Chapter 10
Nairobi, Kenya
“I can’t do it,” she sobbed into her hands, shoulders bouncing beneath the torment. “I can’t do this, Apollo.”
“Do what?”
“Escape—I just can’t. I have to stay.” She lowered her hands, staring at him. “I can…feel it,” she said with a particular emphasis, followed closely by another shuddering breath. “In my core, I know it’s wrong.”
“What’s wrong? Getting out of here? Getting away from—”
“No!” she balked, angrily smearing away the tears and more than a little irritated with the challenge in his tone. A buzzing tingled beneath her skin, like something trying to get out. It forced her to pace around the back of the couch.
Apollo exhaled heavily. “Okay—so, what is wrong?”
The irritation bubbled and simmered at having to explain. Again. Leighton struck a hand in the direction where they’d left the royals. “Him. All of them.” She motioned to Apollo. “You.” The man who was trying to get her to bail. Abandon and compromise the very purpose she’d served her entire life.
But what if Ummi was okay? What if she could do this? Worse—what if she fed into those beliefs and it turned out she was wrong—then Ummi got hurt or killed?
Leighton pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and moaned. “It’s too much…too much.”
“Hey…”
Breath staggering and feeling miserable, she looked at him, perched on the edge of the table, those blue eyes laced with—sympathy! Ugh! “Don’t.” She turned away. “Don’t look at me as if I’m some weak, broken creature in need of rescuing.”
“I…never said that,” he muttered. “But look at the situation—they’re not your friends.”
Massaging her forehead, she knew he was right, but she so badly needed this to work out. So she could protect Ummi. Though guilt harangued her, she fixated on the guy hidden in the grass. “He was someone from your team, right?”
Apollo blinked. “Wha—oh.” He sighed. “Yeah.”
Anger again bubbled to the fore. “I can’t believe you completely disregarded my wishes in that regard.” Arms crossed, she resumed her trek. “But it doesn’t matter—I won’t go with you. Ummi—”
“Is safe,” he ground out, frustration turning his tone into pleading. “How many times do I have to say that? What will it take to convince you—”
“It doesn’t matter how many times you say it!” she railed, the edges of panic sawing at the thin threads of control she held. “I was safe. For twenty-five years, I survived, did everything exactly right. Obeyed the rules. Kept the secret. Lived the secret. Became the secret!”
She threw up her hands, tears pricking, and resumed pacing.
Anything to deal with the volatility thrumming in her veins.
“As a college graduation gift to myself, I visit London and Ummi for the first time—a lifetime-dream-come-true. It’s great!
Everything I ever dreamed of—and trust me, I dreamed.
Every night. Every holiday. Every Parents’ Day at school that she would be there.
That I would know her. Know what she was like.
What parts of me were from her. So, there I am relaxing, feeling like I can breathe for the first time in…
ever!” Tears slipped down her cheeks, releasing the pent-up frustration.
“Shopping, pastries, laughter. Me and Ummi as I’d always hoped.
Then we visit a London shopping center where I try on a cute top.
When I come out, I sense…something behind me.
Next thing I know, I’m being beaten awake in a dungeon on the other side of the world! ”
“I’m truly sorry this has happened to you.” A storm rolled into his expression as he came to his feet. “But if that isn’t a reason to escape—them kidnapping and beating you—then I don’t know what is. My team—”
“Don’t you get it? You can’t protect me from them! They have everything—the money, the power, the control!”
“No, they don’t,” he said, stepping closer. “They don’t have—”
“They do!” she shouted, winging away from him, too angry with his distorted view of her life and problem—and his arrogant belief that he could accomplish what no one had yet been able to do: free her of a lifetime imprisonment with the secret.
“They’re planning something—that’s why Rayan and Aliyah are being nice.
Even you said it.” Just saying it fed the panic but also gave voice to the nagging at the back of her brain.
“I just…I can see it in his eyes. Feel it in the way they look at me. There’s… it’s just…augh!!”
Never had she felt so unhinged. What on earth was wrong with her?
“Hey, hey.” Somehow he’d erased the gap between them and took hold of her shoulders, pulling her close.
“No, no…” Though Leighton wanted to flee, she welcomed the ripple of strength coming from Apollo.
“Fear is having a rave in your mind, Nouri.”
She resisted, mentally argued—but for some strange reason, she didn’t back away this time. Didn’t refuse his touch when it landed on her upper arms. “Call me Leighton.” Why was she telling him to do that?
Because I’m tired of all the lies and subterfuge.
“No matter what happens, Leighton,” he said with particular emphasis, “I want to see you freed from this mental terror that has held you hostage.”
Tired of fighting, tired of being on the defensive every second of every day, she wilted at those words.
At hearing someone see her, see the agony in her chest. She yielded to his gentle urging into his embrace.
As his arms wrapped around her, she savored the warmth chasing off the chill that had consumed her, and unlocked the fortress walls around her heart, behind which she’d hidden for two decades.
A torrent of grief erupted. Feeling his hand slide around her back and draw her even closer, she surrendered. Dropped her forehead against his chest, weeping. No more… She couldn’t do this anymore. “I’m so tired…of everything.”
His other hand cradled her head. “What you’ve gone through is unfair.”
The words rumbling through his chest beneath her ear were strangely comforting.
“I’ve tried,” she sniffled into his shoulder, wanting to hide there.
No, not hide—shelter from the ravenous world eating away at her soul.
“I’ve tried to be what they wanted me to be.
Tried not to upset or anger them. I even let Rayan think I like him, but it”—she shuddered—“it terrifies me.”
“What does?”
“Where it could lead.”
Apollo stiffened. “You mean marriage?”
Leighton jerked up to look into his eyes.
“What? No!” Their faces were a whisper apart, ramping up her heart, so she eased out of his embrace.
“They’re trying to kill me! His interest—Aliyah’s kindness, his—it’s all a trap.
A ruse to get me to relax and…and…” She moaned.
“I don’t know what. Or why.” Holding her throbbing head, she walked the room again.
“I thought he was nice—he’d been kind to me. ”
“Correction, the kindest of these royals. But that’s not true kindness.”
She gave a conceding bob of her head. “My point is that I trusted him. And I don’t want to believe he’s trying to lure me into complacency.” She rubbed her forehead where a tension headache was brewing. “I should be ashamed, because what other explanation is there for his sudden attention?”
Apollo sniffed. “That you’re beautiful? Intelligent—”
Though his words made her pulse race, she scoffed and pivoted.
“The men of the Central Kingdom do not know how to appreciate a woman with a brain.” She wilted again and dropped onto the couch again.
“I thought, just play along, Leighton—it doesn’t matter as long as Ummi stays alive.
” Letting out a long groan, she tilted her head against the back of the couch and stared up at the gold light fixture.
“But my conscience won’t let me lie to him.
” She harrumphed and straightened, folding her arms. “I’m sure it’s all over my face that I don’t like him, at least not in that way, so lying to him will only make matters worse.
No matter how I try to shield my indifference”—she huffed and held both splayed hands in front of her face—“it’s right there. ”
Apollo came around and sat on the chair opposite her, his expression inscrutable. He studied her for a second. “You’re not as masterful with that indifference as you might believe.”
“What…?”
“I am fairly sure everyone, me included, bought that you were…into him. That the flirting today was real.”
“Flirting?” she balked, widening her eyes. “I was not flirting with him!”
“Then you’re an expert-level faker, because I seriously considered punching the guy into next year more than once.” He gave a lopsided nod. “The fact that his uncle could have me executed kept me in check.”
Though an incredulous laugh escaped her, Leighton stared at him for a long minute.
Was he serious? She took in his blue eyes, that squared jaw.
Recalled how he’d intercepted Nasir when he’d tried to assault her.
“You were…jealous?” Why did that make her heart skip a beat? But— “You were flirting with Aliyah.”
He chortled. “Not in this or any lifetime. Every time I turned around—bam, she was right there. Couldn’t get away from her. Though, God knows I tried.”
Was he serious that he didn’t like the princess? “But why? She’s cute, bubbly. And she likes you—she told me.”
“She’s not cute,” he countered, forcefully slicing a hand toward the ground, “and I don’t care what she thinks of me. It’s not a requisite to getting my job done.”
Leighton found it hard to believe. “Everything about her is perfect—her eyes, her smile, those dimples—”
“You mean the craters.”
Laughing at that word, she stilled. It wasn’t funny. Not really. Her mind churned over his emphatic use of that word and how his curled lip confirmed it. His sky-blue eyes were laden with conviction and mortification.
A tremor of relief trickled through her. “You really don’t find her attractive?” No idea why she asked again except that she wanted—needed—to hear him say it again.
“No.”
“Not even a little?” Don’t be desperate, Leighton.