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seeing new tears pouring from eyes so crimsoned he feared they might seep blood at any moment, he could no longer dispute her state.
    Whatever the reason behind her anguish, it was real, profound. She was more terrified, more desperate now than if she believed he intended to end her life.
    He stared at her, an overwhelming need rising, to soothe away the pain he’d caused her. He curled his fists against the urge.
    “Please…understand…I o-only hid my pregnancy b-because I was s-scared you’d make me terminate it!”
    Her words detonated inside him, the belief that it was all an act erased in the blast. All he heard was the accusation, all he believed was that she’d believed it.
    “You thought I would ask you to kill an unborn child? My unborn child? And you think you know anything about my culture or me? And when she was born, what did you fear? That I’d bury her alive like my land’s barbarians of old?”
    “No.” Her cry was engulfed by shearing sobs. She still talked through them. “All I thought was you—you might fear her existence, might think her a threat to your honor, your status…And I wasn’t risking it. I would do anything— anything— to keep her from harm.”
    “And you thought I’d harm her? You saw me fighting to bring relief to millions of children and thought I’d harm my own?”
    B’Ellahi, what was he saying? He was playing the part she’d shoved him into with all the oblivious fervor of the past. He was answering her as if he believed concern for her baby and true fear of his reactions had been the reasons behind her disappearance.
    “ B’haggej’Jaheem— by Hell, I thought you’d come up with better than that. Or maybe you didn’t give it much thought since you were sure this confrontation would never come to pass.”
    She shook her head, sending her tears splashing everywhere. A few fell on his hands, felt as if they’d burned him to the bone.
    “But why do you want her?” And if he’d thought she’d given defeat sound, she now gave desperation tone and texture. “Don’t Judarians value only male sons? What is a daughter to a prince like you who surely wants only heirs?”
    “So, first you dare to imply that I might have gotten rid of her for being born at all, and now that I’d discard her for being born female.”
    She spread her hands in a helpless gesture, a lost gesture, beseeching his understanding, his mercy.
    He had neither to give. “Enough of that.”
    She again threw herself in his path, but was shaking so hard she couldn’t even cling. “I didn’t dream you’d want her…please…”
    He looked down at her, struggling with the need to slake the accumulation of hunger in that body that had deprived him of finding pleasure elsewhere. He’d been unable to contemplate marrying another after she’d walked out on him, even as a damage-control measure when Tareq had rushed out and married the first woman to accept him. Instead, Farooq had decided to expose Tareq’s ineligibility to rise to the succession once and for all, had asked his king, who couldn’t go back on the marriage-criteria decree, to stall everyone until he furnished irrefutable proof of Tareq’s perversions and crimes.
    He was close to gaining that proof, but now he’d found Carmen and Mennah—and they were the fastest route to securing the succession. Not that he would let Tareq go unpunished. Or Carmen, either. But he wouldn’t touch her. Not yet.
    Putting her away was harder than anything he’d ever had to do. Then he strode through the entrance she’d been guarding, went deeper into the apartment, felt her stumbling behind him, her tremors buzzing through his flesh, her sobs constricting his lungs.
    He ignored the feelings, stopped before the door that he just knew had his daughter on the other side. Then he turned.
    “Show me my daughter, Carmen.”
    He had no idea why he asked her permission when he never asked anyone’s, gave her that consideration when she’d shown