Crowned For His Desert Twins by Clare Connelly

CHAPTER TEN

‘I LIKED ASTRID very much.’

‘You want to talk about my cousin, now?’ he drawled, propping up on one elbow, feathering his fingers over her breast so she sucked in an uneven breath. And yet she smiled, and the dawn light filtering into his bedroom washed over India, bathing her in almost pure gold so her hair shimmered and her eyes shone.

‘She’s sweet,’ India said. ‘And funny.’

‘Correct on both counts. She must have liked you too, because usually she is reserved with people she doesn’t know well.’

‘She wasn’t at all reserved with me.’

‘As I said, she must like you.’

India felt immeasurably pleased by that.

‘She came to the palace when she was only a few months old; she is like my annoying younger sister,’ he said with a grin that showed he wasn’t serious. India thought of Jackson, and how much their sibling relationship had shaped her life. Even now, every decision she made was with him in mind. ‘Her life has not been easy,’ he continued quietly, his brows knitting together as he concentrated on his thoughts. ‘She was bullied as a little girl, by some children at her school. My parents didn’t realise at first. It was only after I read Astrid’s diary—I was twelve—’ he defended, ‘that I understood what was going on.’

‘Astrid was bullied?’

‘She was different,’ he said. ‘She was royal, an orphan, and naturally quite shy. It was easy for her to be picked on.’

Indignation fired in India’s belly. ‘Children can be so horrible,’ she said with anger.

‘Yes.’

‘What happened? Did she change schools?’

‘No.’ His lips curved into something like a grimace. ‘I started taking her to school, walking her to class. I suppose I saw myself as her bodyguard. There was one particularly cruel little girl who used to call her—the equivalent in English would be “loner”—and I...had a word with her, about the wisdom of continuing to taunt Astrid in this manner.’

‘You defended her,’ India said, her heart fluttering at this show of character. It didn’t surprise her—she could tell that Khalil had a form of moralism that was black and white—and yet imagining him as a young boy storming into Astrid’s school to look out for her made India’s chest swell.

‘Until she learned to defend herself. And she did. Astrid grew strong at school, because she had to be.’

‘You said she was married, but I noticed last night she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.’

‘No.’ His lips were grim and now when he looked at India, she had the sense he was holding something back.

‘What happened?’

‘She married the wrong man.’ He hesitated a moment, an uncharacteristic pause. ‘Her husband was charming at first. We were friends, I introduced them, so she trusted him from the start. It was a whirlwind romance, and Astrid fell in love hard and fast. They married months after meeting, but it was a disaster. Astrid fell pregnant quickly, and he began screwing around behind her back, sleeping with half of Khatrain’s elite.’

Indignation burst through her. ‘That’s terrible!’

‘So you can see why, when I had a chance to take something precious from him, I did not hesitate,’ he murmured, his finger tracing an invisible circle over her shoulder, his eyes holding hers meaningfully.

It took India a moment to understand, and then realisation slammed into her like a stack of bricks. ‘Are you saying Ethan Graves is her ex-husband?’

‘Yes.’

India flopped onto her back, her brain exploding, her mind needing to process that without the intensity of his watchful gaze. ‘And that’s why you threw it in his face that you were taking me home,’ she said with a quiet nod, her brain still making connections. ‘Is it why you took me home?’ she asked, angling her face back to his. His jaw was square in his face, his eyes darkened by emotions she couldn’t comprehend.

‘It was a part of it.’ Hurt split her heart in two.

‘I see,’ she said unevenly, pushing back the sheet and standing, her pulse in overdrive. She had come to his room straight from the ball, and her gown was the only item of clothing she possessed here. She lifted it off the floor, shaking it so the skirt fell straight and she could step into it more easily.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting dressed.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it doesn’t seem appropriate to walk through the palace in just my underwear.’

‘Then stay here.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Damn it, stop interrogating me. Isn’t it obvious? Do you really need to ask?’

‘You are angry. For what reason?’

She bit down on her lip, shaking her head with impatience. They were so disconnected, her emotions nowhere near in tune with his.

‘Because,’ she blurted out, staring up at the ceiling. ‘You—’ but she clutched the rest of that close to her chest, something holding her back from answering him too honestly. ‘It doesn’t matter. I just want to be alone.’ She yanked the dress on, pulling her hair over one shoulder so that the zip at the back wouldn’t get caught. She could only get it halfway up in her anger, but she didn’t care.

‘Allow me.’ His gravelled offer was the last thing she expected.

She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t want you to touch me right now.’

He lifted a sceptical brow, which only made her fury grow. She strode towards the door, hands balled into little fists.

His harsh laugh erupted through the room. ‘Stop.’

She didn’t.

She heard the rustle of sheets and his feet on the floor behind her, and as she reached the door he was there too, his palm pressing down on it. ‘Don’t run away from me.’

‘Don’t tell me what to do.’ She whirled around to face him.

‘Then stop acting like a child and tell me why you are upset.’

‘You just admitted you used me to hurt Astrid’s ex-husband, and you actually have to ask why that bothers me?’

He frowned at her, still clearly not comprehending.

‘Forget about it,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t want to discuss this. I knew you were callous and heartless when I first arrived here, I don’t know why I let myself start to think that you were different.’

‘Talk to me,’ he demanded, his hand on the door forming a sort of barrier, enclosing India. She stared at a point beyond his shoulder.

‘You have said worse things to me than anyone in my life. You have hurt me, you have demeaned me, and you have insulted me.’ She looked at him square in the face now and had the satisfaction of seeing something fleck in the depths of his eyes. But was it guilt? Remorse? ‘But that night...’ She shook her head sadly. ‘That night was...before all this. I know our babies weren’t conceived out of love, but I had been telling myself they were at least conceived out of intense attraction, and some kind of spontaneous affection. I liked you, Khalil. I went home with you because I really, really liked you. I actually—’

She swallowed back the words but he leaned closer, his voice gravelled. ‘You actually what?’

Forcing her eyes to meet his, she spoke honestly. ‘It was my birthday that night. It was my first birthday since losing my parents and I was struggling. Then I met you and everything just lit up. I actually joked to myself that you were some kind of gift from me to me.’ She rolled her eyes at the stupidity of the very idea. ‘I didn’t care that you were royal; I just wanted to be with you.’ Emotions clogged her throat. ‘I wasn’t thinking about anything that night except for that. Liking you. But you were just using me for revenge.’

Her skin blanched, her eyes closing. ‘And then you had the nerve to accuse me of being mercenary? You have been hanging that over my head since I got here, as though I was the one who turned that night into something sinister and cynical, but you’re the one who chose to seduce me because of who I was with. You’re the one who threw it in Ethan’s face, even when we’d agreed I would make up an excuse, lie to him, to avoid insulting him. You did that because you wanted to hurt him, and instead, it hurt me. I lost my job because of what you did, and you didn’t even care. You have all this, you wouldn’t have any idea what it’s like to need to work, to go from pay cheque to pay cheque. And all for what? So you could avenge Astrid? Do you think that’s what she would have wanted? If she knew what you did, do you think she’d be proud of you?’

‘She was devastated by their marriage breakdown.’

‘As I am devastated by our marriage agreement,’ India whispered. ‘But I guess that doesn’t matter. I’m no one to you, and never will be, right?’

He stared at the closed door for several seconds, her words slicing through him with all the intensity of a fierce sandstorm, and then he wrenched it inwards, striding to catch up with her. Of all the accusations she’d hurled at him, each had merit, but there was one that was pulling at him, so he found it hard to move. It had been her birthday. She’d chosen to spend it with him. It was such a sweet, lonely admission; how could it fail to touch something deep in his chest?

She went quickly, and was a long way down the corridor, yet he could have reached her easily if he’d wanted to. He let her go ahead, his heart pounding as he followed after. Even in anger, she exuded a classic elegance that was impossible not to notice, or admire.

She turned into the corridor that housed three guest suites, passing two guards stationed there as she went. They kept their eyes forward-facing, but as Khalil passed they bowed.

He strode past them without acknowledgement, reaching her door just as she went to close it.

‘Wait,’ he said gruffly, pressing his forearm against it, holding it ajar.

‘Why? Is there anything more to say, Your Highness?’

He hated it when she used his title; it put distance between them, a distance he didn’t want. ‘Let me in.’

For a moment, he wondered if she was going to refuse—and what he would do if she did! Every bone in his body wanted him to speak with her some more, but he wasn’t going to strong-arm his way into her suite if she was determined to keep him out. He stood where he was, something strange gripping his chest, a sense of concern he couldn’t comprehend. Even when she stepped back to open the door wider, the worry didn’t evaporate.

‘Thank you,’ he said, pacing into the room and putting his hands on his hips.

‘What do you want?’ She matched his gesture, hands thrust on hips, eyes glaring through his.

‘I noticed you before I saw him,’ he said, before he could stop himself—it was something he’d never wanted to reveal to her. And yet, faced with her obvious devastation, and the reasons for it, he knew he couldn’t lie to her, even when some form of self-preservation was pushing him to. It would be better if she believed it had all been a ruse to make Ethan sweat, but that wasn’t the sum total of why they’d come together.

‘I saw you across the room and felt like I’d been smacked in the gut. I wanted you and I swore I’d have you, regardless of who you were with. Seeing it was Ethan was a way to kill two birds with one stone, I suppose. But that’s not why I wanted you.’

She didn’t respond, but her body was taut, her spine straight, shoulders squared. There was a defensiveness about her that made him ache, and it was all the worse because he’d done this to her. It was late in the day to realise how much he liked seeing her smile.

‘Whether you were with Ethan or not, I would have wanted you, India. I would have done everything I could to take you home with me.’

The admission was wrenched from deep inside; he felt as though he was giving away a part of himself he had wanted to keep firmly boxed up.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said softly, the words rich with sadness. His gut twisted.

‘It clearly does matter. You are upset.’

‘Yes.’ She nodded curtly. ‘I am. And a half-hearted explanation that, actually, you were kind ofattracted to me after all doesn’t change the fact that you used me. What other explanation is there for the fact you told him we were going home together?’

‘I have already admitted I wanted to take something from him, something of value. I had no idea then that your date was simply an...arrangement.’

She closed her eyes.

‘No, you didn’t. You thought we were a couple, and you decided to take me from him. But it was never actually about me. It was about you and Ethan and Astrid.’

‘You’re not listening to me. I’m saying—belatedly—that I wanted you before I knew he was your date.’

‘And I’m supposed to be flattered by that?’

‘You’re supposed to see that you’re right—what we shared that night was about you and me, not him. No one else.’

‘You waved our leaving together in his face!’ she shouted. ‘You hate this man. He has shown himself to be the worst of the worst, yes?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘What he did to Astrid was an abomination, I understand that. But nothing excuses what you did to me. I didn’t ask to be a part of any of this.’

‘If my sole purpose was to hurt him, I could have bragged about taking you home and then dropped you back at your place. Spending the night together was unnecessary to finalise that part of my intentions.’

‘Come on, Khalil. You’re still a red-blooded man. You were hardly going to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially one giving themselves to you so freely.’ She paused angrily, shaking her head. ‘Not so “freely”, of course. You believed there would be a charge at the end of the night.’

‘Don’t,’ he ground out, irritation and impatience and anger all snapping through him. ‘I’m trying to say that before Ethan sullied what we shared with his...revelation, I had one of the best nights of my life. Our babies were conceived out of something good. Something that was special to both of us, at the time.’

‘But it wasn’t.’ She shook her head. ‘It was brought about by hate. And if you don’t believe me, let me show you how I know this to be true.’

His breath exploded from his lungs, angry and fast. His words were being twisted, and he had only himself to blame. Hadn’t he intentionally misled her about that night? He had wanted to protect himself, and so he’d misled her as to the true reason he’d taken her home, but it had backfired, spectacularly. He would do anything not to have India feel like this.

‘You have told me what Ethan did to Astrid. He is a horrible man, I agree. Despicable, untrustworthy, and mean.’

He dipped his head at her accurate assessment.

‘And yet you believed him, about me,’ she whispered.

His eyes narrowed as he recognised the devastation on her face.

‘He told you I was a prostitute, and it didn’t once occur to you to doubt his word.’

Khalil was not used to feeling in the wrong. His arrogance was born, primarily, from the fact he had excellent instincts and used them wisely. Her logic was, however, flawless.

‘He sent me the agency listing,’ Khalil pointed out, his voice ringing with a certainty he no longer felt. ‘It wasn’t only his word, but also the evidence.’

‘Evidence,’ she snarled, crossing her arms hard across her chest. ‘That was no evidence. Not of what you’re accusing me of, at least. I worked for an escort agency, yes. I went on dates with people who, for whatever reason, needed a companion for the evening. One of my favourite clients was an eighty-two-year-old man whose wife died ten years ago. We would go to the theatre together once a month. Do you think I was having sex with him, too?’ She shook her head angrily. ‘Only you could take what is a perfectly legitimate job and turn it into something else.’

‘I had you investigated, after that night.’

‘I know. You spied on me. I remember.’

‘I wanted to know if it was true. I hoped—I wanted to believe—’

But she didn’t let him finish. ‘If you had me investigated then you must know that I do not go home with the men I date.’

‘There was no evidence of that,’ he said warily. ‘But there was plenty of evidence that many of the women who are hired out by Warm Engagements do in fact bed their clients.’

India gasped. ‘That’s against the rules.’

He stared at her, the response more telling than anything else could be. Light blinded him, and he turned away, so that she wouldn’t see on his face the comprehension that was dawning—the realisation that he might have seriously misjudged her this whole time.

‘And you didn’t know that then,’ she reminded him softly, her voice trembling as she returned to the original point with effortless focus. ‘The morning after we slept together, you had only Ethan’s word and my agency listing to go off. You wouldn’t let me explain myself. You wouldn’t believe me.’

No, he wouldn’t. Because everything she’d said had reminded him of Fatima. He’d been fooled once, badly, and he would never forget what that had cost him. The idea of being duped all over again had made him react harshly—more harshly than he should have.

‘You believed that horrible man over me, and I will never forget that. Not ever. Not when we make love. Not when we marry. Not when we become parents.’ Tears sparkled on her lashes and he stood perfectly still, because the alternative was to go to her and pull her into his arms, hold her against him and beg her to forgive him. To forgive him? Khalil’s compass no longer faced in a recognisable direction. Confusion swamped him. ‘I really, really hate you right now, Khalil. Please, just leave me alone.’