A Whisper of Disgrace

chapter TWELVE


KULAL SHOULD HAVE felt better after Rosa had gone, leaving him alone in his vast office. He told himself that she needed to understand that they’d made a deal and that he wasn’t prepared for her to start reneging on it. He hadn’t signed up for someone who wouldn’t be there when he needed her. Until he reminded himself fiercely that he didn’t actually need anybody—because need was dangerous. It made you dependent and it made you weak.

He pulled a pile of papers towards him and started to read them, but the afternoon passed by much too slowly. He knew that he could have left the office any time he pleased, since he didn’t have any more meetings planned, and even if he did, he could always cancel them. But he didn’t go home. Why should he go home early to a woman who didn’t appreciate him?

What Kulal wanted, Kulal got.

The words stayed irritatingly in his head, like an advertising jingle which wouldn’t go away, and his temple was throbbing by the time he took the elevator up to the apartment. As the doors slid open he wondered what was the best way to handle what had happened earlier. He could quietly take Rosa aside and tell her that he wouldn’t tolerate a repeat of such a hysterical scene but mightn’t that make her stubborn? Mightn’t the argument then continue into the evening, when he had plenty of other things he’d rather be doing with her than arguing?

And he had made his point, hadn’t he? He had won. There would be no more missed cocktail parties, nor would they be disturbed by any phone calls from the infernal Bertrand. There would be no more business colleagues telling him that their wives had seen a picture of his wife in a magazine.

The apartment was strangely silent—there wasn’t even any music playing—and Kulal walked through to the drawing room to see if Rosa was out on the terrace. But the French windows were closed and there was no sign of her with a forgiving smile on her beautiful lips as she sashayed towards him in one of her vibrant dresses.

‘Rosa?’ The word echoed around the vast rooms like something shouted into a tunnel. ‘Rosa!’ he called once more, but there was no reply.

He told himself that she must have just gone out for a while. But she didn’t do that, did she—because where would she go? The galleries were shut for the day and there was no need for her to perform the multiple tasks which fell to other, less exalted women. She didn’t need to shop or to cook or to clean. She was a princess and that was why she needed to behave like a princess!

A faint frown creased his brow as he remembered the frustration on her face when she’d confronted him today. The anger spitting green and golden sparks from her dark eyes. He remembered the messy spill of her hair and her shiny face—a look which was worlds apart from the usual sleek grooming of his former lovers. He thought about the wilted rose tucked behind her ear, and a wave of lust so strong washed over him that for a moment he just stood very still and closed his eyes.

He was just about to phone her, when he walked past the dining room and saw the cream-coloured envelope which was lying on the oak table and his heart missed a beat. He stared at it for a moment, and when he walked over and picked it up, he noticed almost impartially that his fingers weren’t quite steady.

It was the first thing she’d ever written to him and, judging by the tone, she intended it to be her last.

‘Kulal,’ it read. Not ‘dear’ Kulal or ‘darling’ Kulal—or any of the other sweet things she had sometimes whispered to him when he was deep inside her body—but just his name, stark and emotionless, just like the words which followed.

I imagine you’ll be pleased to discover that I’ve gone, especially after that rather unfortunate scene at your office today. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your colleagues, but please be assured that it won’t ever happen again, because I’m leaving and I think you’ll agree that’s best.

Since I won’t be honouring our marriage contract, you can tear up the pre-nup. All I’m taking are my wedding and engagement rings, which you told me were mine to keep. I’ll probably sell them and set myself up with somewhere to rent, before I look for a job. And one day—who knows?—I may be able to pay you back for them, in full.

Thank you for all that you have taught me, which turns out to have been a lot more than just about sex.

I hope you can find it in yourself to be happy and I wish you nothing but good things.

Yours ever,

Rosa.

‘No!’ He felt a dry and tearing pain as he crumpled the piece of paper tightly in his hand and it fell in a ball and bounced soundlessly on the table while Kulal dug his phone from his pocket.

He punched out her number, unsurprised when it went straight to voicemail and a curiously flat-sounding Rosa said that she would return the call as quickly as possible. Which was clearly not going to happen. He left two messages before letting out another howl of rage, tempted to hurl the damned phone against the wall. And he remembered Rosa telling him she’d done just that when she’d run from Sicily, when she’d wanted to cut off all communication with her family. And now she was running from him. He had gone from his privileged position as her husband and her lover to being cast out in the cold. And he had no one to blame but himself. He had convinced himself that he was fearless and strong and yet he had been so scared of dealing with his emotions that he had built a wall around them. He had allowed a tragedy in his past to blight any possibility of a future and he had pushed away the woman he loved.

A wave of pain hit him. A pain so intense that it felt like an iron fist clenching its way around his heart. Where was she?

He dialled his chief bodyguard. ‘I want you to find someone for me,’ he clipped out.

‘Anyone you like, boss. Who is it?’

There was a pause as, for one brief moment, Kulal confronted his own fierce pride and knew that he was going to have to let it go. Who cared if his bodyguards discovered that his wife had left him? Who cared about anything other than getting Rosa back again?

‘My wife.’

‘The princess has gone?’ questioned the bodyguard in surprise.

‘Yes, the princess has gone!’ snapped Kulal. ‘Because your people weren’t doing their job properly. They let her leave the studios unguarded and now she’s managed to give everyone the slip. And if you value your future you’ll find out where she is by sunset tomorrow.’

They did better than that—they had located Rosa by the following afternoon and Kulal was astonished to discover that she’d flown back to Sicily.

Sicily?

She’d told him she’d never go back there! She’d told him that no way was she going to get involved with her dysfunctional family ever again.

‘Is she staying with her family?’

‘No, boss. She’s all alone in a beach house on the eastern side of the island.’

Kulal nodded. ‘Prepare the plane,’ he said grimly.

It occurred to him when his jet touched down several hours later that her powerful family might have attempted to try to stop him from entering the country, but he was wrong. It also occurred to him that maybe he should have waited until the next morning to see her, for the sun was already beginning to sink in the sky as his waiting car drove away from the airfield. But for the first time in his life he couldn’t bear the thought of waiting—no matter how much bigger a psychological advantage that would be.

Eventually, the car bumped to a halt and the driver pointed to a solitary beach house in the distance, barely visible through all the trees and shrubbery. It was in part of a nature reserve and the area was impassable to all cars. Kulal found himself thinking that the gleaming limousine wouldn’t have stood a chance of negotiating that narrow path. He told his driver to go and he told the car containing the accompanying bodyguards to follow, waving aside their protests with a flat and implacable movement of his hand.

‘I don’t want anyone else here,’ he said fiercely. ‘Now go.’

‘But, boss—’

‘Go!’

He stood and watched the powerful vehicles roar away to make sure they obeyed him. Large clouds of dust puffed around their gleaming paintwork as the two cars became little black dots in the distance. And suddenly, he felt an unexpected wave of liberation. It was, he realised, a long time since he’d gone anywhere without being shadowed by one of the guards who had been part of his life for as long as he could remember.

For the first time, he allowed himself to look properly at his surroundings, taking in a deep breath of the scented air. It smelt of lemon and pine and he could hear the massed choir of the cicadas echoing over the hills. The baked vegetation was surprisingly green—with flowers dotted here and there—and in the distance he could see the deep cobalt of the sea. He stared down at his feet and some instinct made him slip off his loafers and carry them.

The warm sand was gritty between his toes and as he walked along the narrow path he felt that sense of freedom again. Was that because for the first time in his life he was following his heart? Because in this moment he was no longer a royal prince and sheikh, but simply a man who had come to make amends with his woman.

The beach house which lay ahead of him was modest, just a one-storey building with a wide, wooden veranda looking out to sea. The beauty lay in its position—the matchless view and the solitude—and suddenly Kulal wondered what he was going to do if Rosa wasn’t there. How would she react if she came back later to find him waiting for her? Would she turn the might of the Corretti family against an estranged husband she could rightly accuse of stalking her?

He didn’t care. Let the Correttis come. Let them all come. He wasn’t going anywhere until he’d looked into Rosa’s eyes and told her what she needed to hear.

He moved silently, for at heart he was a child of the desert, taught how to blend into whichever landscape he inhabited. He thought fleetingly that Sicily was as beautiful as everything he’d ever heard about it, and that he’d like the chance to explore it further. And then he saw her and his footsteps halted, so that he stood perfectly still.

Sitting at the far end of the veranda, her legs dangling over the side, she was shaded by an umbrella pine tree but was wearing a sun hat as an extra precaution. The hat looked new and was made of straw—its crown festooned with a bright mass of orange and pink silk flowers, which matched her sundress. He could feel a lump forming in his throat as he watched her staring intently out at the sea. He wanted to stand there all day watching her but he thought that she might turn around and be startled. More than startled.

‘Rosa,’ he said softly.

For a moment Rosa didn’t move, telling herself it was like one of those fantasies which schoolgirls sometimes concocted. The ones where the object of their affections would suddenly be spirited in front of them, no matter how unlikely that scenario would be.

‘Rosa,’ said the voice again.

Her fingernails dug into her thighs. Bad enough that she should be without him—but did she also have to suffer auditory hallucinations which were designed to torment her?

Slowly, she turned her head and her breath froze in her throat. She could hear the loud thunder of her heart as he held up the palms of his hands, like someone in an old cowboy film, admitting surrender.

‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said.

‘Well, you did.’ She tried not to feast her eyes on him, but it was impossible. How could you not look at him and keep on looking, when he seemed like a dark and sculpted god who had just been planted in the Sicilian landscape? He was wearing pale linen trousers and a pale silk shirt—the sleeves rolled up to reveal his dark, hair-roughened arms. From this distance she couldn’t really see his expression, but as he grew nearer she noticed that his feet were bare. Kulal walking in public in bare feet? She looked over his shoulder to the landscape behind. And where were his bodyguards?

It didn’t matter. None of those questions were relevant because he was no longer part of her life. She’d escaped from him and his controlling ways. Nothing had changed. Only the externals. She had left him and his home in Paris and she was starting a new life for herself. It wasn’t going to be easy because she still wanted him, but she was going to do it. She needed to do it.

He was closer now. He was stepping down onto the veranda so that she could see the dark gleam of his eyes and she knew she ought to tell him to just go away and leave her alone, but in that moment she discovered that her sense of curiosity was stronger than her sense of self-preservation.

‘What are you doing here?’ she questioned, trying to inject just the right note of careless sarcasm into her voice. ‘No, don’t tell me—you’ve come to try to bring your little doll back to Paris. Is it time to brush her hair and put her back into her shiny box?’

Kulal stood looking down at her, reading the hurt and anger on her upturned face as he thought of all the inducements he could use to get her to return to Paris with him. He thought of all the things he could say to try to persuade her. Things she probably wouldn’t believe—and who could blame her? And he didn’t know where to begin, because this was all new to him. He clenched his fists as all his buttoned-up feelings demanded to be set free, but habit made him want to resist. Damn it, why shouldn’t he resist? There was a reason why he had put all his emotions into cold storage and it was a good reason. If you didn’t allow yourself to feel things, then you couldn’t get hurt.

But suddenly, it was no longer working. Whatever had protected him in the past was failing to protect him now for the pain in his heart was very real and very raw. He moved across the terrace and sat down beside her and he saw her body tense. For a moment there was silence.

‘I miss you,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘No, you don’t. You just think you do. It’s because I was the one who walked away and your pride is hurt. You’ll get over it.’

‘No, I won’t get over it,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to. And I don’t. I just want you back in my life because I love you, Rosa.’ The words left his mouth in a breathless rush, but his voice was shaking with emotion as he finished his quiet declaration. ‘I love you in a way I never thought I could love anyone, and that’s the truth.’

Rosa could feel a horrible lump forming in her throat and the betraying flavour of salt in her mouth but she wasn’t going to cry. Damn him—she wasn’t going to cry. And she wasn’t going to listen to his empty words either. He might have all the real power—the social and the economic power which came with his royal title—but she had power too. She had the power to live her life as she wanted to. Without pain and without heartbreak. She shook her head. ‘It’s too late, Kulal.’

‘No!’ In the growing darkness his word was fervent as it rang out on the still, Sicilian air. ‘Don’t tell me that we don’t all deserve a second chance when we screw up so spectacularly. And I recognise that I’ve behaved like a fool. You said in my office that you wanted to love me but that I wouldn’t let you close enough. But I’m letting you close now. Are you telling me that your feelings for me have changed, Rosa? That twenty-four hours have altered the situation so radically?’

She tried not to be affected by the look of raw pain on his face as he spoke, but it was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. Because of course she hadn’t stopped loving him. Love wasn’t something you could just turn on and off, like a tap. She wanted to take him into her arms and cradle him. She wanted to lose her heartache in the sweetness of his kiss—but what good would that do? This is short-term pain for long-term gain, she told herself fiercely. He just needs to win at everything and that’s why he wants you back.

‘I’m not the kind of woman you need, Kulal,’ she said quietly. ‘You need someone you can dominate. Someone who will do exactly what you want her to do. Some women might call that being masterful but I call it being a control freak and I’m afraid that I can’t live like that. Not any more.’

His body tensed. ‘You can have your TV slot back!’

‘No!’ Frustratedly, she shook her hands in the air. ‘You don’t understand! This is nothing to do with my TV slot.’

‘But isn’t that what drove you away?’

She stared at him. ‘That was the final straw, yes. But what really drove me away was the fundamental inequality of our relationship. I don’t want to live with someone who won’t let me do something—so that only when I push and push will he change his mind and give me his permission. I’m a grown-up, Kulal. I don’t need anyone’s permission to live my life. Not yours, nor my family’s. I’ve had that for too many years and I don’t want it any more.’

He saw the sudden fierceness on her face. ‘Why did you come back to Sicily?’ he questioned suddenly. ‘When you told me you would never return.’

There was silence for a moment as Rosa mulled over his question. ‘Because I thought about something you said and realised that you were right. That I had no right to try to fix you, when my own life was so unresolved,’ she said. ‘I knew I needed to speak to my brothers and to my mother. Especially my mother. I needed to hear her side of the story. I needed to hear what made her betray my dad with his own brother, but then I had to let it go. Because it’s her life, not mine.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘I’m meeting her for coffee tomorrow morning.’ She nearly said, ‘I’ll let you know,’ until she realised that she wouldn’t, because tomorrow he would be gone from here. She wanted him gone from here. She needed him gone from here.

He saw the new strain on her face and his heart twisted. ‘I’m sorry for what you’ve been through with your family, Rosa—’

‘Yes, I know that,’ she put in, hating the betraying little crack which seemed to have crept into her voice. ‘And that was one of the things I first loved about you—that you defied all my expectations. That once you’d got over the shock of my parentage, you supported me. And I was so grateful to you for that, Kulal. I thought you would judge me negatively, but you didn’t. And then, when you opened up to me on the night of our wedding, I felt something like hope about the future. It felt as if two people who had been damaged could find comfort and solace in each other. But then you clammed up—and even though there were moments when I felt as if a real passion and friendship was there, it was as if you wanted to keep it locked away from me.’

‘And I did,’ he said slowly, her words unlocking a conundrum he’d never really understood until now. He stared at her. ‘I guess I was terrified of getting too close to anyone. It felt like too much of a risk. Can you understand that, Rosa?’

She nodded as she heard the flicker of uncertainty in his voice and suddenly her man of steel seemed soft and vulnerable and she couldn’t seem to stop her heart from reaching out to him. ‘Of course I can understand,’ she said. ‘Your mother was torn away from you in a way which left you heartbroken. Worse still was that you blamed yourself. You still do.’

‘You know why I blame myself,’ he said quietly. ‘You know what happened that day.’

‘But you’re not even sure about the facts, are you?’ she whispered. ‘You’ve refused to look at the post-mortem report or speak to the doctors.’ She saw him flinch but she knew she had to carry on. Because even though Kulal was no longer a small boy locked in a nightmare of guilt and loss, he was a man still suffering as a consequence of that day, and he would continue to suffer unless he confronted it. ‘I think you should go back to Zahrastan and find out the truth. You told me that your mother was suffering from headaches prior to the picnic. Well, maybe the fall was a result of that. Maybe she would have died anyway—or maybe she wouldn’t. You have to know, Kulal. You can’t keep living your life burdened by guilt and neither can you keep avoiding risk, just because it’s safer that way. You have to learn to take a chance—on me, yes, but more importantly, on yourself.’

He swallowed, struggling to cope with the new and very powerful feelings which were beginning to emerge. And he wondered if it really was too late. ‘I’ll go,’ he said. ‘And I’ll face whatever truth awaits me there—but before I do, there’s something you need to know. Something I never told you before, but which I should have done.’ There was a pause as he looked down at the soft parting of her lips. ‘That the first time I saw you, you spoke to something in my heart. I looked across that crowded nightclub, little realising that I was about to meet a woman who would change just about everything.’

‘Kulal—’

‘And that is why I am asking you—with all the earnestness at my command—can we please try again? Because I love you, Rosa, and I want to be a real husband to you—in every sense of the word.’

She was swallowing frantically but it was no good, because the tears which had begun welling up in her eyes had begun to trickle down her cheeks. And she saw from the sudden darkening of his features that he was in danger of misinterpreting those tears and that’s when she stopped fighting her own feelings. She gave in to what she’d been wanting to do all along and flung her arms around his neck, her face wet as she pressed her lips to his.

‘Yes,’ she said, whispering the words directly into his mouth. ‘Yes in every language that I speak—and in yours too, which I have yet to learn. Yes, because I love you too—even though I tried to tell myself that I was crazy to love you. But I couldn’t stop myself, no matter how hard I tried. And I want to spend the rest of my life loving you back, but only if you promise never to lock me out of your heart again.’

‘I promise,’ he said fiercely. ‘Now will you please just kiss me properly before I go out of my mind?’

Her lips were pressing hard against his almost before he’d finished the sentence but the kiss felt different. It felt like a statement—and a seal. It felt almost life-changing. And maybe it was. She smiled as if she’d suddenly understood the world’s best-kept secret as Kulal stood up and lifted her into his arms, before carrying her into the small, wooden house.

Because didn’t everyone always say that true love had the power to transform?