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“That plays a part, yes.” Zahir dipped his head forward.

“Your own wife is British!”

“She’s part Kalastani and she was raised to be my bride!” He snapped. “You were in a dark place five years ago. I know how losing our mother affected you.”

“We all grieved,” Syed answered softly.

“But you most of all.”

“Grief is not a competition,” Syed groaned with an intense anger. “And if it were, I don’t think it’s one I would seek to win.”

Zahir continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted, his mind dragged back to the past by ghosts he didn’t often allow access. “You were her favourite. Anyone who had seen the two of you together understood the bond you shared.” Zahir shook his head to clear the memories, and tried to school his features into an expression of acceptance.

“Who could blame you for seeking solace in the arms of a woman like this Sarah Smith? She is beautiful, certainly, and undoubtedly the kind of woman to welcome men to her bed. So keep her there. Sleep with her until you’ve had your fill. Then divorce her and come home. Father never even needs to know about this madness.”

Syed stared at his brother as though he’d lost the plot. But even accepting that what Zahir had said was crazy still didn’t take away the pang of nausea that his suggestion had created.

“She is a stop-gap, that’s all. An American whore more interested in your fortune and power than she is in you.”

“I will not stand here and let you speak of her in this way! She knew nothing of my fortune or power five years ago…”

“But now?”

Syed expelled an angry breath. That Sarah wanted him for his fortune was almost a completely ridiculous notion.

But Zahir was not going to rest. “Why do you think she’s your bride? This woman you would bring home and introduce to father? He’s one shock away from a heart attack and you want to show him this … this … cheap whore installed in our palace?”

“Do not speak of her in this manner.” Syed squeezed his hands into fists by his side, his whole body tense. “You know nothing of what binds us.”

“I know that you are a prince, and she a pauper. I know that you have elevated her to a luxury and lifestyle that is beyond her wild imaginings.”

“And yet I am the one who has profited,” Syed interjected angrily. “You think she is using me for my power and money? You are wrong, Zahir. It is I who used her. I used my money, my power, everything I could, to bring her into my life and make her marry me.” A bleakness began to slip into his being as the confession wrapped around him. Somehow, speaking the truth of his deeds aloud shook him, as though it was a true acknowledgement, finally, of how dreadful his behaviour had been.

“I couldn’t let her go,” Syed said slowly, dragging a hand through his hair. “These five years, without her, her absence: it has tormented me. I could not walk away from her again. Not this time. And I could not let her walk away from me, either.”

Zahir compressed his lips, his expression tight. “Yet you must.”

Syed shook his head impatiently. “You don’t understand. You ask me why she’s my wife? My bride?” Darkness stirred through him and he took a step backwards as it infiltrated his soul. “Because I forced her. I made it impossible for her not to be. I used what I could to join her to me, because I know that I need her.” He spun away from Zahir, his heart pounding, his brow threaded with the hint of perspiration.

“I disregarded what she needed, because I knew what I needed.” His eyes closed briefly on the realisation of exactly what he’d done; how he’d bullied her, and regret laced his insides together. “I don’t know if I even cared what was best for her,” he said finally, the words dripping with self-recrimination.

Sarah was no mercenary.

It was he, Syed, who’d reduced them to a financial transaction. Not once, but twice. Sarah had wanted him the moment he’d turned up back on her doorstep. She’d fought it, but she’d wanted him as much as ever. Was that just lust?

I love you so much. The memory of the first time she’d said those words flashed into his mind almost robbing him of breath. Would she ever feel that again? Even after he’d used Lexi and the promise of a richer future for the little girl to convince Sarah to marry him?

“The reasons for your marriage don’t matter to me,” Zahir said finally, the words even and cold. “You must end it, for all our sakes.”

*

It was almost midnight when the door pushed inwards. Sarah, reading in an armchair, looked up from the shadows in time to see Syed walk into the room. He looked different somehow. Dishevelled. His hair in disarray, his suit undone at the collar.

She shrugged out of the jacket and discarded it carelessly on the back of a chair, then he paced towards the windows. He wore such a look of concern on his handsome features that worry wrapped around her.

“What is it? Has something happened?”

He startled visibly, his surprise obvious. “Why are you still awake?” He dropped his eyes to hers and they were darkened by emotions she didn’t understand.

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