Page 39 of Her Vow to Be His Desert Queen

‘Just as well,’ Augustine said. ‘I was just going to suggest taking her to bed. She’ll be begging for your ring by morning.’

‘Why do women like you?’ Khalil asked acidly. ‘I cannot understand it.’

Augustine laughed, unoffended. ‘My reputation is somewhat intriguing, I believe. And I live up to it. So tell me, is it love, Khal? Did you catch that nonsense from Galen?’

Again that electricity passed through him, as if the word was a badly earthed wire that he kept putting his hand on.

He didn’t want to keep thinking about it.

‘No,’ he said flatly.

But doesn’t she deserve to be loved?

Of course she did. She did more than anyone else he’d ever known. Except he couldn’t give her that love. He never would.

‘Thank God for that,’ Augustine said. ‘At least one of us is keeping his head. Well, I shall look forward to seeing her again.’

After he’d finished the call, Khalil took a couple of steps into the warm night of the courtyard, the fountain in the middle playing its gentle music. He had a million other things he wanted to think about, yet he couldn’t stop thinking about Sidonie and the question of love.

It was true, hehadloved her. He’d come to Oxford a dark and tormented man, and she’d truly been the sunshine in his life. Giving him back hope and the kind of happiness he’d only ever known as a very young boy, and maybe not even then.

She’d been his first love. Yet he’d never been able to forget that eventually he’d have to give her up. That he’d have to cut his heart out of his chest and sacrifice it for the good of his country. And indeed, that was what he’d done.

He could not love her again. Love—any of those warmer, softer emotions—was not allowed for kings, and especially not for a son of Amir.

Amir hadn’t been the divine being his people had wanted. He’d been a petty, flawed man, and if Khalil wanted to be better, to be stronger than Amir, he had to be more than that. Being a true king of Al Da’ira meant not falling prey to the same greed that had tainted his father. The need for more wealth, more power, more physical indulgence.

His mother had told him it would always be harder for him than for other people because of that poisonous blood, so he had to be more careful. But he hadn’t been careful in England. With Sidonie he’d always wanted more. More of her laughter, more of her empathy, more of her warmth. More ofher.

He’d been greedy. That was the truth of why he’d had to leave her in the end.

And that was why love could never be a part of their relationship, no matter that she deserved it. He had to guard himself. He couldn’t love her and be a king—the two were mutually exclusive for someone like him. Nor could he give up his country for her, not when he’d fought to the death for the right to rule. That would negate everything he’d done.

Khalil put his hands on the edge of the fountain and leaned on them, staring down into the water, unseeing.

A king wasn’t supposed to care about individuals, only the wellbeing of his country as a whole, but he couldn’t deny that he did care about Sidonie.

He cared that she’d lost her parents so young and had been brought up by her sorry excuse for an aunt. He cared that he’d broken her heart all those years ago, and that heart of hers was still broken even now.

He wanted her to be happy, here with him.

It was dangerous, that caring. It was a flaw.

‘Things are different for kings,’his mother had told him as she’d handed him the knife.‘They have to do hard things. They cannot be soft or uncertain, and they cannot let their emotions rule them. Especially you, Khalil. You have your father’s blood and so you must be extra-careful.’

He hadn’t wanted that knife. He’d cried as she’d forced it into his hand, loathing the heavy weight of it in his palm, knowing even then what she wanted him to do. But his tears had made no impact. She’d been relentless, nodding to the servant to bring Dusk, his half-grown chocolate Labrador, into the room. The dog had started to get sick a week earlier, and even though the vet had done all he could to save him, it was clear that Dusk wasn’t going to get better.

‘You know what you need to do, Khalil,’his mother had said.‘Dusk will die in agony if you do not do this. And it must be you. He is your dog, and you are responsible for him. You cannot ask another person to do something you lack the courage to do yourself. Because a king is not a coward. They must make difficult decisions and do the things other people cannot.’

He’d known his mother was right, that Dusk was in pain, and that this was a mercy. The dog was his, and asking someone else to grant that mercy because he was too afraid to do it himself was a coward’s way out. And he wasn’t a coward.

So he’d put his dog down. He’d forced himself to watch the life drain out of the animal’s eyes and he’d felt as if he’d killed part of himself. But he’d learned a lesson that day and it wasn’t just about making hard decisions and taking responsibility. It was also about how much love hurt.

Love had also been part of the decision he’d made later, to fight for the crown, and to take Yusuf’s life, because he loved his country.

‘You did the right thing,’his mother had said after the fight, when Yusuf’s body had been taken away.‘If you had not killed him, he would have killed you. And even if you had beaten him and let him live, he would have drawn sympathy. His supporters would have torn this country apart.’Her expression had been like iron, the kind of iron she’d shaped in him.‘You were a surgeon, Khalil. He was a cancer that had to be cut out so our country could live. Do not spare him a single moment’s thought.’

But he’d spared him more than a single moment’s thought. Because even though intellectually he’d known Yusuf had been planning to take the crown whether he won the battle for succession or not, and had been fomenting an insurrection that would have torn Al Da’ira apart, he’d never been able to quite suppress the doubt that had consumed him afterwards.

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