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“I’m so sorry,” Chloe murmured, and the hand she placed on his forearm was gentle.
“It was a long time ago,” the words were gruff. “She moved to the southern provinces and lived her life quietly. Away from the palace, away from my father.”
“Away from you,” Chloe said softly, her expression full of sympathy.
Raffa hated it and somehow, on some level, needed it too. “I was too busy to notice.”
“Liar.” She shifted her body, angling herself so she was in front of him completely, her back framed to the view of the dawn, her nearness intoxicating on every level. “She rejected you.”
“She was sick,” he corrected warningly.
“But you were a child. Five years old, you said. How could you have seen it as anything other than rejection?”
Raffa stared at her without speaking.
“And she died when you were fifteen.” Chloe swallowed, her eyes showing hesitation and despair.
“Say it,” Raffa demanded. “Ask what you want to know.”
Chloe bit down on her lip, her expression apologetic. But when she spoke, it was with confidence and conviction. “Was it an accident?”
“That’s what the press says,” he muttered thickly.
“But was it?”
“My mother’s car crashed into a tree. She shouldn’t have been driving, she didn’t drive often. I believe it was an accident, Chloe, yes. I believe she got behind the wheel and lost control.”
Chloe nodded. “I believe it too.” But anguish was obvious in her expression. She lifted up on tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. It was a small, simple gesture, but it was a first for them. Not the first time they’d kissed, but the first time it had been borne out of a need to comfort and reassure, rather than driven by passion and lust.
“But he did kill her,” Raffa said after a moment, when Chloe was still close enough that his chest was brushing her soft, round breasts. “He gave her his love and then took it away. He replaced her, after she’d given him an heir, and she never moved on. She never recovered. She was miserable for the rest of her life.”
Raffa’s eyes locked to Chloe’s, fierce determination marked in his features. “Loving my father killed her.”
“And so you married the bride Malik chose for you – you married me, because ultimately it didn’t matter,” Chloe said. It was a strange statement, yet she delivered it with the same cool composure that she almost always brought to their conversations.
“I married a bride who made sense,” he said, and his hand lifted of its own accord, cupping her cheek. “I married a woman I didn’t love, who didn’t love me, because it was a reasonable way to ensure no one else was hurt.”
His words bounced around Chloe’s mind like tiny little darts. He’d married a woman he didn’t love. And that was true! Neither of them had known one another well, let alone claimed to feel anything remotely like love. So why was his assertion, his calmly delivered summation, lighting little fires beneath her skin?
She stepped away from him on the pretense of filling a glass with water, and she sipped it to regain her composure and marshal her thoughts.
He’d seen his parents’ marriage fall apart – he must have been too young to watch its demise, but the after-effects would have permeated every stage of his youth.
“We were both estranged from one of our parents,” Chloe said, more to herself than anything. “Your moth
er, my father – two people we hardly knew.”
“Yes.” She didn’t need to turn around to know he was right behind her, so close that the single word breathed across her neck.
“Have you spoken to your father about this?”
“It’s ancient history now,” Raffa said gruffly.
She turned around, and he was right there, his body so close that only a paper’s width separated them. “Not for you. It’s still inside you, right here.” She pressed a finger to his chest. “You love him, but you’re angry with him too. Talk to him. Give him a chance to explain.”
A muscle jerked in Raffa’s cheek. “Why? What good could come of it?”
“It might change your outlook on life,” Chloe said haltingly. “It might change your outlook on everything. People, relationships, decisions.” Our marriage…
