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Her mother nodded. “Safe and sound thanks to Mahindar’s protection.” She blinked shrewd eyes at Arabelle. “But I’m not happy you’re alone here and defenseless. I really don’t know what he was thinking sending you away.”
The emotions that Arabelle had pushed deep down inside her were suddenly set free, a mishmash of fear, shame, sadness, rejection, humiliation and pain. She pushed to her feet, her chair scraping back loudly. “I couldn’t give him a baby, Mom. The moment he discovered I didn’t conceive was the moment he got rid of me.Thatwas all I meant to him!”
“You couldn’t be more wrong,habibi.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Arabelle’s heart crashed as she looked at the man who’d haunted her dreams every night since leaving Rajhabi. She dragged her eyes from him to stare at her mother. “You knew he was here, didn’t you?”
She nodded, her eyes shining with concern. “I’m not blind, dear. You belong together. Not even your career has made you happy without him in your life.”
Arabelle swallowed back the sick rage building inside her. “I-I don’t believe you two. It’s taken me s-six months to rebuild my life and y-you do this!” She waved an arm in the air. “I can’t go back. This is my life now!”
She turned and ran past shocked diners, brushing past a waiter with a drinks tray and making the glasses rattle. She kept on running, past more tables and chairs and out the back door. She pushed through it, her legs now weaker than cooked spaghetti.
“Arabelle, wait. Please!”
She spun around as Mahindar stepped outside the alleyway with her. Tears burned the back of her eyes, her throat thick with emotion. How could she hate him beyond all endurance and yet want to throw herself at him all at the same time?
She folded her arms. “Howdareyou come back after all this time and pretend you want me. You can’t push me away and then reel me back in. It doesn’t work like that! I have a life here, a career! I’m finally happy.”
“Are you?” Mahindar asked softly even as he stalked toward her, the rain spilling over him and glinting on his dark hair and shoulders like diamonds. “I wouldn’t be here if I thought for even a second you were truly happy. And I most certainly wouldn’t be here begging for your forgiveness. You’re going through the motions. That’s not living,habibi.”
Habibi.She shivered at the endearment she never thought she’d hear again.
He stopped half-a-dozen paces away from her. “I’ve been watching you these last few days, Arabelle. I know there is no one you love here in England. I also know you’re missing something in your life and that you crave something more.”
“Let me guess, that something—someone—is you.”
“It could be.” He arched a dark brow. “I don’t need a psych degree to work that out when I see you close your eyes and tilt your head up to the rain or when I see your silhouette through the window as you dance alone in your apartment at night.”
He stopped in front of her, his voice both decisive and uncertain. “You wanted your freedom,habibi,and you got it. But it’s nothing without me, is it?”
“Go. To. Hell.”
“I’ve already been there for six long months. I can’t do another month. I can’t even do another day. We belong together, Arabelle.” He smiled grimly. “Not even your pretend love interest will interfere this time.”
The yearning pulsing through her was sending her dizzy. But it didn’t stop the bitter anger and resentment she’d suffered all those long months. “You sent me away the moment you knew I wasn’t pregnant.”
“I did. It seemed like fate after what you endured when I was responsible for your welfare. I couldn’t see you hurt like that again. Not ever.”
“Yet you didn’t even flinch when you saw what my captors had done to my face. You didn’t care about me then and you don’t care about me now!”
His eyes widened. “You couldn’t be more wrong,habibi.I was shocked and furious to my core. But I couldn’t give away my emotions to those animals who’d captured you. I had to let them believe I was cold and indifferent and that they were the ones who were in danger, not you.”
She believed him. There was no denying the raw honesty in his voice. But she wasn’t about to give into the hope clawing at her insides. She pressed a hand to her stomach. “So why come back?”
“Because it’s taken me this long to realize I can’t wrap you in cotton wool. You could as easily get hit by a bus in London’s peak hour traffic or hit by lightning as you look up at a storm. Either of those scenarios is far more likely to occur than anyone in my palace having the opportunity to kidnap you ever again.”
He scraped a hand over his face, the trench coat keeping out most of the rain from his suit while his dark hair was slicked to his scalp. It only made the angles and planes of his face stand out more starkly. He’d lost weight, too.
“I need you, Arabelle. I did the wrong thing sending you away. All it’s done is make me—make us both—miserable.”
She glowered, fighting to the end. “I love my job. I’m good at what I do!”
He nodded. “What would you say if you could have meandyour career?” She blinked at him through the rain and he added, “There is no reason you can’t read and edit from Rajhabi. It’s safe there now, the war ended.”
“My publisher would never agree—“
