When she came to the doors, she paused. Should she knock? Probably. But would he answer? Was he even in his rooms? If not, it was probably locked. That meant she could at least try the handle.
She did, and much to her surprise it gave. Heart thundering in her throat, she pushed the door open.
The lighting in his study was dim, and her eye was drawn to the brightest thing in the room—the fire, which blazed in the hearth. She was so distracted by that, she missed the dark outline of Zayn sitting in one of the chairs until he moved.
It was a subtle motion, his hand lifting his glass from the side table.
“Oh, I didn’t expect to find you here.” She stood near the door, not sure if she should stay, or run. Although, since he had seen her already, running seemed a little bit of an overreaction. It wasn’t as though he was going to throw her in a dungeon.
“If you didn’t expect to find me here, what did you expect to find?” He took a sip of whatever drink he had in his glass, and set it back down on the table.
“Well, I hoped to find you, I just didn’t expect to be successful.”
“I see.” He took another drink. “And why were you looking for me?”
“Because we hadn’t seen each other. Because...because I thought we might do another interview.” She didn’t know that’s what she thought until she spoke the words out loud. But the moment she did, she knew it was true.
“I think I’ve told you all I can.” He looked up at her, his eyes dark, glittering hollows in the firelight.
“I haven’t.” Her heart was pounding hard, her throat dry.
“Are you suggesting that I interview you?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
He was silent for a long time, looking at her, his expression unreadable, shrouded in darkness. Then he finally spoke. “Have a seat.”
She obeyed, moving deeper into the room and settling in the armchair across from him. She clasped her hands in her lap, and waited.
“So I’m meant to ask you anything?” he asked, his eyes fixed on hers, unreadable.
“It’s your interview.” The blood in her veins seemed to have slowed, breathing becoming difficult.
“I have nowhere to sell the story.”
“So, then I suppose it’s up to you to decide what is most interesting.”
“Then I’ll start with what interests me most.” She braced herself. “Why were you a virgin?”
Her stomach tightened, she might have known that this was the question he would ask. Well, she might have known that had she taken the time to think through where this might be going. The idea had come to her on the spur of the moment and she hadn’t really thought it through to the end game.
“See, now I have to think about myself. And it’s much easier not to. At least, it’s much easier to just keep doing what you’ve always done and never ask yourself why. But now you’re asking me why, and I guess that means I have to know. The easy answer is that I never wanted to be like my mother. That I never wanted to be enslaved to the kind of passion she seemed to be held captive to. But now? Now I think there was something else.”
“And what was that something else?”
“You have to get naked to have sex.”
He looked her over, his expression inscrutable, but his eyes filled with heat. “You have nothing to be concerned about on that score.”
“I’m not just talking about physically. Making love with someone makes you vulnerable. Even without having done it, I knew it. That’s what I had seen in my mother that scared me so much. Vulnerability. And when you get stripped down to the point of revealing your vulnerabilities, you can’t hide anything. You can’t hide who you really are. And it’s funny, because I told you about the way I think about finding my dad. About how I’ve had fantasies about going to that party, and saying all of that stuff to him. And in those fantasies I’m an entirely different person. That’s my entire life. Working to become something other than what I was born into. To become the thing that I thought I deserved to be. But that had nothing to do with who I actually am. I’ve been afraid of exposing who I am, because I’ve always thought that person might be looked at and found wanting. Because if somebody doesn’t like your facade, then you can change it. But if someone doesn’t like you...that’s much more difficult. I think what I was avoiding was being naked in that sense.”
A metallic flavor filled her mouth, something she recognized as panic. Because this was the most terrifying moment of her entire life. The most frightening thing she had ever admitted. That with him she was real, that she was desperately afraid of being found wanting. This was honesty, and it was easy for her to see why she had avoided honesty in the past.
Zayn didn’t speak, instead he reached for his glass and took another drink.
Silence filled the room expanding like a living thing, building upon the fear that was pressing on her chest.
He set the glass back down on the table, the click on the hard surface nearly deafening.
“And have you been naked with me?”
It was the question she feared the most, and yet she knew she had no choice but to answer it honestly.
“Yes.”
“Have I seen you?”
“Yes.” She looked down at her hands, then back up at him. “Have I seen you, Zayn?”
He spread his hands. “I’m not certain what you mean by that. Of course you have seen me.”
“I’ve seen the ruler. I have seen the sheikh. But have I seen the man?” She thought of him, trembling above her as he found his release, the intensity that had passed between them. She felt as though she had seen glimpses of the man, like the sun peeking out from behind the clouds. But a shaft of light shining briefly through the darkness did not make for a clear day.
“The sheikh is the man, the man is the sheikh, et cetera.”
“If there were no kingdoms, if there were no kings, who would you be?” she asked, her voice rough as she echoed the words he had spoken to her when he’d held her in his arms.
“It is a question that cannot be answered. For the fact remains that there are kingdoms. And I am the king of one of them. And I must do the right thing by my people.”
“And why is this the right thing? Why is marrying a woman you don’t love the best thing for your people?”
“The preparations are in full effect. I have given my word. Going back on that could be nothing but detrimental. Leila is... My sister is going through something. I can’t talk about it. It is not my secret. I failed one sister, Sophie. I failed to protect Jasmine. I will not fail on that level, not again. I have hurt too many people to ever risk it again.”