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Star searched his features, her eyes running over his head, shoulders, down the length of his body, consuming as much of him as she possibly could. There was no way Kal could have let her be there at the event that evening. She understood a little of that duty now. How the crowd had looked up to him, watched him, hung on every word. How they had cried and sighed their appreciation of his plans for the memorial. He had given them a focal point for their grief and the beginning of the healing process. She supposed in some way she was about to give herself the same.
‘I’m—’ Khalif started.
‘I’m not pregnant,’ she interrupted before he could say anything more.
He simply held her gaze as if he had felt it in the same way she had. When Maya had presented her with the results of the test, Star hadn’t been surprised by the fact she wasn’t carrying Khalif’s baby, but by the extent to which she’d actually been wanting to. Not once had she let herself hope or believe because...because, she realised now, she had never wanted anything more in her life.
‘Maya assured me the test was accurate.’
He closed the space between them in just two steps, drawing so close to her, only inches really. It was as if he wanted to touch her, reach for her, just as much as she wanted him to...but couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
In one breath, Star was lost just to the sense of him. His exhale shuddered against her cheek, before he turned to stand beside her, facing the desert. She placed her hands on the stone balcony close to his, their little fingers almost touching, but her heart knew the distance might as well have been a chasm.
Go...go now.
But she couldn’t. She forced herself to stay, refusing to turn and run. She was a reader. She was a romantic. And, whether it was foolish or not, she had hope. All the things they’d experienced—an impossible meeting, ancestors torn apart by duty, families brought back together by fate. She had found Catherine’s Duratra out there in the desert. Khalif had found her necklace...
‘So that’s it then.’ His voice was rough and dark in the dusk.
She felt as if she’d conjured up the words herself. The first steps of the dance that would see them either spending the rest of their lives together or...
‘Is it?’
‘Star...’ he warned.
‘No, Khalif. It’s a question I am asking you.Isthat it then?’
She refused to look at him, even though he was staring at her hard, trying to get her to face him. But she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Because he’d see. He’d see all that she wasn’t quite ready for him to see.
‘It’s funny how people behave when they think they don’t have a choice,’ she said to the desert. ‘It traps them, makes them feel helpless, makes them behave in ways that aren’t authentic to them. Ways that aren’t right for them.’
‘You can’t consider my life to have choices.’
‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘Look what you did when you realised that you had a choice for Faizan and Samira’s memorial? Look at the incredibly beautiful, amazing thing you have set in motion. Do you not think that we could—’
‘It’s not the same.Everyonein my family, every heir to the throne has been in the same position,’ he growled.
‘The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’
‘Why do you think I’m expecting different results?’ He looked at her, genuinely confused. ‘There were no disastrous results for my parents. And Faizan and Samira’s marriage was a very happy, fruitful one.’
‘But not for you. Not the hurt it caused you,’ she half cried. ‘Would you force this on your nieces? Would you expect them to marry for duty rather than love?’
‘No! I’m doing this so that they can have that option for themselves.’
‘Really? You’re not doing this because it’s easier than being true to yourself?’
His gaze met hers in a fiery clash, the golden flecks in his umber eyes swirling like a sandstorm. ‘Star—’
But she couldn’t listen to him. She had to press on. This was her last chance. Her only chance. ‘Because I suppose you can’t really fail if you’re always trying to please everyone else. If you’re being everything other people need, then it’s their need that’s failed, not you. And you’ll never know.’
‘Know what?’
‘You’ll never know how incredible you could be if you were just yourself.’
Her voice rang with such sincerity, such hope and such optimism he half wanted to believe it himself. It was seductive, what she was saying. Be himself, choose her, be a great ruler. But she was wrong.
‘I was myself,’ he bit out angrily. ‘For three years, I wined and womanised my way around Europe. Is that the kind of ruler Duratra deserves? Is that the kind of man you want?’ His voice had become a shout.
