“I know! I know what you said. It was perfect. It’s probably exactly what I needed to hear. But it doesn’t fix anything. If you think of our relationship as a glass vase, the day you left was like picking it up and smashing it against a wall. You’re trying to put it back together with glue, but it won’t work.”
Zamir felt hope dying in his chest. She had given him everything, and he had thrown it back in her face. Stricken, he realised that this was it. He had done everything he could, and if she told him she wanted to leave? He would have to make it possible.
“What will it take?” He pleaded, his eyes golden on hers.
Olivia shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I love you. I have never said that to a woman before. I have never felt it. I love you Olivia, and I will do whatever you ask. It would be disastrous for my country and yet I would quit the throne if you asked it of me. I want to be, more than anything else in the world, the man you look at like you used to.”
“I …”
“I love you.” He spoke slowly. “You need to hear that. You need to hear those words and let them in. I have loved you for almost as long as I have known you. A lifetime with you will never be enough. I want to talk to you until there are no words left in the universe. I want to make love to you again and again, beneath the shifting stars of this desert.”
“I …”
“I was scared, Olivia. You changed me. You made me feel like nothing mattered but you and us. When my father had his heart attack, I was angry. I was angry at my father because his situation meant I had to leave you. That scared me to pieces. I have lived my life with a pledge of loyalty to my father and his crown, and yet you usurped that instantly. You offered to come, and I was so tempted. I knew that if I didn’t leave instantly, I would have said yes. But I didn’t understand then. I thought you would be travelling to Dashan as my lover. That I would be exposing you to ridicule and censure. I thought that in leaving you I was protecting you.”
“But …”
“I left you, and I felt sick. I felt an ache in my gut that has not gone away. I have been driven crazy with missing you. Every decision since then has been wrong. I admit it. I want you to look in your heart and see me for who I am. Look beyond this mad act of a crazed man in love and see the person you know me to be. Make your decision on your instincts alone.
“I am a good man, and I offer you my life and loyalty. I serve you now, and for always, Olivia.”
His words made love spiral through her veins. The anger she’d held onto for days was ebbing away. Because he was right. He was a good man. And she couldn’t help but see him for who he truly was. Temptation sparked fiercely inside of her. But she wasn’t yet ready to admit her acceptance. She was no fool, and marrying a man like Zamir was a decision that no one could take lightly.
And so she shrugged her shoulders and angled her face away from his. “I need time to think.”
With the certainty that he was saying goodbye for the second time to the love of his life, he nodded. He could only hope this time it would not be for good.
“I’ll be waiting.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
That night, Olivia dreamed of her home.
She was in the vineyards she’d grown up in, running her fingers over the soft leaves of spring, feeling their green newness brush against her touch. They were slightly furry and they smelled of sunshine. The earth was dusty and warm beneath her bare feet, and insects buzzed contentedly in the ocean breeze.
Olivia could almost have reached out and touched her past, so vivid was the dream. She began to skip, further down the lane of vines, until a noise caught her attention. She spun around, and saw him.
Zamir.
Not as he was now, but as she imagined he had been as a young boy. Enormous golden eyes, shining earnestly in his face, and a sombre expression on his handsome features.
Her heart clenched, for this little boy was inside of the man she loved.
Olivia walked towards him and held a hand out. He put his in hers and she felt then the burst of understanding.
She woke with a start. The room was dark; the stars, though they shone bright, cast no light, and the moon was only a tiny sliver of colour in the sky.
Her breathing was rushed.
Zamir.
A king in the making. A man who shouldered the world’s worries on his shoulders. A man who loved her. Who had made mistakes, because he was more than just a King. He was human.
He had lost the first love of his life when he was only a boy. Had loving Olivia opened up those fears in him anew?
She slipped her arms into the silk robe that hung beside her bed and moved through the apartment.