From One Night To Desert Queen by Pippa Roscoe
CHAPTER TEN
‘SO, STAR’SAPPOINTMENT with Maya is tomorrow?’ Amin asked for the hundredth time that day. Even Khalif’s other members of staff glared at the bespectacled man.
Reza leaned against the wall of the meeting room, refusing to take his eyes from Khalif, who was spending an unnecessary amount of time trying to ignore that fact.
‘And you know she can’t attend the event tonight?’
Khalif was going to have to see a dentist before the week was out. And Amin might be paying a visit to the doctor. He opened his mouth to speak when he felt Reza’s hand on his shoulder, as if holding him back from the violence he wanted to inflict.
‘I think we all understand that. In the meantime, let’s take a short break before reconvening for the run-through for tonight’s event.’
The quiet authority of Reza’s tone had the desired effect on his staff and the opposite effect on Khalif.
‘I don’t need you to speak for me,’ he growled.
‘Of course you don’t. But you also don’t need a mutiny on your hands, which is what will happen if you push your staff any harder.’
‘It is no harder than I push myself.’
‘You’re right. It is considerably less. But that doesn’t mean either is manageable.’ His best friend let go of the hold on his shoulder as the last staff member left the room. ‘What are you more afraid of? That she is pregnant or she isn’t?’
‘Does it matter? I couldn’t do this to her,’ he said, finally saying it out loud. ‘I know what it is like to have that freedom taken away and I can’t...’ Khalif shook his head.
‘I know the sacrifices you have—’
‘Sacrifices? I changed everything! I stopped everything.’ Khalif stared at his best friend in disbelief. Finally, after three years, it poured forth. ‘I gave up an international business I had built from scratch, I dropped everything and came home. I buried my brother and Samira in front of the world’s press. I made phone calls and shook hands within hours of their funeral... I did what I had to and would do it again. But Reza, I couldn’t breathe, let alone grieve in the way I wanted.’ And for who I wanted, he finally admitted to himself. ‘This? It’s like being in a straitjacket, folded in on yourself, cramped, confined. The expectation of everyone, the watching, the pressure. How on earth can you think I would willingly put that on someone as innocent as Star?’
Reza stared at him with deep understanding and sympathy. He placed his hand on Khalif’s shoulder, the weight both comforting and steadying. He nodded once and Khalif knew that his best friend understood.
‘Okay,’ Reza said simply. ‘Then let’s talk about how this holographic presentation is going to work, because that is going to blow their minds.’
It felt strange to be back in Khalif’s suite. Especially since everything that had happened between then and now had begun to feel like a dream. She was on the balcony, the late afternoon sun sinking into her skin, warming her pleasantly...but not quite enough.
She rolled her shoulders, bracing her hands against the balustrade, eyes searching the horizon. The view of the city looked a little different now that she knew out there, beyond the stretches of golden sand, the sloping dunes and hazy blue skies, was a desert palace seen only by a few and an oasis that would always be in her heart.
She glanced at the rucksack containing everything she had brought with her and one new item. She had returned the connected pendants to the velvet bag and was yet to be able to wear them, putting off the moment until she truly knew that she would be going home. The necklace now had a double chain, as if it would always acknowledge that it had needed two people to come together to make it whole.
She felt a tide of anxiety washing against her soul, back and forth like the sea. She was nervous for Khalif, knowing how much the reveal of his plans for the memorial meant to him. So much so that she’d borne the look of guilt he’d worn as he’d explained why she couldn’t come to the event that night with understanding and acceptance. Both of which she truly felt. But it had hurt nonetheless.
Yet it hurt in a different way to how she had felt alone in the palace in the desert. This was not the sense of shame and rejection she had felt because of her grandparents, it was more a sense of inevitable ache. A sense of loss that was down to fate rather than intention. Where once Catherine had been forced to do her duty, now it was Khalif’s turn—and Star honestly couldn’t have argued against either.
He’d offered her a way that she could still see the presentation, which she would take, because it was his moment and she wouldn’t take that away from him. Which was why there, on the balcony, facing the desert, she sent a prayer to Catherine and Hātem, and Faizan and Samira, to look out for him that night.
There was a knock on the door. Star had been expecting it, but it still made her jump. She turned back into the room to find Maya closing the door behind her. She smiled at Star, who braced herself.
‘I was hoping you could help me with something. Do you think it’s possible to take the test today and for it still to be accurate?’
Khalif flexed his jaw, hoping to relieve the ache in his cheeks from the perfunctory smiles he’d masked himself in.
Samira’s father, Abbad, had been casting grim glances his way since the first guests had arrived and his wife’s vacant gaze wasn’t any better. The only time he’d felt himself relax was when Nadya had winked at him and run off to play hide-and-seek amongst the legs of the guests. His parents were thankfully preoccupied by small talk with dignitaries and international diplomats.
‘It is a stunning design,’ Reza said quietly, having stuck by his side the entire afternoon.
‘I know.’
‘You should be proud.’
‘And she should be here,’ he growled, his tone grating his throat.
‘There are three hundred people present, the Duratrian press both inside and outside the palace, along with more than a few representatives of the international newspapers. You think that a woman with hair like the sun would go unnoticed in here?’ Reza reminded him. ‘Tonight is about Faizan, Samira...and you. After tonight,’ he pressed, ‘is another matter entirely.’
You are wrong, my friend, Khalif thought, no matter how much he wished it weren’t the case.
Khalif stepped up to the podium and the audience grew quiet and turned to face him. He looked out across the faces he could see beneath the bright powerful glare of lighting trained on the stage. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift, his heartbeat stumbled and while he didn’t know how, or where, Khalif knew that Star was here. He took a breath.
‘Ladies and gentlemen. My family and I are honoured that you could be here tonight. For some, it may have seemed like a long time coming,’ he acknowledged to the gentle murmur rippling across the guests. ‘However, I truly believe that my brother and Samira deserved such consideration. The...hole they left in the lives of their family and friends is immeasurable and it was important to respect that grief. Faizan and Samira touched so many lives. They didn’t just merge two families, but they brought two countries together and two beautiful princesses into this world.
‘Growing up with Faizan was no mean feat,’ he said, to the slight laughter of the crowd. ‘He was focused, driven, bright, intelligent, compassionate. And I can see those qualities already in Nadya and Nayla. Faizan always knew what legacy he wanted to leave behind him. One of peace in the present and hope for the future. Hope not just for his people, but his planet. And Samira? She was always smiling, always ready to be the balance in disagreements, always ready to bridge the gap between her husband the Prince and the man who loved his family and his people above all else. Samira and Faizan were proud, loving and very conscious of their countries.
‘She was the bridge and he the river that ran deep beneath it and that is how I, and I hope all of you, will remember them.’
He stepped back from the stage and allowed the lights to dim. The gentle hum of excitement building from the crowd momentarily stopped in awe when they saw the first images from the holographic display.
Khalif heard the words of his pre-recorded voice-over explain about the area between Duratra and Udra that had long since been abandoned. It was a kind of no man’s land where the river, coming from the Red Sea, cut between Duratra and Samira’s home country.
The hologram showed images of what the country looked like now and slowly how the area would be cleared, cleaned and prepared for what was to come. Over the next few minutes, the graphics showed a bridge being built over the river between the two neighbouring countries. Beautiful plants and lush greenery developed along both sides of the banks as well as each side of the wide bridge. Oohs and aahs came from the audience as they could see the trees grow, healthy and strong and high on top of the bridge.
‘There will be no cars or vehicles in the area. It will be completely pedestrianised. Wildlife will be introduced—birds, insects and eventually larger animals—all cared for by specially trained staff who will provide guided free tours for any visitor.
‘It will be a sanctuary. A place for people to come and honour the memory of Faizan and Samira, and the investment in the future that was always so very important to them. It is the paradise they would have wanted for their children, and it is what their children wanted to honour and remember their parents.’
His family needed this, his country needed—deserved—stability, unity, cohesion and healing and he knew deep down in his bones that this would be the first step.
Khalif looked out into the audience, touched by the overwhelming emotion he felt rising up to meet his own. Goosebumps pebbled his skin and he thought that he saw a flash of red, looking up in time to see the movement of a curtain at the balcony near the private suites on the upper level.
‘Uncle Kal... Uncle Kal!’
He turned just in time to catch Nadya, who had thrown herself at him in wild abandon.
‘You had the birds!’ Nadya’s voice was a little muffled from where her face was pressed against his stomach and she gripped his waist like a limpet. Nayla, the shyer of the two, stood with a massive grin and wide eyes showing her delight, standing with one foot tucked behind the other.
‘And flowers,’ he said to her, and she nodded enthusiastically.
‘Will it be bright blue and pink like the hologriff?’
Kal didn’t have the heart to correct her. ‘Well, maybe we can speak to the designers about that. We have quite a bit to do before we get to that point.’
Over his nieces’ heads, he saw his parents making their way towards him. Unease stirred briefly but then he grounded himself. He knew that he had done the right thing—not because it pleased everyone, but because he felt it in his gut. The memorial would be doing the right thing by his nieces and by Faizan and Samira.
‘My son,’ his mother, Hafsa, greeted him, her eyes crinkling the fine lines at the corners into fans. He wasn’t sure whether it was a consequence of losing his brother, or valuing the family he did have and the love he felt for them, but his heart felt torn—between being here with his family and being with the woman upstairs. And he knew that neither deserved half a heart.
It took him an hour to extricate himself from the gala, but he couldn’t have said that he’d tried too hard. He had felt it. Something in the air had shifted. A kind of knowledge, or awareness, had begun to creep over him, without him knowing specifically what it was. He just knew that he had to get to Star.
His heart was pounding as he made his way through the private areas of the palace, but his footsteps were slow and purposeful. Something inside him was roaring to get out, but he hardly made a sound. He smiled at the staff and few family members he passed, though in his mind’s eye he saw only one thing...one person.
He closed the door to his suite behind him and stopped. He inhaled the scent of her on the air, wondering if that might be the last time he did so. He didn’t have to look, to know that she was out on the balcony. She loved that view almost as much as he did.
He took two steps into the room and paused. Letting himself see her. The way her hair twisted in the gentle desert breeze. From this angle she stood at the balcony amongst the stars and he bit his lip to stop himself from saying something, not wanting to spoil the moment—for her or him.
She turned slightly to the side, as if sensing his presence, and wiped at something on her cheek that he didn’t quite see, so caught up in the sight of her.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘I live here,’ he said, but the joke fell flat. ‘I was worried.’
‘About the presentation?’
‘No, that went well. Really well.’ He closed the distance between them as she turned to face him fully. ‘Everyone loved it.’
‘Of course they did.’ She smiled and his heart ached at the easy acceptance and surety ringing in her voice. ‘You should probably get back,’ she insisted, ‘it’s still early.’
‘I was wrong,’ he said, offering her all that he could. ‘To ask you to stay here.’
‘You weren’t and you know it,’ she replied without malice or anger. This was Star as he’d never seen her before. Regal, poised and absolutely breathtaking. And that was when he saw the necklace, the double strands of the chain on either side of the pendant making it something strangely beautiful. And instinctively he braced himself against something he felt he already knew.
Star searched his features, her eyes running over his head, shoulders, down the length of his body, consuming as much of him as she possibly could. There was no way Kal could have let her be there at the event that evening. She understood a little of that duty now. How the crowd had looked up to him, watched him, hung on every word. How they had cried and sighed their appreciation of his plans for the memorial. He had given them a focal point for their grief and the beginning of the healing process. She supposed in some way she was about to give herself the same.
‘I’m—’ Khalif started.
‘I’m not pregnant,’ she interrupted before he could say anything more.
He simply held her gaze as if he had felt it in the same way she had. When Maya had presented her with the results of the test, Star hadn’t been surprised by the fact she wasn’t carrying Khalif’s baby, but by the extent to which she’d actually been wanting to. Not once had she let herself hope or believe because...because, she realised now, she had never wanted anything more in her life.
‘Maya assured me the test was accurate.’
He closed the space between them in just two steps, drawing so close to her, only inches really. It was as if he wanted to touch her, reach for her, just as much as she wanted him to...but couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
In one breath, Star was lost just to the sense of him. His exhale shuddered against her cheek, before he turned to stand beside her, facing the desert. She placed her hands on the stone balcony close to his, their little fingers almost touching, but her heart knew the distance might as well have been a chasm.
Go...go now.
But she couldn’t. She forced herself to stay, refusing to turn and run. She was a reader. She was a romantic. And, whether it was foolish or not, she had hope. All the things they’d experienced—an impossible meeting, ancestors torn apart by duty, families brought back together by fate. She had found Catherine’s Duratra out there in the desert. Khalif had found her necklace...
‘So that’s it then.’ His voice was rough and dark in the dusk.
She felt as if she’d conjured up the words herself. The first steps of the dance that would see them either spending the rest of their lives together or...
‘Is it?’
‘Star...’ he warned.
‘No, Khalif. It’s a question I am asking you. Is that it then?’
She refused to look at him, even though he was staring at her hard, trying to get her to face him. But she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Because he’d see. He’d see all that she wasn’t quite ready for him to see.
‘It’s funny how people behave when they think they don’t have a choice,’ she said to the desert. ‘It traps them, makes them feel helpless, makes them behave in ways that aren’t authentic to them. Ways that aren’t right for them.’
‘You can’t consider my life to have choices.’
‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘Look what you did when you realised that you had a choice for Faizan and Samira’s memorial? Look at the incredibly beautiful, amazing thing you have set in motion. Do you not think that we could—’
‘It’s not the same. Everyone in my family, every heir to the throne has been in the same position,’ he growled.
‘The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’
‘Why do you think I’m expecting different results?’ He looked at her, genuinely confused. ‘There were no disastrous results for my parents. And Faizan and Samira’s marriage was a very happy, fruitful one.’
‘But not for you. Not the hurt it caused you,’ she half cried. ‘Would you force this on your nieces? Would you expect them to marry for duty rather than love?’
‘No! I’m doing this so that they can have that option for themselves.’
‘Really? You’re not doing this because it’s easier than being true to yourself?’
His gaze met hers in a fiery clash, the golden flecks in his umber eyes swirling like a sandstorm. ‘Star—’
But she couldn’t listen to him. She had to press on. This was her last chance. Her only chance. ‘Because I suppose you can’t really fail if you’re always trying to please everyone else. If you’re being everything other people need, then it’s their need that’s failed, not you. And you’ll never know.’
‘Know what?’
‘You’ll never know how incredible you could be if you were just yourself.’
Her voice rang with such sincerity, such hope and such optimism he half wanted to believe it himself. It was seductive, what she was saying. Be himself, choose her, be a great ruler. But she was wrong.
‘I was myself,’ he bit out angrily. ‘For three years, I wined and womanised my way around Europe. Is that the kind of ruler Duratra deserves? Is that the kind of man you want?’ His voice had become a shout.
‘You were hurt. Your entire family condoned a marriage between your brother and your first love. Of course you acted out,’ she said, desperately grasping for justifications for his terrible behaviour.
‘Acted out? Is that what...?’ He ground his teeth together, hating the way that her words ran through his head and heart. Her understanding, her belief in him crucified him, made a mockery of every single choice he’d made since, tearing him in half between what he so desperately wanted and what he felt he needed to do.
And he was furious. In that moment, he wanted to bring down the palace, smash and burn everything—anything to make the questions stop. So he did the only thing he could do.
‘I know you think being a prince means that—’
‘Don’t,’ she said, the single word a plea. ‘Don’t use that—’
‘I know you think being a prince means that magical adventures await and love comes with singing birds and talking clocks,’ he said, looking away from the tears brimming in her eyes. ‘But it’s not. It’s not, Star,’ he insisted. ‘It’s constantly putting the country first. It is making a marriage that is strategic and for the good of this country.’
‘And there is nothing strategic about marrying me?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘There just isn’t.’
‘Your happiness is not strategic? It doesn’t count?’
‘No. It never has,’ he said with the same sense of acceptance that had descended the moment he’d realised he was to take the throne.
‘If you allow that feeling, that anger and resentment about Samira marrying Faizan to shape everything you do, the choices you make—’
‘Don’t say her...’ He couldn’t finish the sentence so instead he bit off his words, his tongue. It had been cruel, and he knew it. The hurt on Star’s features was two red slashes on her cheeks.
‘You can attack my dreams but I can’t challenge your fears? Is it yourself that you’re punishing by refusing to listen to your heart, or someone else? Why would you damn yourself to unhappiness?’
Why wouldn’t she stop? Why was she pushing him like this?
‘Is it because,’ she pressed on, ‘if you can have a happy marriage, if you can choose who you marry, then so could Faizan? Then it would mean that your wonderful, incredible brother made the wrong choice and it hurt you?’
‘Wow, you’re really going for it tonight, aren’t you?’ he scoffed bitterly, wondering what else she was going to drag him through. Because being angry with her was easier than feeling the truth of her words.
‘Of course I am. My heart is on the line. My love for you. Can’t you see that?’
White-hot pain slashed across his chest, a death blow that wouldn’t end his life but could still stop his heart. Because only in the moments when his heart wasn’t beating could he find the strength to be cruel enough to force her to go.
‘Love? In two weeks?’ he taunted. ‘That really is a romance,’ he said, forcing scepticism into his tone that burned all the way down. ‘Then again, it’s easier to fall in love when the fantasy can never live up to the reality, isn’t it? You hide in your romances, preferring them to reality. But I don’t have that luxury, Star.’
She looked as if she’d been struck and the only decent thing he could do was bear witness to it. He hated himself more than he ever had done before, but her words had taken hold and weren’t letting go. He couldn’t follow them, not now, not yet, and he greatly feared what would happen when he did. He felt like a bull, head down and ploughing forward, because anything else meant that he had to confront his feelings, her feelings.
Confront her. The way she was always challenging him, demanding of him, expecting him to be better when he couldn’t.
‘You’re right. I do have choices. And I’m sorry that the one I need to make causes you pain.’ His words were mechanical, forced. She knew it, he knew it, but there was also, inevitably, a truth beneath them. ‘But I would make this choice every time. I choose Duratra.’
She wiped at a large, fat tear that escaped down her cheek, the action reminding him of what he’d seen when he’d first come onto the balcony. And he realised in that moment that she’d been crying before they’d talked. Before he’d said the horrible things, because she’d always known how the conversation would play out. She had known, before she’d even told him that she wasn’t pregnant, what his reaction would be.
As she walked from the balcony, out of the suite and the palace, he realised then that he’d got it so terribly wrong. She was not a coward, hiding in romance. She was strong enough and brave enough to face reality. Stronger and braver than him.
The blow to his stomach and heart was doubly hard, physical and emotional, and he collapsed to the floor, his back against the cold, unyielding stone balcony that both held him up and anchored him while everything in him wanted to run after her.