil was.
With a jolt she realised what this meant: she believed him. She believed he was the rightful heir.
For a second everything in her rebelled. You believed before. You trusted before. And this man has kidnapped you—how can you be so stupid?
Yet she’d heard the sincerity in Khalil’s voice. She’d felt his pain. She knew him in a way she hadn’t known anyone else, because they were so alike.
She believed him.
‘How are you fighting for your crown, Elena?’ he asked quietly.
She hesitated, because honesty didn’t come easily, and letting herself be vulnerable felt akin to pulling out her fingernails one by one. She’d hardened her heart in the last four years. She’d learned to be tough, to need no one.
And yet Khalil had been honest with her. He’d told her his story and she’d seen in his eyes that he’d wanted, even needed, her to believe him.
She took a deep breath. She thought of Andreas Markos and his determination to discredit her—her Council and country’s desire for a king, or the closest thing to it. Her own foolish choices. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Most things are.’
He waited and Elena sifted through all the things she could say. ‘My country, and my Council, would like a male ruler.’
‘And you wanted that to be Aziz?’
She heard incredulity in his tone and bristled. ‘Not like that. We had an agreement—he would attend state functions with me as Prince Consort, act as ruler in name only. It would satisfy the people and, I hoped, my Council. But he wouldn’t actually have been involved in any decision making.’
‘And you would have been satisfied with that?’
‘It was what I wanted.’
‘Why not find a man who could truly be your equal, your partner? Who could help you to rule, who could support you?’
Briefly, painfully, she thought of Paulo. ‘You speak as though such a thing is simple. Easy.’
‘No. Not that. But I wonder why you settle.’
She swallowed past the sudden tightness in her throat. ‘What about you, Khalil? Do you want an equal, a partner in marriage as well as in ruling?’
Surprise flashed briefly in his eyes before his expression hardened. ‘No.’
‘Then why do you think I would want one? Simply because I am a woman?’
‘No...’ He gazed at her thoughtfully. ‘I only asked, because if you needed to marry to please your country it seems wise to pick a man who could be your friend and helpmate, not a stranger.’
‘Well, unfortunately for me, I don’t have a friend and helpmate waiting in the wings.’ She’d meant to sound light and wry but cringed at the self-pity she heard in her voice instead. ‘I’ve been alone for a long time,’ she continued when she trusted herself to sound more measured. ‘I’m used to it now, and it’s more comfortable for me that way.’ Even if, since meeting Khalil, she’d started to realise all she’d been missing out on. ‘I imagine you might be the same.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Well, then.’
Khalil leaned back in his seat, his gaze sweeping over her in thoughtful assessment. ‘So you made this arrangement with Aziz to please your Council?’
‘Appease them, more like.’ Elena hesitated, not wanting to admit more but knowing she needed to. ‘The Head of Council, Andreas Markos, has threatened to call a vote at the next convening.’ She took a breath, then forced herself to finish. ‘A vote to depose me and abolish the monarchy.’
Khalil was silent for a moment. ‘And, let me guess, put himself forward as head of state? Prime Minister, perhaps?’
Amazingly she found herself smiling wryly. ‘Something like that.’
‘And you think he won’t if you are married?’
‘I’m gambling that he won’t,’ Elena admitted. ‘It’s a calculated risk.’
‘I understand about those.’
‘Yes, I suppose you do.’ They smiled at each other, and as the moment spun out Elena wondered at herself. How could they be joking about her captivity? How could she feel, in that moment, that they were co-conspirators, somehow complicit in all that had happened? Yet she did, and more than that. So much more than that.
‘The Thallian people like me, for the most part,’ she continued after a moment. ‘And a royal marriage would be very popular. Markos would have a difficult time getting the Council to vote against me if the country approved.’
‘I imagine,’ Khalil said quietly, ‘that your people like you very much indeed, Elena. I think you must be a good queen. You are clearly very loyal to your people.’
