Page 60 of Her Arabian King

“I know it would be better if I leave you alone,” he said roughly. “I know you’re going to suffer more when you’re with me. But I just can’t live without you—-”

Harper squeezed her eyes shut. “Please. Please stop this.”

“Every time I tried to thought of another day without you by my side, the fucking air around me changes—-”

“PLEASE STOP.”

“And I can’t breathe—-”

“Please.” Harper was sobbing now. “Please stop doing this—-”

“My heart doesn’t beat right—-”

“I don’t want to go back,” Harper screamed.

The sheikh turned ashen, and she nearly broke apart at the look of devastation on his face. She didn’t want to hurt him like this. She loved him, loved him more than she loved anything. But she also knew he could only be himself when he was king—-

“Y-you heard me, so stop this. I don’t want to go back—-”

The sheikh started shaking his head.

Harper bit her lip hard. “I will never want to go back—-”

He released her wrists to grip her shoulders hard. “YOU DO. You do, damn you.” But the desperation in his tone, the wildness in his gaze, told both of them he didn’t seem to believe this any more than she did. “You have to come back to me because I love you—-” He stared at her, willing her to say the words that would tell him he still had hope.

But she only cried as she shook her head—-

And the sheikh slid to his knees.

A painful gasp escaped her. “Khalil, no—-”

He stared up at her. “You’re my other half, Harper.”

Her hands flew to her mouth.

“Not the throne. Not the kingdom. But you. Just you.”

But this time, the sheikh’s tone was dull, and pain strangled her throat at the sound of it. He wasn’t supposed to be this hurt. He was supposed to be able to move on because he had the kingdom, and wasn’t that the most precious thing to him?

“So I’ll say it again.”

His own voice shook, and a shuddering sob wrecked her body at the sound of it.

“And this time – this time, your answer will be different.”

But in his eyes, she could see only emptiness, could see that the sheikh no longer believed in what he was saying—-

“I love you.”

Words that were whispered as if it was the only thing the sheikh could live for, words spoken with such pain that it vanquished all her fears and made her legs give out.

Oh God.

He had meant it.

This man loved her more than his throne, his kingdom—-

More than everything—-

---