“But—”
“The rest can wait, this can’t.”
Naseer’s tone chastened Zavian. “What’s happened?”
Naseer’s mouth was a firm line as he shot him a dark look before proceeding toward a stateroom. Zavian entered, and Naseer closed the door firmly behind them. The place was in shadow and private.
Neither made to sit down. Naseer turned and crossed his arms, his back to the door. “Your father was a tough man, Zavian, and he was especially tough on you.”
Zavian shrugged. “It’s of no importance now.”
“Yes, it is. It made you the man you are today. Also tough, strong and determined, but you lost something you had in abundance as a boy. You lost your ability to be affectionate, you stopped showing your love, and eventually, you stopped feeling that love. Any emotion you had became twisted into something else. Power, lust…” Naseer shook his hand, indicating a range of other things. And then he pointed to where the feast had just taken place. “And that, in there, shows your ineptness.” He shook his head. “I’ve been remiss. I thought…”
“What did you think?” Any clue, Zavian would gratefully have received.
“I thought your father was right. At one time, anyway. I thought that maybe the soft heart you had in your youth was a weakness, a hindrance.” He pursed his lips with regret. “But it was only later that I realized it wasn’t because your father considered your affection weak that he wanted to eradicate it, but because he was jealous and scared.” He looked Zavian directly in the eye. “It was he who was the weak man. And it was his weakness which was the end of him. You have a capacity for greatness, which your father never had.” He stepped closer to Zavian, closer than was ever usual between a king and his subject. “Find your heart again, Zavian. For only that will connect you with your people. For only that will connect you with the woman who I know, deep down, you love.” He nodded, and stepped away. “That is all I have to say. Go now and think about what I have said. Your announcement has been well received, if not with a little puzzlement at its suddenness. Everyone, excepting your cabinet and ministers, was expecting an announcement of betrothal between you and the Tawazun sheikha.”
“That will now fall to Roshan.”
“Yes, and he had better not fail us. But that is up to him and his advisers to pursue. For us, all is dependent on you persuading Gabrielle that you truly do want to wed her. She loves you, anyone can see that. But also anyone can see that she is an extraordinary woman who needs security from her husband, which she has never experienced in the rest of her life. And the only thing she can trust is the one thing you need to find again in your heart.” The vizier tapped Zavian on his chest as he said the final words, in a gesture far too familiar for one of his advisers, but reminiscent of their relationship when Zavian was young.
As Zavian watched Naseer walk away and return to the reception to ensure that any rough water was smoothed over, Zavian realized he’d just been given a reprimand and told to sort himself out. For a moment, he wavered as to whether to be angry with his vizier but the moment passed, and he smiled to himself. Because he knew, deep down, that Naseer was correct.
Zavian returnedto the sanctity of his suite of rooms and paced the floor. He felt as if he’d been run over by a truck. He stopped by the window and looked, unseeing, into the night. No, not a truck, but by a force of a woman who’d been deprived of security and love her whole life, and a woman who was also strong enough to hold out for what she wanted.
He rubbed his chest, where a deep ache lay. Between Gabrielle and his vizier, he felt as if his heart had been cracked open like a walnut shell, revealing a tender, shy, vulnerable center. His love ran deep, body deep, soul deep. The only question was, how could he convince her, given every other heartless thing he’d done in his life, done to her, that he loved her—truly and forever?
He stopped pacing at his desk and glanced down. Her name swam into view. The monograph she’d written on the Khasham Qur’an. Dr. Gabrielle Taylor. He flicked it open. Words, full of words. Words carefully placed together to create a whole, a truth, which no one could now dispute. Before her monograph, there had been uncertainty around the origins, but the words had confirmed everything. Without the words, all was uncertainty, but now with them, there was a single truth which no one could challenge. No one.
He closed her book and sat down and put his head in his hands. His head throbbed with the painful knowledge that he’d got so much, so wrong. With his love of black and white, he’d baldly said the words to her, informed her that he loved her. But it wasn’t enough to convey the meaning. For that he needed subtlety and passion. For that… his eyes strayed to the book of poetry… he needed poetry.
It was earlyin the morning the next day when he strode through the palace to Gabrielle’s rooms. After a sleepless night, he could wait no longer. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He hesitated, pulled out his phone and rang. But again there was no answer and it wasn’t ringing inside the room. He knocked again. Tentatively he opened the door, but all hesitation left him at what he saw there. The room was empty, clear of her things. He strode in, wanting to see if anything had been left behind. But there was nothing.
He called the housekeeping people. They’d tidied her room, as she’d requested before she left.
Left where? No one knew.
“Then find out!” He slammed down the phone. Zavian stormed onto the terrace, gripped the wall, and looked around his city as if hoping to find her. The heat was intense, both inside of him and outside now. He needed air, he needed to breathe. But most of all, he needed her.
His phone rang, and he answered it immediately. He rang off as soon as he heard the information he needed. Her cell phone had been traced to a location in the desert. As he slipped his phone back into his pocket, his mind went over the options. No, there was only one place she’d gone to. And it wasn’t the border as others had suggested. It was somewhere much more meaningful than that. It was somewhere he’d stopped her going to when she’d first arrived. She was returning to the one place where she’d ever been certain of being loved.
Gabrielle crunchedthe Landrover into gear and headed north, into the desert. It was where she wanted to be, and she was sure that it was where no one would think to look, least of all Zavian.
It was night before she reached it. The old house was deserted now, and the nearby village was quiet. There was a crescent moon perched above the horizon, and stars were beginning to emerge. She drove up to the high walls and unlocked the gates. The keys had always been on her keyring. For the past year, they’d been a mere reminder of a past life, but now they were useful again. She parked the Landrover in front of the stables, now empty of their white Arab horses. The hinges on the wooden doors had come loose, the doors hanging.
She got out of the vehicle and left her bags at the front door. She’d let herself into her old family home later. But now she’d explore, for the last time, the place where her grandfather had raised her, and taught her the importance of love.
She pushed open the gate to the walled courtyard and was immediately taken back in time. Here, sheltered from the fierce winds of the desert, and fed by the underground streams, the plants, shrubs and trees still flourished. A swift flew overhead, catching the last insects in the rapidly fading twilight. The scent of the flowers and shrubs was overpowering after the dryness of the desert.
She walked down the path, which led to the center of the gardens. She trailed her fingers along the leaves, sticky with nectar, and looked up into the towering trees, untouched by a gardener’s hands for years. Then she heard it, a songbird and the trickle of water.
She followed the sound to the central fountain. A small bird has tilted his beak back and was singing loudly in the silence of the desert.
“Just you and me, birdie,” she said, taking a seat on the bench. The bird continued to sing, somehow tame, not frightened by this stranger in the midst of its loneliness.
She couldn’t have said how long she sat listening to the bird but was suddenly aware that it had stopped, and was no longer on the fountain. And that darkness had fallen. A stray beam of moonlight filtered through the leaves, casting shimmering shadows over the water. It was only then that the tears came.
She stayed sitting without moving, as the tears streamed down her face from deep inside of her. She’d kept them in too long, she knew. Ever since that day, twelve months before, when she’d realized she had to leave Zavian. And had realized with equal certainty that she loved him.