One Reckless Decision. Caitlin Crews

under his skin. He, who had believed himself inviolate in that way. How he had yearned for her all of these years, though he had made up any number of lies to excuse it. How he had waited for her to wake this morning, loath to disturb her. He suspected that a great deal of his anger stemmed from that knowledge, that even as she defied him and lied to him, insulted him and dared him to do his worst, he admired her for it. It had taken him hours, and perhaps the sight of her dogged determination to get away from him in order to keep her secrets no matter what the cost to herself, to understand that truth, however uncomfortable it made him.

       What kind of man are you?

      And could he truly blame her for what she’d done, whatever she’d done? asked a ruthless inner voice. Given what she knew of him back then—a liar, a wastrel—why would she want to share a child with him? It was as his uncle had told him. He had not been a man. He had had nothing to offer any child.

      “I need to know what happened,” he said quietly. He did not look at her, watching instead the blurred Parisian buildings and monuments as they sped past.

      “So the answer is yes. I am your prisoner.” She let out a breath. “For how long?”

      He could have said, for as long as he liked. He could have reminded her that he was a king, that he could have absolute power over her if he wished it. Instead, he turned to her and met her troubled gaze.

      “Until you tell me what I want to know,” he said.

      “Forever, then,” she said, her voice hollow. “You plan to hold me against my will forever.”

      “When have you been held against your will?” he asked, though his voice held no heat. “I do not recall your demands to leave last night. And I did not prevent you from leaving this morning.”

      “With no money,” she said bitterly. “Where was I supposed to go?”

      “If you are without funds, Jessa,” he replied evenly, “you need only ask.”

      “I have my own money, thank you,” she said at once, sharply.

      “Then why didn’t you use it?” he asked. She sighed and dropped her gaze to her hands. Again, silence stretched between them, seeming to implicate them both.

      “Isn’t this where you threaten me some more?” she asked softly, her attention directed at her lap. Yet somehow her voice seemed to tug at him. To shame him. “That you’ll tear apart my whole life, make it a living hell?”

       What kind of man are you?

      Tariq expelled a long breath and rubbed at his temples with his fingers. When he spoke, he hardly recognized his own voice.

      “You must understand that when I say I am the last of my bloodline, I am not only talking about lines of succession and historical footnotes that will be recorded when I am gone,” he said, not knowing what he meant to say. Not recognizing the gruffness in his own voice. “I was orphaned when I was still a child, Jessa. I was not yet three. I don’t know if the little I remember of my parents is real or if I have internalized photographs and stories told to me by others.”

      “Tariq.” She said his name on a sigh, almost as if she hurt for him.

      “My uncle’s family was the only family I ever knew,” he said, with an urgency he didn’t entirely understand. She bit her lower lip and worried it between her teeth. “I thought I was the only one left. Until today.”

      “I don’t know what you want me to say,” she whispered, her voice thick.

      “Do I have a child?” he asked her, appalled at the uncertainty he could hear in his own voice. He didn’t know what he would do if she threw it back at him as he knew she could. “Is my family more than simply me?”

      Her eyes squeezed shut, and she made a sound that was much like a sob, though she covered her mouth with her hand. For a long moment they sat in silence, the only sound the watery swish of traffic outside the car, and her ragged breathing. He thought she would not answer. He felt a new bleakness settle upon him. Would he never know what had happened? Would he be condemned to wonder? Was it no more than he deserved for the way he had behaved in his former life, the way he had treated her, the way he had treated himself and his family, his many squandered gifts?

      But she turned her head to look at him, her cinnamon eyes bright with a pain he didn’t fully understand.

      “I don’t know that I can make you feel any better about this,” she said, her voice thick and rough. “But I will tell you what I know.”