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It was also clarifying, because the reason for this hastily formed engagement evaporated. The world began to look completely different to Ella once more, her place here in Salim became instantly tenuous. She no longer belonged: the feeling was easy to recognise. She’d felt it before, many times.
“What do you mean,you want to leave?” Anya looked as though she was about to faint.
“Just what I said, Anya. I’ve notified my brother I’ll be home this afternoon; he’s expecting me. Please make all the necessary arrangements.”
“You mean for a holiday,” Anya soothed, nodding, moving towards the wardrobe.
Ella stilled her. “No. I mean for good. There is no need to pack a thing; I have clothes of my own at home.” She used the word purposefully, even though ‘home’ was an abstract concept to Ella. “There’s no need to trouble His Highness with this news. I’ll contact him myself once I arrive.”
“Do not allowher to leave, by any means.” He ground out the instruction even as he pushed his gear back into the kays, moving towards his stallion with a racing heart.
“She is adamant, your highness. What’s more –,”
“Yes?” He bit out, feeling as though his head was about to explode.
“A Mosar military jet has been dispatched to collect her.”
Elon froze, his fist pumping at his side. Sending a military jet was an unmistakable warning from Tasim. He felt the symbolism of it, and knew the danger in exacerbating the tension between their countries. He saddled the horse quickly, climbing on confidently. There were many ways to achieve his ends. Forcing himself to think laterally and favour diplomacy, he hugged the horse’s neck, keeping his body low to pick up speed.
“Have a plane fuelled. I want to leave as soon as I return.”
She waiteduntil she was up in the air to give into the sadness that had been threatening all morning. Salt curdled in her throat, her eyes stung and finally she dipped her head forward, huge tears splashing onto her knees. Her bare hand stared back at her, the ring Elon had given her left in her bedroom, along with every other physical item that she’d worn during her brief few weeks in Salim.
Her hand pressed to her flat stomach, sadness and emptiness pressing through her, a tangle of emotions making it impossible to understand anything. She knew only that she was grieving and miserable. Hopefully her mood would improve when she arrived in Mosar, and could begin putting this whole unfortunate event behind herself.
But Elon was everywhere. In her mind, her thoughts, when she closed her eyes she saw him, when she opened her eyes she felt as though he was beside her and she yearned for that to be the case. It was only as the plane came down low over the ancient city that she began to realise why she felt as though she were in physical pain.
“You cannot keep me from her.”His voice was calm, but it took a monumental effort to stare down Tasim El Silandar without simply shoving him aside. Aware that he was a guest in this man’s country and palace, Elon stood his ground, not prepared to leave without getting some kind of explanation from the woman he still fully intended to marry.
“I did no such thing,” Tasim ground out. “I accepted your engagement, despite the fact you manoeuvred it without having the decency to discuss it with me first. I accepted my sister’s assurances that she was happy in Salim even when I doubted the truth of this. And now she is home, telling me only that you agreed the engagement had been a mistake.”
Elon’s nostrils flared. “We made no such agreement.”
“You’re saying she lied to me?”
Elon didn’t react. “Not definitively.”
Tasim’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t know she was leaving.”
Elon stood straighter, his body tense.
Tasim expelled a breath. “I will not promise anything,” he said, at length. “But I will tell her you’ve come.”
Time moved slowly.Elon paced the elegant sitting room, ignoring offers of fruit and tea, wishing only to be alone. His gut twisted in a manner that was foreign and unwelcome, his mind turning over everything that had happened in the last few days. The plans he’d made in the desert to find ways to meaningfully include Ella in his life, as his partner, not just an ornamental bride or the mother to his children. He’d had no expectation of her departure. How arrogant of him to have presumed she’d sit in the palace cooling her heels until he chose to return! They’d argued and he’d left – but what had she said that he hadn’t needed to hear?
“I will happily sendhim away again, Ella.”
Her eyes fell from her brother’s, her heart in stitches.
“You do not need to see him, if you do not wish to.”
“Do you think he’d leave if you sent him?”
Tasim lifted his shoulders. “Only you can answer that. Does he have a reason to stay?”
Ella’s heart lurched. Elon thought he did. Undoubtedly, he’d come after her because he still believed she might be pregnant with his heir. Once she’d disabused him of that notion, he’d leave again. But not before she’d given him a taste of his own medicine.
“I’ll see him,” she conceded with a dip of her head. “When I’m ready.”
