LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      TAREK COULDN’T QUITE describe the feeling that took hold of him as they drove farther away from the city and deeper into the desert. It had surprised Olivia to know that he could drive a car. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. There were a great many gaps in his education when it came to modern civilization. And while it was a skill he had not often used, it was one he possessed.

      Thankfully all of his duties today had been office work, and he had managed to reschedule to make this time for Olivia.

      He had demanded they go alone. He was more dangerous than any of the men on his security detail and had likely insulted them by saying so.

      But this had been a necessity.

      A dark, gnawing sense of panic had been chewing at him since yesterday. Possibly since their wedding night. Or perhaps even before that. Whenever it had appeared, it was only growing worse as they drove into the bleached, bone-dry wilderness.

      It was as though the air in his lungs had been replaced with dust. Like drowning on land. He wondered why he was doing this. What he hoped to find out here. What he hoped to show her.

      Last night she had looked at him with need and expectation. No one had ever looked at him like that before. Much less such a soft, vulnerable creature. And he had realized in that moment that being prepared to ride out into battle for her was not enough.

      He knew nothing else. He knew nothing beyond living by the sword. He had heard somewhere that meant he would surely die by it, and if that was the case, he was prepared. He would die for her. He had no question on that score. But he had no idea what stood in between indifference and a willingness to sacrifice himself. It was those feelings, those things that frightened him.

      Because they weren’t a goal. They weren’t an end point. It wasn’t something clean and easy he could focus on.

      The very idea splintered in his mind, confused him. Frightened him.

      He could’ve laughed. Death didn’t frighten him, but whatever the small, pale woman made him feel was the closest thing to terror he had experienced in his memory.

      “How much farther?” she asked when they had been driving for well over two hours.

      “Close now,” he said. “There will be no one for miles. This time of year.”

      “What about other times of year?”

      “There is a Bedouin tribe who pass this way routinely twice yearly. Often they would come to my settlement, for lack of a better word, and stay with me for a few days. I have also at times traveled with them. Though not often.”

      The shimmering horizon parted, and suddenly he could see the outlines of the skeletal buildings he had called home for fifteen years. He realized now why he had brought her here. To show her who he was. She had said she was tired of being alone, that she wanted to be with someone. Sadly for her, he was all she had. And this was all he was. She needed to see that; she needed to know.

      He said nothing as his encampment drew nearer, and neither did she. It was as though a sandstorm had descended over them both, blanketing them completely, separating them sharply.

      When he stopped the car, she remained silent. He killed the engine, opening the driver’s-side door slowly, cautiously. He hadn’t told her, but he was carrying a gun. He trusted nothing and no one. Anyone could have moved into this place in his absence.

      “What exactly is this? Besides where you used to live,” she said finally, coming to join him out there in the sand.

      “It was a village. Much like the hotel, a part of Tahar’s brush with colonialism. Two hundred years ago European settlers lived here. They didn’t last.” He looked around at the hollow stone buildings. “The houses did.”

      “Which one was yours?”

      “They were all mine,” he said.

      “No. They weren’t. Which one did you stay in?” she said, her persistence, and her insight, more disturbing than he would like to admit.

      He took her hand in his and walked her through the settlement. He was prepared to reach for his weapon if need be, but he had no sense that anyone else was in residence.

      He hadn’t been back here since he had gotten word of his brother’s death. It had been only a few months, and yet it felt like another lifetime.

      They walked through the doorway, the two of them leaving footprints in the smooth sand. He looked down, at the smaller set next to his own. It was strange, to have her here with him. To see evidence that he wasn’t alone.

      Sand had washed through here like a flood, creeping up the sweeping staircase that was in the entryway of the two-story building. It was barren, empty, marred by years of wind, sun streaking through the unprotected windows and sandstorms.

      It was bare, basic, and it was what he had known as home for half his life. He felt no relief, as he had imagined he might in his early days back at the palace. At first, he had imagined that going back to the simpler existence would be easier. But now he worried for his country. For the new position he had assumed. Now he realized he couldn’t come out and get lost in the desert. Because there were those at the heart of the country who were now depending on him.

      “This is where you lived?” Olivia asked, a note of horror winding through her voice.

      “Yes,” he said. “This is...this is my home.”

      “How did you survive this? How did you ever survive this?”

      He didn’t know how to answer that question. Because it hadn’t been difficult. Surviving what had come before it...that had been the hard part. To live in this, he had become this. Barren. Empty. Void of anything but the basics. But the need to survive.

      “This...this is a part of me. This is what I am.” He indicated the empty, dry room. “This is all I am. I have purpose. But I am not...I am not more. Not more than this. I am not the beautiful, lavish halls of the palace. This is my soul. This is what’s left.”

      “I don’t believe that. I don’t believe it, Tarek. You are more than this. You are more than what you were made.”

      “I am exactly what I was made,” he said, his voice rough. “Nothing more.”

      “That can’t be true,” she said, reaching up to touch his face. “I have seen inside of you. There is more than this. He didn’t destroy you. He didn’t hollow you out. He only wins if you let him.”

      “You think it is so simple?” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her hand away. “You think you can simply speak it and it will be true?”

      “Why not? You think you can show me this, make analogies out of stone and sand and convince me that you were broken. That you are empty. That you are not the man who made vows to me. The man who read a book so he would know how to please me.”

      “No. It is impossible. Stop.”

      “What is impossible? What?”

      “I cannot be more. I cannot give you more. I will leave you nothing but alone, and you don’t want that. I will be everything you were hoping to avoid.”

      “You’re wrong. You’re wrong, because I wasn’t looking to avoid anything when I came here. I was looking for anything, and it was all about me. It had nothing to do with you. I didn’t think of who you might be at all. What you might come to mean to me.”

      “I

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