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“Our child?” She spat. “We don’t even know that there is a child. And I was only doing what I’ve done a thousand times before. What you, no doubt, do often. It’s not like I was performing jumps.”
“You told me you have not ridden a horse for years.”
She flushed. “I also told you it came flooding back.”
“Damn it, Phoebe,” he raised his voice, so that he was almost yelling. “You are not to ride again without my permission, do you understand?”
And then, she understood why tears were rolling down her cheeks. Why she felt like she was about to be sick all over his perfectly tailored shoes. “You sound like Etienne,” she said quietly. “And that’s not a compliment.”
He crossed his arms across his chest. “Good, I’m glad. I am sure Etienne and I would have been in agreement when it comes to you.”
“Don’t,” she said, her eyes hollow.
“You want to see the worst in him, as you do in me. Do you not realize, Phoebe, that it is you who might be at fault? With both of us?”
She turned away from him, bile in her mouth. “Don’t.” She repeated, her voice cracking in the air.
“Well, you seem to have inspired fury in him, with your irresponsible, childish behavior. And now you are doing the same to me.”
“Shut up,” she said, shaking with fear and rage and grief. “Just shut up!”
“You dare tell me to shut up?” He demanded, grabbing her hand and spinning her around. If he had been less emotional, the sight of her terrified face would have made him stop. To realize what he was doing. But he was acting on feelings, not thoughts.
“You don’t know anything about Etienne. You think you do, but you don’t. So don’t you dare tell me that anything about my relationship with that man was my fault.”
“I am only imagining, based on our relationship,” he pointed out determinedly.
“Are you going to hit me too?” She screamed, uncaring who heard. “Are you going to hit me?”
Hakim froze, staring down at the woman he planned to marry. She was shaking, her beautiful face tear stained, her eyes haunted, her mouth set hard in her face.
Slowly, he pulled his temper in, until he could think rationally. Finally, he spoke. His eyes were like dark chips of coal in his handsome face. “You are actually accusing a dead man, a man I adored, a man I trusted, of abusing you?”
She blanched. Of all the things he could have said, that was not what she’d expected. “You wanted to know why I hate him so much,” she whispered. The bubble of her rage had been popped by her outburst.
“Go.” He said, turning his back on her and gazing out at the desert, unseeing. “I cannot look at you right now. I knew you were capable of self-serving behavior, but to slander a man like Etienne Cauve is too much, even for you.”
Phoebe stood there, staring at his squared shoulders, until it finally sunk in. He wasn’t going to turn around. He wasn’t going to realize the error of his ways and apologize. He wasn’t going to sprinkle some magic Sheikh dust and make everything go away.
She realized, belatedly, that he wasn’t the man she thought he was at all.
With a heavy heart, she turned, and walked back towards the palace.
Where she would go next, she had no idea.
* * *
The morning of their wedding, Hakim awoke alone for the first time in three days. And his mood was beyond dark. He stood, staring out of his palatial windows, towards the desert sands that had somehow caused a cataclysmic argument with Phoebe.
His reaction to her horse ride confused even him. He knew from Etienne that she was an extremely competent horsewoman. Or had been, at one time. He had seen her comfort for himself. And even as she’d torn across the desert, he had seen she was in total control.
So why had he yelled at her? Why had fear gripped his heart?
He shook his head with frustrated annoyance. Why had he told her it was about the baby that probably didn’t even exist?
He lowered his head and pressed it against the glass. A worrying emotion lodged in his chest but he forced himself to ignore it. To discard it like the peel of an orange. How he felt about Phoebe was determined by what he owed Etienne. Nothing more.
And her accusation against Etienne was beyond forgiving.
