moment, perhaps that man had returned.
He’d lost weight since then, she noted. His muscles were now a touch more defined. But there was such tenderness as he held his daughter. It was an intimate glimpse of father and daughter and again she doubted he would want it witnessed. She could sense the aching grief in his wide shoulders—so much so that for a bizarre moment Amy wanted to walk up to him, rest her hand there and offer him silent support. Yet she knew he would not want that, and given she was wearing only her nightdress it was better that she quietly slip away.
‘Are you considering leaving?
He turned around just as she was about to go. Amy could not look at him. Normally her head was covered, and her body too—she wondered if she would be chastised tomorrow for being unsuitably dressed—but for now Emir did not appear to notice.
She answered his question as best she could. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
Clemira stirred in his arms. Gently he placed her back in her crib and stared down at his daughter for the longest time before turning back to Amy.
‘You’ve been crying.’
‘There’s an awful lot to cry about.’ His black eyes did not reproach her this time. ‘I never thought I’d be considering leaving, When Hannah interviewed me—I mean Sheikha Queen—’
‘Hannah,’ he interrupted. ‘That is the name she requested you call her.’
Amy was grateful for the acknowledgement, but she could not speak of this in front of the twins—could not have this conversation without breaking down. So she wished him goodnight and headed back to her room.
‘Amy!’ he called out to her.
She kept on walking, determined to make it to her room before breaking down, stunned when he followed her through the door.
‘You cannot leave Alzan now. I think it would be better for the twins—’
‘Of course it would be better for the twins to have me stay!’ she interrupted, although she should not. Her voice rose again, although it should not. But she was furious. ‘Of course the twins should have somebody looking after them who loves them—except it’s not my job to love them. I’m an employee.’
She watched his eyes shutter for a moment as she hurled back his choice word, but he was right—she was an employee, and could be fired at any moment, could be removed from the twins’ lives by the flick of his hand. She was thankful for his brutal reminder earlier. She would do well to remember her place.
She brushed past him, trying to get to the safety of the balcony, for it was stifling with him in the room, but before she could get there he halted her.
‘You do not walk off when I’m talking to you!’
‘I do when you’re in my bedroom!’ Amy turned and faced him. ‘This happens to be the one place in this prison of a palace where I get to make the rules, where I get to speak as I choose, and if you don’t like it, if you don’t want to hear it, you can leave.’
She wanted him out of the room, she wanted him gone, and yet he stepped closer, and it was Amy who stepped back, acutely aware of his maleness, shamefully aware of her own body’s conflicted response.
Anger burnt and hissed, but something else did too, for he was an impressive male, supremely beautiful, and of course she had noticed—what woman would not? But down there in his office, or in the safety of the nursery, he was the King and the twins’ father, down there he was her boss, but here in this room he was something else.
Somehow she must not show it, so instead she hurled words. ‘I do love your children, and it’s tearing me apart to even think of walking away, but it’s been nearly a year since Hannah died and I can’t make excuses any more. If they were my children and you ignored them, then I’d have left you by now. The only difference is I’d have taken them with me …’ Her face was red with fury, her blue eyes awash with fresh tears, but there was something more—something she could not tell him. It meant she had to—had to—consider leaving, because sometimes when she looked at Emir she wanted the man he had once been to return, and shamefully, guiltily, despite herself, she wanted him.
She tore her eyes from his, terrified as to what he might see, and yet he stepped towards her, deliberately