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He was her husband now, the father of her babies. Both of them.
A weary smile lifted her lips as her eyelids shut.
Tomorrow they would travel together to Narabia. She couldn’t wait to see Cat to tell her the news about the twins.
And then she would meet his people as his princess. What could her husband possibly have to be sorry for?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dear Kasia
I have returned to Kholadi. I think the desert is not the best place for you, especially in your present condition, so I have arranged for a property to be purchased in Cambridge, where you will stay for the foreseeable future.
Internet connectivity is not good in the kingdom, but I will endeavour to contact you soon.
Dean Walmsley has been informed that your new research as well as the PhD will be fully funded by the Kholadi Grant to the faculty.
R
KASIA BIT HER lip so hard she could taste blood, desperately struggling to control the choking sobs lodged under her breastbone ever since Raif’s assistant had arrived five minutes ago to deliver his letter.
Not letter, she thought as she tapped Cat’s name into her phone, Raif’s instructions.
She had only just recovered from her regular bout of morning sickness and was eating some dry toast and wondering where Raif could possibly have disappeared to when the knock had come on the door of their suite. She hadn’t even noticed that Raif’s luggage and all his toiletries were gone until after she’d opened the cream envelope with her name written across it in his bold script and had read the devastating contents.
So businesslike, so polite, so unemotional.
Shock had come first. How could the man who had carried her to bed and undressed her so tenderly have written such a note? Had he been making plans even then to abandon her? He must have been.
Next had been all the furious questions. Why had he left her here? Why hadn’t he spoken to her about his decision? Was she not entitled to a say in where or how she should live?
But beneath the questions was the devastating sense of déjà vu, propelling her back to a time in her life it had taken her many years to recover from. And all the fears she had kept so carefully at bay—on discovering her pregnancy, when agreeing to their hasty marriage, after realising she was having not one baby but two—leapt out of the darkness, too.
Suddenly she was that little girl again, small and defenceless, insignificant and unloved. That little girl who could never be enough, watching her mother leave without a backward glance as her grandmother squeezed her fingers.
‘Do not fear, little one, your mother will return soon.’
But her mother hadn’t returned. Kasia had waited and waited. And the only conclusion was that if her mother had ever loved her, she hadn’t loved her enough.
The choking sob rose up her torso as the call connected.
Cat’s voice came on the line—calm but concerned. ‘Kasia, is everything okay?’
‘I’m sorry I called so early,’ Kasia said, the words scraping her throat as the sob pushed painfully against her larynx. It was before dawn in Narabia, she realised.
‘Kasia, what’s wrong? Has something happened?’
‘He’s left me. He doesn’t want me, Cat. I knew he didn’t love me, but I thought maybe…’ The words spewed out, expelled on a wave of desperation, but were soon overrun by the choking sobs that racked her body in debilitating gut punches of anguish.
The crying came in waves, loud and raw and exhausting as she sank to the floor by the lavish four-poster bed and pressed her forehead to her knees, trying to hold in the pain, the devastation.
He’s gone. He won’t return. He’s ashamed of me, as she was. Ashamed to have me meet his people. I did something wrong. But what did I do? How can I make it right? How can I be better so he’ll love me? So he won’t abandon me?
The questions that had tormented her endlessly as a child returned, like big black crows pecking at the scar tissue that had grown over the gaping wounds left by her mother’s desertion.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and pressed the phone to her ear. But the choking sobs refused to stop, turning the anguish to agony.
‘Shhh… Shhh… Kaz, you have to breathe… Try breathing.’
