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‘You could have drowned.’
‘We didn’t, though,’ Ilyas said. ‘We played and we laughed and we were brothers for a day. Hazin said that he wished I was king and that we could rule together. He was so young I doubt he even remembers.’
Maggie doubted it too, for from all Hazin had told her he held no happy memories. Hazin had made it clear to Maggie that he considered his brother as cold and as emotionally empty as his parents.
‘Even at such a tender age Hazin knew things were wrong,’ Ilyas said.
‘Wrong?’
He never usually thought of old times and he certainly never spoke of them, yet the conversation with Maggie was soothing rather than unsettling, and the wind made a temporary shield from the world—or it felt as if it did.
‘I don’t always agree with my father’s rule.’
It wasn’t a secret as such. Most of the elders knew it and the people of Zayrinia all fervently hoped that Ilyas was merely biding his time until it was his turn to be king.
Still, it should not be said.
Perhaps Maggie did not understand the magnitude of his revelations, Ilyas thought, for she did not swallow nervously and neither did her eyes widen. In fact, she asked a question in the same matter-of-fact way that she had when they had discussed the Bedouin and tourist issue. ‘What don’t you agree with?’
His eyes narrowed a little at her question and he reminded himself of her status—a woman who might lure and then blackmail a prince.
And then he knew that that was not Maggie. He knew it for sure deep inside him.
‘We are a prosperous country,’ Ilyas said, ‘yet many of the people are poor.’
‘Can you do something about it?’ she asked.
‘Not yet,’ Ilyas said, and as she stared deep into his beautiful eyes, Maggie could see they housed a secret.
She could see it dancing on the edges of his stunning gaze, yet he did not allow her to linger and search that path, for he tore his eyes away and told her there was nothing he could do. ‘He is king.’
Ilyas pulled at a rope and after a moment a maiden appeared and he gave his orders.
‘What did you say to her?’ Maggie asked.
‘I asked that the musicians play louder.’
It was safer than talking.
‘Where are they?’ She frowned, looking around.
‘In another area,’ Ilyas told her. ‘They cannot hear us, but we can hear them.’
The music grew louder.
While it halted conversation, it did nothing to dim their desire.
Ilyas looked over and saw that Maggie sat with her eyes closed, drinking in the music as if she were being warmed by the rays of the sun.
A long curl fell across her forehead and he was tempted to move it away. Not so that he could see her better, or because it might irritate her, and perhaps not even for the feel of her hair on his fingers.
Just because.
His hand reached out for no real reason he could find but, as it did, his senses overrode the impulse and he moved his hand back from such an unnecessary touch.
But she turned just in time.
Their eyes met and he could see that she read his action like a book.
