‘And yet you’ve signed a peace treaty.’
‘For as much as I hate your family, I love my country and its people. For them I will always do what is best.’
Her heart felt as though it were bursting into a thousand pieces. Her stomach hurt. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ She dropped her gaze to his chest, unable to bear his scrutiny for a moment longer. ‘My uncle was imprisoned by my family after his despicable action—where he still languishes, at my brother’s behest. He had no support from my parents, my brother, and certainly not from me. Our war was an economic one, a war of sanctions rather than violence.’ She tilted her head, willing his defiance. ‘Oh, there are the renegades on the borders and of course the military posturing that seems to go hand in hand with war, but to stoop to something so violent and...and...wrong as assassinating your parents? That was my uncle’s madness, Amir. If you are to hate anyone—and I cannot stress enough how futile and damaging that kind of hatred is—but if you insist on hating anyone, have it be Johar. Not every single person who shares his surname. Not me.’
He groaned, low and deep in his throat. ‘What you say makes perfect sense.’
‘And yet you don’t agree?’ Her words sounded bleak.
‘I don’t want to agree.’
She lifted her eyes back to his. ‘Why not?’
‘Because this ancient hatred I feel is the only thing that’s been stopping me from doing what I wanted to do the second you arrived at the palace this morning.’
Her heart stopped racing. It thudded to a slow stop. ‘Which is?’
His eyes dropped to her lips. ‘I want to kiss you, Johara.’
Her heart stammered.
‘I want to claim your mouth with mine. I want to lace my fingers through your hair and hold your head still so I can taste every piece of you, bit by bit, until you are moaning and begging me, surrendering to me completely as you did in the maz
e.’
Her knees were knocking together wildly, her stomach filled with a kaleidoscope of butterflies.
‘I want to strip these clothes from your body and make love to you right here, with only this ancient forest to bear witness to whatever madness this is.’
She could barely breathe, let alone form words. ‘Would that be so bad?’
His eyes closed, as if it were the worst thing she could have said. ‘The first time was a mistake, but I didn’t know who you were then.’
‘Now you do, and you still want me,’ she challenged softly, aware she was walking on the edge of a precipice, so close to tumbling over.
He swore softly in one of the dialects of his people. ‘You deserve better than this. Better than for a man who can offer you nothing, wanting you for your body.’
She didn’t—couldn’t—respond to that.
‘I can offer you nothing,’ he reiterated. ‘No future, no friendship beyond what is expected of us in our position. I cannot—will not—form any relationship that might jeopardise what I owe my people.’
‘Damn it, Amir, I have no intention of doing anything to hurt your people...’
‘Caring for you would compromise my ability to rule. There are lines here we cannot cross.’
She swallowed, the words he spoke so difficult to comprehend and yet, at the same time, on an instinctive level, they made an awful kind of sense. Amir had been running this country since he was twelve years old. His life was impossible for Johara to understand. But she knew about duty and sacrifice; she had seen both these traits ingrained into her brother, she understood how his country would always come first.
And it wasn’t that he perceived her as a threat to the country. Not Johara, as a woman. Johara as a Qadir, as a member of the Taquul royal family. It was symbolic. The peace was new. His people would take time to accept it, to trust it, and if news of an affair between Amir and Johara were to break, it could threaten everything by stirring up strong negative feelings in response. Retaliation could occur.
The war had been too costly, especially on the border.
She closed her eyes and nodded, a sad shift of her head, because the futility of it all felt onerous and cumbersome.
‘I don’t hate you, Amir.’ She pulled her hand out of his and this time he let her. Her flesh screamed in agony, begging to be back in his grip. Her stomach looped again and again. ‘But you’re right. I deserve better than to be the scapegoat for all the pain you’ve suffered in your life.’ She straightened her spine and looked beyond him. ‘Shall we go back to the palace now? I think I’ve seen enough for tonight.’
CHAPTER SIX
THE SUN WAS UNRELENTING, the sands from the deserts stirred into a frenzy and reaching them even here, on the outskirts of the city where one of the oldest libraries stood in existence. He’d had this added to the itinerary days before she arrived. Memories of the maze had been running thick and fast through his mind. The pride with which she’d spoken of her work with childhood literacy had been impossible to forget—her eyes had sparkled like diamonds when she’d discussed the initiative she’d put together.