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No wonder he’d focused so much on the circumstances that led to his parents’ deaths. No wonder he’d dwelt so much on how he could seek retribution. Paolo was the obvious target.
But his words and the depth of his feeling were shocking. ‘Khaled,’ she said, ‘your parents died in tragic circumstances. But don’t let that spoil your whole life. Don’t let hate consume you. Don’t you think your parents would want you to get on with your life and not dwell on the circumstances of their deaths?’
‘You do not understand.’
‘I understand that it was fate that took your parents from you, and had it not been that day it might well have been another. What if the wedding had gone on as planned and they were killed in a motorway accident on their way to the wedding—who would you have blamed then, the bride for agreeing to marry you?’
‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘Neither does pursuing someone to the ends of the earth for something they had no control over.’ He opened his mouth to protest and she launched straight into the next sentence without giving ground. ‘Yes, he spoilt your wedding plans, but don’t you see, he didn’t send your parents to the mountains? It was their choice, you said, to go there. They chose to be on that mountain, not Paolo. You can’t blame him for what happened next.’
‘And you don’t blame your mother for what’s happened between you and your sisters?’
His words took her by surprise and she reeled back. ‘That’s hardly the same thing…’
‘Isn’t it? She comes back from the dead and now you have competition for your sisters’ affections and you don’t like it. You actually resent her for being alive. Ironic, isn’t it, that I would have given anything for my mother to live and you would be quite happy if your mother had remained safely “dead”.’
‘Khaled! What a horrible thing to say.’
It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Sure, she wanted things to be the way they’d always been before, but that was hardly the same thing.
He took a deep breath and dropped his head back. He felt weary and sick. Heartsick. Was that the word for how it felt when your insides ached as though they’d been pulped?
There was nothing for it now. He had no other means of convincing her to stay, no other words he could say. She’d taken his declaration of love as a lie and why should she suddenly change her mind and believe him now? Attacking her just now would have been the last straw.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should never have said that.’ He sighed, long and loud, with the aching tiredness of someone who had hated for far too long. ‘I think it’s best that I take you to the airport right away. Do you need help packing?’
She looked at him, all wide-eyed and pale, barely moving.
‘You have no need to fear. I will not stop you leaving tonight. I’ll arrange for the jet and crew to be on standby and send someone to pick up your bags in, say, half an hour?’
This time she nodded, her murmured assent the barest whisper. And then he let himself out of her rooms, letting his eyes drink in until the last click of the door the sight of her in the crumpled gown, committing her sweet lines to memory, knowing that he had forever lost the battle to make her his bride.
They were silent on the way to the airport and for that she was grateful. She doubted she could have spoken anyway, her throat chokingly tight, her chest feeling as if someone had squeezed all the air from it, so there would have been precious little anyway to give sound to her words.
Khaled sat brooding one seat’s width and yet an entire world away. He had given up and for that she should be happy. No more lies, no more promises or entreaties. No more declarations of love. She’d thought he might try to convince her that at least that much had been true, that he’d fallen in love with her and that there was still a chance for them, still a future together. She’d been expecting it. She’d even hoped that much was true.
But there had been nothing and the emptiness inside her grew as did her certainty that that, too, had been a lie.
At least he was letting her go. Now she could return to Milan; now she would be free.
She looked at the land surrounding the airport road, out over the sandy plains and stunted trees, and her heart ached with the impending separation. So much for being free. Part of her would always belong here, in this desert kingdom with the tall, golden-skinned sheikh named Khaled. With the man she could never now tell she loved.
They passed through airport security, markedly tightened since her arrival, the presence of guards a disturbing but necessary reaction to their earlier troubles. Then they were through the gates and onto the tarmac, where the driver pulled alongside the jet, its engines already warming up. And then her door was being pulled open and before she knew it she was standing at the foot of the steps, Khaled’s hands surrounding her own, and the moment had finally come to say goodbye.
