“Maybe it doesn’t,” she said slowly, her eyes huge. “I have a son. He’s my family. I don’t have room in my life for anyone else. And you …”
“Yes?” He insisted, when she was quiet for a moment.
“You’re too much. You would take over everything. That’s just who you are.”
He cast her a glance that showed, for a moment, how fearful he must have been as a ruler. He was strength and power, muscle and might. “Fine.” He walked, back straight, shoulders broad, across the room. At the door, he paused a moment, then wrenched it inwards and clicked it quietly behind him.
Melinda watched him go with a sense of pure despair.
He loved her?
Had he really said that?
For the first time in almost a fortnight, they didn’t spend the night together. Her body ached for him. All night she woke, reaching for him.
In the morning, Jordan didn’t help matters. All he could speak about was Ra’if.
“When can we see him again?”
“I don’t know, darling.”
“Can he come for Christmas?”
“Christmas is still …”
“Twelve sleeps!” Jordan pointed at the advent calendar and she nodded.
“Right. Twelve sleeps. And he’s really just a very casual friend of mine.”
“What’s a casual friend?”
“You know, like someone you don’t know that well.”
“Oh. But then, can’t we get to know him well?”
Melinda shook her head. “Maybe, darling. I don’t know. Come on, let’s get breakfast cleaned up. Granny will be here any minute.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Marook says it’s serious.”
Ra’if pulled a face, angling his phone beneath his chin. “Marook is a traitor,” he mumbled, with only the smallest hint of amusement.
Olivia, far away in the Central Palace of Dashan, laughed. “Tell me about it. He definitely did his fair share of reporting back to your father when Zami and I met.”
He nodded silently at the appraisal. “It’s not serious,” he said eventually, remembering the purpose of her call. “She’s just a friend.”
“A friend you’re seeing every night?” Olivia was sceptical and it was apparent in the tone of her voice.
“It’s not like that.” He squared his shoulders, tapping his pen impatiently against his desk.
“No? So what is it like?”
He laughed. “You know, you are just about the only person on earth I would let interrogate me like this?”
“Yeah? So?”
“You seem to forget that I was born to rule the Kingdom of Dashan,” he murmured with good-natured affection for his sister in law.