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“If you truly respect me, leave now, Zafir Let me leave Behraat”

Even now, a frag for him to persuade her otherwise

He stepped back, slowly, irrevocably and Lauren’s knees gave out under her

“As you wish, Lauren” That dark gaze swept over her face with a thoroughly hungry appraisal before he turned and marched out of the suite

Without looking back once

Lauren sank against the bed, struggling to pull air into her lungs, squeezing her eyes to keep the wet heat at bay

She would never a woman to Zafir And maybe she had been okay with that status quo in New York, but not anymore

Not when it was her child’s well-being in question

A playful giggle echoed so out onto the vast courtyard below A boy, somewhere between five and nine—she couldn’t tell any closer than that—ran on the cobbled stones, his dark hair shining under the light of bronze torches, a mischievous smile on his face, chased by a man around the fountain

The ht up with hi him on his shoulder

She felt as if a fist was squeezing her heart as she realized the nitude of her decision

Zafir was the ruler of a nation, alist of priorities in which she didn’t feature, aelse quite ruthlessly when it came to Behraat And she and her child would only be complications in that path

After what she had suffered at her parents’ hands, she would never put her child through it

It had been the longest week of Lauren’s life She felt as though she was sitting on shifting sands with no tether

More than once, she had picked up the phone, eager to blurt out the news to Zafir She just wasn’t progra

Zafir refused to let her go back to the hotel, so she spent her days locked up in the palace Scared of weakening, she cut herself off froht a truth that crystallized her decision

Having learned that Lauren was the sheikh’s scandalous feed Lauren and chattered on and on about how decent life was in Behraat now, about how she had enrolled herself in a wo

“Just like you,” Huma had whispered with a proud smile