It wasn't heartbreak.
She'd had her heart broken before, knew what it felt like. This wasn't it.
This was so much worse.
Like her whole chest had been crushed, her heart and lungs obliterated into nothingness.
It hurt to breathe. It hurt to cry. And she couldn't seem to stop doing either.
The rest of her body, her limbs, her face, the places where he had touched her, savored her, had all gone numb. Traitors, all of them, leaving her with this pain. This ache. This hole in the world where something had once been.
Something she thought could have been love.
Only it wasn't love. It couldn't have been love. Because when you loved someone, you didn’t do to them what Zaid had done to her.
You didn’t push them away.
Not like that.
Never like that.
The ache tightened, forcing itself down her throat. How many times had she seen her mother go through this? She had been so careful not to get hurt. Not to risk anything that could cause harm to herself, her child.
And now here she was, alone in a room that was as cold as Zaid's voice had been, locked inside a loveless marriage, just like her mother.
Tears bit at her eyes, only this time, none came. There were none left. She had used them all up, dried herself out, crying over him.
Crying over the future she'd let herself believe, even for a moment, they could have had together.
The baby inside her stirred, reminding her of what was at stake. She couldn't fall apart like her mother had. And she wouldn't. She would put herself back together, piece by piece, reinforcing each one. She would find the place where he had gotten in and patch it up, make sure no one could ever invade her like that again.
She would make sure of it. For her child. Her daughter.
Harper pushed all the breath out of her lungs, wanting it gone, every molecule she had shared with him. She didn't need him to take care of her. She never had. She was stronger and more resilient than she had ever given herself credit for. So what if she didn't know what happened next? She was smart. She would figure it out.
But one thing was for sure – she couldn't spend one more day in Basmadan as Zaid's discarded queen.
A wave of sadness squeezed her chest, coiling tightly around her like an iron vine. She'd made her choice. To leave him, leave Basmadan. To get over him and move on with her life.
Only the logistics weren't as clear-cut in practice as they had been in theory. Getting over Zaid would take more than a change in residence or the passing of time. She doubted if she would ever get over him. If she was even able to. Her skin still burned for his touch, her heart still ached from his rejection. A thought she tried very hard not to dwell on for any length of time.
But she was determined to do those very things. Move on. Forget him. Not just for her own sake, but for her child. She wouldn't let her daughter be born into a world of not enough, had vowed that she would never experience the kind of emotional insufficiency in which she'd been brought up.
And Zaid was not ready to provide that for her. For either of them.
So she had gone back to her room and she had cried more than she'd ever thought possible. And when she was done, she had pulled herself together and decided to start over again. Make a new life in the hopes that eventually she wouldn't feel that strange inversion in her chest, that place where Zaid had been.
Her resolve newly strengthened, Harper gave one last glance around her suite. The books and bright colors, all the familiar things, had been packed away. Soon they would be delivered to her new apartment in Al Bashirah. Her clothes and other personal effects needed for everyday life had been packed into suitcases, ready to travel with her.
The empty space felt haunted, not from the ghosts of the past, but from the ghosts of the future. The future she'd let herself, just for a moment, believe she could have with Zaid. A future that was never meant to be.
It wove itself around her, a sadness she'd never felt before, one so strong it presented itself as a physical ache.
The door opened and closed with a quiet snap, and Harper's stomach dropped as though the room had just given way beneath her.
Zaid?
The mere thought of him conjured up anticipation or dread, she couldn't tell which. It was nonetheless unsettling, the way her heartbeat quickened, her body shook with nervous energy.
But what could he possibly want with her, say to her that he hadn't said last night? He’d made his limitations perfectly clear then. She had absolutely no desire to rehash them.
She took a moment to steel herself, then crossed the threshold into the main sitting area. Lunah appeared in her line of sight, and the small speck of hope Harper had been clinging to crashed down around her.
Funny, since she hadn't even realized it had been there. An almost imperceptible glimmer that there could be something between them. Something more than that constant ache that seemed to slice her open every time she tried to grab hold.
He hadn't come after all. Which should have been a good thing. Should have reaffirmed her decision to leave. Made everything...simpler, more clear-cut.
Only it hadn't.
There was still so much unresolved between them. Unresolved and unrequited. She loved Zaid. Every broken, tormented inch of him. Even the parts that made it impossible for him to love her back. She loved those parts, too, because they were part of what made up the larger whole.
Even more problematic, she couldn't seem to stop, not even when she wanted to. And god, how she wanted to. Only it seemed love wasn't something she could switch on and off. It was more like a state of being, rather than something she actively did. Like living. Existing.
"Sheikha?"
She turned, pushing down her feelings and giving her attention to Lunah. "Yes?"
Lunah's mouth drew a tight line. "A car is waiting to take you to Al Bashirah."
Harper swallowed, her mouth dry. "Already?"
She hadn't anticipated her residence at Al Bashirah would be ready for some time. Days, even. In Boston, she would have been hard-pressed to find a cab at such short notice. But she wasn't in Boston anymore. And no matter how far removed from him she felt at the moment, she was still the wife of the ruler of Gulzar. Of course there would have been a rush order on readying whatever she'd expressed an interest in.
Lunah shifted on her feet in her spot near the door. "Yes, Sheikha," she said. "But if you would like to wait, for Sheikh Zaid..."
"No." An autonomous response that came upon her like a hypnic jerk. If not saying goodbye could gut her like this, there was no telling what a face-to-face meeting would do. And she wasn't looking for an opportunity to find out. "There is no reason to bother Sheikh Zaid. He knows of my plan to relocate to Al Bashirah. I'm sure he'll visit when he finds the time."
She was sure of no such thing. If anything, she suspected the opposite was true. That with her gone, he would pull away even more, retreat further into himself. Immerse himself in guilt and anger and any other dark emotion that would have him.
For a moment, she'd foolishly thought she had gotten through to him. The way he'd touched her, held her, as though she were precious. In those few minutes together, she'd let herself believe that his demons had been exorcized. For good, this time.
But she had underestimated the grip it had on him, that pain. Pain that ran much deeper than she'd thought possible.
It's not your place to save me.
It was her place. Because, foolish though it may be, she loved him. Always would.
Once her attendants had removed the last of her things, Harper stood in the empty room, trying to wrap her mind around the reality that she might never again be in this space. She'd lived in a lot of different places growing up. But Basmadan had been the first to feel like home.
The door opened again, and Harper straightened, not wanting to appear emotional in front of Lunah and the rest of her staff.
Only that didn't seem to be an issue.
Because it wasn't Lunah in the room with her.