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Chapter 5
ZAFAR PULLED AWAY FROM her before it was too late, his hands forming fists by his side, his body stiff with tension and need. He stared into the passion-ravaged eyes of Amelia and felt an overwhelming desire to carry her to his bed, to make love to her until she was begging him for release, until she was crying his name into the night, branding it on the stars for all eternity. He wanted to triumph over something, he wanted to punish someone, and even in a state of physical need, Zafar knew that was wrong. He couldn’t take her like this.
He pressed a finger to her chin, lifting her face to his, forcing their eyes to meet and hold. “You want me just as much as you ever did. Your body always betrayed you to me, habibi.”
Her eyes flashed with hurt and his gut rolled. Guilt – the same guilt he was used to feeling around Amelia – was like a monsoon. Pleasure abated completely. He dropped his hand and stepped back to the table. “Sit down. Finish your meal.”
“I didn’t start my meal.” He cast a glance over his shoulder in time to see her folding her arms across her chest. “And I’ve lost my appetite altogether. It must have been so easy for you,” she said, her body rigid with shock. “I had no idea what I was doing – I’d barely even dated a guy before we met. You overwhelmed all my senses, you overtook my mind and my soul. You must have seen how pathetically innocent and needy I was. Did you laugh at me behind my back, Zafar? Did you laugh at my devotion and trust?”
“No.” The denial was swift and forceful, his voice gruff. “Never. I enjoyed your company. I didn’t realise that you were building a future in your mind, a future I’d never choose to be a part of. A future that was impossible,” he amended with a rough shake of his head.
“But you could read me like a book,” she reminded him angrily. “You knew how much I wanted you. Why didn’t you see that it was more than just sex? Why didn’t you see that I believed I was in love with you?”
“Because love was nowhere on my radar,” he said firmly. “It never occurred to me that it was on yours.”
He compressed his lips, frustrated by their quarrelling, and by the fact they used to be able to speak as two people who were in complete lockstep on so many issues. Because it was temporary. Because she was in Abu Qara for the summer and there was no risk. He could be with her without worrying about a future, because it was impossible, her acceptance at Oxford something she’d spoken of often, with such pride and excitement. She was outside of the rules he’d established for himself, rules that were essential to being able to serve his kingdom.
Except he’d been wrong. When someone fell in love, they didn’t let something as simple as geography separate them. Out of nowhere, Zafar thought of his mother and the pain she’d known, all her life. He thought of how his father had disappointed her, let her down, relished in hurting them both whenever he could, his rejection something Zafar had become used to, inured to, had even grown to expect he deserved. And he wished he’d been able to stop himself from hurting Amelia. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
“I would like our marriage to be intimate. I don’t see any reason in denying ourselves something so pleasurable. But I would have a condition.”
He pinpointed her with his gaze just as her lips made a small frown, her brows drawing together until a divot formed at her brows. “You’re wanting to strike a deal…for sex? Even when I’ve just said that’s the opposite of what I want?”
His look was mocking. “I think we both know the truth. If I’m wrong, then fine. But if I’m not,” he murmured, taking the sterling silver lid off a plate to reveal slow cooked lamb with spiced chickpeas. “Here’s what you need to understand.”
He took it as a good sign that she wasn’t storming out. She was listening, which showed curiosity, at least, if not an admission – to herself – that sex between them was likely.
“I meant what I said, back then. I think love is a dangerous concept, designed to fool us into a state of codependency that eventually backfires. I don’t believe in it.” His eyes met hers, to show her how serious he was. “But I believe in partnerships. I believe in mutual respect, intelligent conversations and physical desire. I believe we can still make an excellent marriage, a marriage you enjoy being part of, a marriage that protects you from being hurt again, so long as you understand the limitations of our arrangement.”
Her eyes softened, sympathy in her features. “Why do you feel like this?” She asked, stepping towards him. For a moment, he thought she was going to touch him, to run her fingers softly over his cheek, as though he were a little boy in need of comfort. “What happened to you to break you so completely?”
To break him? He stiffened at the description, pushing it aside. “There will come a time when you’ll accept what’s between us. You’ll draw me towards you, beg me to make love to you, and when you do, I want you to enjoy it. I want to make you feel as you never have before.” He stood, his body towering over hers, framing her, his arms moving of their own volition to pull her against him. “I will give you night after night after night after night of pleasure, but only if you say you understand. Love is not, and never will be, a part of our marriage. Sex means nothing.”
She stared up at him and he felt as though all the air in the world had disappeared, leaving a ghastly vacuum that pressed down on his lungs until they burned.
“Go to hell, Zafar, you arrogant son of a bitch.”
* * *
It didn’t make any sense. He stared at the note and read it again, wondering at the words there. They swam before his eyes, shattering the walls of his world, changing everything he knew about his place in it. It must have been sent in error. “Get me Bashir.” The words fired like bullets across the room, strafing the two guards by the door. “Immediately. I must speak to him at once.”
His eyes flew open, his breath ragged, gaze fixed on the ceiling above the bed. How many times was he destined to relive that moment in his sleep? Why could his brain not simply let it go? At least he’d been saved from the conclusion, waking up before the next ghastly scene could play out with that psychedelic filter dreams had a way of layering over the recollection of events.
It took Zafar a moment to realise he hadn’t woken by accident. A knock sounded at his door. Timid at first but then getting louder, before turning into someone slamming their palm in an urgent temp.
He pushed back the sheet and strode towards the door, wrenching it inwards. Amelia was the last person he expected to see. Mired in the past, with all the reasons their relationship had always been forbidden rolling through him, he wondered if she too was part of the nightmare? Perhaps he’d conjured her into a new variant of the dream that haunted him mercilessly. Except she was really there, and her pale, pinched face roused him from his reflections, so concern overtook every other emotion.
“Come in, sit down.” He opened the door wider.
She looked as though she was about to demur but then, with a glance over her shoulder at the guards down the hallway, she ground her teeth together and crossed the threshold.
“This won’t take long.” She wore black yoga pants and a floating cream top – hardly the stuff of fantasies, yet his body’s response was immediate. His eyes roamed her shape, frustrated by the little he could see of her curves, so that he wished to strip her naked and revel in her supple flesh and new roundness.
“This won’t take long.” Just inside the door, she paused.
He waited, frustrated, impatient and curious in equal measure, but Amelia was suddenly quiet. “Is something the matter?”
Her laugh lacked humour. “You could say that.” She banged her palm to her forehead, her distress obvious. “This is such a mess. I don’t want to marry you.”
