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“You.” He moved away from the chair, coming closer to her, his eyes probing hers with uncharacteristic uncertainty. “You were a drug to me, and I was hooked from the minute you sat at my side. When the bomb went off, I felt that my life would end if yours did. Making love to you in the cabin brought everything into focus– I knew I could never let you go. Why do you think I tried so hard to make you pregnant?” he muttered, his eyes hooded as he lifted a hand and brushed it lightly over her flat stomach. She startled at his touch, a deep yearning spinning through her.
“You need an heir.” Her voice was gravelled. “That part I understood fine.”
“An heir, yes, eventually. I need a wife too. But what I want, more than anything, is a life with you. Whatever form that life might take, habibti, I don’t care, so long as you are in it.”
Her eyes were unknowingly flooded with emotion. She blinked at him, trying to understand, because surely this couldn’t be so simple. “Why?”
His lips twisted in a sort of smile. “Because you brought me to life, and every day without you has been a form of excruciating torture. I was raised to believe my sole purpose is ruling Salim – this is my duty and it is my honour to serve my people. But it is not my sole purpose, Ella. Loving and worshipping you, making you happy and content, is what I now believe I was put here to do.”
She swayed slightly, his pronouncement the very last thing she’d expected. “I don’t believe you.”
His features were drawn, his face like a mask of concentration. “Because I have betrayed you once already. Why would you believe me now?” His chest moved with the force of his breathing, his body radiating tension. “But think about it, Ella. I have nothing to gain by coming here, except your forgiveness, and that is all I seek.” He shook his head with obvious frustration. “No, even that is a lie. I seek your forgiveness, but so much more. I want you, Ella. All of you, just as you generously offered me once before, and I turned you away.” He dropped his head a little, his eyes scanning hers. “I fell in love with you and was too jaded by my past to allow that. In fact, I went out of my way to prove to myself that I didn’t love you. At every opportunity I pushed you away, shut you down, so determined was I to ignore my feelings.”
Her breathing was shallow, her lungs unable to catch enough air. She lifted a hand to his chest for support, the drumming of his heart echoing her own. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
He shook his head with frustration. “Is it so hard to believe I’m being honest with you?”
She nodded, numbly.
He captured her face in his hands, holding her gaze. “No one has ever shown you how incredibly special you are, but I intend to change that, Ella. You are everything I have waited for my entire life. I was born arrogant and entitled, told that I have everything within me I could ever need, but that is not true. I was born half a man, half a person – meeting you showed me that because when I am with you, azeezi, I am whole. For the first time in my life, I am whole.” He brushed his lips over hers; warmth spread through her body, right to the tips of her toes.
“I love you,” he said simply. “And I will never be able to make up for the fact that your father was a masochistic bastard who treated you as he did, but I can show you every single day of your life what you mean to me.”
Ella pressed her lips together to hold back a sob.
“Then again,” he pulled back a little, scanning her face thoughtfully, as though only just realising something. He moved his hands to hers, holding her arms wide. “You look as though you’ve had far less of a problem resuming your life than I have. Perhaps I’m not even offering anything you want.”
His uncertainty pulled at something deep inside of her. She bit down on her lip, unsure how to respond.
“If you don’t love me, I’ll understand that. Hell, I don’t know why I thought you’d care for me after the way I treated you. Did I not just say I was born to be arrogant and entitled?” He dropped her hands and took a step back.
Still formulating a response, Elon apparently took her silence as rejection. “I’m sorry, Ella. I’m sorry for the way I behaved towards you, and I’m sorry for coming here now and dredging all of this up. Please forget I was here.”
Disbelief and anger burst through her. “Don’t you dare walk away from me again,” she said, closing the distance and pushing at his chest, just as she had in his bedroom, the last evening they’d seen each other in Salim. “Damn you, Elon, you come here telling me you want to be different and then you start doing exactly the same thing all over again.”
His eyes widened. “I beg your pardon, I presumed I was giving you what you wanted – my departure.”
“Damn you,” she repeated angrily. “I’m a little blindsided by this, okay?” She lifted a hand to her forehead and stepped away from him, massaging her temples as she ran through everything he’d just said. Her heart was already soaring into the heavens but the last month had been a lesson in excruciating pain for Ella as well; she wasn’t sure she was ready to simply forgive and forget – yet.
“What do you want me to say?” She moaned, her eyes beseeching.
“That you love me too?”
Her lips parted on a soft exhalation. “You weren’t wrong about the arrogant thing.”
He lifted his shoulders in a self-deprecating shrug. “I know.” His eyes narrowed. “But am I wrong about your feelings?”
Ella made a soft sound of impatience. “No, of course you’re not. I love you completely. Why else would it hurt so bad? Why else would I feel like my heart has been scraped out and hollowed into nothing.” She clamped her lips together. “But I’m scared, Elon. You blew hot and cold when I was there and I don’t think I can take that again.”
His jaw clamped shut, frustration evident as he shoved his hands through his hair. “I wish, with all that I am, that I could take back how I treated you. I have explained why – my need to control how I felt about you, to prove to myself that I could walk away from you at any point.”
“And you did just that.”
“You followed me, though, little one. You lived in here.” He pressed a finger to the side of his head, then to his chest. “And here. You are a part of me – all the best parts.” He lifted his hands in a resigned gesture. “If you would like proof of how much I’ve changed, and how different I intend for this time to be, then look at my behaviour today. I am asking you to marry me, and I am waiting for your answer. I am not touching you, not kissing you, not doing anything to obfuscate how you feel with what your body wants. I know this needs to be different, and I want that too. So tell me what I need to change? Tell me the things that matter most to you and I will accede to them in a heartbeat.”
Now she had to bite back a laugh, a euphoric, bubbling sense of happiness was rioting inside her. “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”
“I’ll give you anything,” he responded quickly.
