He realized with sudden, stark clarity that whatever Malik had felt for anything, for anyone, it hadn’t been love. He was the evidence of the absence of love and all the destruction it could cause.
What did it matter if he swore protection, if he professed loyalty in his speeches, if he gave of himself, if he gave his possessions, but there was nothing behind it? If none of those actions possessed love, what did they mean? And what could they become?
He saw now that love was not pain. Love was the very thing that kept a man rooted. No matter how fiercely he focused on his goal, if he felt nothing in his heart, there was no compass to guide him. No true north that would ensure his direction was true.
It was love that would see him making the compassionate choices. Love that would help him believe when everything was dark.
It was love that had helped him believe already when life was dark, even though he had been too blind to see it. The love of his parents.
Olivia had told him. She had told him that he was not what Malik had made him. Had insisted that he had been strong already, or he would have perished. She had been right. It was everything his parents had made him. Their strength. Their love.
Love was not the weakness. Love was the strength. Love was everything.
Olivia had shown him that, and he had told her to leave. He had been afraid. He had been holding on too tightly, but had no control. It was the fear. Fear of pain. That was what all of this had been. Him running. Him fleeing the kind of pain he had been subjected to in his past.
And now she was gone. Now was too late.
She was on a plane, back to Alansund.
She should run from him. She had been denied her entire life. Perhaps there was nothing more her parents could have done. Her sister had always been ill; she had said so. Whether or not they could have done better by her, they should have. Simply because she was Olivia. And she deserved the best of everything.
She most certainly deserved a man who wasn’t shattered inside. Most certainly deserved a man who chose to love her the first time she asked.
Not a man with scars both inside and out. Not a man who had wounded her, told her to leave. Not the man who could scarcely imagine coming after her because he had never been away from his country, never been on a plane.
She was his queen. The queen he wanted ruling beside him. The queen of his heart.
Her kiss had changed him back from stone. Had demolished the walls inside him.
She had given him a new goal. Love. And with it, facets to his existence. More than simple survival. More than breathing.
He had no idea what he brought to her. No idea what he had done to deserve the feelings she claimed to have for him.
But if she would have him, he would claim her.
It didn’t matter how impossible it seemed to leave. Didn’t matter how far he had to go to find her. He was more when he was with her. He was the ruler he needed to be. He was a man.
And that meant whatever it took, he would see it done.
* * *
Olivia had never felt such pain. This truly was losing a part of herself. A grief so strange, so open-ended, she didn’t know what to do with it. It wasn’t like losing someone to death. There was no reclaiming someone who was gone. But Tarek was still walking around on this earth, and she could not have him. Could not be with him.
She had never loved like this before, either. With all of herself. Unreservedly. She had made herself vulnerable, and she was paying for it. Yet again she was paying for demanding more.
But she wouldn’t go back, either.
She realized now that though it was Emily who’d been sick all of her life, Olivia had allowed herself to be crippled inside. To shut her emotions, her desires, away so she wouldn’t suffer more rejection.
But now she had.
And she felt more alive than ever. She had been so afraid of loving with all of herself. Because it would leave her vulnerable. Leave her exposed. Marcus’s loss had only seemed to confirm that. But as badly as it had hurt, she could only be thankful at the time that she hadn’t given him her whole heart. Because she’d been afraid long before that loss.
She hadn’t taken any medication for the flight back. She’d been too lost in her sadness over Tarek to feel any anxiety. More than that, she wasn’t afraid to show it if she did. That was half of why she’d taken the pills. Because she was more afraid of showing her fear than of not being able to cope with it.
She didn’t care now. She supposed that was one thing.
She felt battered, broken. But strong. Because she had endured now, hadn’t she? Had faced down her deepest fear, returned alone, back to this palace, useless. No place for her.