Olivia closed her eyes, stifling the sob that was climbing her throat. “How could he have done that to you? How?” They were empty words. Meaningless. And yet they were all she had.
“This is why I turn away from indulgences. From lusts of all kinds because...look at where it brought him.”
“You aren’t Malik.”
“No,” Tarek said, his voice blazing. “I know he did not intend it, but he gave me purpose. He ensured with all he did that I would guard myself against the weakness that infected his blood.”
“Why? Why did he do it?”
“To break me, though he didn’t say it. Strength, he said. It was always strength. Truly, I think he wanted me to rejoice in being banished to the desert. To make me hate the palace so much that I would never want to return. He wanted me too broken to rule. Too broken to realize his true character. Brainwashed. He did a magnificent job. Out there, I felt nothing. I had but one purpose—to fulfill the bargain I had made with my brother. The one that meant he would leave me be. There was clarity there. A beauty in the simplicity. I cherished it. In that way, I suppose he did his job. He made me strong. He made me the rock. He made that existence feel easy.”
“It was a mind game. He didn’t care for you. He didn’t make you strong. You were strong. Any other man would have been broken.”
He looked up at her, his eyes so black, so empty, they wounded her. “Was I not broken, Olivia?”
“No, Tarek. No. You are not broken.” Her throat tightened, tears rolling down her cheeks. She put her hand on his chest, felt his heartbeat rage beneath her fingertips.
“Do not cry for me, Olivia. Not for me.”
“Who else will?”
“No one needs to.”
“That isn’t true. It isn’t.”
“Whatever I was before Malik... Whatever happened before... I am different now. I’m another man. Whether or not I’m broken is immaterial. I am not what I should be. I can never be.”
“You are everything you choose to be, Tarek,” she said, the words ringing with conviction. “He cannot command control over you, not anymore.”
“You don’t understand. You don’t understand the years I spent there. That they were my refuge. You cannot possibly understand what they meant to me, what they did to me.”
“Make me understand. I’m tired of being alone, Tarek. I’m so tired of being alone. Let me see. Let me see you.”
He rolled out of the bed, standing upright, naked, beautiful and unashamed. “Tomorrow,” he said, his voice strained. “Tomorrow I will show you. I will make you understand. I am not the man you wish I could be. I am not the man you should have.”
“But you have me,” she said, as close to an admission as she could muster right now.
Pain flashed through his eyes, but almost as quickly as it appeared, it was replaced by the flatness again. “Tomorrow, I will show you.”
“Tarek...” She blinked rapidly, looking down at her left hand, at the blue stone there. “Just...before you go... Why did you choose this ring for me?”
He looked at her, a subtle shift in his face softening his features. “Your eyes,” he said. “The stone was blue. Like your eyes. And I very much liked the look of it. Since it made me think of you.”
Her breath caught in her throat. A simple answer. But from Tarek...it may as well have been poetry. It was the truth. So simple. So perfect. It came from his soul, and touched her all the way down to hers.
Then he turned and walked out of the room, leaving her alone once again.
But this time, she didn’t feel devastated by the loneliness. Because she wasn’t simply going to lie back and allow it to be her fate. He had chosen this ring. Because of her eyes. That mattered. Because of that, she would fight.
It didn’t matter what had happened before. Her fear had no place. Tarek was brave. A warrior to his soul. She would be nothing less for him. For herself.
With him, she would fight for more. With him, she would fight for everything.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TAREK COULDN’T QUITE describe the feeling that took hold of him as they drove farther away from the city and deeper into the desert. It had surprised Olivia to know that he could drive a car. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. There were a great many gaps in his education when it came to modern civilization. And while it was a skill he had not often used, it was one he possessed.