PENNY JORDAN - Scandals Of The Crown - The Life She Left Behind / The Price of Royal Duty / The Sheikh's Heir

Three years later he understood. Why he had not wanted another woman since he’d met Angelina. Why it had felt so essential to hold her to him when he’d finally found her again.

But at what cost? He had only thought of himself. Had only thought of what it meant to him to have her.

How had he not realized it was a prison sentence to her?

He would rather go through life alone than subject her to it. Than to force her to be with him when she had no desire to be his wife.

She never had.

Fate. She had blamed fate for forcing them together when he had been the one forcing things all along.

She wanted things to be different. And they would be.

“Taj?” Angelina crept out of her darkened bedroom and into her sitting area. Taj was sitting on her couch, still shirtless, the lights off. He appeared oblivious to the fact that the sun had gone down. He was just sitting, looking at his hands.

“Taj,” she said again, moving to sit beside him. “Is everything all right?”

He looked at her, his face lost in shadow. “You are here, and you are safe. How could anything be wrong?”

There was something off about his tone. Something dark in his voice. Gritty.

“I just thought…”

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“I’m fine. Better. Actually I feel ready to eat, which is a first for a few days. Either the hormone induced nausea is over, or it’s the eye of the storm.”

“I hope it’s over,” he said, his tone still flat.

“What’s wrong?”

“You asked me, Angelina, if fate had forced us together.”

“I…I remember that.” She wanted to touch him, but something stopped her.

His gaze was distant. “I have the answer now. There is no such thing as fate. Only sheikhs who think they are God. I will not play at a profession so far above myself. Not anymore.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We will not marry.”

Angelina felt like the floor tilted sideways. “What?”

“You ask far too many questions,” he said, standing. “I have made myself, my wishes, very clear. We will not marry at the end of the week. We will not marry.”

“And…where will I go?” she asked, not caring about his anti-question mandate. Because she had questions. Lots and lots of questions. And giving voice to them, needing the answers to them, was the only thing keeping her heart from splintering. “What about our child?”

“I will see our child. I will support our child in every way possible. But I am not holding you here.”

“What changed?”

“I cannot lock us in a situation that would be unendurable for us both.” He turned his back on her, and she felt a sharp stab hit her in the chest. “You may stay here in the palace as long as it suits you. I will not have you move under the present circumstances. It is your choice where you go when you feel able to leave. If you choose to stay in Rahat, a home will be provided for you.”

“And if I choose to leave the country?” she asked, ice coating her words, her body, her heart, offering protection. Shock providing insulation against the pain.

“Visitation will need to be arranged,” he said, his eyes black holes in the darkness of the room. “I will be there when my child is born, make no mistake. You will not shut me out.”

She felt like she was breaking inside. Slowly cracking apart.

But she wouldn’t beg. She wouldn’t show him. Already, she loved him while he felt…what did he feel? He had been so kind earlier and now this. Now he could cast her off as quickly as he’d brought her into his world.

Already he had too much power. She wouldn’t let him know it.

“I promise, Taj.” She tilted her chin up, called on every bit of strength inside of her and used it. “If you want to see our child, anytime, day or night, you will be able to. I will never keep them from you.”

“Good.”

“Can you please go?”

He nodded once. “I’m on my way out.”

He walked out of the sitting room and she heard the double doors to her segment of rooms close behind him.

Only then did she allow tears to fall.

On the day that would have been her wedding day Angelina took one last look at her suite of rooms in the Rahatan palace, and closed the double doors behind her.

She didn’t know where she would go. She’d given up her house in Italy to follow Princess Carlotta to her new home in Santa Christobel, and she’d given up her position there to come and marry Taj.

She could go back to Texas. That thought only brought intense regret.

She looked out the window at the sun-washed desert and wondered if she would ever feel home anywhere else. Anywhere besides this place that had seemed an alien planet when she’d first arrived.

She moved through the corridor and tried to ignore the way the staff moved around her. The way they ignored her presence. She supposed she was written off now. Cast off by their sheikh, cast off by them.

Taj. Oh, Taj.

Her heart bled his name with each beat.

It was hot outside. It was always hot there. She should be glad to leave the miserable heat. She would be happier if she had any idea of where she would end up. Anywhere beyond the lovely, modern hotel in the center of the capital city.

That was her next stop. It would do for now.

She closed her eyes and looked to the sun, letting it warm her face. She ignored the limousine that had pulled up to the front of the palace courtyard, waiting for her. Waiting to take her away.

“Angel?”

She turned sharply, her eyes opening. “Taj?”

He was standing at the entrance to the gardens. She hadn’t seen him in the days since he’d broken things off with her. She’d assumed he’d gone to one of his other homes. It was what she’d been told.

“I didn’t think you were here.”

“I wasn’t,” he said, his voice rough. “I was trying to keep away until you’d left.”

“Am I so repulsive to you?” she asked, her voice crisp, masking the wound his words left in her heart.

He closed the distance between them, his strides long and fast. “Are you repulsive to me?” he asked, his expression stark. Open. “You can’t ask me that? Do you realize that for the three years since I first met you I have wanted no one else? That I’ve had no lovers because the memory of your kiss was enough to keep me from being aroused by any other woman?”

“Lust.” The word came out a whisper. She couldn’t believe it. That he hadn’t wanted anyone else. That he hadn’t had anyone else. It didn’t seem possible. “Lust is all that is. It isn’t enough.”

“Lust is cheap, Angel. If it were lust I could have satisfied it with any number of women in any number of ways. That’s not what it is.”

“Then why are you making me go?” she asked, her voice breaking, her pride forgotten for the moment.

“Because I will not hold you prisoner. I will not bend your will to fit with mine. I will not make you miserable to ensure my own happiness. Not anymore.”

“I…I don’t understand.”

“I saw you, in your father’s home, so beautiful. So perfect. And I wanted you. I sought out to buy you like I would anything else I coveted. Because nothing in my life had ever been denied me. I simply asked, or wrote a check, and it was mine. I thought you would be no different. But you left me. And I thought I would forget. But I couldn’t. When I saw you again, standing in the balcony at the palace in Santina, I thought only of satisfying my desire for you. Of having you. Possessing you. Exactly like the first time.”

Angelina crossed her arms beneath her breasts, tightening her hold on herself. She would stand upright. She would not dissolve. “And now what? You’ve decided you want to return me?”