The Royal Collection. Rebecca Winters

shook off the foreboding sensation. “Then, we should be fine.”

      “I am uncertain about the speech.”

      “I am here to help you be certain.”

      That statement resulted in her having a stack of papers thrust in her direction. The words on the page were handwritten, and it was obvious that wielding a pen was not as familiar to him as wielding a sword.

      “You couldn’t have typed this?” she asked. She supposed that was a ridiculous question. The man had not thought to use the phone sitting on his desk to reach members of staff.

      “No.”

      “I’m sorry. Do you know how to use a computer?”

      “I haven’t done so in a great many years.”

      “Well, the thing about technology is that it changes. It’s likely you will have to learn to do it all over again.” She perused the papers in her hand. “But that isn’t important right now. This is important. One thing at a time.”

      The speech wasn’t eloquent. She couldn’t lie. There was no point.

      “Okay. I think this is a decent guideline for what you might want to say. It is your heart. It’s what you want to do for the country. And I have spoken to you, and you speak well. So.” She handed the papers back to him. “You can use this if you get lost. But I want you to just tell me what you want for Tahar. What your plans are for the future. Make it brief, because people have limited attention. And you don’t want to overpromise. Better to overdeliver.”

      “I don’t know how to speak in front of people.”

      “I bet that isn’t true. You...” She searched for the right words. “You commanded men. You had to rally them before you went into battle. Didn’t you?”

      “Yes.”

      “This is the same thing. It’s a rally cry. For your people. Things might look bad now. They might seem hard. But nothing is impossible. You have faced down enemies and triumphed. You will triumph now. And so will they.”

      He arched a brow. “I feel that perhaps you should give the speech for me.”

      “Too bad it’s never the spouse they want to hear from. Unless it’s a garden party. Perhaps the opening of the children’s hospital.”

      “More things I must manage, I take it.”

      “No,” she said, tempted to touch him. Knowing she shouldn’t. “I’ll be your softer side. You sound the battle cry.”

      “That sounds doable. Oftentimes none of this does.”

      “That’s marriage. I’m your other half. No, we don’t love each other. But I don’t think we have to in order to fulfill that. I have skills you don’t. And you carry this country in your blood. You’re a warrior. So many things I could never be. But together we will make this work.”

      Just saying the words made her feel as if things were locking into place inside her. Gave her a sense of completeness, of rightness. Being a part of something instead of sitting alone in the dark.

      He looked up, his dark eyes meeting hers. “I need you to be more than half right now,” he said. “Because I feel I have little to contribute.”

      “That’s okay,” she said, swallowing hard, the lingering emotion from her earlier realization making her ache. “Sometimes you might have to be more than half for me.”

      “Should that ever arise, I swear that I will.”

      It wasn’t passionate. It wasn’t romantic. It was nothing like the declaration of love she and Marcus had shared over a dinner on his family yacht, followed by a brilliantly orchestrated proposal. And yet, she felt the weight of it.

      There was meaning in it.

      The girl she’d been five years ago wouldn’t have felt anything in those words. Would have found all of this dispassionate and unexciting.

      The woman she’d become felt the binding quality of his vow down to her core.

      “If you can promise the country what you’ve just promised me, I think your speech will be just fine,” she said.

      “I’m good with vows,” he said slowly. “I kept my word to my brother for fifteen years. I devoted myself to my country. I gave aid when it was required. I never once saw my own pleasure above the safety of the nation. Unlike my brother, I am not a pleasure seeker. There is much more to life than that. When everything in a man’s life is stripped away, the only thing he has left is his purpose. If a man has put his faith in things that burn, then when the fires of this world consume, there will be nothing left behind. But if a man puts his faith in rock, no matter how hot the blaze rages, it cannot be consumed. This country is my rock. If I am left with nothing else, I will fight for that to my dying breath.”

      Olivia looked to the intensity in his black eyes, and for just one moment she wished he could be speaking about her. Why couldn’t someone treasure her that much?

       You don’t need that kind of ridiculousness. You don’t need to depend on anyone.

      She swallowed hard. “Say that. When you get up to speak, that’s all you need to say. Yes, eventually policy will need to be addressed. But that can always be done with press releases. This nation is wounded, and I think those are the words that will heal it. You’re the man who will heal it.”

       The man who might heal me.

      The moment those words flitted through her mind she rebelled against them, panic fluttering in her breast like a terrified bird, raging at the cage of bone and flesh it was trapped in. She didn’t want thoughts like that. She must be insane. Attaching some kind of emotional meaning to his words was foolish. Marcus had loved her, but he hadn’t healed her.

       Why do you suddenly think you need to be healed?

      Really, her brain needed to calm down. Stop asking her questions she didn’t have the answers to.

      “I will simply have to trust you,” he said.

      “I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t regret that,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.

      His expression remained stone, and she wondered why she bothered to try to inject humor into any exchange with Tarek.

      “I will do the same,” he said finally.

      “I have no doubt.”

      “I have procured a ring for you,” he said after a small amount of hesitation.

      Her heart scampered into her throat. “You have?” Why was she reacting to this? She was sitting in a man’s office, in a very average day dress, about to be presented with a ring that was more the seal on a business agreement than anything else.

      Her heart was pounding as though she was back on that yacht. With roses and champagne. A man that she loved.

      She fought against the urge to close her eyes and turn away, because that would only make her look crazy. She was being crazy. Maybe because while this was a business arrangement in many ways, it was one that would involve sex. Closeness.

       Only as much as you want.

      That was what frightened her. How much she wanted.

      He moved behind his desk, opening a drawer and producing a little box, placing it on the wooden surface.

      She walked forward, pausing on the other side of the large piece of furniture. It stood between them, and for that she was grateful. Otherwise she might do something ridiculous, like touch him again. There really was no telling.

      She reached out, touching the top of the jewelry box and sliding it toward herself. “Who chose this?”

      “I did.”

      She looked