knees towards her to try and hide her agitation. “Why didn’t you come to dinner?”
Kaden started to disrobe. Julia could see gleaming flesh revealed bit by bit, and her belly clenched helplessly with desire.
His voice was cool. “I got held up with a phone call to Sadiq, discussing the oil wells. They’re expecting a baby too. Not long after us.”
“Oh …” Julia didn’t know what to say. Kaden seemed to be determined to avoid any further discussion.
He came to the bed and lifted back the covers, getting in and lying down. Tension vibrated between them like a tangible thing.
Julia turned to face him, feeling her hair slip over her shoulders. “Kaden … we need to talk. It’s obvious that this isn’t working out.”
Kaden didn’t like the flare of panic. He’d been reacting all day to the gut-wrenchingly urgent need he’d had to see Julia immediately on his return from the desert. And then, when he had seen her, the relief had sent him away again just as quickly, for fear she’d read something into his reaction that he didn’t want her to see.
He felt as if he was clinging onto the last link that was rooting him in reality. That was rooting him in what he knew and had accepted for twelve long years. His distance from Julia for the past couple of days had restored some clarity, some perspective, and a sense that perhaps he wasn’t going mad … Except earlier, and now, it was back with a vengeance. Any illusion of control gone.
His whole body was rigid against the effortless pull of Julia beside him. Her soft scent was like a siren’s call to his blood. He turned his head and saw her outline: the slim shoulders, the curve of her breasts, the swell of her belly under the soft cotton of her vest. She wore vests and shorts to bed, attire he’d never seen another woman wear, and yet it inflamed him more than the slinkiest negligée he’d ever seen.
He turned away from temptation and forced out, “What isn’t working out?”
His clear reluctance to talk made the tiny flame of hope Julia had harboured that they might discuss this fade away. She was overwhelmed for a moment by the sense of futility, and lay down too. She said in a small voice, “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
For a moment there was nothing but thick silence, and then, in a move so fast she gasped, Kaden was looming over her, eyes like black pools. “Tell me, Julia. What were you going to say?”
He was fierce, when only moments before his rigid control had been palpable. She smelt the slightest hint of whisky on his breath, and somehow suspecting that he was in some sort of turmoil too made her feel simultaneously tender and combative. And something in her exulted that he was finally reacting.
Before she could say anything, though, something in the atmosphere shifted and his fingers touched her throat. He said huskily, “You’re wearing the necklace.”
Julia froze all over, going clammy. Some of her things had arrived from London earlier and she’d found the necklace. She’d put it on, feeling some silly need to connect with something she’d always found comforting. She’d fully intended to take it off.
She immediately sought to protect herself from his scrutiny and drew back minutely. “It’s OK. You don’t have to get the wrong idea …”
His voice was a lot harsher than a moment ago. “What does it mean, Julia? Why have you kept it all this time?”
Julia knocked his hand away and scrambled inelegantly out of the bed, feeling far too vulnerable lying so close to a naked Kaden.
She lashed out in her own anger for exposing herself like this and in anger at Kaden for questioning her. “I just saw it and put it on. It doesn’t mean anything. It certainly doesn’t mean that I don’t know what this marriage is about. It’s about the fact that I’m pregnant with your precious heirs—nothing more, nothing less.”
Kaden uncoiled his big body from the bed and walked around to Julia. Acting on the irrational panic rising within her that she was about to come apart completely, Julia reached up and grabbed the necklace with her hand. She yanked at it, breaking the delicate chain instantly, and flung it aside onto the ground.
Inside she was weeping. Outwardly she hitched up her chin. “See? It means nothing.”
Kaden looked at where she’d thrown the necklace and then back to her. The air crackled between them. In an abrupt move he pulled her into his body and said fiercely, “You don’t have to resort to dramatics to make your point. I get the message. From now on there will be no doubt as to what this marriage is about.”
Julia closed her eyes as Kaden’s mouth fused to hers, his arms like a vice around her. Their bodies strained together. Tears burned the backs of her eyes, but she would not let Kaden see the helpless emotion. It was hot and overflowing, but as Kaden lowered her onto the bed and came down over her she shut her mind to all the mocking voices which told her that she was fooling no one but herself.
The following day Kaden was standing alone on an open terrace in the palace. He’d been having a meeting with an architect about the palace’s preservation, but the architect had long gone. The city of Burquat was laid out before him. Cranes dotted the skyline—evidence of much necessary modernisation.
Kaden didn’t see the view, though. His thoughts were inward. He smiled grimly to himself. He’d been right to fear touching Julia again. It was as if he’d known it would be the final catalyst in his coming undone. His own useless defence system had crashed and burned spectacularly last night, like a row of elaborate dominoes falling down with one small nudge.
Julia had only had to wear that necklace for him to see clearly for the first time in years.
His jaw tightened. Even then he hadn’t been able to give in, still fighting right to the end … He’d had to make her say it, make her tell him how she really felt. As if he needed the concrete proof of her words and to feel the pain that came with them. Because he knew he deserved it. Perhaps that was what he’d been protecting himself against all along—the truth of her feelings. Not just his own.
He’d held something very precious a long time ago, and he’d broken it for ever. Kaden looked down and opened his fist to reveal the necklace, its chain in two pieces.
CHAPTER TEN
JULIA was in their private dining room, where Kaden had said he’d meet her for lunch. She was standing at the open French doors but seeing nothing of the glorious view. A couple of weeks had passed since that night. When Julia had woken the morning after she’d been alone. She’d immediately got up to look for the necklace but hadn’t found it. Her sense of loss was profound, but she was too nervous to mention it to anyone or ask for help in searching for it. The last thing she wanted was for Kaden to know she was scrabbling around looking for it at any given opportunity.