“So I have to just accept that? Goons following me around everywhere I go?”
“They’re highly trained members of the military,” he corrected quietly. “Many of them I know personally and can vouch for. They won’t be a problem.”
“You say that because you’re used to them. I’m going to hate this, Zafar.”
“Did you hate it today?” He enquired smoothly.
Her startled gaze lifted to his face. “What do you mean?” But the penny dropped before he could respond. “You had me followed?”
“I had you protected,” he corrected.
Something jangled in her heart and her head. She reached for the ice tea now, lifting it quickly to her lips and taking a sip. The night was warm but that didn’t explain why her throat was so parched. She felt betrayed and hollowed out.
“To protect me? Or to make sure I didn’t run away?” She asked when she was capable of speaking.
His brows lifted, surprise crossing his face for the briefest moment before he once again assumed his ever-present mask of powerful control. “That thought didn’t occur to me.”
She wanted to believe him. It seemed genuine. But having her followed by two ‘highly trained military officers’ when no one even knew she was pregnant, nor that she had any connection to him?
“Did you think of running away?” He asked, his voice muted of any emotion whatsoever.
What did it mean that she hadn’t even contemplated that?
“No,” she said, after a moment. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that to either of you.” She pressed a protective hand over her stomach. “I know it was a million years ago that we — were — sleeping together,” she hated using that term to describe what they’d been. To her, it had been so much more, but there was no sense reminding him of that now. “But you must remember enough about me to know I’d never be capable of that?”
He nodded once. “I do. Which is why you must also believe that I arranged security for your protection, not detainment.”
Her heart twisted and she nodded once.
“Good.” He appeared to relax. That was even more dangerous; she couldn’t follow his lead. Letting her guard down around this man was dangerous. She’d never make that mistake again. “Then tell me what you need to know to assuage your worries.”
“I don’t think even you will be able to do that,” she muttered.
“Try me.”
Her stomach twisted. “Well, if we were to get married,” she said, despite having accepted the necessity of that. “What would you want from me? Once the baby’s born, I mean.”
“I’d want you to be their mother,” he said simply. “Anything beyond that is your decision.”
She waved a hand through the air with frustration. “You’re avoiding my question.”
“On the contrary, I’m answering it as clearly as I can. I’m not about to start dictating your lifestyle to you. I appreciate that you’ll be making an enormous sacrifice in marrying me. So much as it is within my power, I want to make you happy. I won’t force you to be any one type of Emira. You won’t have to attend benefits or state dinners or ceremonies unless you wish to. And if you wish to, you may attend them all. You choose what path you want. It’s your life.”
And though she should have been comforted by that, frustration gnawed at her gut.
“But you’re unhappy with that,” he guessed correctly. “Isn’t that the autonomy you wanted?”
“True autonomy is the ability to fly to England at the drop of a hat, to take our child travelling on holidays. Will I have that kind of freedom?”
His lips tightened as though he were grinding his teeth. “Realistic autonomy,” he amended. “We have to balance your desire to live completely unhampered by marriage with a need to keep our child safe, and to observe protocols. There will be some limits, of course.”
She didn’t want to argue with him about that. It was hardly unreasonable, and besides, she wasn’t planning on gallivanting across the globe at a moment’s notice, anyway.
“And what about behind closed doors, here in the palace? Will I continue to live in a guest suite? Will I get to go weeks without having to see you?”
Something in the depths of his eyes flecked but besides that, he gave little visual response. “No.”
She frowned. “You mean…what do you mean?”