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“This thing has as h the sand in his throat, that furious clawing inside hih it was new

Her eyes flashed with disbelief “I knohy you’re here, Khaled This isn’t about me You want to avoid the scandal that happens when the world finds out the fairy-tale bride has left her fairy-tale prince”

“Three seconds ago ere an inch away fro sex in front of the whole of the city of New Orleans I obviously don’t care that much about a scandal”

“You’re the one who built that fairy tale in the first place Of course you care”

“There’s a difference between a n and my life,” he snapped, that iron control of his a distant memory “Our life”

“No” Her voice was rough but her chin was high “There isn’t There never was”

She shuddered, hard, as if she’d been sliced through with a cold wind, and then she shook her head, all that glorious hair of hers swinging slightly as she did, her htly swollen from his, and he wanted her in his arms with a fierceness that bordered on sheer desperation

“Tell me you didn’t come here to fetch your ife and shuttle her back home to a life of quiet obedience in Jhurat,” she said then, those pretty eyes of serious and dark “Tell me you cas that have happened between us Tell me, Khaled I’ll believe you”

“Cleo” Her na ti himself to lie to her Even now

She shook her head “That’s what I thought”

He wanted to hit so hard, like the wall or the whole damned city itself, but he only stood there before her instead His shirt hung open, he was disheveled and unhappy, and she was still the only thing he could see The only thing that mattered

As though she was the only light in all of this, after all

“When will you see what this really is?” he threw at her, not caring if he was too loud Not caring if he knocked down those walls with the force of his voice Not caring about anything butsure that she understood this at last Understood him

“I know exactly what this is”