“What I want isn’t relevant.”
“Yes it is.” He kissed the top of her forehead. “You still love me.”
She stiffened in his arms. “I never said I felt that about you.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t need to. Love doesn’t need to be discussed. It’s either there or it isn’t. Can’t you feel it, honey?”
Another sob threatened to erupt. She bit down on her lip. “What is expected of me is a chain around my soul. I cannot say what you want me to.”
“You don’t need to say it. I told you. I can feel it. The same love is here with us now as was the first time we met. Remember how you felt when you leaped off that building? That was love. It was trust and it was unquestioning faith.”
“It was stupidity,” she responded with soft scorn.
“I came to Delani because Kiral invited me. I told myself that I was over you. That I didn’t care if I saw you or not. How foolish I was! I can’t leave Delani, Lilah. Not without you.”
Her heart was accelerating wildly in her chest. He was saying everything she had ever hoped to hear. “None of this … what you’re suggesting … it’s not possib
le.”
“You are a princess. Make it possible.”
“It would never work.” She swallowed. “Kiral would never allow it.”
“Who is he to stop it?” He demanded.
“The King! I know you don’t respect our way of doing things, but in Delani, his power is absolute.”
“It’s bullshit,” Will said angrily. “He adores you. We’ll go to him and tell him that we want to be together.”
“No, Will,” she laughed shakily. “Don’t you understand? He’s marrying someone he doesn’t love simply because it is the right thing to do. He would never respect either of us.” She lifted her gaze to his face and tried to untangle the explanation she hadn’t been able to give him in the woods.
“I want to tell you something,” she said slowly, carefully. “Something I ought to have told you much sooner.” She bit down on her lip. “Only with your job, and your article, I couldn’t be sure …”
“Off the record,” he assured her. “Everything with us is off the record, Lilah.”
“I know. Only it isn’t my secret to tell.” She sucked in a deep breath and fixed her gaze on one of the pomegranate trees that sat in a pot on the balcony. “There was a woman, several years ago. An American. I don’t know much more about her,” Lilah forestalled any questions Will might have. “In fact, Kiral never spoke to me of her. It was whispers and guess-work mainly, because he had just formalized his betrothal to Melania. But I do know she broke his heart. That leaving her changed him. He is still altered by that separation.” Lilah swallowed nervously.
Will stared into her eyes, trying to forge a connection between the admission she was offering. “I don’t get it,” he said finally. “Because he once cared for an unknown American woman, or is rumoured to have done so, you are not allowed to love me?”
“Yes.” She shook her head. “No. I don’t know. But he will expect me to do what he has done. I should never have let things go so far with you. I should never have been so foolish. This has all been a mistake.”
He let out an angry sigh. He was far from done pleading his case but he sensed that the harder he pushed the more she’d shut down. “So what then, Lilah?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m here for the foreseeable future. Will you come to me here? Will you come to my bed, forgetting all the reasons you shouldn’t? Or will you push me away because you’re too scared to face the truth of what we share?”
“Sometimes being scared is a good thing,” she said wearily. “You cannot possibly understand what it is like to be me.”
He lifted a brow, his expression thunderous. “Then explain it.”
She felt the impatience in his tone and made to push away from him, but he held her tight. “There are obligations and expectations.”
“That you will marry someone suitable?” He prompted. “Like Kiral is doing?”
“Don’t do that,” she said softly. “Don’t speak of him with such disrespect.”
“I speak of his marriage with disrespect,” Will distinguished emphatically. “You are both royal. Fine. But these are your lives. The decisions are yours to make. If he loves this American woman, he should marry her instead.”