Royals Untamed!. Annie West

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СКАЧАТЬ in. ‘A duty I failed in.’

      ‘Did you?’ She looked up as she asked the question in a tremulous whisper.

      He couldn’t help himself as he reached out and smoothed her hair back from her face. The sigh that escaped her lips spurred him on. She was not immune to him, despite the hard bravado she hid behind.

      The attraction that had simmered between them from the very first moment their eyes had met was still there and much more intense. He could feel the tension emanating from her—she still desired him and it gave him the courage he needed to face the most difficult thing he’d ever done.

      ‘Yes.’ His voice sounded gravelly to his ears as he looked down at her. ‘I allowed the judgement of others to colour my views, allowed them to taint your name. I failed you.’

      The grief he’d experienced after she’d left Barazbin rushed back at him. He hadn’t expected to feel such pain or to know that raw and mysterious emotion of abandonment and rejection, but he had. With her head held high she’d walked out of his palace and his life without a second glance. She’d turned the tables so completely that as soon as she’d gone he’d ridden out into the desert like a man possessed to shout his anger and his pain into the wind.

      ‘And now you believe me?’ Her eyes searched his face, hope shining from them, and that all too familiar band of tightness gripped his chest.

      ‘I do,’ he said as his fingers slid through her hair, the softness almost like silk. ‘Very quickly your father’s web of deceit unravelled, exposing your innocence. In fact he has confessed all. His misguided loyalty to you led him along the wrong path.’

      ‘And that’s it?’ She tried to step away from him but the wall was at her back. The gesture of moving away from him rang alarm bells in his head. This was not going according to plan. He believed her, he’d come to apologise. What more did she want from him?

      ‘What else do you want?’ Frustration made his question harsher than he’d intended.

      ‘It’s not enough, Kazim, not now, not ever.’ She caught hold of his hand, stilled the subconscious movement of his fingers through her hair. ‘I can never be what you want me to be.’

      He dropped his hand to his side, another stab of rejection hurtling at him. She didn’t want him to touch her. The angry glare in her eyes, which had replaced that brief glimpse of hope, told him that. ‘So, tell me, what is it I want?’

      ‘A woman who will be at your side as you rule Barazbin, a woman who will produce the heir required, but, above all, one who is dutiful and has a completely untarnished reputation.’ She paused, as if waiting for him to deny those words. ‘I am not that woman, Kazim.’

      He turned and walked back into the living room, needing the space, needing to distance himself momentarily from her. He pressed his hand over his eyes, his thumb and finger pressing at his temples, trying to ease the pain in his head.

      Behind him, she remained silent and he knew he had to open up completely. If he wanted her, he had to do this; if not he was failing himself as well as her. His heart thumped hard against his ribcage. What if she threw it back at him? Now he knew how she had felt on their wedding night and again in the desert. She’d braved his rejection not once, but twice, and he couldn’t face hers once. What sort of coward did that make him?

      Slowly he turned and that tightness crushed his chest harder. It was as if his love for her was squeezing the life out of him. Love. He’d finally used the word, in thought at least. But what would she do if he said it out loud? Coldly reject him, as he had rejected her? It would be all he deserved.

      He turned and stalked across the room, overwhelmed by the smallness of it and the magnitude of what he’d just realised. He had to say it aloud, had to face the consequences of what he’d done. He crossed the small room again, wishing he could be still and tell her. Was this why his father had been a bully—to hide from himself?

      * * *

      Amber watched Kazim pace back and forth across the living room. Just for a moment she allowed hope to soar inside her as he looked down at her, the ebony depths of his eyes full of more than just passion and desire. She dared to hope, dared to believe he loved her. But then he marched away and her heart sank lower than it had ever gone.

      ‘I can’t ever go back, Kazim,’ she said, forcing her voice to be calm and neutral. ‘I am not the woman you need.’

      ‘No.’ He turned and focused his gaze on her. ‘You are more—much more.’

      She drew in a breath that seemed to cut her throat and looked at him. The wild and untameable man she’d said her vows to was clearly on show, standing before her. The hungry look in his eyes made her stomach flip and her knees go weak.

      She didn’t dare speak, but inside she was urging him on, desperate to know and yet certain she couldn’t ever know what he meant.

      ‘You are my wife, Amber.’ He didn’t move, as if doing so would stop the words. ‘And I love you.’

      Inside her head she could hear her heart thumping more slowly and in her chest her breathing turned shallow—too shallow. She couldn’t move, couldn’t say a word, scarcely able to believe what she’d just heard.

      He doesn’t mean it. How could he mean it after what he’d told her in the desert? It was just another way to charm her into doing what he wanted.

      He strode towards her and all she could do was watch. He caught hold of her face in his large warm hands but still it all had a dreamlike feeling.

      ‘It’s too late,’ she whispered, almost trancelike.

      ‘Too late?’ He drew in a sharp breath as she spoke and looked at her, his eyes full of love and passion.

      ‘I can never be what you need.’

      ‘You are everything I need—and more.’ He dropped his hands to take hold of her arms, keeping her before him, preventing any escape.

      Still as if in a dream, she watched as he lowered his head. Lightly his lips brushed over hers and she closed her eyes, surrendering to the moment. But it didn’t come; he pulled back. Her eyes opened to look into his.

      ‘I’ve been a fool—a blind fool,’ he said so gently she wanted to cry. ‘I have been running from you and your love for too long. I don’t want to run any more.’

      She shook her head in disbelief, words failing her.

      ‘I was afraid to love, afraid that if I did I would hurt you, just as my father hurt my mother.’

      ‘You think you’ll be the same?’ How could he ever have thought such a thing? ‘That would never happen.’

      He pulled her to him and she held her breath, waiting, wanting to hear him say what she saw in his eyes.

      ‘I love you, Amber. You are my princess and wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I want to be there.’

      ‘Wherever?’ She whispered the word so quietly she hardly heard it herself.

      ‘Yes, Amber, I will give up everything for you.’ He kissed her then, so deeply she wondered if she’d ever breathe again, but as СКАЧАТЬ