AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER ELEVEN
STANDINGBESIDEHIM and not speaking was a form of agony, so too their obvious desire to avoid touching. The horse race was well attended, reminding her of news footage she’d seen of Ascot or Australia’s Melbourne Cup, well-dressed men and women piling into the racecourse, prepared for a day of fun and adventure.
In other circumstances, India might have enjoyed the day, but the argument she’d had with Khalil—several days ago now—was still festering in the back of her mind. She’d tried to make her peace with what had happened, but the more she thought about it, the angrier she became, the more hurt.
That he would trust someone like Ethan Graves over her!
Hearing him speak about the other man’s conduct, she could perfectly understand why Khalil had wanted to hurt him, but to allow her to become collateral damage?
‘After the morning’s events, I will have to leave you for a time. It’s tradition for me to ride a lap of the course.’
She nodded without looking at him. One of the servants who’d helped her dress for today had already explained the procedure. ‘Fine.’ She didn’t look at him.
‘India,’ he sighed. ‘This has to stop.’
She compressed her lips.
‘The doctor said you are not supposed to be upset.’
She fidgeted her fingers at her sides. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You have not been fine for days.’
It was true. They’d seen each other multiple times and she’d barely spoken to him. She wasn’t trying to prolong their argument, only she had no idea what to say. Her heart was in tatters, her mind furious. She hadn’t realised how desperately she’d been clinging to the idea that their first night together had been about something else, something completely separate from all of this.
She’d been wrong.
She’d been a pawn to him, a dispensable, worthless tool to inflict pain on a man who didn’t even deserve his consideration.
It was impossible to forgive.
‘Do you blame me?’ she asked, looking up at him finally.
He swallowed hard. ‘No.’ Surprise stirred in her eyes. ‘I don’t blame you at all, India.’
She looked away quickly, emotions rioting. They were just words, but they moved through her in a way that was terrifying, so she needed to remember why she was so angry with him, why this was all such a disaster.
His fingers curled around her cheek, turning her to face him. ‘We can leave.’
‘We can’t leave,’ she demurred. ‘We are in a royal box with cameras trained on us. You have to ride your lap of honour or whatever. We’re stuck.’ And she didn’t just mean here, at this fancy horse race. They were stuck in every sense of the word, trapped by one night, for the rest of their lives.
He shook his head. ‘We can leave.’
She didn’t respond this time. Aware of the cameras, she lifted her hand to his, removing it from her cheek. To the outside world, it was a moment of shared affection, but for India, she simply needed him to stop touching her. She felt too much, even then, swaying towards him as though there were an inevitability to their being together, when that wasn’t—couldn’t be—true.
‘And then what, Khalil?’ She let the words fall between them, rock boulders into choppy water. ‘Tomorrow there’ll be another event, and another the day after that. This is my life now.’ She swallowed hard, but a lump in her throat made it almost impossible to breathe. ‘There’s no sense trying to run away from it.’
He wanted to ride his horse as he did in the desert. He wanted to lean low to the stallion’s mane and whisper words of urgency, to kick his side three times, fast, so that the beast took flight, carrying him as though he would make for the horizon at any moment. He wanted to ride far away from here, and this. But not all of this. His eyes sought her without his permission, landing on the royal box and scanning the seats until he found her. She was still standing, as they’d been together, her eyes trained on him. Even at this distance, he could feel her tension, her stress and strain.
There’s no sense trying to run away from it.
He turned the corner, so his back was to her now, and he resisted—just—a desire to cast a glance over his shoulder.
She was right. They couldn’t run away. Though the desert beckoned him, there were no answers there. It was no longer an escape path for him. Khalil’s place was here, with her. They were having children together, and she had agreed to marry him. In a matter of months, he would be crowned Sheikh of Khatrain and all the responsibilities of ruling this great country would fall to him.
They would live together as man and wife and they would need to forge a path that didn’t involve so much recrimination.
He couldn’t hurt her again.
