AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Raif smiled a warm but weary smile that softened his rugged features and made his eyes glow.
The boulder ripped a hole in Orla’s chest.
No man had ever looked at her like that… Except Kasim. But that had always been a lie.
‘It’s okay, I’ve got them,’ Raif replied. ‘We always put the girls to bed ourselves. Can’t even imagine what chaos that is going to cause when the next two arrive,’ he added with a sigh. ‘But I guess we’re going to find out pretty soon.’
Two? So his wife was having another set of twins. No wonder the Kholadi chief looked so anxious, and his wife had been so enormous.
‘Perhaps you should stop impregnating her with more than one baby at a time, then, bro,’ Zane said, the affectionately smug tone getting a rueful eyebrow quirk from his half-brother.
‘Don’t worry, bro. I am not going to let Kasia talk me into impregnating her aga
in ever after this,’ he said bluntly, before bidding them all goodbye and leaving with his daughters to locate his wife.
A few moments later, a man Orla recognised as one of Karim’s many personal assistants arrived and whispered something in his ear.
Karim cleared his throat and nodded, then turned back to her and the Narabian royal couple. ‘Apparently the feasting is about to begin, and my…’ His gaze locked on her face, the glance so fierce and penetrating she felt the answering tug in her sex. ‘And my wife needs to retire.’
‘We should leave you to say your farewells,’ Catherine remarked, her gaze alight with humour and something compelling that looked like understanding as she touched Orla’s trembling hand. ‘I’m so glad to have met you, Orla. I hope you can come to visit us in Narabia very soon.’
‘That would be grand,’ Orla said, blinking back tears again as the royal couple left with their children.
She wouldn’t be going to Narabia or anywhere else.
She had been told by the etiquette consultant she would be asked to leave the festivities early to prepare her for the bridal bed… But Karim had already made it clear he would not be joining her tonight, or any night.
There were so many things she wanted to ask him, she realised. So many things which had been too private to bring up with an audience.
A courtier announced the feasting and the guests began to head towards the palace’s banqueting hall—finally giving them a moment alone.
‘Why don’t you want to join me tonight, Karim?’ she whispered, before she lost her nerve. ‘Did I…? Did I do something wrong?’
‘No, of course not,’ he said, but something shadowed his eyes before his face became an impenetrable mask. ‘I have arranged for you to return to Kildare in the next few days and the marriage to be annulled in a few months’ time.’
‘But I thought we’d agreed we wanted to finish what we started?’ she blurted out, before she could stop herself. Maybe she had no power to control this relationship at the moment, but if he felt nothing at all for her, why had he brought her with him to Zafar, why had he kissed her with such passion and purpose an hour ago and why had he kept her anchored to his hip ever since?
His eyes flashed with a fire that seemed to sear her right down to her soul, and his hand gripped her waist for a second, almost as if he were struggling with the same yearning she seemed incapable of controlling, but then he dropped his hand, and his voice when he spoke was rough with command. ‘It would only confuse things between us even more, Orla, and you know it. And it could make an annulment more complicated.’
Before she could question him further, demand a real explanation, the personal assistant reappeared with two of the women who had helped prepare her for the ceremony. ‘Goodbye, Orla,’ he said.
As she was led away, the brutal yearning tore at her insides along with the painful feeling of inadequacy. She forced herself not to look back.
She went through the motions as the women took her to a luxury suite of rooms at the back of the palace that overlooked a secluded courtyard. She was presented with a tray of lavish dishes, some of which she tried to eat, so as not to offend them, but the last thing she felt like right now was food. The women then insisted on bathing her in essentials oils.
Where was Ameera? She wanted her friend here, but at the same time she decided it was probably good she wasn’t. Keeping up appearances was the only thing that mattered now. And holding back the tears that had been building all day.
After the women had insisted on brushing out her hair and dressing her in a ridiculously suggestive diaphanous robe, Orla finally managed to persuade them to leave.
All of this was for show too, she realised, to convince the palace staff this was a real marriage. When it wasn’t and it never had been. But as she found the suite’s only bedroom and climbed into the huge mahogany bed, she allowed the tears to finally fall.
She didn’t even know why she was so upset. Was it the disappointment of a passion unfulfilled, was it the perfunctory note he’d sent her, was it simply emotional exhaustion from the confusion of the last few days and the stress of the ceremony itself, or was it the fact she had somehow ended up investing something in a relationship that wasn’t real?
The tears finally stopped as the sky lit up with flares of colourful fire and the distant crackle and pop as the guests finished celebrating the wedding of Zafar’s new King and Queen.
When the sky returned to black, she finally sank into a restless and troubled sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
