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“Did he?” she asked, as he supposed he knew she would, her gaze never wavering from his

“How can I answer that?” His voice was huskier than it should have been, and there was too ht, too complicated “He never had any choice but to rule What should he have done? Thrown the country into the hands of the wicked or the greedy so he could be at his wife’s beck and call as she wanted him to do? What kind of man would that have made him?”

“There are compromises, Khaled There are always compromises”

Her eyes ide and slicked with e that this conversation was about the past

“Is this evidence of co away fro me to a bed so you can pry into my history? Where is the compromise in that?”

“Your h her voice was rough and there was that bright glea thing that he felt, too

“There are words for it these days,” Khaled said quietly, as if thatcould “But all I saere two parents who used love as their pri ram, Cleo Neither one of the each other”

She was silent for a long while So long he realized he could hear the hu units from somewhere outside, and the dappled, happy burble of what must have been a nearby fountain All of that and his own heart, pounding too hard Re him why he never, ever discussed this

Tearing hi thud

“So this is what you took froht not speak again

“Not ‘that story’” His tone was curt “My life”

“That theeach other That’s what you decided”