‘I thought I could be happy here,’ she said slowly. ‘Because there’s pretty much everything here a person could ever want. I liked the way Cameron settled in here and I liked the way you interacted with him. I still do. And I like Xulhabi. The desert and the palace and the rose gardens. The capital city is buzzy and vibrant—what little I’ve seen of it—and I was looking forward to exploring more of the country as your Queen and taking on some charities of my own.’
‘So there’s no problem?’ he said, coolly clipping out the words as if he were in a meeting with one of his diplomats.
She gave him a look—a look of such pain that it made him want to turn away. But he couldn’t. He had to face this head-on because he owed it to her. And he owed it to Cameron, too.
‘I think you’ll find there is,’ she said quietly. ‘And you know exactly what it is.’
He knew what she meant. Of course he did. But surely it was her place to admit it, rather than his to accuse. Yet the very terms he was using disturbed him. Admit. Accuse. Weren’t those words frequently used in a court of law? Not those usually associated with the subject they were talking about, even though neither of them had had the guts to mention it. Until now.
‘You’re in love with me?’ he suggested.
Caitlin met the gleam of his black eyes without flinching, wishing she could deny his words, but she couldn’t. And what would be the point of adding a layer of lies to this already heartbreaking situation?
‘Yes, I’m in love with you,’ she burst out. ‘I know it’s irrational and a complete waste of time, but there’s nothing I can seem to do about it. I tried to forget you right from the start, but I couldn’t. And when you found us, I tried to hate you for kidnapping us and bringing us here, but the terrible truth is that I actually liked it. In some warped kind of way I felt protected for the first time in my life. And I liked being with you again—’
‘Caitlin—’
‘No,’ she interrupted fiercely. ‘Let me finish this—because you were the one who asked the question and you are the one who needs to hear my answer. Maybe I’m one of those sad women who are programmed to care only for men who are cruel, just like my mother. Except that sometimes—when you forget to erect all those barriers around you—you aren’t cruel at all. You’re funny and clever and perceptive—which goes some way towards cancelling out your arrogance and high-handedness. I know. I should have had the courage to say all this to you before, but I didn’t.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Because when you asked me to marry you, I felt hope—I’m not going to deny that. I thought that, despite everything you’d said, you might be open to change. And then I thought we’d grown super-close over our honeymoon and we might continue to do so. I thought you might be willing to give us a chance—to see if that bond between us could grow.’
‘Despite the fact I expressly told you that would never happen?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, despite all that,’ she agreed. ‘Delusional of me, I know—but hope can be an annoying thing and you can’t always quash it, no matter how much you might try. But you began to do the exact opposite of getting closer, didn’t you, Kadir? You began to push me away and that made me re-examine my own intentions. I’d been so sure that I could be contented with the very minimum of what most people ask in a marriage. But I’ve discovered I can’t do that,’ she finished huskily. ‘I can’t pretend things I don’t feel, and I don’t want my son to grow up in an atmosphere where he’s afraid to show love, brought up by parents who are cold and distant with each other. If we do that, aren’t we only perpetrating the kind of dysfunctional behaviour which made your own childhood so unhappy?’
‘So what are you telling me, Caitlin?’ he questioned harshly. ‘What is your conclusion to this astonishing list of insights?’
; Perhaps if he’d been a little kinder towards her, then Caitlin might have backtracked a little. Might have suggested that maybe they should give it a month or two and see how things progressed. But the condemnation which glittered from his black eyes told her more than she could bear. And if he didn’t love her now, in this early stage of their marriage, wasn’t it inevitable that his feelings for her would turn at best to indifference and at worst to hate?
‘I want to take Cameron back to Scotland with me,’ she said, resolutely ignoring his hissed intake of breath. ‘I know it won’t be easy and I’m happy to take any recommendations you may have regarding security aspects—’
‘Oh, are you?’
‘He can come out here on a regular basis and, whenever you come to the UK, you can see him,’ she continued. ‘Because I will never deny you access.’
He met her eyes. ‘But you are now aware that you cannot remove our son from the country without my permission,’ he said quietly.
‘Yes, I’m aware of that. But I’m hoping that you will be big enough to disregard that clause. You can have Cameron as often as is possible, but I’m asking you to let me take him back to Scotland. Please. Don’t trap me here as if I were a butterfly in a jam jar.’
For a moment there was silence. A silence so fragile yet so hefty that it seemed to bear down on Kadir like the crushing of a thousand trees on his shoulders. He saw her lips trembling, but for once they were not trembling with desire, but with apprehension. He knew he could insist that she stay and that the law was on his side. Given time, he might even be able to kiss her into something approaching submission—but that would be despicable. Because he had been honest with her, yes, but that honesty had destroyed something between them, and that something was trust. She was looking at him now with such wariness and disappointment in her eyes that he felt as if he had taken something very beautiful within the palm of his hand and crushed it. The pain inside him built and built. Any minute now and it would fell him completely.
‘Take him,’ he said heavily. ‘Take Cameron back to Cronarty, but do it as quickly as possible. And now go, Caitlin. Leave me—not in peace, no—but at least with the time to compose myself before my next meeting.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE PAIN WAS still intense. Like an iron fist clamped around a raw and bloody heart, and Kadir had never known pain like it. Not during the many battles he had fought for his country, when his lifeblood had turned the sand rusty, or the witnessing of his friend’s death. Not even during his mother’s early rejection, or the subsequent discovery of his first wife’s hopeless addiction. Because this pain was different. This was something else.
Standing in the palace courtyard, he stared up at the cloudless sky and watched the blue and green royal jet as it headed westward—towards Scotland and a tiny rain-lashed island. He bit down hard on his lip in an attempt to distract himself from the confusion of his thoughts and the disorientating feeling that his world was spinning out of control. He told himself that of course he would feel something when, just an hour earlier, he had said goodbye to his wife and son. But stupidly—and infuriatingly—he found himself having to blink back tears. Tears! He who had never cried in his life. Not even over Rasim. But then he’d never had to endure a farewell quite like this before.
Cameron had clung to him as if he never wanted to let him go, but children were capricious beings and one murmured mention from Morag about the pet hamster which awaited him back in Scotland had been enough to ensure an instant gap-toothed smile.
‘I will come and meet Hamish very soon,’ Kadir had said gravely.
‘When, Papa?’
Kadir’s eyes had met Caitlin’s over their son’s head and he had found himself wondering when those wide blue orbs had become such cold, pale ice. He had wanted to reach for her then and to hold her against the painful acceleration of his heart, but she had turned away, her expression tight and unmoving.
‘As soon as it can be arranged,’ he had replied, with forced jollity.