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“This isn’t a debate, Khaled Answer me” She scowled at him in that way of hers that always undid him, with its total lack of the usual reverence he commanded That he had e “Or admit that you can’t keep your promise That you can’t let anyone have control over you, ever” She shrugged, and her voice was too casual when she continued “Between you and me, I don’t think you can”

Khaled had never before been so adroitly—or literally—hoisted by his own petard He couldn’t decide if he hated it with every shred of his being or if he wanted nothing

Not that he had the slightest idea how to beg, or what for

This is madness, a voice inside hi but desperate where Cleo was concerned He’d lied to hi to keep her, anything

Even this

“My parents were madly in love,” he said after a moment, and he ordered himself to relax as he spoke “My reat prize—and my father not only won her tribe’s traditional lands when he ain It was, by all accounts, a tempestuous and passionate connection as well as a political one”

“She wasn’t ly devoid of expression Her arid tone, less so “Quiet and obedient?”

“She was not” Khaled never spoke of these things, and it took hiether To decide how best to tell this tale he didn’t wish to share in the first place “But after she had me, they say, she was never quite the sae in her It’s difficult to know Her ehs Lower lows”

“Did she get help?” Cleo asked in a whisper

“No, of course not” He eyed her derisively “My father consigned her to a dungeon and er, prettier wives in rapid succession, forgetting about her entirely in his haste to spread his vicious barbarian seed”

Her scowl returned Deepened “A siot help’ would have sufficed”

“And destroy all your dark fantasies about men like inings for you, Cleo”

“If you don’t want to tell h on her soft cheeks, but that didn’t keep her frolare at hiainst his skin “But we’ll both know that you used a diversionary tactic to get out of keeping your proht with that if you are, Khaled I expect that”

“My father was in love with her,” Khaled said shortly “He did everything he could But he was also the sultan, and it was not a stable tiion In the end, he was neither the husband she wanted nor the leader the country deserved, and he has spent the bulk of his life torn between the two”

“That’s why he shut down the borders,” Cleo said after a moment “For her”

“Yes” Khaled shrugged “To contain his responsibilities—to focus But it didn’t work My mother had Amira—and there are a hundred sad reasons why I am twenty years older than rees of despair” He rief in his own For the past, but also for the two of them “And we all learned far too well that love does not solve anything It s worse It creates unrealistic expectations on all sides”

Cleo didn’t speak She reached out a hand and put it on his chest, like a boon A gift As if she wanted to share these grim memories with him, or help carry the load of them

A simple little touch, and yet he felt it everywhere

“After Aot out of her bed,” he continued, not recognizing himself in that moment, lost so press of her hand against his flesh “It took years, but she eventually died The doctors called it a wasting disease, though they couldn’t determine any actual cause But she told anyone ould listen that my father chose his country over his wife, and that hat destroyed her”

Cleo let out a soft breath, and Khaled found he was even more tense than before