Seducing His Princess (Married by Royal Decree 3)

When he’d learned she’d been pregnant, he’d thought losing their baby explained it. But it wasn’t only the loss, the injury, but the permanent scar. She’d lost their baby, and any hope of having another.

He stared at her as her tears began to flow, as her shoulders began to shake, at a total loss.

What could he do to mitigate her anguish?

He heard his voice, choking on his own agony. “I don’t want an heir, ya hayati. I didn’t inherit my title, I was chosen for it based on merit, and when the time comes for me to step down, I will pass the throne to whomever deserves it.”

A shaking hand wiped at her tears. “You do need an heir. Aliyah told me King Hassan is withholding signing any treaties until he knows the reason he blessed our marriage, the blood-mixing heir, is a reality. She wasn’t worried, but only because she thinks we’re postponing having children voluntarily.”

And then he exploded. “To hell with my uncle and Saraya and the peace treaty. To hell with Judar and Jareer and everyone in them. I only care about you.”

“You can’t say that. Now that you’re king, you owe it to your subjects to keep the peace in their kingdom. I’ll be what stands in the way of your achieving it.”

“I will keep the peace, and it won’t be by bowing to any backward tribal demands. I only pretended to so it would give me a chance to approach you again.”

She shook her head as she escaped his grasp, tears falling faster. “Even if you do, you will want a family....”

“We already have a family—me and you and our furry babies, and we’ll have as many more as you want. And if you long for the human kind of kid, we’ll try. The doctors’ verdict doesn’t have to be final....”

“It is. I didn’t use protection, hoping they were wrong. They weren’t. There is no hope.”

“Maybe there will be with minimum intervention. If there isn’t, or you don’t want even that, I don’t care.”

“I can’t, Mohab...I can’t let you give up your right to have a child. I can’t let you give anything up.”

“But I want to give up everything for you, ya habibat hayati.” She shook so hard, her tears splashed over his hands, burning him through to his marrow. He clamped her shaking head in trembling hands, tilted her face up toward his. He had to convince her, stop her from leaving him, destroying them both. “You carried my baby inside you, nourished and nurtured him in your body and with your essence. You wanted him and loved him, even when you thought I never wanted or loved you. And I wasn’t there for you....”

A hiccup tore out of her. “I was the one who pushed you away, who made it impossible for you to find me. You looked for me, even thinking I never really loved you....”

“I should have looked more efficiently, not let my anxiety mess up my methods. You can’t imagine how much it hacks at me to know you were pregnant, without me, and then had to go through the pain and desolation and loss...Ya Ullah, ya rohi...if I can’t give you all my life in recompense, I would end it in penance.”

“Don’t say this.... Ya Ullah...don’t...feel this way.”

“I do feel this way. And as far as I am concerned, you have given me a son, and we lost him. And now I grieve with you as I should have at the time, and we cling to each other even more, and forever.”

“No.” Her shriek of agony pierced him as she stumbled around and staggered away.

He hurtled after her, caught her back and crushed her to him, out of his mind now with dread, begging her over and over. “La tseebeeni tani, la tseebeeni tani abaddan.”

* * *

Don’t leave me again, don’t leave me ever again.

Mohab’s litany sheared through her, and his tears—his tears—rained over her face, mingling with hers, singeing her soul. She never thought she’d ever see them. And now that she did, felt their agony rain down her flesh, she couldn’t bear them, would do anything to never see them again.

But she had to do this for him. He would come to regret his emotional outburst when his head cleared and his passion cooled. He’d sooner or later long for a child of his flesh and blood. And she’d be what deprived him of fulfilling this need. He’d come to resent her for it. It was better for her to die, to leave him now than to live with him till this came to pass.

She pushed out of his arms, shaking apart, tears a stream draining her life force. “I never suspected you loved me as much as I love you, Mohab. That was why I agreed to marry you. I wanted to have some more time with you, give you the closure you said you needed, then disappear from your life again. If I suspected you felt the same, I wouldn’t have done this to you.” A sob tore out of her depths. “Please, believe me, I never thought I’d hurt you. But once I realized you had become emotionally involved, I knew it was better to hurt you temporarily than hurt you for the rest of your life. When I’m gone, in time, you will forget me.”

He groaned as if she’d just stabbed him. “If I never forgot you when I thought you didn’t love me, when you weren’t my wife, you think I’d ever forget you now?”

“You have to.”

“Would you have left me? If you discovered I couldn’t give you a child? Especially if you knew I couldn’t on account of an injury you caused me?”

“You had nothing to do with my accident. I won’t have you feeling guilty over this.”

“I am guilty. Of injuring your belief in me and in your own self-worth. Anything that happened from that moment forward is my responsibility, my guilt.”

She wiped furiously at her streaming eyes. “I once held you responsible, too, but I was wrong. If there was guilt, then I share it in full. I didn’t give you a chance to defend yourself, intended to deprive you of your child. I deserve what happened to me....”

“B’Ellahi...you were a victim in all this, my victim.”

At his desperate shout, her sobs ratcheted until they drove her down to the ground.

Jala gazed up at him as he stood over her, looking as if his heart had spilled on the ground, and she wailed, “If you love me, Mohab, let me set you free. I’m not leaving you. This time I’m begging you to let me go.”

* * *

He let Jala go.

But only to set the plan to get her back in motion. Now that he knew she loved him, too, he was never letting her go.

He had called a summit of all the people who were players in this mess. His uncle, Najeeb and her family. They were all convened in Kamal’s stateroom. Jala was there, too. This had been the last favor Kamal had said he’d ever do for him.