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She had listened to the way he devoured facts about the country from Khalim, asking him this and asking him that, nodding his head as he absorbed as much of its history as was possible. Even the food they were served and the different drinks—he tried each and every one, and savoured them with the air of someone who had never really tasted before.
Last night, in bed, she had dared broach the subject of what might have been.
‘Does it hurt?’ she’d said softly. ‘Or make you angry to think your mother had to struggle to survive when all this wealth was here for the taking?’
There was silence, so that for a moment she wondered whether or not he had heard her. Or overstepped the mark, perhaps, by trying to delve into his innermost thoughts.
Darian stared at the ceiling. He had been thinking about it a great deal, knowing that he had to come to terms with certain things or he would be unable to move on. If circumstances had decreed it, then he would have led a very different life.
‘The question is whether or not Makim knew that she was pregnant,’ he said slowly. ‘Whether he refused to stand by her—that would make a difference to the way I felt.’
She stroked at his temple. ‘And is there no way of finding out?’
‘Oh, yes. He kept diaries. Khalim told me.’
‘So read them! Find out.’
‘There’s a fifty-year rule about opening them,’ he said slowly. ‘Or at least it’s fifty years before they can be brought into the public domain.’
So he would never know, or at least not until he was an old man, when the knowledge would no longer matter as much as it mattered now. ‘Oh, Darian,’ she said softly, and kissed his cheek.
Sometimes she was so damned soft and tender that he felt as weak as water, and Darian liked to feel strong. He turned over onto his elbow and concentrated on her pink and white naked body instead. ‘Oh, Darian—what?’ he questioned sulkily.
She remembered thinking fleetingly that he always put barriers up—that he went only so far before the shutters came down. But then he had made love to her in a way which made her misgivings melt away with the sureness of his touch, and afterwards she had cried softly, and she wasn’t quite sure why.
She stood watching now as he talked to Khalim, their heads bent and deep in low conversation, excluding her completely.
‘Lara, I will have the jet prepared for you,’ said Khalim, straightening up.
She looked directly into the golden eyes which were trained on her watchfully. Make it easy for him, thought Lara. No bitterness, nor regrets, no tears or recriminations. Let it be a fond memory, something to warm him during the long, cold Maraban nights, until he finds another woman to replace me.
She nodded. ‘I shall leave as soon as possible,’ she said.
‘How soon is soon?’ demanded Darian.
Khalim glanced at his watch. ‘You can be airborne within the hour.’
That quickly? Her head swam. But wasn’t anything possible for the Sheikh of Maraban? That didn’t even leave them time for one last, loving goodbye.
‘I’ll go and pack,’ she said, noticing that Darian didn’t attempt to change her mind for her.
She went back to their room, looking sadly at the rumpled sheets, which would normally have been changed while they were at dinner so that they would return to a neat and pristine bed for another night of long lovemaking.
It wasn’t enough, she thought sadly. It had been too brief and all too beautiful, and then snatched away by chance and circumstance.
The door opened and her expression of regret quickly changed to one of acceptance. She would not burden him with her sadness, nor leave him remembering her face all crestfallen. And maybe in a way this was for the best. Ending naturally at its height rather than leaving her with a sour taste when it faded away, or he tired of her.
But inside her heart was breaking into a million pieces.
She clipped the suitcase closed and smiled. ‘There!’
Darian looked at the tumble of dark, silken curls, the brittle way she was smiling at him. Something had changed. He knew it and she knew it, too. Yet wasn’t it human nature to want things to stay exactly as they were?
‘I don’t want you to go, Lara.’
But Lara recognised that his words were inadequate, spoken only because it was the ‘right’ thing to say at a time like this. She shook her head. ‘You need me to go, Darian. There is stuff here for you to do, and my presence isn’t helping.’
‘Yes.’ There was silence for a
