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But before she could get the questions tumbling around in her tired, overwrought mind out of her mouth, he added, ‘I told my advisors to make that abundantly clear. I thought you understood.’
The horrifying statement had all the things she’d feared, all the things she’d assumed were paranoid delusions, turning to stark, cruel reality.
He strode away through the arched doorway and out onto the balcony, gloriously naked, his taut body limed by moonlight. As the soft pad of his footsteps disappeared, a sob lodged in her throat.
For goodness’ sake, get a grip.
She shoved the panic down.
He’s new to this too. We can work this out. He just needs to get used to me.
But still the tears coursed down her cheeks.
Because even as she reasoned he was only a few rooms away, it felt as if a thousand miles separated them now.
* * *
Zane stood under the shower, letting the hot spray ease the wretched regret making his throat ache. But it couldn’t do anything for the despair.
This marriage
was going to be so much harder than he had anticipated. Keeping his emotions, the foolish rush of need in check—for more than just sex—was going to be torturous. He’d realised it as soon as he’d walked into the bridal chamber and seen Catherine, her expression so open, so hopeful.
The arousal had been swift and sure as it always was with her. But on the heels of it was the knowledge he could never be what she needed.
He’d spent the last two weeks trying to establish the distance he needed to make this marriage work, by filling the hours with duties and responsibilities and ensuring his advisors explained to her the parameters of their relationship. But in the space of a few hours, as she’d sat next to him on the podium while the wedding festivities had raged around them, he’d known his feelings weren’t as circumspect as they needed to be. Not when she looked at him like that, with so much tenderness in her eyes.
From now on he would have to manage the hunger, and find a way to control the intimacy. He couldn’t let her get any closer, or she would discover the man he truly was inside.
Not a ruler, not a king, not a sheikh, but a scared, lonely boy who had betrayed his own mother to save his own skin.
CHAPTER TEN
Three months later
ZANE WALKED INTO his private quarters with his secretary hovering at his heels. ‘Cancel the Umara mission. I’ve had enough conversations about fertiliser to last me the rest of the month.’
He ripped off his headdress and handed it to the manservant who was waiting in his dressing chamber.
Three days and nights. Three days and nights he’d been without her and he felt as if he were about to burst out of his own skin. When the hell was this hunger for her going to end?
The thought had tortured him for the last three days as he’d sat through endless diplomatic meetings with Prince Alkardi. While he’d listened to interminable garbage about trading treaties and farming rotations with a placid smile on his face while all he’d been able to see or think about was Catherine—her cheeks flushed with passion, her eyes bright with amusement during a state visit they’d done to a local school the day before he’d left. Or that tempting wrinkle of concentration between her brows when she’d spoken to him last week about her idea to set up a women’s congress.
Three months they had been married and he still hadn’t found the distance he needed to make this marriage work.
Shooing the secretary away, he marched into the bathing chamber as he pulled his tunic over his head.
‘Where’s the Queen?’ he asked as the manservant gathered the tunic. Why wasn’t she here, waiting for him? He had assumed she would be here. Hadn’t he sent word ahead that he had decided to cut his mission short a day early? He felt the prickle of temper at her absence. He’d had plans for this evening, which was why he had raced home. Plans that did not involve soaking in the fragrant pool of steaming water his manservant had prepared for them both all on his own.
‘The Queen is on a visit today to the marketplace to publicise the new congress, Your Majesty,’ the young man said, dropping to one knee.
‘Send word that I wish to see her,’ he snapped, then regretted the curt, ill-tempered reply when the young man flinched.
When had he become as impatient and autocratic as his father?
Thoughts of his father had a new spike of temper festering in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t a tyrant. He respected women. He respected Catherine, more than he could say, but he had been without her for three days.
Amir jerked up, poised to dart out of the room.
