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He cursed under his breath and spun away, stalking back into his own room and dressing quickly. What he needed was to think.
All his life, Sariq’s life had followed a path, a plan, and now he was stepping into the unknown. It wouldn’t work. He didn’t want it. He needed a new plan, one that would work for him, Daisy, and their child.
He needed to think without the knowledge that Daisy was only a wall away.
‘Have a horse prepared. I’m going to the desert.’
He would never love her.
Daisy lay on her back, one hand on her stomach, patting the rounded shape there, her eyes chasing the detailing in the ceiling. Her body bore the marks of his lovemaking but it was all a lie. Sex and intimacy were not connected for Sariq.
How many times and in how many ways had he said this? Even at the embassy, when she’d first arrived and he’d asked her to become his mistress.
Why had that hurt so badly?
Her stomach dropped, because an answer was beating through her, demanding her attention. In New York, she’d been drawn to him because she’d never known anyone like him. And at the embassy, she’d been furious with him, but also, she’d felt a thousand and one things—good things.
And now?
She closed her eyes and remembered all of their conversations, shared moments, desire, need, a tangle of wants, impulses that had been pushing her towards him even when she wanted to dislike him so, so badly.
But for him?
Just sex. And just tonight.
Nothing had changed. It was the same parameters he’d established in New York, the same parameters he’d tried to enforce when he’d asked her to come to the RKH as his mistress. And every time he’d reminded her of those limitations, it had twisted inside her, like a snake’s writhing. Pain, discontent. Why?
‘Oh, crap.’ She sat up, her throat thick with emotion. ‘No.’ She’d thought she loved Max when she’d married him, but she hadn’t. She’d had no idea what love felt like—until now. It wasn’t something you decided to do. It was all-consuming, a firestorm that ravaged your body. It was lighting her up now, making her feel...feel everything.
She’d fallen in love with her husband and that might ordinarily have been considered a good thing but, for Daisy, she couldn’t see any way to make this work. He didn’t love her. He never would. That was his one proviso.
Her stomach looped fiercely. Her heart contracted.
And suddenly, this marriage, this palace, the prospect of raising a child with him, felt like cement weighting her down. Living here with him had been scary enough, when he’d insisted on this marriage. She’d thought her fear came from the unknown, the pressure of being the mother to the royal heir. But it was so much more than that now.
She’d fallen in love with him, and he could never know. She couldn’t tell him. She wouldn’t.
But how could she keep it secret? Flashes of their night together came back to her. It might have been sex for him but every touch, every moment, had been a connection, a moment of love. She communicated her feelings in everything she did.
How could he not know?
And then what? If he realised how she felt?
Mortification curled her toes. He would become the third man in her life she’d offered herself to, the third man she’d loved or purported to love, who’d found it easy to withhold those same feelings. After her father, she’d been wary with men, but Max had found a way under her defences. After Max, she’d been wary to the extreme, but Sariq... It wasn’t even that he’d charmed her. He hadn’t. He’d been himself but there was something in his manner that had made it impossible for Daisy to forget.
But the idea of having this love rejected was anathema to her. It would hurt too much. She knew how he felt—she didn’t need him to spell it out to her. No good could come from having this conversation.
Maybe she could make him love her? Her heart began to stammer. But she was being a fantasist. You couldn’t make anyone who wasn’t so inclined fall in love with you—as her first marriage had taught her.
At no point had Sariq given her even the slightest reason to hope. This feeling was her fault. Her mistake.
She had to conquer it.
He rode for hours, until the heat of the day, so familiar against his back, was almost unbearable. He rode towards the caves, knowing he woul
d not make it there on this occasion. Knowing even as he set out from the palace that cowering from this wasn’t worthy of him. He was not a man to run from anything, and he wouldn’t run from this.
Last night was a mistake.
