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Her heart swelled at the distress in her father’s tone, symbolic of the unconditional love she had taken for granted her whole life.
Kamal has never had that kind of support. Don’t underestimate how tough it is for him to let his guard down. To trust his feelings, as well as yours.
She nodded at her father. ‘I know, but I can handle this now.’
Her father’s gaze flicked from Kamal to her, and she could see he didn’t want to leave her alone. But then her mother approached and took his arm.
‘Give it up, Zane,’ her mum said, placing a tender kiss on his jaw as she tugged him out of the room. ‘She’s not our little girl any more. She’s her own woman. And she’s got this.’
As the door closed behind her parents, Liah felt the balloon in her chest swell to impossible proportions. But she made herself swallow it down.
She could see the emotion on his face, knew that much more was going on than she had assumed. But one thing still held true—she had to stand her ground now, more than ever, for them both.
He stepped towards her and lifted his thumb, brushing it down the sore skin on her cheek, irritated by too many tears, tears he had caused.
‘I am sorry, Kaliah. I did not mean to make you cry.’
She blinked, touched by the simplicity of the statement and the abject misery in his face. ‘I know.’
‘Why then did you run from me?’ he asked, as if he really didn’t know.
But she could see in his eyes, he did know. So she chose not to answer that question.
‘I can’t come back to you, Kamal. I won’t. Not until you give me a good enough reason.’
He swore softly and stepped away, thrusting impatient fingers through his hair. She could see the flash of frustration, of temper even, but beneath it was the fear. It was so clear and vivid to her now, she was amazed she hadn’t seen it before.
Or perhaps he had always just been really good at hiding it from her—from everyone.
Her heart lifted a little more, the hope expanding again. That he couldn’t hide it from her any more was definitely progress, of a sort.
He marched across the room and clasped his hands behind his back, staring out of the domed window at the Golden Palace’s gardens and the high walls bathed in sunshine.
But something about that rigid stance—the tremor in his legs, the bunched muscles in his shoulders—made her see the darkness within. A darkness from which she could feel him struggling to break free. When he finally spoke, his voice a strained monotone, she sensed the battle he waged, even as she willed him to win.
‘You asked me to love you,’ Kamal said, feeling so broken inside, so needy, he was surprised his guts hadn’t spilled out onto the priceless Afghan carpet on Zane Khan’s study floor.
If he hadn’t been so terrified, he would have been humiliated beyond bearing. But grovelling—even exposing all these horrifying new emotions—didn’t seem so insurmountable any more if it would bring her back to him.
‘But I don’t even understand what that means,’ he whispered, mortified by the rawness in his throat, the soreness behind his eyes. ‘My earliest memory...before Hamid, before the orphanage...’ he gulped, the memory still so painful ‘...is of the man who left me there. I think he must have been my father. But he did not love me. He cannot have done or he would not have left me. And if he could not...how can anyone?’
His father had left him. And he hadn’t come back. He could have been a good boy, a better boy, but his father had never given him the chance to make amends for whatever he had done.
He had never cried, not since he’d been a little boy and he had begged for his father to return. Only to find all the tears in the world would not change what was.
But he had to strain every sinew now not to release the futile tears again as he waited for Kaliah’s response to his confession.
He heard her footsteps, and braced himself for the pain of her leaving him again, but then her arms wrapped around his waist from behind and she pressed her face into his spine.
He slumped, the relief coursing through his body so immense, he was surprised he could still remain upright.
‘It’s okay, Kamal,’ she said softly, her voice like a balm to that little boy, as well as the man he had become. ‘You don’t have to understand love—you don’t even have to say you love me yet. All you have to do is let me know you need me. We can work everything else out as we go.’
He turned, clasped her shoulders and dug his fingers into her upper arms to lift her face to his. The tears glinting in her eyes crucified him, even as the tears he could not shed tore at his own heart. ‘Really? This is all you require? How can it be enough?’
He wanted to believe her, wanted more than anything to pick her up and carry her to the nearest bed chamber so he could claim her, brand her as his for all eternity. But how could what he had given ever really be enough when she had given so much more?
A small smile creased her lips as she placed a trembling palm against his cheek. ‘Because I love you, Kamal,’ she said so simply, he felt his heart break open inside his chest and all the fear and confusion bleed out. ‘I love your strength and your arrogance and your determination to protect me, and your desperate need never to show a weakness except to me.’
