22. Keira
CHAPTER 22
KEIRA
K eira sat perfectly still in the crowd, the words washing over her, almost unable to believe what she was hearing.
He loves me ?
She hadn’t dreamed it. His letter hadn’t implied anything of the kind. She had expected — at most — an apology for his behavior. She had thought he would tell her that he knew he had been wrong not to fight for her to stay, and that was the reason he had called her back. She’d assumed the question would be whether or not to forgive him, and whether there was any path for collaboration moving forward.
Allie nudged her. “You need to go down there,” she hissed.
“I can’t!”
“The man is pouring his heart out, Keira. Are you really going to leave him hanging? You have to go down there and tell him how you feel. You know you love him too!”
“I’m not going to do it in front of all these people, Allie!”
“ Of course you are . How else would such an epic love story end? If you don’t get down there now, I will never let you hear the end of it. Go .”
Keira knew her friend was right. She also knew that she had no excuse. She knew this stadium inside out. She knew exactly how to get from where she was sitting to the stage in the center of the track. The only question was, would she be able to get there before Kareem left? If he walked off the stage, who knew how long it would be before they were able to find each other?
She found herself wishing, as she hurried out of her seat and up the steps that led to the mezzanine, that she had simply taken him up on his offer to fly her out on his own plane. If she had, she would already be with him now — not to mention the fact that she would have saved herself a good deal of money on the plane tickets.
The trouble was, she had been too proud. She hadn’t wanted to allow herself to be dependent on him for anything given what had already transpired between the two of them. The idea of allowing him to have control over her arrival and departure had been intolerable. It would be much better to simply buy her own ticket and fly out independently.
But doing so had proven complicated. It had turned out that you couldn’t fly into Qalmar’s small international terminal without express approval from the king. So few flights came here that he actually had time to review the passenger manifests of each one. Keira didn’t know what King Hassan would do if he saw her name on a flight list, but she didn’t want to find out. It was likely that he would stop her from entering the country at all.
So she and Allie had flown into Dubai and had rented a car. She had worried about being stopped at the border — and they had been — but she had shown the border guard her letter from Kareem, and the man had recognized her as the former sheikha and had agreed to let her in. Had that plan failed, Keira knew she would have had to contact Kareem directly to let him know where she was, and she was glad the story hadn’t ended that way. She’d been relieved to check into the hotel she had booked, secure in the knowledge that he didn’t know she was in the country and that she could choose when and if she wanted to see him.
But now that seemed like an irresponsible plan. If she had let him bring her to Qalmar the way he’d intended — yes, she would have had to swallow her pride a little bit, but at the same time, she would have been assured of seeing him. Right now, it felt as though she might have come all this way for nothing.
What was I thinking ? she wondered as she ran around the perimeter of the mezzanine. Did I actually believe that I could just walk up to his house, as if I still lived there, and knock on the front door? That that would be the right way to connect with him again, after everything?
Hearing his speech had brought home to her just how much she had done wrong. Yes, Kareem should have made more of an effort to keep her in the country after his father had insisted that she needed to leave. But Keira had given up far too quickly on the idea of their relationship. She should have told him she had feelings for him before leaving the country. She should have given him the chance to say it back to her, and she hadn’t.
She rounded the curve with the stairs that would lead her to the ready room and hurried down them, not even bothering to hold onto the railing. She could still hear Kareem’s voice over the speaker system. He had moved on to talking about something else, but she didn’t have time to stop and take in what it was. All she could do was hope that his message would last long enough for her to reach him.
Keira pushed open the door to the ready room.
It was full of drivers. They all stopped what they were doing and stared at her as she burst in on them, and for a moment, Keira forgot that she was rushing and stared back at them. Seeing them all assembled in one place like this brought home to her just how successful all their efforts had been. It was an impressive group.
Hugo Devereux rose to his feet. “I thought you weren’t going to be here today,” he said. “And it sounds like His Highness didn’t know it either.” He pointed at a screen above his head, where Kareem’s speech was being broadcast.
That brought Keira back to reality. “I need to go and speak with him.”
“You’re going to tell him that you love him, aren’t you?” another driver said, giving her a saucy smirk.
“Don’t listen to him,” Devereux said. “But he’d have to pass through here to get out of the track, if you’d like to wait for him.”
Keira shook her head. “I need to talk to him now.” She couldn’t wait a moment longer. Allie had a point about the poetry and the drama of approaching him in front of the crowd, and Keira liked that, but her ultimate reasoning was simply that she couldn’t wait another moment. Not after everything that had happened between the two of them. She needed to tell him what was on her mind and in her heart.
She walked through the ready room and out onto the track.
At first, she went unnoticed. There were pit crews here on the track’s perimeter, getting ready for the main event, and anyone looking would have assumed that she was one of them, or perhaps one of the media people lining the edges of the track waiting for their chance to photograph the competitors when they came out for the race.
It wasn’t until she had crossed the track and stepped onto the grass in the center that she was noticed.
She knew it had happened at once, because a roar went up from the crowd. Kareem fell silent. He wasn’t looking in her direction, but he must have registered the crowd’s response and wondered what was going on.
Keira wondered how close she would be able to get before he noticed her. She was torn between hoping she would make it all the way to him and wanting him to notice her — wanting to see the expression on his face when he realized she was here after all.
Even now that she had heard his confession of his feelings, she couldn’t help feeling nervous. Would he be angry with her? After all, she’d cut him off, and then she had come back into the country without telling him what she was doing. Keira knew that in his place, she might feel some anger.
Then he turned toward her, and her suspense ended.
He saw her and immediately froze in place, jaw dropping slightly. Keira thought he looked as if he had seen something impossible.
She stopped where she stood too, suddenly too afraid to approach.
He stepped down from the stage, leaving the microphone behind him, so that the next time he spoke his voice was natural and unmagnified.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Her heart pounded. “You asked me to come.”
“I did.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I was coming.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was tight, and her heart sank. He was angry.
All she could do was to tell him the truth. “I didn’t know why you wanted me to come,” she said. “I knew you were trying to make things right between us, but I didn’t know if that was just out of a sense of guilt or shame, or… I don’t know what else. I needed to do this on my own and not rely on you to get me here and send me home.”
Kareem nodded, his face revealing nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Keira said again, and was dismayed to hear her voice crack.
He strode across the grass until he was standing right in front of her.
“No,” he said.
“No?”
“Don’t apologize. You don’t have to apologize to me, Keira. This has been awful. This has been a mess. I’ve done a million things wrong.”
A shiver passed through Keira’s body. It seemed to start in the pit of her stomach and radiate outward through her. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “We were in an impossible situation.”
“No,” Kareem said quietly. “Actually, I think our situation was pretty simple.”
He reached out and took her hand, and Keira found it hard to catch her breath.
“I guess you heard the things I’ve been saying,” he said, a wry smile crossing his face. “I guess all of Qalmar heard what I’ve been saying.”
“Well, I don’t think all of Qalmar is here,” Keira said, a smile breaking over her face. “I know this event has been successful, but we never dreamed of that level of success.”
“Yeah, but there are reporters here,” Kareem said. “By morning, the whole country will know that I proclaimed my love for my wife.”
“I wonder what they’ll make of it,” Keira mused.
“I’m sure people will say all sorts of things.”
“Maybe we should give them something extra to talk about, then. Since everyone is watching.”
She never knew what it was that had suddenly emboldened her. All she knew was that she knew what she wanted and she was determined not to sabotage any more chances to get it. She was going to take advantage of this second opportunity.
She reached up, pulled him down to her, and kissed him.
Kareem’s arms wrapped around her, and he returned the kiss with equal fervor, and for a moment, Keira felt as if the whole world had disappeared. The only thing that mattered — the only thing she was even aware of — was him. The warmth of him, the smell of him, and the surety that he was just as happy to be here as she was — that he wanted her and cared for her as much as she did for him.
The roar of the crowd permeated the bubble of happiness in which she had found herself ensconced, and she pulled back and looked at Kareem with a smile. “I guess the cat’s out of the bag now,” she said.
“This is going to be on every news website in Qalmar in the morning,” he agreed.
“Well, I’ve always wanted a little fame.”
He laughed. “If that was what you wanted, you could have become a driver like your brother!”
“Kevin’s going to be absolutely sick when he hears about this. He’ll hate the idea that I’ve done something impressive that he can never match.”
“We’ll find him a princess.”
“Sure we will.” Keira grinned. “But in the meantime, I’d like to focus on this, if you don’t mind.”
“Nothing would make me happier,” Kareem said.
He kissed her again, and the crowd roared its approval.