‘Use my duty to my people against me?’
She gasped. ‘Zufar, I don’t know what you’re talking—’
He stared down at her, the inevitability of loss continuing to suffocate him. ‘And what happens after that?’
Her eyes widen. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you intend to commute back and forth between your kingdom and mine?’
Her forehead gathered in a delicate frown. Then she shrugged. ‘This is all new. I don’t have the answers, Zufar. But I think you know that I owe it to my people to at least let them know who I am.’
A part of him felt shame for her hurt, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the terrible anguish scything its way through him. He despised the feeling. Enough for him to approach her, despite his vow to refrain from touching her.
She had enough on her plate without his ever-growing hunger for her saturating the atmosphere between them. It was a decision he’d made in Prague after watching her sleep, seeing the shadows beneath her eyes, and knowing that he was partly to blame for it.
For the first two weeks of their marriage, he’d never let a night pass with
out making love to her, his need so great it had confounded him even then. That need had grown into unbearable proportions by the time they’d arrived in Prague.
When the demands of his duties had kept him way from the marriage bed for that first night, he’d watched her for signs that she’d missed him the next morning. There had been none.
The idea that the carnal weakness was on his part alone had brought him up short. And when, night after night, Niesha had made no attempts to reach for him, he’d had his answer. He’d roped her into a bargain to provide him with an heir, but was that all it was for her? Was that the only reason for her welcoming him into her body?
Perhaps that was the reason she could speak so freely of leaving him behind for four days.
‘If that’s the plan, you’ll need to rethink it because it won’t be sustainable,’ he bit out.
She paled a little, but continued to hold his gaze boldly. ‘What are you saying, Zufar?’
‘I’m saying that even the shortest of separations has a habit of growing. It’s not healthy for any marriage. My parents led separate lives, my mother lived in the east wing and my father lived in the west. Even under the same roof, their marriage was a sham. I do not wish this for myself.’
‘I agree, but—’
‘I know what I want and it certainly did not involve living in separate countries.’
‘So you wish me to renounce my birthright?’ she demanded with a hint of tears in her eyes.
Ice gripped his nape hard. ‘I’m saying that hard choices need to be made.’
‘And you want me to be the one to make them?’ Her eyes brimmed, her mouth trembling for one second before she pursed it.
He wanted to lift his hand to her face, brush away her tears, but that would be giving in. For as long as he could remember his father had given in to his mother’s every whim, making himself deeply miserable at every turn. Zufar had vowed never to leave himself that vulnerable. But...was it already too late?
‘We had an agreement,’ he threw at her.
She took in a heavy, shaky breath. ‘And I am not reneging on it. I’m only trying to find a way—’
‘A way to do what?’ He knew he was being unreasonable, but for the life of him, he couldn’t stop. He was floundering, hurting her, hurting himself in the process but there didn’t seem to be a life raft in sight, and with every moment that passed his anguish strangled him, making him hold tight to the one thing that he knew he couldn’t hold onto.
Niesha.
‘You promised me five years,’ he repeated, as if that would make her fall at his feet, and give him everything he wanted. When really, a greater part of him wanted it to be the other way round. But how could he, without leaving himself desperately exposed?
Slowly her regal head lifted, her eyes condemning him, challenging him to remain obstinate, to keep standing in her way. ‘I don’t recall signing any piece of paper saying you owned me for five years.’
He wasn’t sure why that statement both shocked and made him proud. He had already admitted his flaw in striking that bargain. A part of him applauded her for jumping through that wide loophole.
‘I’m aware that all we had was a verbal agreement,’ he stated. ‘But I still wish you to stand by it.’