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“Perhaps it is my conscience I hear then. I know that loving you should mean I am prepared to set you free. But the risk that you might choose a life away from me rips me apart. A month ago, the night I told you of my father, you were prepared to come with me. You loved me then. I know you will love me again.”
“I don’t want to love you again,” she said angrily. “You walked away from me without a backwards glance. You treated me as though I’d been a convenient stopgap in your life, but that my usefulness was at an end. You left, and I was …” She swallowed. She didn’t want him to know how badly she had struggled. It was mortifying to realise the depth of her dependence.
But he understood.
“I know. I know. I felt it too. But my duties here …”
She made a noise of disapproval. “I don’t care about your duties here. Your father met your mother and he married her within a week. Because he loved her. You could have done what you wanted. If you truly loved me, you would not have left me in Vegas. You would have brought me here, to hell with the consequences.”
He moved to her, but he didn’t touch her. “Why do you speak of my father?”
“Because I was summoned to him just now,” she snapped. “He was positively thrilled to learn that I don’t love you. Or Ra’if, for that matter.”
“You told my father you do not love me?” He pushed quietly.
“Yes.” She lifted her chin. “And it’s true.” Her eyes were clouded with deep emotions.
“No, it’s not.” He ran a thumb over her lower lip. “Let me show you how I know this for a fact.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, determined not to be impressed. No matter what he did or said, she was determined to steel her heart against it.
He reached into his robes and pulled out a black bow with gold thread through it. It was only when he knelt down, and held the bow up to her hands that she saw it was tied around a circle of gold. And her heart began to pound; her mouth was dry. “Olivia Henderson, you can leave any time you want to. But before you do, I ask you only to listen to what I’m about to say. Would you give me the honour of the next five minutes of your time before you make your decision?”
Her eyes narrowed and her chest contracted painfully, but she nodded.
“I am aware … believe me, I realise that I erred in dragging you here. It is yet another crime against me. I was stupid and I was wrong. I found though, that when faced with the possibility of losing you for good, and I knew that I would do anything to avoid that.”
“You have already lost me for good,” she interrupted angrily.
“I thought that I could fix everything easily enough. That you would forgive my stupidity, and we would be as we once were. But your first night here, in my apartment, I saw how badly I had damaged you. My actions were those of a selfish man, entirely used to thinking only of his own interests.
“I choose not to apologise for how I behaved, because it would demean you to accept my apology. I don’t expect forgiveness for the way I treated you. I made you doubt everything you felt. You loved me, as I loved you, and yet I left you as though that love meant nothing to me. When really, your love is the greatest gift I have ever received.” Olivia pulled her hands away so that she could wipe the tears from her cheeks. “Your love is all that matters to me.”
“Instead of apologising, I want to pledge to you that I know how wrong I was. I want to promise you that if I could go back in time and change that night, I would have brought you – beautiful, sweet, generous Olivia Henderson – to Dashan and introduced you as my betrothed. My life. I will never, for the rest of our lives, leave you in any doubt of my feelings.”
She sobbed and pulled her hands away from him. Her voice was cracked with emotion when she spoke. “I still don’t understand why.”
“I had many reasons, and all of them stupid.”
“What reasons? I need to know. I have wondered … I have thought about this for a long time. Why did you leave me, when I would have followed you anywhere?”
His lips twisted into a sad smile. “I believed you would be miserable here. It is not your culture, and the strictures of palace life can be daunting. You yourself have remarked on how stifling my life must be.”
“I don’t believe you. You would have said that at the time, if that was your motivation.”
He dipped his head forward in concession.
“Was your mother miserable?”
“No,” he agreed with a shake of his head. “And I know now that you would have been as happy here as anywhere else.”
“More so, because I would have been with the man I loved.”
“Please, Olivia, do not use the past tense. I know you love me still, though perhaps you don’t trust me enough to admit it yet.”
She didn’t respond. Her heart knew that his words were truthful. But she didn’t want to give in to him.
“I had no intention of marrying anyone. Not for a long time. I met you, but I stubbornly clung to that decision. My job was to take the reins of the country and keep it in good stead. How I felt for you would distract me from that. It does distract me from that. And yet I still want to feel it. I cannot imagine a world in which I don’t have you. In which I don’t love you.”
