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He shrugged. ‘In perhaps a decade and a half, when I had reached fifty years and sown every last wild oat.’
‘So this early and unwanted marriage has prevented you from having hundreds of different relationships? All those wild oats which will remain unsown.’
‘I am not totally indiscriminate, Hannah,’ he said gravely.
‘But all that...all that unexplored opportunity,’ she breathed. ‘Won’t it make you resentful?’
Kulal frowned, feeling momentarily wrong-footed. Surely she was the one who was supposed to be feeling resentful—not turning it around so that she was coolly interrogating him. ‘I have no intention of straying, if that’s what you’re getting at. Infidelity is something I am vehemently opposed to—despite many of my royal peers feeling it their right to keep a mistress.’
He saw the surprise on her face as she brushed a heavy swathe of hair away from her forehead and blinked at him.
‘I have the feeling I shouldn’t be grateful just because you’ve told me you won’t break our wedding vows, but the fact is that I am,’ she said. ‘And a little curious, too.’
Her instinctive intelligence was enough to make him prolong the conversation, even though he sensed he was venturing onto precarious territory. ‘About what in particular?’ he questioned.
‘Well, you’ve told me you don’t want love.’
‘I don’t.’
The rumpled white sheet barely covered the creamy swell of her breasts and her eyes suddenly seemed very bright. ‘So why would you care about breaking your wedding vows, if another woman should suddenly take your fancy?’
He was on the verge of telling her that she looked so entrancing at that moment, that he couldn’t imagine another woman holding a flame to her.
Until he remembered.
He tried not to remember, but sometimes it came out of nowhere and hit you like a vicious blow. He felt the pain course through him like a black tide and his body tensed. ‘If you had grown up with parents like mine,’ he said, a trace of savage bitterness creeping into his voice, ‘you would understand.’
There was a pause before she spoke. ‘But how can I understand if you won’t tell me, Kulal?’ she whispered. ‘And if I understood, then maybe I could help you. Maybe you’ve forgotten that I grew up in a dysfunctional foster home which wasn’t in any way loving, so I don’t think anything you can tell me would shock me.’
He could see the eagerness on her face—a desire to help, which tugged at something deep inside him, but successfully he pushed the feeling away. Did she think it was that simple? That telling her would free him from the demons which had lived in his heart for so long? From his secret torture and sense of powerlessness? He felt a new resolve creep through his veins, for he would not give her that power. He would not give it to anyone. Hadn’t he promised his brother that?
‘And besides—’ her voice had softened hopefully as she fixed him with that same wide-eyed stare ‘—we’re married now. Aren’t we supposed to share those kinds of things?’
There was a split-second pause before Kulal was galvanised into action. ‘No, we’re not,’ he grated as he pushed the sheets from his naked body. ‘I don’t want that kind of marriage. I told you that from the start. Weren’t you listening, Hannah? Or did you think you could change my mind just as soon as my ring was on your finger? Did you believe, as so many women mistakenly do, that it was just a matter of time and proximity before you could get me to backtrack on my words? In which case, I fear you may be a little premature, as well as misguided.’ His voice hardened even more. ‘In my culture, we don’t spill out our innermost thoughts and feelings, as if life was just one long therapy session!’
‘I didn’t mean to pry,’ she said, in a small voice. ‘I was just trying to...help.’
‘Well, don’t because it’s a waste of time—yours and mine. The past is none of your business, Hannah. You’d better accept that now or this isn’t going to work. I will give you my fidelity and my support for our child. And I am prepared to make this marriage work within the framework we’ve laid out.’
‘You’ve laid out, you mean.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m the King. Sorry, but that’s the way it works around here. I am not an unreasonable man and anything you require will be yours, within reason. But please don’t ever ask me that again.’
There was a silence as she studied him, like someone hoping for a sudden miraculous change of heart, and Kulal saw the exact moment when resignation entered her eyes. When she realised that he meant every word he said.
‘And that’s the end of the discussion, is it?’ she questioned flatly.
He nodded as he slid from the bed. ‘Yes. And now I think it’s time you got some sleep.’
‘But...’ She sat up and the white sheet fell to her waist, showing the luscious thrust of her breasts. ‘Where are you going?’
He saw the alarm in her eyes, but years of practice meant he was able to steel his heart against it, even though he wasn’t managing to remain quite so indifferent to the sight of her rose-pink nipples. Did she really think he was going to lie there night after night, while she fired her questions at him, shattering those sleepy moments of post-coital intimacy and ruining them? Should he tell her the reasons why he didn’t want love and why he never would?
No.
Not on their wedding night. His mouth hardened. Perhaps not ever.
‘I’m going to sleep next door. It’s better that way.’
