“I think you’re insane!” she threw at him. She had to get over the shock of this change, this about-face from lover to accuser, and she had to do it immediately, no matter her feelings. Or he would roll right over her and take what he wanted. Of that, she had no doubt.
“Do you think I am a fool?” He shook his head slightly, every muscle in his body tensed. His fury was a palpable thing, another presence in the room, a syrupy cloud between them. “I can see the changes in your body with my own eyes. How do you explain them?”
“It’s called five years!” she cried, throwing up the hand that did not hold the sheet, letting it show her exasperation, hoping he could not see her terror, her desperation. “I have not pointed out the numerous ways your body is not the same as it was when you were five years younger—”
Cold and hard, his gaze slammed into her with the force of a blow, and cut her off that effectively.
“I can tell that you are lying,” Tariq said, each word distinct and clear. Like separate bullets fired from the same weapon. “Do you doubt it? Your whole face has changed. You look like a stranger! Where is the child? I saw no sign of one in your home.”
Still reeling, Jessa clung to the part that mattered most—he could not know anything about Jeremy specifically. He only knew that Jeremy could exist. He had not known about Jeremy before he’d come to York. This was all an accident, her fault.
“You will not even answer the question?” he asked, as if he could not quite believe it. “Your body makes you a liar, Jessa. The time for hiding is over.” He was not her lover now. Not the charming, easygoing one she knew now had never been more than a convenient costume for him, and not the intensely sensual one who had taken her to erotic heights last night. His voice was crisp. Relentless. Sure. He was a king with absolute power, and he was not afraid to use it.
“Have you seen me with a child?” she asked coolly, praying he could not see how her hands clenched to white knuckles, or hear the tremor in her voice.
“I will rip your life apart, piece by piece, until I find the truth,” Tariq bit out, the supreme monarch handing down his judgment, his eyes blazing. “There is no place you can hide, no part of your life you can keep from me. Is that what you want?”
“Why even ask me what I want?” she said, fear and determination a cold knot in her gut, forcing her to play the part of someone far more brave, far more courageous, than she could ever be. For Jeremy, she could keep from falling apart, falling to pieces, as was no doubt Tariq’s goal. For Jeremy, she could fight back. “You did not ask me what I wanted when you abandoned me and ruined my life five years ago. You did not ask me what I wanted when you reappeared in my life. Why pretend you have any interest in what I want now?” She shrugged, meeting his eyes with a brazen courage she did not feel. “If you want to dig around in my life, go right ahead. What could I do to stop you?”
His scowl deepened. “Do you think I am still playing games with you?” he demanded, his voice getting louder, his accent growing more pronounced as his temper grew. “You have no right to keep my child from me! The heir to my kingdom!”
Jessa reminded herself that he did not know. He only suspected. He did not know.
“You have no right to speak to me this way!” she retorted.
“Where is the child?” he thundered.
But she couldn’t back down, though her knees felt like jelly and her lungs constricted painfully. She wouldn’t tell him anything.
The truth was, she hardly knew where to start.
She shook her head, too many emotions fighting for space inside of her, and all of them too messy, too complicated, too heavy.
“Jessa.” This time the anger was gone, and something far more like desperation colored his voice. “You must tell me what happened. You must.”
But she could not speak another word, and she could not bring herself to look at him. She had the sense that she had finally stopped running a very long, very arduous race, and the wind was knocked out of her.
She didn’t have the slightest idea what to do now. She had never so much as considered the possibility that Tariq might discover that he had fathered a child. The time for telling him had long since passed, and she knew that she had tried then, to no avail. She had never anticipated that he might return. She had stopped dreaming such foolish dreams long ago.
And now he stared at her in anguish, which she would give anything to fix and couldn’t. It wasn’t simply that she couldn’t bring herself to tell him what he wanted to know. She physically could not seem to form the words. She could not even think them. She could only lie and avoid and deflect. She could only make it worse.
“I will stop at nothing to locate a child of my blood,” Tariq said softly. There was a chilling finality to his words then, as if he was making a vow. He took a step toward her, and it took everything she had to stand her ground before him. “I have believed I am the last of my blood, my family, for five years, Jessa. The very last. If that is not so…”
He didn’t finish. But then, he did not have to finish.
Jessa still could not speak. It was as if everything inside her had shut down, turned off.
“You can only remain silent for so long,” he said. His voice was like a whip, cracking through the room hard enough to leave welts against her skin. “But do not doubt that there is only one outcome to this situation. I will find out. The only question is how much of your life I will destroy in the process.”
“Do not bully me!” she cried, surprising herself as well as him, the words ripping from her as if she had torn them from her heart.
“You think I am bullying you?” He was incredulous, pronouncing bullying as if he had never heard the term before.
“Threats, intimidation.” Jessa pressed one hand against her temple. “Is there another word for it?”
“I am not threatening you, Jessa,” he said matter-of-factly, with that ruthlessness underneath. “I am telling you exactly what will happen to you if you continue this. You have no right to keep the truth from me. These are promises.”
“What kind of man are you?” she whispered. She wasn’t sure why she said it. She wanted to sob, to scream, to somehow release the tension that felt as if it swelled up from inside her.
Their eyes locked across the few feet that separated them. He looked as if he had never seen her before, as if she was a perfect stranger who had wounded him. She realized in that moment that she never wanted to be responsible for his pain. That it hurt her, too. But understanding only made the riot inside swirl faster, swell harder, cause more damage. Jessa made herself hold his gaze, though it cost her.
Tariq looked away from her then, as if he had to collect himself before he did something he would regret.
“I suggest you rethink your position,” he said quietly.
Suddenly her tongue was loose. And foolish. “I suggest you—”
“Silence!” He slashed a hand through the air, and said something in what she assumed was Arabic. “I am done listening to you.”
He did not look at her again, but strode toward the bedroom door. Jessa could not believe it. Relief flooded through her. He was leaving? That was it? Could she really be that lucky?
And what was the part of her that yearned, despite everything, for him to stay?
“Where are you going?” she asked, because she wanted to confirm it.
“Shocking as it might seem to you, I have matters of state to attend to,” he growled at her. “Or do you think my kingdom should grind to a halt while you spin your little lies? You can consider