my Queen,” Tarek said when the helicopter rose back into the air and the sound of its rotors faded away. He had led her into the vast living area of the tent, outfitted with a thousand pillows and low tables, like a desert fantasy. Now he smiled down at her. “This is the royal oasis. Some claim the water is sacred. Some believe it heals. We will have to test it, you and I.”
Anya was sure that all the things she felt must be emblazoned on her face. But that wasn’t enough. Nothing could be enough.
She reached up, placed her palms on either side of his beautiful face, and sighed a little as his strong arms came around her. She thought, this is home.
She was finally home.
“Tarek,” she breathed, with her whole heart. With everything she had and everything she was. With all the bright hope inside her after this magical, beautiful day. “I love you.”
And watched as his face turned to stone.
CHAPTER TEN
“YOU MUST BE TIRED,” Tarek said, taking each of Anya’s hands in his. He pulled them away from his face, as if that would erase the words she’d said.
The words that seemed to fill the tent and more, roll out over the desert like a storm, blanketing everything.
Burying him alive.
“Not particularly,” she replied, that frown he liked too much appearing between her brows. “On the contrary, I’ve never felt more alive. And in love, Tarek.”
In case he’d missed that the first time.
And there was that pressure in his chest. That pounding thing inside him that he thought was his heart, but it seemed too large. Too dangerous.
Too catastrophic.
“Come now, Doctor,” he said, not sure he sounded like himself—but it was hard to know what it was he heard with that storm in him. “There are far more pleasurable things to do tonight than forget ourselves.”
She was dressed in that gown that he had spent long hours today imagining taking off her, one centimeter at a time. Her hair was set with precious jewels, each representing a different facet of the kingdom. She was a vision, she was now his Queen, and the last thing in the world he wanted to talk about was love.
But Anya did not melt into him. She did not shake off the gathering storm. Instead, her hands found her hips.
“Forget ourselves?” she echoed.
This oasis was one of Tarek’s favorite places in all the world, and yet he never came here enough. It had been years. There always seemed far too many things he needed to do in the city, far too many responsibilities in the palace alone. He had looked forward to the time he would spend here with Anya more than he should have.
It was his own fault. He accepted that. He’d allowed his obsession with her to get the better of him.
No wonder it had come to this.
“I take responsibility,” he told her, as he had the day they’d met. When she had sat opposite him in her prison grays in a roomful of dizzy light.
When he had found himself stunned, the way he had been ever since.
His declaration did not have the effect on her that he’d been hoping it would. It was hard to say it had any effect at all. Anya only continued to stare up at him, still frowning, her hands still propped on her hips.
“I’m beginning to think that you say that as a way to deflect attention. It’s nice that you want to take responsibility, Tarek. But no responsibility needs to be taken.” She lifted her shoulders, then dropped them, a parody of a careless shrug when he could see the stubborn angle of her chin. “I’m in love with you.”
“We are married,” he ground out. “There is no need for...this.”
“We can pretend that I married you because I was suddenly seized with the need for a throne.” She actually rolled her eyes, something he would have taken exception to under any other circumstances. “But I think you and I both know that there are a great many more convenient ways to stop practicing medicine. I could have simply...stopped. People do that. Who knows? I could have moved to a quiet little town and opened a charming bookshop, if I liked. There are a thousand better solutions to a career that makes me unhappy than marrying a sheikh. A king. And everything that goes with that.”
“We discussed what this marriage is and isn’t,” he managed to say, aware that his voice was little better than