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He strode past them without acknowledgement, reaching her door just as she went to close it.
‘Wait,’ he said gruffly, pressing his forearm against it, holding it ajar.
‘Why? Is there anything more to say, Your Highness?’
He hated it when she used his title; it put distance between them, a distance he didn’t want. ‘Let me in.’
For a moment, he wondered if she was going to refuse—and what he would do if she did! Every bone in his body wanted him to speak with her some more, but he wasn’t going to strong-arm his way into her suite if she was determined to keep him out. He stood where he was, something strange gripping his chest, a sense of concern he couldn’t comprehend. Even when she stepped back to open the door wider, the worry didn’t evaporate.
‘Thank you,’ he said, pacing into the room and putting his hands on his hips.
‘What do you want?’ She matched his gesture, hands thrust on hips, eyes glaring through his.
‘I noticed you before I saw him,’ he said, before he could stop himself—it was something he’d never wanted to reveal to her. And yet, faced with her obvious devastation, and the reasons for it, he knew he couldn’t lie to her, even when some form of self-preservation was pushing him to. It would be better if she believed it had all been a ruse to make Ethan sweat, but that wasn’t the sum total of why they’d come together.
‘I saw you across the room and felt like I’d been smacked in the gut. I wanted you and I swore I’d have you, regardless of who you were with. Seeing it was Ethan was a way to kill two birds with one stone, I suppose. But that’s not why I wanted you.’
She didn’t respond, but her body was taut, her spine straight, shoulders squared. There was a defensiveness about her that made him ache, and it was all the worse because he’d done this to her. It was late in the day to realise how much he liked seeing her smile.
‘Whether you were with Ethan or not, I would have wanted you, India. I would have done everything I could to take you home with me.’
The admission was wrenched from deep inside; he felt as though he was giving away a part of himself he had wanted to keep firmly boxed up.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said softly, the words rich with sadness. His gut twisted.
‘It clearly does matter. You are upset.’
‘Yes.’ She nodded curtly. ‘I am. And a half-hearted explanation that, actually, you were kind ofattracted to me after all doesn’t change the fact that you used me. What other explanation is there for the fact you told him we were going home together?’
‘I have already admitted I wanted to take something from him, something of value. I had no idea then that your date was simply an...arrangement.’
She closed her eyes.
‘No, you didn’t. You thought we were a couple, and you decided to take me from him. But it was never actually about me. It was about you and Ethan and Astrid.’
‘You’re not listening to me. I’m saying—belatedly—that I wanted you before I knew he was your date.’
‘And I’m supposed to be flattered by that?’
‘You’re supposed to see that you’re right—what we shared that night was about you and me, not him. No one else.’
‘You waved our leaving together in his face!’ she shouted. ‘You hate this man. He has shown himself to be the worst of the worst, yes?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘What he did to Astrid was an abomination, I understand that. But nothing excuses what you did to me. I didn’t ask to be a part of any of this.’
‘If my sole purpose was to hurt him, I could have bragged about taking you home and then dropped you back at your place. Spending the night together was unnecessary to finalise that part of my intentions.’
‘Come on, Khalil. You’re still a red-blooded man. You were hardly going to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially one giving themselves to you so freely.’ She paused angrily, shaking her head. ‘Not so “freely”, of course. You believed there would be a charge at the end of the night.’
‘Don’t,’ he ground out, irritation and impatience and anger all snapping through him. ‘I’m trying to say that before Ethan sullied what we shared with his...revelation, I had one of the best nights of my life. Our babies were conceived out of something good. Something that was special to both of us, at the time.’
‘But it wasn’t.’ She shook her head. ‘It was brought about by hate. And if you don’t believe me, let me show you how I know this to be true.’
His breath exploded from his lungs, angry and fast. His words were being twisted, and he had only himself to blame. Hadn’t he intentionally misled her about that night? He had wanted to protect himself, and so he’d misled her as to the true reason he’d taken her home, but it had backfired, spectacularly. He would do anything not to have India feel like this.
‘You have told me what Ethan did to Astrid. He is a horrible man, I agree. Despicable, untrustworthy, and mean.’
He dipped his head at her accurate assessment.
‘And yet you believed him, about me,’ she whispered.
