Modern Romance Collection: May 2018 Books 5 - 8. Кейт Хьюит

just had unprotected sex again. And, if she wasn’t already pregnant, she could be now.

      Another few seconds ticked by, each one tenser than the last, then Zayed withdrew from her, cleaning himself up quickly before adjusting his trousers. His face looked as if it had been hewn from stone, his eyes dark and fathomless.

      Olivia pulled her sundress down over her hips, smoothing the crumpled material, unable to look him in the eye. The wonderful, lazy feeling of sated desire was leaving her and only trepidation remained. What now?

      ‘It seems,’ Zayed said in a tight voice, ‘I cannot control myself around you.’

      Olivia moistened her lips with her tongue. ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘You’re sorry? I am the one who should be sorry. I am the one who should be thinking of my kingdom, my people, my duty.’ His voice broke and he whirled away from her, scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands as if he could obliterate the memory of what they’d just done.

      With a jolt Olivia realised how much of Zayed’s anger was directed at himself, rooted in guilt. He’d hinted as much, but she hadn’t really believed it. Now she saw a depth of pain in the tense lines of his body, in the torment so clearly written on his face.

      ‘Zayed,’ she whispered, a plea, although for what she could not say. She just wanted to offer him comfort, even though she feared she had none to give him. None he would take, except what he already had, and now they were both living with the aftermath of regret.

      ‘You have no idea,’ Zayed said in a low voice of anguish. ‘No idea—and how could you? No idea of what is at stake.’

      ‘I know your marriage to Princess Halina is very important,’ Olivia offered, wanting to show him she understood. Even now, she understood.

      ‘Important?’ Zayed choked out the word. ‘It isn’t important. It’s essential. To finally have a political leader publicly recognise and fight for my rightful claim...’ He closed his eyes. ‘But it’s not even that. It’s what I see every night before I go to sleep. Every time I close my eyes.’

      Olivia drew a short, shocked breath. ‘What did you see, Zayed?’ she asked softly. ‘Tell me what you see.’

      * * *

      Zayed knew he shouldn’t say anything more. He shouldn’t tell her anything. Heaven knew, he’d told her enough, done enough, already. Even now the aftershocks of their explosive lovemaking were rippling through him, reminding him how sizzlingly potent their attraction was. It frightened him, the intensity of what he felt. When she was near him it was as if he was swallowed up by a vortex of need. He forgot everything.

      ‘Zayed.’ Olivia touched his arm, her fingers as light as the wings of a butterfly. ‘Please. Tell me what haunts you so much.’

      He resisted, because to tell was to admit his weakness, his shame. He didn’t talk of the loss of his family to anyone. Everyone knew the facts, of course; it was a matter of national history. But no one knew about his nightmares, his helplessness. Yet some contrary, shameful part of him wanted to tell Olivia. Wanted to share the burden which, considering everything he’d already put her through, seemed more than unfair.

      ‘Tell me.’ Her voice was soft, a soothing balm to his fractured spirit. Her fingers stroked his arm.

      Zayed let out a shuddering sigh. ‘I see my father and older brother in the helicopter. Going down. I always see them.’

      ‘Oh, Zayed.’ Olivia gave a sorrowful little gasp. ‘Of course. I’m so sorry.’

      She knew the facts, he realised, just as everyone else did. The bare facts—the bomb that had exploded in the helicopter, the attempt on his mother’s life, his cowardly scurry to freedom. Not that anyone would say so to his face, but he knew. He knew.

      ‘I didn’t realise you’d seen it,’ Olivia said quietly after a moment, her hand still on his arm, as if she could imbue him with the strength he was just beginning to realise she had. The incredible strength. ‘I didn’t think you were there.’

      ‘I was. I was in the palace, watching them take off. My father and his heir.’ His lips twisted. They’d been going to do their civic duty, to speak at the opening of a hospital in another city, a landmark of Kalidar’s recent transition to national healthcare. Of course Malouf had taken that away. He’d taken away so much. ‘Perhaps you’re wondering why I didn’t go with them,’ he said, his voice harsh, his breathing ragged. Olivia’s fingers tensed on his arm.

      ‘No,’ she said carefully. ‘But perhaps you want to tell me?’

      He didn’t, but he would, because she deserved to know. After everything, he owed her that much. The truth he’d kept from everyone else. ‘I was bored by the idea,’ he said flatly. ‘I’d just got back from Cambridge and I found the desert so very tedious. My father asked me to accompany them and I said no. Minutes later I watched them go down in flames.’

      Olivia was silent for a moment. ‘Then perhaps you should be thankful,’ she said finally, ‘that you were so bored.’

      He drew back from her, disgusted by the suggestion. Just as he was disgusted by his own actions all those years ago. ‘Thankful?’ he repeated, the word a sneer. ‘How can I be? I deserved to die that day!’

      ‘And if you had Kalidar would have no rightful King.’

      ‘Don’t you think I know that?’ He felt caught between fury and despair. ‘Why do you think I fight so hard? Why did I try to kidnap the Princess?’ He let out a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Everything I do, everything, is for their memory. And for mine. Because I failed my family once, and I never will again.’

      ‘I understand why you are so driven,’ Olivia said steadily. ‘But you did not plant that bomb in the helicopter, Zayed. You did not poison your mother.’

      She knew that too, then. ‘She died in my arms a few months later. Wasted away to nothing. But the doctors didn’t even think it was the poison. She’d recovered from that. It was from grief. She had no reason to live.’ He felt a spasm of pain, like a knife thrust in his gut. For a second he couldn’t breathe, and he swung away from Olivia, hating that she could see this weakness exposed in him. See his need, his hurt.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Olivia said quietly. ‘I know how painful that must have been for you.’

      Something in her voice made him ask, ‘You do?’

      Olivia was silent for a moment. ‘My mother died when I was young. Cancer—very quick. I don’t remember much about her, but we have photos—family photos that are so different from what I became used to as a child. Looking at them is like seeing someone else’s life.’

      Zayed frowned, waiting for her to go on. ‘After she died, my father shut down. He hired a nanny and hardly ever saw me, and then sent me to boarding school as soon as he could. He was a stranger to me but, when I see those photos, I realise he wasn’t always that way. Before my mother died, he hugged me and tickled me and read me stories at night. I have the photographic proof.’ Her voice was wistful and sad. ‘And it made me realise that he chose to be a stranger. He didn’t think I was worth being something more.’

      ‘Perhaps he couldn’t be anything more, because of grief.’

      ‘Perhaps,’ she acknowledged, ‘and perhaps your mother didn’t have the strength to go on just for you. But it still hurts. It still feels like you failed somehow. Like you weren’t enough.’

      Her perception left him breathless, because he knew she was exactly right. His mother’s death, the way she’d seemed to choose it over life, had been a further blow after his father and brother’s death. A further and harder grief, because they could have held each other up, supported each other, been strong for each other. And she’d chosen for him to go it alone.

      ‘I’m sorry, Zayed.’ Olivia stepped closer to him, reaching up on her tiptoes to cup his cheek with her