It would have to be. Nabil had nothing else to offer her. He had been totally open and honest about that.
And that at least was a sort of a compliment. She was desired by this man; desired by a king. It was not his fault if she wanted more. If she wanted to be loved.
But how could she ask for what he admitted he couldn’t give her? If she wanted this man, she had to take him the way he was. A man with no love in him because it had been killed by that assassin’s bullet as surely as if it had reached his own heart.
It was time she stopped digging and started facing up to reality. The only way to do that was to respond to him in exactly the same way as he had talked to her.
‘Of course you are a king, and as such your mind must always be on your duties—to the country and the people,’ she said carefully. ‘The time here has distracted you, taken you away from things that need attention. I think we should return to Hazibah immediately. After all, as the King you can deal with important matters better there. And everything else...’
She let her eyes slide over him, lingering deliberately at his groin, where the black shorts had been but were now floating somewhere in the pool. If he could reduce what was between them to nothing but sex, then so could she. It would be her defence against revealing anything closer to the truth.
‘It doesn’t matter where we are. You can still perform your husbandly duties and I—I...’
It was as if someone had punched her in the stomach and she caught her breath sharply, needing more oxygen to carry on.
‘And I can be everything you want in a wife and a queen there just as well as here.’
She would bear it, she told herself. She had to. He was giving her all that he had to give.
She would be Nabil’s Queen and everything he wanted in a wife. It was her own problem if she was so needy for more than he could offer.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
COULD SHE REALLY go through with this as she had promised herself? Aziza couldn’t drive the thoughts from her head, no matter how hard she tried.
She’d told herself that this was the marriage she had expected, that she would cope with it and not ask for more. But with each day that passed it seemed that her resolve had started to fray at the edges, growing weaker minute by minute.
Nabil had given her everything he had promised her—she was at his side at all the events that demanded her presence and she could do anything she wanted with her free time. He had supported her strongly when she had set about improving the facilities for education for girls all over the country and, bypassing the official interpreters, she was the first person he called on if he needed someone to translate for him. The car he had promised her was parked outside in the palace garage, and he had even remembered how she had regretted that her father had kept her from riding after her accident and had presented her with a beautiful grey Arabian mare so that they could ride together when she exercised the animal.
Until now there was no sign of any baby on the way. While Nabil never said anything, she knew that he must watch her every month, just as the rest of the country watched her waistline when she appeared at some public event, waiting for the first sign that there was a baby on the way.
She could practically hear the sighs and groans of disappointment when it became obvious that there wasn’t. As a result of her husband’s—and the country’s—scrutiny she had been meticulous in noting her cycle. And today, according to her diary, she was officially late. She wasn’t one hundred percent certain, but perhaps this could be the first, all important sign that she had at last fulfilled her duty to her husband. Could she soon deliver the news to Nabil that she was carrying his long-awaited heir?
Maybe, when Nabil was secure in the knowledge that an heir was on the way, he would at last take the final step and have her officially crowned as his Queen?
A sudden sound at the door brought her head spinning round to see the dark, imposing figure of her husband. Surprisingly, for this time in the day, he was casually dressed, wearing a loose shirt and jeans and on his feet the boots he wore for riding. Colour flooded her cheeks; she felt sure that Nabil must be able to read her thoughts. She couldn’t risk telling him until she was sure herself. Fortunately her husband seemed not to notice the fleeting guilt that must have shown in her eyes.
‘Scimitar needs exercise,’ he said, naming his favourite black stallion. ‘And so do I. So I’ve come to invite you to ride with me.’