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‘Not any more. I’m not pregnant, Nabil. I’m not carrying your heir.’
‘What does that matter?’ he growled. ‘We can try again.’
If he had slapped her hard in the face she couldn’t have looked more appalled.
‘Try again?’
It was a sound of horror. One that took everything he had believed that today was about and threw it over the edge of the balcony, to shatter in the courtyard so far below.
Had he really said that? Aziza couldn’t believe she had heard right. She’d been terrified that he wouldn’t believe her; that the scars of Sharmila’s betrayal would mean that he couldn’t trust at all. She’d feared that she would meet the same reaction as she had when she had removed her veil on her wedding night and he had believed that everything was part of a conspiracy, a plot against him. Yet, now, here he was declaring cold-bloodedly that they could try again. As if all that was needed—all that mattered—was that they got busy creating another heir to the damn throne.
‘I don’t want to try again.’
How could she say such a thing when it was a blatant lie? Aziza asked herself. Why didn’t her lips and tongue shrivel in the acid bite of the untruth she was speaking? In spite of the resolution she had made earlier, she couldn’t help but long for a chance to try again—to have a hope of carrying Nabil’s child, holding a tiny black-haired son or daughter close to her heart. And if there was any chance of Nabil knowing any true feeling for her then she would take that risk in a heartbeat. But there was no real love that Nabil felt. Living with that would only destroy her—so how could that be any sort of marriage to bring a baby into?
‘All right.’
She had never expected such an easy response. It was impossible. Did he really care so little?
‘If that is what you want.’ It was flat, dead-toned. ‘There doesn’t need to be a child.’
‘But of course there does. That was the only reason why you married me.’
‘At the beginning, perhaps but—no.’
‘Yes! I know why you chose me. As your Queen, I was to have your child, give the country an heir—me and my child-bearing hips.’
She ran her hands down her sides, cursed the way his gaze followed the movement. But there was something strange in his eyes, something that was so very different from the way he’d looked at her when he’d first said those words.
‘But hard luck—’
Somehow she managed to put the coldness she needed into her voice and she saw his proud head go back in shocked response. She had to get this over and done with or she would weaken, risk going back on all she had resolved.
‘I don’t want to be your Queen. I don’t want to be your wife. You can divorce me—it’s easy...’
‘No.’ Nabil shook his head fiercely. ‘No, I won’t divorce you. I can’t.’
‘You can—you must marry someone else. Someone who can give you a child.’
‘The only child I want is yours. I can’t marry anyone else unless I love them.’
Was she hearing things? Aziza’s head felt as if it was spinning nauseously. Had he actually used the word ‘love’?
‘Don’t you dare talk about love,’ she flung at him, desperate to bring this appalling standoff to an end. ‘Not when you’ve already told me that you don’t know what it is or how it feels. We have no marriage without that. I can’t—I won’t—stay without love. Our relationship is empty—dead—if I do.’
‘I know.’ He shocked her into silence with the force of his declaration. ‘I know that our marriage would be dead without love. And it’s true that I thought I couldn’t feel that, didn’t know what love was. But someone taught me.’
‘Someone? Who?’
‘You,’ he said simply, taking the breath from her lungs. ‘My wife...’
My wife. Not my Queen. Was she a fool to latch on to some sort of hope in his choice of words? But as she tried to find something to fill the silence there was a flurry of sound in the banqueting hall, and outside, below the balcony, there were cars starting to draw up, bringing guests and dignitaries to the palace for the coronation ceremony. It was time she brought this to an end and faced the life she had to live alone.
‘Nabil—you have to go. As their King you have to tell them that nothing is happening today—that...’
The words faded off as he shook his head.
