Chapter Seven #2
‘Thank you,’ he said as images of Hana on her knees beside him with the fire’s shadows dancing across her face consumed him. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice where they were going until they got there.
But when he did…
‘What the hell is this?’
The furious growl that Malik emitted sent a shiver rippling over Hana’s sensitive skin.
She was tired. A kind of bone-deep tired that she’d never felt before.
Having not slept the night before, on the island, and come straight here, after the arrival at the airport, she didn’t even know what ‘this’ was.
Only that it was another ‘wrong’ thing to worry about.
Hana peered behind the scared staff member at the suites just beyond the threshold they had stopped at.
They were beautiful. A feast for the eyes in golds and rose-petal pinks.
Warm light picked out the exquisite details carved into the wooden panels covering the windows and reflected in the bronze fittings in gleams that winked and welcomed.
But Malik’s taut features were a cause for alarm. She’d seen him express a series of emotions since she’d met him, but nothing like this. The blood had drained from his face in a way that made her wonder whether he was more fearful than angry.
Haunted.
He looked haunted.
And the poor palace staff member looked absolutely terrified.
‘These are royal suites, Your Highness.’
‘I know what they are,’ Malik growled. ‘But why are we here?’ he demanded from the threshold, as if he were unwilling or unable to cross it.
‘It was a gift from Her Royal Highness,’ the staff member said. ‘I didn’t… We didn’t… Is something wrong?’
It was clear that Malik didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want her to be here. Malik’s gaze was fixed on some distant horizon that neither she nor the staff member could see.
Hana took a step backwards and then another.
‘I can… Is there somewhere else?’
His hand sneaked out to catch her wrist, stopping her from going, even though he seemed unable to bring himself to say the words.
In that moment, she knew that she’d never be happy in those suites.
They were beautiful. They were the kind of rooms she’d never known she’d wanted.
They were the kind that made her heart feel like she could possibly find a home here.
But his response had been enough to forever taint them with the sting of rejection.
She might have wanted them, but he didn’t. He didn’t want them for her or himself.
‘It’s fine,’ her husband bit out, even though it clearly wasn’t.
Hana hesitated, torn between action and inaction. Reluctantly, she made her way into the room, Malik releasing the cold-handed shackle he’d placed around her wrist.
It was clear that the staff had prepared the suites for a bride and groom’s first night together.
Fresh flowers filled vases on nearly every surface.
Food had been prepared and presented on silver trays, with jugs of juice and pots of steaming mint tea.
Candles flickered in the gentle breeze, and incense burned delicately in the far corner.
‘Your things are here as well, Your Highness,’ the staff member said miserably.
A part of her wanted to reassure him, both of them. To tell the staff member that it was okay, and to tell Malik that it was okay too. But the silence from where he remained at the door to the room was deafening.
So much so that she could hear the shuffle of feet as the member of the palace staff hastily exited.
She had heard the expression before, but never actually felt the waves of someone’s emotion rolling off them…until now. Cold anger, and hurt.
‘What is it?’ she asked gently, searching the warmth of the room for the shadows that haunted him. ‘This wasn’t your suite before…?’
Before now. Before they had got married, she thought, unwilling to name the elephant in the room.
No, she realised, of course. These were the royal suites. Meant for the king and queen…and oh, she realised what it was just as he turned that tortured gaze on her and felt it like a deep heart wound.
His brother.
These were the suites that his brother had used.
A gift from Her Royal Highness.
Malik’s sister-in-law. She had wanted Hana and Malik to have these suites. It was a kindness, a show of support and acceptance.
One that Malik clearly didn’t want.
Hana tried not to feel the sting of his rejection and instead focus on why Malik had such strong feelings about it.
If he were the man who lived up to his reputation, it would have been easy for him to step into his brother’s suites, to assume leadership of a country without thought or guilt for the brother whose injury had required it.
But Malik wasn’t the man he was reported to be, in anger or appearance.
Despite all the things that she had put him through, he had never made her feel intimidated or scared.
He had never used his size or his power against her.
No. He was a man who was clearly tortured by the idea of inhabiting his brother’s life.
Had they been on the island, she would have gone to him.
Reached for him, offered him comfort. But they weren’t on the island any more.
This wasn’t that space where boundaries had dropped and walls had crumbled.
No, here in the Al Surrahin palace, the walls Malik erected around himself were made of solid steel.
‘Oh, Malik, I’m—’
‘Don’t!’ he cut her off before she could apologise.
The anguish in his eyes, the tautness of his body, all of the things that he’d been holding back since she’d met him, and clearly for much longer.
‘We can move your things back—’
‘Hana—’
‘And I can stay somewhere else—’
‘Hana—’
‘And we don’t have to—’
‘Stop.’
Malik felt his shoulder twinge, the hot, twisted throb radiating from the knotted nerves and muscles rippled out across his body. He hadn’t given his permission for this. He hadn’t even been consulted.
He’d never wanted to move his things into these suites. Because if he did…then it meant that his brother wasn’t coming back.
He listened with a mental ear, but his brother’s voice was horrifyingly silent. His gut churned and had he been alone, he would have reached out to support himself.
Was his sister-in-law trying to punish him for not meeting with Ishmail’s doctors? Or had she done this out of the kindness of a genuine heart? As a kind gesture for the regent’s new bride?
He’d never been the royal to rule. His father had made that painfully clear time and time again.
Yet here he was, in the suites belonging to his brother, the true ruler of Al Surrahin, a country that had thought him nothing more than the stick with which to beat its enemies, rather than the hand to guide it.
Here he was beside a wife who wanted to be a wife, who had married a sheikh who didn’t want to be a husband or a ruler. It made his head spin as if he’d been sucker-punched.
When he opened his eyes, she was staring at him as if he had answers to the questions she hadn’t asked yet. And then, as if against his own will, his gaze took in the royal suites, as if he could consume every intricate, ornate detail in one glance.
He took a step further into the room, curiosity blending with a sense that he shouldn’t be here.
They were incredible. Worthy of the ruler of Al Surrahin, he thought bitterly.
And then laughed, the acid on his tongue burning his throat.
His father would probably be rolling in his grave to see him standing there instead of his firstborn.