A muscle throbs in his jaw. “Nonetheless, we should go.” His features soften. “For now.”
‘For now’ is a promise. We both hear it. He’s telling me I can come back, another time. I nod softly. He’s right, anyway. This has been overwhelming. I need time to prepare for my next return.
On an impulse, I cross back to my desk and collect some of my drawings, and a book I’d adored as a child, then move to the bed and sweep a few of the soft toys into my hands. “It doesn’t feel right to leave them here now they know I’m back.”
He nods, but his dark eyes show something like amusement and my heart rolls.
Near the front door, I duck into my father’s drawing room, lifting the red leather notebook from his desk and clutching it in the same hands that carry my childhood drawings.
“Let me take those.” He nods at the soft toys.
I shake my head. “I want to.”
He looks set to contradict me, but perhaps something in my expression stalls him because he simply nods impassively, waiting for me to navigate my way into the luxurious limousine with my arms full of ancient history.
I’m glad he doesn’t argue with me. I hold the toys close as the car drives away from the town and towards the airstrip. The last twenty-four hours feel like a strange dream, but they weren’t. I turn to look at Zahir, my heart pounding once more at the sight of his face in profile. This man destroyed my father’s life, but he’s also my husband.
I don’t know how I’m going to marry those two distinct ideals but somehow I must.
“What will it be like when he comes to Qabid?”
I see him tense slightly and sigh. I don’t want Zahir to respond like that about my father.
I reach across, putting my hand on his. His head turns abruptly, his obsidian eyes beating down on mine. “I cannot say, Amy.”
“You’ll meet with him? He’ll be welcome at the palace?”
He stiffens and my heart cracks
a little.
“No.” It’s said stiffly, but a moment later his features bear a mask of sympathy. “He’s your father, but I have no interest in involving him too closely in our lives.” He pauses. “My security counsel would likely not allow it, in any event.”
“I thought you were Sheikh,” I point out, then shake my head. “This is all so ridiculous. He didn’t do what you accused him of.”
Zahir ignores that statement. “He may return to his home, live in Thakirt as he used to.”
“And I’ll be able to see him whenever I want?”
Again, he stiffens, his face unreadable before he nods, just once.
It’s something, I suppose. My lips form a tight smile and I sit back in the seat, but I’m far from relaxed. Everything about this feels complicated and somehow wrong. Things I used to take for granted – certainties such as my father’s innocence – now make little sense.
“I’m sure we’ll be able to work all this out,” I say to myself, as much as to him.
“One way or another, we are about to find out.”
11
Zahir
“YOU CAN’T SERIOUSLY BE going through with this?” Rafiq stares at me with obvious disapproval. I sigh heavily, well aware of my best friend’s thoughts by now.
“He is Amy’s father.”
“Yes, and you married her to quell those idiots to the east.”
“Those idiots are my people,” I remind him through ground teeth. “And whether they support me or not, I am their king. I cannot dismiss them as easily as you do.”