“But for how long?” She sighed heavily. “Where do actually you imagine this going, Samir?”
He was silent, eyes brooding as they held hers.
“You cannot be seen with me publicly. My reputation would be too incendiary to your people. I’m everything they wouldn’t want for you. You said that, the night you suggested we do this. And the publicity, if it got out that I’ve been spending time with you, would stir up a hornet’s nest I’ve spent years running from. Every time that we’re together is laced with danger for both of us, and I just don’t think it’s worth—,”
“Not worth it?” He interrupted angrily. “So, this,” he gestured from his chest to hers, “isn’t worth a little risk?”
“It’s abigrisk,” she responded in kind, frustration boiling over into something else. “You know that. You know that our relationship has the power to lampoon both of our lives. We’ve been lucky to get away with it for this long—,”
“You’re worried because of the yacht,” he said. “You think someone might find out. So, we’ll go back to staying in your apartment. I’ll come to you.”
“Iamworried about that,” she admitted after a pause. “But I’m also—I’m trying to work out how this ends without one of us getting hurt. Or both of us. The more time we spend together, the more I like spending time with you, and at some point, that will no longer be possible. I have to end it now, while I can still remember what my life was like before you came into it.”
A muscle jerked low in his jaw. “You are afraid to be happy.”
“You’re not able to make me happy,” she whispered softly. “All you can ever give me is this—a secret, shameful affair. It’s not enough for me, Samir, and if you care about me at all, if you really think I’m ‘amazing’, then it wouldn’t be enough for you either.”
“So, what do you want? You want a declaration of love? You want me to tell the world we’re dating?”
“We’re not dating,” she corrected quickly. “We’re sleeping together. And is going public with this even an option? For either of us?”
“You tell me. You hate the idea of the press intrusion so much, how would you feel?”
“Don’t ask me hypothetical questions. Your position within the Al Medinan royal family is the bigger problem here. That’s the real reason we can’t let anyone find out. Would you seriously risk it going public that you’re withme?”
“What’s so wrong with you?”
“Come on, Samir. We’re both realists. I know what my reputation is.”
“Even when your reputation is so wrongly earned?”
She startled, then turned away from him. “You could never publicly date me. And even if you could, you could never marry me.”
Silence reverberated around them, like cracks of lightning in the distance.
“Is that what you want?”
Her heart strangled. Marriage was the last thing she thought she wanted, but now she’d met Samir…
Nothing was clear cut. She drew in a sharp breath and tried to focus. “My point is, this has to end. Whether it’s now, while we’re secretly sleeping together, or in your hypothetical world, in which we date for a year or two and then break up, because it can’t go beyond dating. Can you imagine how much worse it would feel to end things then?” She whirled around to face him. “I can’t do that. I’m strong, Samir, but I’m not made of stone. Every minute we spend together makes this moment harder and harder. I think, Ithink, I almost have enough of what I need to break things off, but only if I do it now. Only if we end things here, and never see each other again. Can’t you understand that? Can’t you understand the risks here for me?”
He stared at her, lips compressed, eyes dark in his face. “I don’t want to walk away from you.”
“But you know you have to. Because even when you want more from me, you also want to honour your promise. You’re a good man, Samir. Too good to hurt me, remember?”
He flinched at the invocation of his earlier promise, at the words he’d spoken with such honest intent.
“Let me come next week. Perhaps by then, you’ll feel—,”
“I won’t be here. I need to get away.”
“So, I’ll come—,”
“No.” She grimaced. “I need to get away from you, and this, and here, where memories of you are everywhere I look. I need a break. Please, don’t ask me to explain beyond this. You told me I had the power to end this, and I’m ending it now. No questions asked.”
* * *
Exactly one week later,on the night when Samir would usually have flown to Athens and walked straight into Cora’s arms, he drove out into the desert, far from the palace, from civilisation, from his normal life. He had replayed their last conversation again and again since returning to Al Medina. He’d looked at it from every angle, tried to work out if there was more he could have said or done, more he could have offered, how he could have persuaded her to rethink things. If he’d gone beyond using words and had kissed her instead, drugged her with the power of their physical connection, if he’d stripped her naked and touched her in all the places she loved most…