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In the end it was Nabil himself who had come up with the escape clause. And not in the way she had anticipated.
The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs had her swinging round from the window, plastering the necessary smile on to her face as a small, dark-haired bundle of energy came thundering into the room, followed more sedately by his mother.
‘Clemmie!’ Harry flung himself into her welcoming arms, enveloping her in a huge hug. ‘’appy birfday!’
‘Do you think he’ll ever get tired of saying it?’ she asked Mary as their eyes met over the top of the dark, shining head.
‘I doubt it,’ her friend laughed. ‘After all, this is the first year he’s had a big sister to wish a happy birthday to.’
‘Well, I hope there will be dozens and dozens more.’ With an effort she managed to smooth out the shake in her voice, that smile a little less fixed and forced now. ‘After all, it looks like this will be my home from now on.’
‘Such a tiny place after what you could have had.’ Mary’s gaze went round the small shabby room. ‘When I think of what you’ve had taken from you.’
‘Oh, no,’ Clemmie hastened to reassure her. ‘What was taken from me? A marriage I didn’t want. To a man I didn’t love and who didn’t want me. A kingdom I could never have belonged in.’
On the positive side, she’d gained her freedom from her father’s tyrannical rule and now had the chance to develop a real relationship with her adored little brother.
‘True enough.’ Mary nodded, picking up Harry’s coat in preparation for the journey home. ‘Looked at that way, you didn’t really lose so very much after all.’
Mary had to say that, Clemmie admitted to herself. Because she hadn’t been told the whole story. So she knew nothing about the real loss she’d endured in all this. The emptiness that tore at her heart. The loss of the man she had fallen headlong in love with. Fallen so deeply and so completely that now her life felt as if it had a gaping, raw hole right at the centre of it.
‘And even the peace treaty managed to work out in the end—after some heavy-duty diplomacy.’
‘But only because you let Nabil get away with everything he wanted. You could have put up more of a fight; told him how wrong he’d got everything.’
Clemmie felt a chill slide down her spine as her friend’s words made her remember her last day in the palace at Rhastaan, the accusations that Nabil had flung at her.
‘I didn’t want to fight—and what good would it have done?’
The only fight she’d had in her had been to declare the truth. And that would have made matters so much worse.
‘But he threw you out. Now even your own father won’t have you back. You told me what he said.’ Mary shook her head, her eyes darkened with concern for her friend.
‘“You are tainted—what man will want you now?”’ Clemmie echoed her father’s dismissive response.
‘I will.’ The voice came from behind her. From where the battered wooden door had opened silently, allowing a man to come into the room.
A man. The man. The man she had thought that she would never ever see again.
A man who seemed taller, darker, more dangerous than he had ever been before. She had met this man here when he had come for her. He had taken her back to Rhastaan because he had been given the task by his father and because his honour demanded that he carried out that debt which his family owed to Nabil. He had handed her over...
And then he had walked away from her because, in spite of the fact that he admitted he wanted her, hungered for her more than he could bear, his damned honour demanded that he did so.
She had told him that she loved him; that she wanted him as much as he wanted her and he had still walked away.
Now Karim was back in her life and she had no idea why he was here or what his plans might be.
‘Karim...’ It was just a breath, a whisper of reaction.
‘Clementina.’
There was much more strength in his response but his voice was rough and uneven as if it was fraying at the edges. He barely looked around the room, taking no notice of Mary and the little boy who was gaping at this new arrival in frank curiosity.
He was hardly dressed for the cruel weather outside. A supple leather jacket, a tee shirt that was so wet from the rain that the dark curls on his chest showed through the white material. The black silky hair was plastered to the fine bones of his skull, his bronzed skin slick with the rain so that his high cheekbones looked sharp as knives. But it was the burn of the dark eyes above them that caught and held her, stopping the breath in her lungs.
Those black eyes were fixed on her face, his stare so intent it burned away the topmost protective layers of skin, leaving her raw and exposed underneath. Her own gaze was caught and held, mesmerised, unable to look away, trapped into immobility no matter how wildly her mind screamed at her to break away. To run.
But to run from him or to him? She had no idea and her brain couldn’t compute any possible answer.
‘Clemmie...’ Mary tried for her attention, her tone making it plain that she knew there was little chance of her being noticed. ‘I think I should go. Harry—come here—get your coat on.’
Something in the thickening atmosphere in the room had communicated itself to the little boy and he made no protest, didn’t even resist when his mother bundled him into his coat, then grabbed for her own jacket. And still the connection between Clemmie and Karim was locked, absorbed, almost a physical thing, a spider’s web of connection, so fine and yet impossible to break.
‘Call me...’
Mary was bustling Harry out of the room, but she turned for a moment in the doorway to glare both at Karim and then at Clemmie, but in such very different ways.
‘If you need me...’
‘She will.’
Karim might have been speaking to the air; not the slightest turn of his head acknowledged Mary’s presence behind him. And Clemmie could only bring herself to dip her head in agreement, unable to drag her eyes away from the man before her.
The slam of the door behind her friend and Harry made her blink once, hard. But when she looked again he was still there.
‘What are you doing here?’ She forced the words out, hearing them crack in the middle.
Not even the flicker of a smile warmed his face.
‘You know why I’m here,’ he said harshly. ‘I’ve come for you.’
The words he had used the first time he had come here. On the day that he had appeared at the door of the cottage. Then he had taken her life, her heart, into those powerful hands of his and turned them inside out.
So was she crazy to feel so glad to see him? She didn’t know, didn’t care, only knew that her heart had leapt at the sight of him and that she was glad for the chance to spend a few more hours in his company. A few more hours when her eyes could linger on the dark strength of his face. When she could hear his voice. When the hunger that had haunted her nights, made her toss and turn, waking in sweat-soaked sheets, now had physical form. And he was only metres away from her.
‘How do we do this?’
Was he feeling anything like the way she was? Had the same yearning she was feeling put that rough laughter into his voice? Was there really just a shabby rug on the floor between them or had an enormous chasm opened up at their feet that she didn’t know how to cross to reach him?
Suddenly Karim flung his arms open wide, stretching the white tee shirt tight across his chest, his eyes burning into hers.
‘Hell and damnation, Clementina, we can do this now. Come here. Come to me before I go crazy with wanting you.’
She wanted it too. She wanted his arms around her so much but in the same breath her mind was warning her, telling her that she knew nothing of his reasons for being here. Nothing except that he had come for her. She took one hesitant step forward and then it was as if just the movement had broken the spell that held her frozen.
One more step—and then another. And then she was running—flying it felt like—over the floor to where he stood waiting for her, those powerful arms still outstretched.
He was moving too, rushing towards her so that they met—collided—with such force that Clemmie lost her footing, stumbled, fell, taking Karim with her. She landed on the settee, the breath driven from her lungs as the weight of Karim’s body crushed her, her gasp of surprise snatched from her lips as his mouth took hers. The taste of him went straight to her head like the most potent fiery spirit, intoxicating her in a second. It was all she wanted but it was not enough. How could it ever be enough when this was what she needed, what she’d longed for? She’d only been apart from him for a few days but those days had left her starved, desperate for this. In the moment that he lifted his body slightly she thought he might move away from her and grabbed at his shoulders, at his head, clenching desperate fingers in the crisp darkness of his hair to hold him still, close to her.
