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That stony distance in her eyes shredded his insides with regret. She’d once looked at him as if he was the only thing she wanted to see. Now a part of him was growing inside her, a miracle made of their essences and passion, and he was the one thing she’d rather never see again.
Exposing everything about his past—things not even his brothers knew in full—was something he’d never considered before. But he couldn’t hide anything from her again. He owed her everything. The absolute truth was just the first thing among countless others that included the heart he’d grown to love her with, and the life that now meant nothing without her.
Feeling as though he was ending his own life, he told her everything. Everything.
It could have taken hours or only minutes to relate the horrors that had happened to him at The Organization, what he’d been forced to do, to endure, what had been done to him, what he’d been guilty of since that day he’d lost his father to what he now knew had been an accident. With every word he said, absolute shock mushroomed in her eyes.
Then he had no more horrors to relate and finally exhaled a resigned breath. “So whatever you thought I was, you now realize I’m so much worse. Far worse than anything you could even imagine.”
By the time he fell silent, her body and face were shaking as if with a devastating earthquake. But it was the horror in her eyes that told him everything he’d ever feared had come to pass.
He’d scared and repelled her so completely, she’d probably risk whatever she now knew he was capable of to keep herself, and their child, away from him.
He squeezed his eyes shut on the alien feeling of defeat burning in his gut.
Knowing there was nothing to fear for or to lose anymore, he confessed what lurked in the darkest corner of his being. “I did anything I had to do to survive, and once I was free, I thought I could only remain free by
destroying and conquering anyone in my path. I came here believing I’d decimate anyone who stood in the way to what I considered mine. I did intend to claim the unknown daughter of the king of Zafrana, and to use her in the same way Hassan intended to. I never considered things wouldn’t go my way. I never took into account that I’d develop any feelings for you since I believed I was unequipped to feel any. Then you...happened to me.
“Everything else but you disappeared. Only you remained in my universe, a new one I never knew could exist. You melted the steel vault I built around myself. Now I am unable to seek its refuge again. I would die of exposure without you.”
He finally opened his eyes and saw his devastation reflected in hers. “But you are right to reject me. Not because I betrayed you, since I didn’t, but because I am what I am. You have every right to deprive me of yourself, of your love. Of our child. You should, for both of your sakes. I’m a monster. And I proved it when I hurt you—the only one who ever loved me, the only one I’ll ever love.”
Jenan had felt she’d known true agony when she’d thought she’d been nothing but a pawn to Numair.
But what she’d felt for her own injuries was a mere twinge compared to what she felt now for his.
Every scar on his body was the evidence of what should have broken him. But he’d only grown invincible, indomitable.
There was no doubt left in her. That was finally the whole mutilating truth. The answer to her every question and doubt.
He’d truly thought Hassan had been responsible for his father’s death, for his enslavement. If anyone had ever had reason to employ subterfuge to gain his ends, it was Numair.
But there was no trace of subterfuge anymore. She just knew it. This was everything he’d hidden from her. And she no longer had any doubt that what they’d shared had never been among the deceptions.
It had all been real.
As unthinkable as everything else had been, he loved her. As deeply and completely as she loved him. No. Far more, just as he’d said. Her love had been so fickle, she hadn’t even given him the benefit of the doubt.
A lung-tearing sob of shame ripped through her.
And in the next instant she was in the haven of his arms, his feverish, trembling lips all over her face and head. Every sob that shook her seemed to rack him in agony.
“Don’t do this to yourself,” he whispered. “I’m not worth it.”
She struggled out of his embrace, and his arms fell to his sides with a look of absolute despair. He thought she was rejecting him still.
And she pounced on him, squeezed him until she felt her arms would snap. Her tears were a deluge on his chest. “You’re worth everything. The world isn’t enough to do you justice.”
It was his turn to push away so he could gape at her, incomprehension on his face. “But I thought...”
“Whatever you thought was wrong. I was only hurt because I didn’t know the truth. If only you’d told me...” She stopped, wiped furiously at the flood of tears, remorse submerging her. “No, I had no excuse to behave as I did. I am the guilty one here, not you, since you had every right to keep your secret. What happened to you is so enormous, I’ll live my life unable to fully grasp it all. But I loved you, and at the very first test of that love, I failed you.”
He stared at her, stunned, everything inside him on full display for the first time.
Then he choked, “Loved? In the past tense.”
“Ya Ullah, no. Every single moment in time. Even when I thought I’d never be with you again, I knew I’d never stop loving you, yearning for you. I loved you from the first moment, and I’ll love you till my very last breath.”
