She grimaced. “Yes. Of course, I never met that stepmother.”
“I did. You haven’t missed anything special.”
Chloe shrugged. “Diego didn’t want me.” She took a sip of her wine and then met Raffa’s eyes. “It took me a long time to come to terms with that; to accept that he wished I hadn’t been born. It’s somewhat freeing to be able to say that now, without fear, without grief. As a statement of fact, as it is. He didn’t want me.”
Raffa was as still as stone, and just as silent.
“Apollo he wanted. Apollo he loved. Apollo he was proud of. And how I wished he’d felt that for me! I spent years wishing, wanting, trying so hard. Do you know the happiest I’d ever seen him?”
“No?” Raffa asked, though he feared, in fact, he did.
“When I said I’d marry you. For just a moment – barely even a moment, actually, his eyes glowed with something like the indulgence he afforded my brother at all times.” She swallowed. “I’ll never regret this marriage.”
Raffa, across the table, felt his gut shift as though it were being tumbled through stone. “He wanted this marriage for us.”
“I know.”
It didn’t assuage the sense of darkness that was beginning to spin inside of him; a growing feeling of being somehow out of control. “And what did you want?”
She frowned, her beautiful face pulled taut by a need to be strong and smart and right all the time. He understood those compulsions, for he shared them. “I wanted to be happy.”
“And are you?”
She had a habit of pulling her lower lip between her teeth when she was thinking. It was a small gesture, but one that he’d come to recognize as her way of prevaricating.
“Don’t think. Answer.”
“Is that a command?”
“Yes.”
“I thought the interrogation was to come after?”
“I’m King. I get to choose.”
“Oh, I see.” She lifted her glass and sipped again. A breeze lifted off the desert, bringing with it the fragrance of heat and the sound of a night bird, flying in the distance.
“Answer me, or pay the consequences.”
Chloe wasn’t sure she could even remember what he’d asked, she knew only that her breath was burning inside her lungs and all she could think about was the way his body felt when it moved within her. Heat spread from cell to cell, a contagion of desire making thought and speech difficult.
After several seconds of silence, he released a growl. “You choose consequences?”
She nodded slowly, a smile playing around her lips, so that he pushed up to standing and rounded the table. He extended his hands to her and she put hers in them without hesitation. When he pulled her to standing, her body cleaved to his.
“Dance with me.”
“That’s my consequence?”
“Yes.”
“There’s no music.”
“Isn’t there?”
She frowned.
“Listen.” He lifted a finger to her lips, to encourage silence, and then smiled as he wrapped his hand around her waist, holding her flush to his body.
He moved slowly, his hips nudging hers, and she did as he said: listening.
And she heard it.
The whispering of the wind, fast and insistent, melodious as it passed through the windows of this carved building; the desert animals – tigers sprinting and calling to one another, birds flying overhead, their songs filled with the magic of this ancient land.
She pressed her cheek to his chest and danced with him, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
His body moved and hers responded; a silent call they answered together, in perfect unison.
“Why haven’t you ever asked me any of this before?” She murmured, the words adding to the sense of music surrounding them.
“When would I have had time?”
She exhaled once more, pressed her cheek to his chest, and shifted as the rhythm of his body dictated.
“You make it sound as though you were burning up with curiosity. Until a week ago, you didn’t even recognize I existed.”
“That’s definitely not true.”
“You didn’t recognize me as a woman.”
“No. You were my wife.”
She rolled her eyes, leaning back a little so she could see his face more clearly. “An odd distinction.” The moon shifted from behind a cloud, highlighting his face in silver light, making shadows and planes of his features. “Did you want to marry her?”
“Who?”
“Elena.” His grip around her waist loosened for a moment but when her eyes flew to his face, there was nothing there to suggest he was emotionally disturbed by her question. “Amit’s mother,” she explained. As though he could have forgotten who she was referring to.
“No.”
Chloe frowned. “You loved her?”
Raffa stopped moving his hips, standing still, holding Chloe to him. “I thought we just discussed this.”
Chloe frowned, her lack of comprehension obvious.
“I do not believe in love, Sheikha. It’s a drug, an addiction that drives people crazy.”
Chloe thought of the rumours about Elena and winced. Was it possible the other woman had lost her mind? That Raffa’s harsh refusal to accept love, even after Elena had borne him a child; his refusal to admit to feeling love, had taken her sanity?
Chloe could almost understand how that might feel.
Were it not for an inner-strength forged by the irons of rejection, she too might have found her husband’s ability to ignore her too painful to bear.
“She loved you,” Chloe said softly.
He stepped away from her, returning to the table. When he reached for his wine, she saw his fingers weren’t quite steady and his jaw was clenched as though he was grinding his teeth together. “Yes,” he said finally, the word spoken as though it were a hoarse expletive. His eyes latched to hers and there was anger and blame in them. “She loved me.”
“You’re angry.”
With an effort, he schooled his face into a mask of disinterest. “I am not interested in having this discussion,” he corrected. “It serves no purpose to rehash the past.”
“But the past is still in the present,” she said with impeccable logic. “She bore you a son and he lives within the palace walls. He is a young man now, and he needs a father to
