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“Yes.” He stopped walking and frowned. “I only looked down on it from my room though.” She could have been there, hidden from sight, in one of the alcoves. “Becca, you go back to your room. I’m sure she’ll be at the pool.” And if she wasn’t, he didn’t want anyone to see his panic unfold.
“Okay. Let me know if she isn’t, though, okay?”
He ran the whole way to the grotto, so that when he burst out into the courtyard, his breath was rushed.
“Phoebe?” He shouted, running from alcove to alcove.
“What is it?” Her voice was quiet, as she emerged from the furthest spot. She was wearing a white cotton night gown that fell to the tiled floor. She looked like the teenager he’d first met. He groaned, as he moved swiftly towards her.
“Phoebe,” he pulled her against his chest and kissed her. “I thought you’d left.”
“Did you?” As always, his kiss stirred longing inside of her, but the pain didn’t allow it to take over. “No. I’m still here.”
“Why are you at the pool?”
“I like the sound of the water,” she said simply.
“I thought you’d left,” he repeated, pulling her back into his arms, and holding her tight.
She would have cried, but she was totally spent on that front.
“It’s our wedding day,” he said against her fine, fair hair.
“Do you still think we should go through with that?” She asked seriously, listening to the way his heart was beating frantically.
He stepped back, holding her at arm’s length. “Yes.”
She was fidgeting nervously, and the sight of it made his heart clench.
“I don’t know why you lied about Etienne, Saleena, and frankly, I’m not sure I care.”
She sucked in a deep breath and looked away. She’d been wrong. She still had tears left, and they stung her cornflower blue eyes now.
He continued before she could formulate an appropriate response. “I thought you’d left. I thought you’d …gone.”
“Gone where?” She asked, her voice flat. “I have no money. I don’t speak the language. I’m a stranger in Mehran. Where would I go?”
Something strange lodged in his chest. “Would you leave, if you could?”
She bit down on her lip, her eyes wide. She knew now that she was in love with him. But she would never be able to live with him happily. Not when they would always be at odds over one very important detail in her life. She lowered her eyes and nodded.
It was as if the ground had opened up and swallowed him deep into its bowels. He felt as though he was in a free fall, as her words assaulted his senses. “You can’t go,” he heard himself say firmly. Rigid. Confident. Strong. “I won’t allow it.”
When she looked at him, he saw only teenaged Phoebe. She was lost. Alone. Frightened. Acting her ass off, to pretend she wasn’t. Her attempt at valor injured him as nothing else could.
“I know that,” she said with a stoic nod of her head. Her lips were set in a line of grim determination that almost cracked his resolve. “We’re committed. It would be embarrassing to you if we didn’t marry now.” She looked away, her profile set in a line of duty.
“That is not why.” He moved towards her, and took her hands in his. “When I thought you’d left, I realized that you have become important to me, Phoebe. I have become used to you. And used to the idea of a future with you. I am asking you to stay because I need you to. Not because you have no choice, but because I want your choice to be a life with me.”
A sob tore through her. She muffled it with the palm of her hand. “But Etienne…” she said quietly.
“Is dead.” He interrupted stonily. “I do not approve of the way you speak of him. And I will never understand your determination to slander a man who cannot defend himself. But in spite of that, I want to marry you.”
Phoebe reached backwards for the support of the timber bench. She sat down on it, weakly. “But… I don’t think it’s something we can get past.”
Hakim was used to things falling into line as he required. He had not anticipated such a challenge from Phoebe.
“Do you want to marry me?”
