She didn’t want a proxy for her husband, and she didn’t want a husband who saw her as a breeding machine.
But she did want two healthy babies. Only the doctor had been sure on that point – the twins were fine. It was only her own health that was suffering, and Sophia couldn’t quite muster the energy to care.
It was too hot, and she was so fatigued, and growing all the more so every day.
When she was six months pregnant, she did something she hadn’t done in a very long time. She went into Addan’s suite of rooms. She pushed the door open, and it was like stepping back in time. She latched it shut behind her, and simply stared. It was exactly as it had been, right before she’d gone to America to see Arabella. Right before he’d died.
Tears ran down her cheeks as she moved to his wardrobe and stepped inside, pulling one of his shirts from the drawer and lifting it to her face, bringing it with her to his bed. She lay down, just as she had so many nights, on her side, when they’d looked at each other and laughed and shared stories and she’d felt so happy, because it was all so simple.
He was her best friend.
She closed her eyes, hugging his shirt, feeling closer to him just by being here, and she fell asleep, completely oblivious to the explosive drama happening just a few feet away, within these very palace walls.
“You cannot simply lose the Sharafaha,” he swore, Awan’s face pale.
“She must
have gone for a walk,” Awan said, moving towards the windows. It was dark.
“Have I not asked you to watch her constantly?”
Panic grew in Awan’s expression. “I didn’t see her, she’d said she was tired, I thought she was going to lie down. I’m sure she said she was going to have a rest…”
Malik stalked to the bedroom and threw open the door. “Well, she is not here.” He moved to the room next door – another bedroom, and inspected it. “Unless she’s taken to sleeping under desks or pianos…”
“I will look for her,” Awan said.
“You and the whole damned army,” he swore, stalking to the door and alerting one of the guards. From between gritted teeth, panic shredding his insides: “Find my wife.”
Twenty minutes later, he received the news. She’d been seen going into His Highness’s quarters sometime that morning.
His stomach tightened at the very idea of her waiting for him in his rooms, of her sitting in that big chair, reading, or lying in his bed, fast asleep.
But the servant hadn’t meant his room.
They’d meant Addan’s.
His lips grim, he stalked the short distance from Sophia’s apartment to Addan’s. He didn’t pause to brace himself at the door, and perhaps he should have, because the sight of Sophia fast asleep was enough to make his body lurch. But seeing her asleep in his brother’s bed, holding an item of his brother’s clothing to her breast, made him feel like his insides were being scraped out and replaced with acid. He stood there for several seconds and then, conscious that servants were right behind him, he turned, dismissing them.
He stared at her for several minutes, partly out of greed – he had not had this luxury in many long months. And partly from a disturbed place of self-punishment.
No matter what she said, no matter what promises she made, nothing changed this. Nothing changed the love she felt for Addan, nor he for her.
That was what was real here. He couldn’t blame her for trying to make the best out of their marriage, for desperately attempting to create some kind of bond between them, beyond the physical. But it was a futile, unnecessary exercise.
He could never love this woman.
He could never love the woman who should have been married to his brother.
It was bad enough that Addan had been robbed of his life and his crown, but to also lose this woman’s heart?
Malik had to protect at least that.
Addan deserved no less.
He stepped out of the room, leaving the door open. He spoke to a guard as he left. “Check on her regularly and notify me when she wakes.”
A month passed and when he next had to see Sophia, he braced for it. He recalled that image of her curled up in Addan’s bed, and he held it tight in his chest and mind.