Was he hoping there was another reason? It almost made her laugh – a brittle sound that she swallowed.
“You can put me down,” she said, calm on the surface. “I’ll be fine now we’re at the palace. Go and deal with this situation.”
He frowned. “I will handle my brother…”
“After you’ve handled your wife?” She intentionally invoked that long ago night, the night when Raffa had said those words to Amit and then to Chloe.
She wasn’t angry at him, she was terrified of them – of what they were and what they’d become – but it expressed itself as anger and rage. She pushed at his chest so that he let her go, sliding her to the ground.
“Thank you,” she said, stiffly. “Please come and explain this to me later.” She turned before he could say anything, but as she stalked towards the door that would lead to the wide sweeping steps of the east wing, she heard him command a servant, “Go with Her Highness. Make sure she is comfortable and resting.”
It put Chloe in half a mind to do something foolish, like go play tennis or golf, instead of doing as he’d suggested.
But she was shaken and exhausted, mentally drained, and the heat from the day played havoc with her senses. The sun was on the wane now – somewhere out in the desert, far from the palace, the tent was there, ready for the night, the night she had imagined spending with her husband. Far from all this, far from his duties and responsibilities and the constraints of their royal marriage.
It was dusk when he appeared at her room, looking as though he’d run a marathon for three days straight. There was an utter exhaustion about him that she instantly ached to wipe clean, to fix.
But she didn’t. She stayed where she was, sitting at her desk, reading emails. Only her head shifted, turning towards him.
“Well?” She asked, cocking a brow. “What’s happened?”
“He’s gone.” He ran a hand across the back of his neck.
“Amit?”
“Goran.”
“I meant, how is Amit?”
“He’ll be fine. He didn’t want to go. He knows what his father’s like.”
“And what’s that?” She asked, standing now, but keeping a careful distance.
“A bully. A drunk. Someone he is better off not having in his life.”
Chloe swept her eyes shut. “I don’t understand any of this. You were in a relationship with Elena, yes? You told me she loved you. And she’s Raffa’s mother?”
His nostrils flared and she could see him weighing his words.
“When I was a child, my father had an affair. It was brief. Foolish. Tempestuous and ill-thought-out. It broke my mother’s heart.” He said the words with obvious condemnation, easily invoking his disdain for the idea of love without needing to speak the words anew. “Goran was the result of that affair. My father allowed him to be raised in the palace – and it destroyed my mother. She rarely came here.”
“Even to see you,” Chloe murmured softy.
“Even to see me.” The confirmation was cold, without the emotional pain Chloe knew her husband must feel. “Goran and I barely spent any time together. I knew who he was, and vice versa, but he was nothing to me.”
Chloe frowned. “He’s your brother.”
“As Apollo is yours,” he pointed out smoothly.
“But Apollo and I… Apollo hated me…”
“And Goran hated me,” Raffa said, his jaw clenched. “I didn’t realise that, of course, until it was too late.”
“What do you mean?” A frisson of apprehension crossed her whole body.
“He – wrongly – perceived Elena to be my intended bride. He believed I loved her, enough that stealing her from me might wound me. That he might triumph over me at last.” He said the words with thick fury. “She fell pregnant to him and when he realized, then, that I didn’t care, he left her. He left the country.”
Chloe’s gasp was one of utter outrage. “How dare he?”
“She was not much better,” Raffa said. “She had Amit, and when he was only two weeks old, she too disappeared, leaving only a note.”
“What did it say?”
“She didn’t want to be a mother. She didn’t want to be in the palace and know she could never have me – obviously I couldn’t have married her, even if I’d wanted to, after she’d carried my brother’s baby. She knew it was the death knell to any future with me, and so she left.”
“You mean she’s out there somewhere and just choosing not to be in Amit’s life?”
“Yes.” His eyes sparked with Chloe’s. “As you know, biology does not a mother make. He is unwanted by his mother, and his father uses him only in so much as he hopes it might hurt me.”
“Oh, poor Amit,” she sank into a comfortable chair, curling her knees beneath her. “I’m so sorry to hear this. That dear boy – and so sweet.” She shook her head sadly, and her heart was thumping with the importance of that moment, of the moments that were to follow. Adrenaline charged her veins. “So Amit is not your son, and you cannot acknowledge him as your heir?”
“No.”
She nodded slowly. She saw it all so clearly, and yet she wanted his stark confirmation of her assessments. She needed him to spell it out for her, so she understood the imperative of her decision.
“And you need a legitimate heir because otherwise Goran would be next in line to your father’s throne?”
Raffa’s eyes darkened. “Something that didn’t matter until recently.”
Chloe’s eyes swept shut. “But when Malik succumbs to his illness, you think he’ll challenge you for the throne?”
“Yes.”
“And you think he’ll be successful.”
Raffa expelled an angry laugh. “No. But he will cause a lot of damage in the meantime. Our freedom and prosperity are hard-fought. We cannot afford a civil war.”
He seemed to push the unpleasant thoughts away, standing straighter and looking at her with renewed intent. “None of this matters, Sheikha. We will have an heir, and from the moment your pregnancy is announced, Goran’s prospects will die.”
14
THE CALL CAME THE
