Traded to the Desert Sheikh

“If you do not have a doctor forward the results of a pregnancy test exactly one month from now, I will send one of my physicians to you and have him administer it. If you are pregnant—”

“I can’t be.” Her voice hardly sounded like hers. It was too thick, too distorted. Broken, she thought. “I can’t possibly be.”

His eyes glittered in the strange, predawn light.

“Then you have nothing to worry about. I am sure you will find that convenient.”

And she realized then that she’d never seen him look at her like this before. So cold. So remote. That he had never before seemed anything but fascinated with her, even when he was wild with rage, with passion.

This was a Kavian she didn’t know. And that revelation smashed the remaining pieces of that broken heart of hers into smithereens. Until nothing remained but dust. And regret. And that loneliness she’d always carried deep inside her, like her own bones.

“Do you need me to sign something?” she asked.

He didn’t appear to move, or even to breathe. Yet she thought she saw a muscle clench in his lean jaw.

“Why?” His voice was a dark lash. “You signed many things six months ago. Your word, your signature, your promises—these are all meaningless.”

She wanted to reach out and touch him, but she didn’t dare.

“Kavian—”

“You wanted to go, Amaya.” His voice was so harsh it bordered on cruel then. “Go. You do not need to sneak off through the tunnels like a refugee. I will have the helicopter waiting, and the plane. You can take it wherever you wish. Just make certain you also take your mother.”

“I thought...” She had no idea what she meant to say and she swayed slightly on her feet as if the ground buckled beneath her. “I thought you wanted...”

“I want you,” he bit out. “But I will not force you and I will not play this game any longer, where you pretend that is what I am doing when it is what you want. Go, Amaya. Be free. But remember, I know you. This is the only real home you’ve ever known. I am.”

And she knew he was right. Maybe that was why she fought it.

Maybe that was why she was still here. Standing here, almost as if she’d been waiting for him to find her.

Still, she fought. “It’s a big world. There are a lot of places out there.”

He shook his head. “You’ve seen them all. You’ve been dragged everywhere. There are no secrets out there, Amaya. You know them already.”

“I don’t belong here.” She only realized she was whispering, raw and broken, when she saw a hint of that calm gray in his eyes again, edging out that awful blackness. That cold.

“Azizty,” he said with absolute certainty, “this is the only place you belong. With me.”

“You want my abject and utter surrender. You want me to kneel in front of you. You want me to beg.”

“Perhaps,” he said simply, “that is because you do, too, after you fight it for a time. You are simply too afraid to accept that we both want this. We both like this. This is what we were born to do, together.”

“Kavian—”

But he shook his head, cutting her off.

“The sun is rising,” he said. “The day is upon us. You have a decision to make, Amaya. I suggest you make it as quickly as possible. Then go, if you mean to go. I have a wedding to cancel and a terrible scandal to manage.”

And then he turned on his heel and walked away from her.

She couldn’t believe it. It didn’t make any sense. He was not the one who left, she was. She couldn’t breathe—

And then the desert sun peeked over the far hills, and the golden light bloomed, molten and bright, blinding her as it poured down into the valley. It washed over the palace, wrapped her in its instant warmth, transformed the world.

And Amaya understood, at last.

The lesson of the stars, of that great weight. Of the desert. Of the sun.

All of these things were love.

They did not bend, they simply were. They could not be altered or changed, they were far too immense. They were infinite. What did it matter what her mother said? What did it matter what the world said, for that matter? Or those voices inside her that told her what she should feel, not what she did feel?

The only thing that had ever mattered was love. And when she looked in Kavian’s beautiful gray eyes, she’d always seen that greatness, that eternity, that sheer and shocking boundlessness.

Why wouldn’t she surrender? Wasn’t that the point?