Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Rayyan whitened. “Why the fuck—-”
“Because I need to hear all the reasons why—-” Her eyes shone brighter and brighter with every word. So damn bright, it hurt to look at them. “You can’t love me. Yet.”
In all the years he lived, and with all the things he had seen –
“Please, Rayyan?”
It was only now that he realized how despair alone could make eyes bright like diamonds.
“Alright.” He strove to keep his voice steady, knowing that to let her hear anything else in his words would only make her hurt more, and when she took his hand to lead him to the couch, he let her.
Even when it seemed like she was hell bent on tearing her own heart out, he had to goddamn let her. Any attempt to keep her from hurting would have been nothing but a lie, and goddammit, he had hurt her enough.
She made him take one end of the couch while she took the other, turning to him with eyes that still shone too brightly and lips that seemed to be just a whisper away from quivering. He watched her tuck her knees under her chin, and she appeared to him like a scared little girl who knew she was about to hear a bedtime story on boogeymen – and that the scariest of them all just happened to be the man sitting next to her.
Hyacinth worked her facial muscles hard to come up with a smile. “So...” She forced herself to keep her gaze on the sheikh. “How did you end up falling for your cousin?”
His lips twisted into a humorless smile. “You don’t pull your punches, do you?”
“Not with you, no, and stop changing the subject.”
“I wasn’t, and to answer your question, we first met when we were seventeen—-”
“Shit.”
Rayyan was bemused at the interruption, considering he had barely started. “What?”
“Are you saying I’m up against your first love?”
“Yes.” The sheikh’s voice was mild, his expression neutral – not even the smallest clue existed for Hyacinth to realize that he had come to understand that this whole goddamn Q&A, this whole parody of a late-night talk show, was for his sake.
“Great,” Hyacinth muttered.
Because she didn’t want him to feel guilty for not being able to love her –
“So not only am I up against an Arabian Barbie—-”
Because childish or not, she wanted to pretend she had some pride left and make it seem like she could talk about the woman he loved without breaking down.
“You’re also saying you haven’t gotten over her even after all these years?”
And because he owed it to her to pretend that things were going exactly as she planned, he managed to look into her eyes as he murmured under his breath, “That’s right.” And diamonds turned into stars as he forced himself to say, “Thirteen years and counting, in fact.” He saw her smile start to wobble, and it took everything in him to look away and pretend he saw nothing. Her pride was all she had left, and he would fucking make sure she kept it, even if it meant having to act like a bastard to the only girl who was able to remind him how it was to smile again.
After a while, he heard her clear her throat, and he would’ve smiled if he had the right to.
Good girl.
That was the Hyacinth he knew – and would never deserve.
“So, umm, let me get this straight. You were seventeen when you decided you didn’t care about incest—-”
“We didn’t know we were related until it was too late.”
Hyacinth’s jaw dropped. “Come again?”
“I was enrolled in a prep school in London for the summer, and she happened to enroll for the same class.” Rayyan only allowed himself to look at her again when he was certain he had regained sufficient control of his emotions. “We hit it off, mostly because I was the only one amused at the way she tended to snap at anyone who tried to befriend her.”
“You’re saying you’re a masochist.” She made herself sound as bitchy as she could, anything to hide the fact that it was getting harder and harder not to cry.
“I’m saying,” the sheikh corrected, “all the other boys in class were scared stiff of her.”
Because the truth was, she was the masochist here, with how she was practically begging for details on how another woman had managed to do what she couldn’t -
“They all tried to ask her out—-”
And that was to steal the sheikh’s heart, when Hyacinth couldn’t manage to turn his head around even once.
“But because she had a certain way of speaking—-”
“Is that your way of saying she could make a man’s dick limp as a rotten, soggy banana with just one word?” She was grinning so hard it felt like her face was about to crack any second.
“I would’ve phrased it differently, but yes, it was essentially that characteristic of hers the reason why the two of us ended up spending most of our free time—-”