‘Is it true?’ Her voice sounded unfamiliar.
Karim’s mouth tightened, his jaw jutting aggressively. ‘Don’t play games, Safiyah. You know it is.’
‘How could I?’ She frowned up at him. ‘You’re saying this…’ she gestured to the article ‘…isn’t a hoax?’
Karim surveyed his wife, his annoyance giving way to dawning disbelief. Her skin had paled as if she’d received a shock. That, surely, wasn’t something she could feign.
Gently he took the tablet and put it down.
‘Karim? What’s going on? Why would anyone print such a story?’
He watched the throb of Safiyah’s pulse in her throat. Surely only a consummate actress could pretend to be so stunned? Yet thiscouldn’tbe a surprise to her.
‘You know it’s the truth. You heard it five years ago.’
‘Five years ago?’ She frowned.
‘When you came to meet me in the palace courtyard that night.’
The night he’d been torn between lust and the determination to do no more than kiss her lest he take advantage of an innocent under his roof.
She blinked, her eyes round. ‘I didn’t go to the courtyard. That was the evening we heard Rana was sick. Father and I packed up and went home that same night. He left a formal apology and I wrote you a note.’
Karim’s lips curled. ‘A note that said only that you were sorry you’d had to leave so quickly. That something urgent had come up.’ A brush-off, in fact.
Safiyah shook her head like someone surfacing from deep water. ‘I thought I’d have a chance to explain the details later, in person.’
When he didn’t respond, she switched back to the news story. ‘You’re saying your father wasn’t the Sheikh of Za’daq?Really?’
Karim stared into those velvet-brown eyes he knew so well and felt the earth tilt off its axis.
She hadn’t known. She really hadn’t known.
All this time he’d believed Safiyah had snubbed him when she’d discovered the truth of his birth. For one golden illuminated second joy rose. She hadn’t spurned him after all.
But she would now. Nothing surer. She’d be horrified at the scandal. And then there was the way he’d treated her. Believing she’d dumped him, he’d refused to take her calls, deleted her messages. And, more recently, he’d forced her into marriage.
Karim reeled as the truth sank in.
He’d thought she’d understood who she was marrying.
This news threatened both his crown and the relationship he and Safiyah were building. It could yank both from his grasp.
He looked at his wife and a wave of regret crashed through him.
Suddenly Karim knew fear. Bonedeep fear.