pped here for ever. In this sham of a relationship.
Kasia would help her; she could make the journey tonight, through the desert to the Zafari border. Her heart bumped her throat, threatening to cut off her air supply.
She had to go, before she began to hate Zane.
He had been through so much, and had come out of it a strong, staggeringly sensual human being. But that wasn’t enough.
Raising the sheet, she slipped out of the bed. And dressed quickly in the half-light, ignoring the soreness between her legs where he had taken her with such fury in the pool, and the wrenching pain in her chest at the thought of never seeing him, or this country, again.
You’ll have his child. And that’s enough. Even if it’s a child he could never love.
However fascinated she was by Narabia’s traditions, its customs and culture, and however invested she had become in its future—she owed a greater debt to her child. Their child. She knew what it felt like to be second best in a parent’s life.
And if all of that wasn’t reason enough to run, there was the biggest reason of all. Zane didn’t love her. He’d made it very clear this was a constitutional arrangement—and tonight had proved his feelings weren’t ever going to change.
Walking into the adjoining chamber, which she had been using as a study, she scribbled a short note—she owed him this much.
Hurt and sadness clogged her throat as she wrote, the tears she couldn’t seem to contain slipping down her cheeks and splashing on the paper. She wiped them off. Then sealed the envelope and left it on the desk. He would find it tomorrow. By which time she would have had a twelve-hour head start.
She left everything behind her and secured the robe’s veil over her face. If she was seen walking to the women’s quarters with a suitcase, the guards would stop her.
As she left the room, she imagined Zane in the room next door. Arousal shimmered through her, combining with the empty weight in the pit of her stomach, which she doubted would ever go away.
‘Goodbye, Zane,’ she whispered.
Hopefully he would forgive her for leaving him. And one day, maybe she’d be able to forgive herself for falling in love with a Sheikh.
* * *
‘Don’t give me that crap, Kasia. I want to know where she’s gone.’
Zane held onto the urge to shout at Catherine’s friend. His mind reeling—the fury that had made his throat dry nothing compared to the stabbing pain in his heart ever since he’d found the note in her chamber. He’d gone in to talk to her, to try one more time to make her understand. But the paragraphs had pierced through the fog he’d been living in since leaving her in her room the night before.
I love you so much, Zane. I have ever since our night at the oasis. I should never have agreed to marry you without telling you. And I’m sorry for that. But I can’t live with you knowing that you can never love me back.
If you change your mind about wanting to be more than a figurehead in our baby’s life, all you have to do is ask and we can work out a custody arrangement.
But I can’t stay in Narabia, knowing we are nothing more than a responsibility to you.
Please understand.
Love,
Cat xx
It shouldn’t hurt this much. He knew that, but he couldn’t think about that now. Because he couldn’t seem to focus on anything except the driving need to find her and bring her back to the palace.
And Kasia was the key.
Catherine couldn’t possibly have left without the girl’s help. The palace guards would have stopped her.
‘She told me nothing,’ the girl said, her eyes defiant, but the tremble in her hands was a dead giveaway.
Kasia might be fiercely loyal to Catherine, but she was a terrible liar. He stepped closer and leaned into her face, his temper and panic impossible to contain any longer. He didn’t want to frighten or bully the girl. But this was about Catherine, about her safety, and he was through messing around, because behind the panic lurked the fear—and it was starting to choke him.
‘Tell me where she’s gone, Kasia. Nothing will happen to you or her if you do, but if you don’t, you could be putting her life in danger.’
‘How?’ the girl said, her whole body shaking now, the urgency of the situation finally having got through to her.