She shook her head. “There are no buts. All you have to do is look at your parents. They married for love.”
“Love?”
“Yes, love. Your father told me.”
Zavian shook his head, but before he could contradict her, she continued.
“And, at first, all was well, because they didn’t think your mother’s English heritage would matter. But with each passing day, month, year, the pressure it created forced them apart, and forced your country apart, too. If it hadn’t been for her untimely death, goodness knows what would have happened.”
“That was them, this is us. Times have changed.”
“Times may have changed, but your people haven’t. The desert Bedouin lead the same life they’ve led for centuries. They still want the security of being led by a royal family of their culture and to whom they belong. Family and tribe is everything. I’m not of your family or your tribe. I’m an outsider, and I always will be.”
“You’re wrong. Do you think you know my people better than me? Then I will show you.”
“And how exactly do you propose to do that?”
He licked his lips, and she knew he had no idea. She nodded. “You don’t know because it’s not possible.” She sighed.
He gripped her hand as if it were a lifeline. “Iwillshow you, Gabrielle. Tomorrow I will begin to show you that your life is here, with me.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s not just that.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then what else?”
“I want to marry a man who loves me—not someone who needs me. Needs can be satisfied. Needs pass.”
There was a moment when she could see the conflict in his eyes as he wrestled with things he’d never before fought with. She wondered if he would open up, if he’d acknowledge the feelings he kept a firm lid on. Because, until he did, they had no future, with or without the support of his countrymen.
But the moment passed, and the strength and purpose returned to his eyes, and she knew she’d lost him.
She tugged her hand from his, and this time he let her hand slide away. She wondered if this was a foreshadowing of what it would be like if she did what he’d said and they married. At some point he’d let her slide away, because either he didn’t have any deep feelings for her, or because they were buried so deep that he didn’t even know they were there, didn’t even feel them anymore. She didn’t know which it was, and she had no intention of staying around to find out.
She stepped outside onto the terrace without a backward glance.
Zavian watchedher leave his room. She slipped between two gauzy curtains which trailed over her shoulder, her body dissolving into them as if into a mist, before disappearing into the darkness as if she were a part of it. As if she were a figment of his imagination.
He didn’t understand her.What had gone wrong?He frowned as he poured himself another drink. He took one swig, scowled and threw the rest away. He didn’t need a drink. There was only one thing—only one person—he needed, and that was her. The trouble was, he couldn’t figure out how to get her.
He placed the glass on the table and went outside and sat where he had a view of her window, the light now turned off. He let the water and the night air soothe his spirits and mind and let his thoughts drift over his problems, teasing them, hoping they’d unravel. He closed his eyes as he imagined what Gabrielle was doing behind the dark of her closed curtains. His thoughts and feelings only tightened into a knot that would take more than the night air to undo.
He jumped up and walked inside, pausing only briefly to stare into the darkness, forcing his mind to release the mental image of Gabrielle, naked on the bed.
He might not know how to get her now, but it would come to him. It had to.
When Gabrielle had receivedthe request to attend a large formal dinner with Sheikh Mohammed—leader of a prominent and powerful Bedouin tribe—she felt conflicting feelings of both excitement and dismay. At least it wasn’t going to be an intimate few. Zavian would hardly be announcing their betrothal to so many people. She accepted the invitation, only after ensuring she’d be seated at a distance from Zavian. There would be safety in numbers and safety in distance. At least she hoped so.
After dressing carefully, she walked to the reception room, from which she could hear the murmur of polite conversation and music. She smiled grimly to herself. She might have no choice but to respond to Zavian’s summons, but she’d do it her way.
As Gabrielle took her seat at dinner that night, she smoothed the cloth of her new dress, regretting its glamor. When she’d placed the order for an evening dress—something she hadn’t brought with her—she hadn’t imagined it would be quite so sexy. At least she fitted in, she thought, looking around at the women who competed with each other to outshine with the best of New York and Paris fashions.
“He is so handsome, is he not?” a woman said to her.
Gabrielle followed the woman’s gaze to the man whose lips had touched hers only days before. “Not handsome, I think.”
The woman turned her shocked face to her. “Not handsome?” They both looked at the king, and the woman made a dismissive snort. “Maybe not in English terms, but he has the strength and charisma us Havilahi women admire.”
Gabrielle couldn’t disagree with her. ‘Handsome’ had never been a word she’d applied to Zavian. It was too mild. And she didn’t mean it as a derogatory term as the woman had assumed.