Sheikh's Desert Duty Page 11

  “My father warned me that my behavior would lead to ruin, that it would lead to death. But I didn’t care. Because I had never seen evidence of a consequence. Because money and power had spared me from every single one. If we trashed a hotel room, I could more than afford to pay someone to clean it up. If we got into a fender bender, it was easy to throw money at the owner of the other car and make it all go away. When I was through with a lover, all I had to do was give her a trinket and she would be happy again. She would go on her way feeling pleased at her dalliance with a sheikh. Yes, I lived my life consequence-free for a great many years.”

  She tried to read what he was feeling, tried to understand what he was thinking by looking into his eyes. But there was nothing there. Nothing but an endless black well. “What changed? Because something had to. Otherwise I very much believe you would still be cutting a party swath through Europe.” And who wouldn’t? She’d never had the luxury of living consequence-free, she’d always had to work harder. Had her life been different, she very likely would have been different to.

  “You are not wrong. Something did change. My father was proven right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He drew in a sharp breath and looked down, his shoulders tightened.

  “Zayn,” she pressed. “What is it that he said?”

  There was nothing but silence in the tent for long moments. Nothing but water on canvas. Then Zayn looked up at her, his eyes dark pits.

  “My father said my behavior would end in ruin. He said it would end in death. And it did, Sophie. My actions caused the death of my sister.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SOPHIE COULD ONLY stare at Zayn, his admission settling heavily in the room, like a blanket of dust, covering everything it touched. She didn’t want to speak for fear she might disturb it all, for fear she might disrupt it, cloud the air and stop his confession. Interrupt what he was about to say. And yet, she found she could hardly breathe in the silence, waiting for him to continue. Waiting for him to explain.

  But he didn’t speak. He only sat, his dark eyes fixed on a spot behind her, not the tent wall, somewhere more distant than that. Perhaps somewhere back in the past.

  “Zayn?” she asked. Her voice seemed far too loud in the stillness, competing with the rain falling on the tent top. Disturbing the natural order.

  He still didn’t speak, a sharp breath making his chest pitch, lifting his shoulders. And then he looked back at her, snapping back to the present, as though he had never been gone. But he had been, she knew it as certainly as she was sitting there.

  “I am responsible for the death of my younger sister Jasmine.” He said the words again as though to affirm them both to himself and to her.

  He had mentioned his sister just last night, and yet, at the time nothing had been brought up in her memory. But now... Dimly she thought she might be able to remember a news story about the death of a royal princess somewhere in the world. But it was hard to say what was memory and what was her brain trying to forge a connection between this moment and a moment in her past. Trying to find a way to connect even more deeply than she already had. Which was a mistake, and yet she couldn’t stop herself.

  “And she was younger?”

  “By only a couple of years. Leila, my sister who is still alive, is the baby. Jasmine and I were much closer in age. And we were friends. Often, we got into trouble together. Until I outgrew her, until I started to do things I did not want my sister involved in. Of course, I did not want my younger sister sleeping around and drinking to excess. Those things were fine for me but in my mind off-limits to her. To this day I cannot say what I was thinking. Because I do not understand. I do not understand that man. That man I was sixteen years ago.”

  “Why have I heard so little about this? It seems as though if there were a real scandal here it would be covered in the news even now.”

  “Yes, and it would be, if anyone knew the full story.”

  “Are you sure you want to tell the whole story to me?”

  She had to give him a chance to change his mind. A chance to leave it unspoken. To leave her in the dark. But she wanted to push him to tell her, too, because this might be the scandal he’d mentioned. The one she needed to stop the Chatsfields.

  Did you ever stop to think who else it could ruin?

  No. And she couldn’t. This was for Isabelle.

  His dark eyes leveled with hers. “I am going to tell you the story. What you do with it after is up to you. You want the scandal, and this is the scandal I can give you.”

  “The scandal I’m after?” she asked, her throat dry.

  “Somehow I doubt it. But does it matter? You’re a journalist. And this is the better story. This is the thing you need.”

  Her throat tightened, her stomach cramping uncomfortably. “Is it about James Chatsfield?”

  “No, it is not. The only villain in this story is me. Or perhaps Damien, should you wish to cast him as such. But I don’t blame you if you do not wish to speak ill of the dead.”

  Dimly she thought she should turn on her digital recorder, but she didn’t want to interrupt him for anything. Didn’t want him to become conscious of her recording his words. It was okay, though, because she wouldn’t forget them. No matter what she did with his words after this, she would not forget them.

  “I’m listening.”

  “When you live a lifestyle such as mine you attract a certain sort of person. And it must be acknowledged that I was one of them. I was not above any of those I brought to the family palace. I was a part of them. I was the chief of sinners, in no way above any of their actions, and often leading them. These were the people I brought home. And my sister, who had been my closest friend growing up, was confused as to why I preferred these people over her now. Damien was my partner in crime. The drinking, the womanizing, he was there for all of it. I knew what manner of man he was, and yet, I introduced him to Jasmine.”

  Again she wanted to say something, wanted to interrupt and offer comfort in some way. Wanted to stop the flow of words from coming out of his mouth, so he wouldn’t expose himself in this way. So he wouldn’t reveal his secrets to her. Because she wasn’t certain she was equal to them, wasn’t certain she was worthy of them.

  She had no armor in this moment, adrift in a sea, rather than clinging doggedly to the pier and trying to appear as though she was secure.

  “She was taken with Damien from the first, but I assumed, in my arrogance, that Damien knew better than to touch her. Still, when I noticed my sister’s fascination with him I warned her away. I was not kind. I told her that silly virgins should never even speak to men like that. She asked if that meant she should not speak to me. Of course I said that was different. But I started to wonder if it was. I started to wonder why I was content to be the sort of person I would not allow my sister to associate with. But it was too late.”

  He continued. “One day I walked into my chambers to find Damien with Jasmine. He had clearly given her alcohol, and possibly another substance, and she was impaired. Laughing, and hanging all over him. And then Damien, my friend, looked at me and told me that she was no longer a silly virgin and asked if it was okay now for her to associate with him.” Zayn clenched his jaw, a muscle jumping in his cheek. “I was enraged, Sophie. Were there a weapon in my hand I think I might have destroyed Damien there and then. I told them to go. I told him to get out of my sight, to leave my home and never come back. And Jasmine, in love with him as she was, clung to him and told me she was going with him. And I told her I did not want to see her again. I told her...that she had brought shame onto our family and that she was dead to me. I said...I said terrible things to her.”

  He pushed his hands through his hair, and lowered his head. “So she left with him. And only an hour later we received word they were in a terrible accident, and that none invol
ved had survived. So you see the reason there was no scandal. No hint of what went on between us. How could there be? It would endanger public opinion of me if word were to get out how I spoke to her at the end. Of course, I never imagined he would drive, not in the state he was in. But I should’ve known. Because the most disturbing thing about my confrontation with Damien was that it was like looking into a mirror. It was realizing that had the roles been reversed, had he invited me into his home, had his innocent sister showed interest in me, I cannot guarantee I would not have done the same thing he’d done. He didn’t love Jasmine. And yet he took her, took her from the palace, took her from this world. And I do not believe I would have done any better. I do not believe I would have acted any more honorably. It destroyed me to lose her. It destroyed me that I introduced her to the man who led her down that path, that I drove her away from the palace and into his car with him. And that was when I knew I had to change.”

  She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. “That’s why you believe so strongly in duty. That’s why you’re marrying Christine.”

  “I trust nothing in myself, which is why I don’t depend on what I feel. I simply must do what’s right. It’s the only thing that matters. It’s the only thing that can matter.”

  “Zayn, surely you have to know that it wasn’t your fault. Not really.”

  “Do you remember what I told you about consequences? I had never in my life faced a consequence before that moment. Before my angry words, before my own selfishness, my own desire to deny my behavior for my sister. Killed her. There was no amount of money, no amount of power, that could bring her back. In that moment I was simply a man, and nothing I had would fix the devastation that I had wrought. It was my consequence. One I could not pay off. One I could not ignore. And I will not turn from it now. A man is meant to learn from his mistakes, to learn from the ramifications of his actions. I’d avoided that for years. Until the moment I could not avoid it anymore. So I bear it now, so I let it change me. Because if not, then her death truly is in vain. That cannot be.”

  He stood, stooped beneath the roof of the tent, a strange kind of desolation in his dark eyes. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I am going out to check the SUV. And to get a look at the roads. I will return.”

  He pushed open the flap on the tent and went out into the downpour, leaving her sitting there, shell-shocked and alone.

  And then she realized, this was the end of the story. Or rather the end as it had happened so far. Ultimately, it would end with the wedding, the wedding to Christine. A wedding that was taking place as part of Zayn’s quest for atonement. The story of the nation, the story of the monarchy and the story of Zayn. He had told her to try and make her understand why he felt he’d fallen short, why he must go on to do his duty for his people.

  And she ached for him, for the pain he had been through when he lost his sister. But she could not blame him. She could not blame him because she had spent her life refusing to accept what she had been given. Refusing to allow the decisions of other people to shape who she was. Jasmine had made a decision, one that might have been different with the benefit of age, but a decision all the same.

  When Sophie had been that age she had already decided she would not drink or do drugs. She had already decided that she had too many things ahead of her to allow herself to be distracted. She barely had friends, she’d never dated. Maybe her decisions hadn’t been healthier, but she’d been safe. And in many ways, she’d been in control of her fate, rather than someone who’d followed a guy blindly.

  She had never seen the point of sitting back and blaming her father, her mother, for her situation in life. Not when she could transcend it.

  Jasmine, as tragic as her death was, could have done the same. And may well have if her poor decision had not been the first and last poor decision she’d ever made. Life was unfair that way. There were those who made mistake after mistake and came out just fine, and there were those who put one foot wrong and paid a dear cost.

  But Jasmine’s hand had not been forced. Not by Zayn, not by anyone.

  She burst into a sitting position, and scurried out the door of the tent, shrieking when a fat drop of water landed on her head and rolled down her face. The rain was cold, torrential, creating tributaries that flowed down the side of the embankment, down to the road below. A road that now appeared to be a river.

  She looked toward the SUV, but didn’t see Zayn anywhere. Then she looked the other way, and saw nothing but scrub brush and dark clouds. “Zayn!” she called, looking all around, hoping to catch sight of him. But she couldn’t. She didn’t see him anywhere. “Zayn!” She called his name again.

  Her voice was swallowed up by the wind, swallowed up by the falling rain.

  She pressed forward, moving away from the tent, away from the vehicle. Because she had a feeling he had gone toward the wilderness. Because it just seemed like something he would do. She knew it, as deeply as she knew anything about herself.

  In many ways, he seemed to perpetually be wandering the wilderness alone. Standing separate from everyone else, from everything else. From the law, from modern mores, from anything that might interfere with the protection of his country and his family.

  A strange realization, followed closely by the realization that she had been doing the same.

  Yes, Isabelle was her friend, yes, she had other casual acquaintances. She went into an office every day and worked with people surrounding her. But she was alone. She did not allow people to touch her. Because she was in the wilderness, fighting to survive.

  Because she was afraid of revealing weakness, afraid of depending on anyone. Afraid of nearly everything. And so she insulated herself, kept herself separate, so that no one would ever know.

  How very strange that the two of them, wandering alone in separate parts of the world, had managed to find each other.

  If only she could find him now, in this literal wilderness.

  Then she saw him, down on one knee, rain pouring over his back, seeping through his tunic, his head bent low.

  “Zayn?” She approached him cautiously, her heart thundering in her temples.

  He lifted his head, then straightened slowly. He turned to face her, water drops sliding down his face, a haunted look at his eyes. She blinked back tears, not sure if they had already fallen or not. There was water on her face, but it was very hard to say where it had come from.

  They simply looked at each other, an expanse of dirt between them, the rain pouring down on them.

  “I wanted to tell you—I needed to tell you—it’s not your fault.”

  He shook his head. “You are hardly going to undo sixteen years of guilt with a simple phrase. But you must know I appreciate the effort, Sophie.”

  “The effort isn’t enough. I need you to understand it.”

  “This has nothing to do with your story. I don’t see why you would care what I think.”

  She blinked against the rain. “I care because I don’t think you should carry this burden. I don’t feel like you should blame yourself like this. You can’t live your life for other people.”

  “Are you any different? Answer me, Sophie, are you any different?”

  “I live for myself, Zayn. How can you ask if I’m different?”

  “Do you? I don’t think you do. You are here because of your friend Isabelle, even if you won’t tell me the reasoning. You are questioning me to benefit her. You are afraid to show that you are vulnerable because of what other people might think. You went to university so you can show your father that you were worthy. Yes, Sophie, you do live for other people.”

  “How dare you use what I shared with you against me?”

  “Is it a bad thing, Sophie? Is it a bad thing to live for others? I have lived for myself, and I’ve never seen anything fruitful come of it. It brought nothi
ng but death and destruction. I will not apologize for living for a higher calling. I am not insulting you by pointing out that you do the same. But I will not allow you to stand there and accuse me of something that you yourself do.”

  “She made a choice, Zayn.” Sophie continued as though he hadn’t spoken. Because she didn’t want to process what he had said.

  Because he cast her in a different role than the one she had placed herself in. It didn’t make her sound like a hard worker, like an independent person who had made her own choices. It made her sound like someone who was beholden to the expectations of others. Who had only succeeded because she was afraid of what others might think.

  Yes, she knew she worried about what others might think, but it was only because she needed them to think highly of her in order to achieve what she needed to. She was using their approval, she was not dependent on it. And that was an entirely different thing.

  “And I made choices that delivered her choice to her. We affect the choices others make, Sophie. Your life is a classic example of that. Your father’s actions affected your choices.”

  “I make my decisions. I have controlled my life. Nothing controls me.”

  Suddenly he closed the distance between them, wrapping his arm around her waist and drawing her up hard against his chest. She could feel his heart beating hard against her breast, could feel the sharp rise and fall of his chest as he breathed in deep. “Nothing controls you? How about this, habibti. Does this control you? Or are you immune to me?”

  She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. In spite of the cold, in spite of the wet, she felt like she was overheating. Felt as though she might melt into a puddle, and flow down the mountainside along with the rest of the rain.

  “Who controls you now?” he asked, his voice rough and soft, sending a shiver through her body.

  She looked into his eyes, and she was suddenly hit with a swell of longing that overtook her completely. That nearly made her knees buckle, that made her feel as though if she didn’t close this minute distance between them she would die.