When he could recover his voice, he said, ‘Your fiancé believed his brother?’
She nodded.
‘And your family?’ he asked, the diffidence unfeigned.
She shrugged. ‘Mukhtar told his family. The scandal devastated my parents, stopped me marrying elsewhere, and ruined my younger sister’s chances of finding a good husband. To save Fatima, Dad went along with Mukhtar’s plan. A woman can’t testify against her husband in Abbas al-Din,’ she finished in bitter mockery.
Dear God in heaven, what a mess, Alim thought. In Abbas al-Din society, if Hana didn’t marry the man she’d supposedly slept with, she’d be shunned—and the news would reach the community in Australia long before she could return there. So rather than marry a man she despised, she’d chosen to live as an outcast—but she’d lost everything.
No wonder she’d reacted so harshly to his slightest dictum, or mocked him for taking the lead. No wonder she’d turned him down flat for announcing their marriage as a fait accompli…
His mind raced to find a solution for her, his saviour, his love. Aching to reach out, to draw her against him and let her know she wasn’t alone, he asked, ‘Do you know where they are? Your family, and Mukhtar?’
If anything, her back stiffened more. ‘I know you want to help me, but if he finds out where I am…even you can’t interfere between husband and wife.’
The thought of her as Mukhtar’s wife through lies and treachery sent fury flooding through him, a primal urge to find him and take him apart, piece by piece…but that was the last thing Hana needed right now. Only practical action could help her—and she had no idea of what he could do. ‘What is it you hold over him?’
She shook her head. ‘He’s family now. Exposing him destroys my family.’
Moved by her loyalty in the face of so much loss, he reached out to her, let his hand fall. She didn’t need his love, she needed—
She needs a miracle, he thought grimly. It was a tangle past unravelling—but he had enough of the puzzle pieces to try to pull at the threads, and see what fell. She hadn’t contacted any of her family in five years; she could only be going by what she knew then, a girl on the run.
He said the only thing he could say without causing her further suffering. ‘All right, Hana. I understand. I won’t pressure you any further.’
After a long stretch of quiet, she said huskily, ‘Thank you.’
She was crying in silence, and, bound by his promise, he couldn’t reach out to her. They sat inches but miles apart. He ached to comfort her, his silence the only gift he could give.
He’d had such plans for tonight…but now he had other plans to make.
‘This isn’t a good idea,’ she said as she entered Alim’s house in Mombasa as the sun began to set. The wide glass doors to the balcony had a gorgeous beach view onto the Indian Ocean, the warm breeze rustling through the palms lining the sand. The crashing of the waves felt like her heart, constantly pushing its tide against the immovable earth of her situation.
The table was set for two, with candles and soft lighting…
‘I’ve arranged for your accommodation in a bed and breakfast down the road.’ Though the words were expressionless, her gaze flew to his face. ‘Your reputation is precious to me,’ he said quietly. ‘As for all this—’ his jaw tightened ‘—I ordered it when I believed we’d be engaged tonight. We might as well eat, and there are two chaperones here. My staff will never tell anyone you were here—and they’ll take you to your accommodation when the meal’s over.’
What could she say? He was putting her needs above his, and wasn’t blaming her for the ruin of his hopes. ‘All right.’ The words felt choked. ‘Alim, I—I am sorry.’
His eyes softened as he seated her at the table, removing her veil with such tender hands she wanted to cry. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’
He’d stopped calling her my star. He hadn’t called her anything at all since he’d stopped fighting for what never existed in the first place. He barely touched her, and when he thought she wasn’t looking his eyes darkened with pain. He’d accepted it was over, before it had even begun—and, irrationally, she felt like screaming. Aren’t you going to fight for me?
Even if Mukhtar didn’t exist, Alim could never marry the daughter of a miner—and she couldn’t become his lover. It would destroy her family, and, no matter what they’d done, she loved them. They were good people, even if they’d put worry about what their world would think above her needs, and tried to hush up what they saw as their daughter’s shame.
The meal was delicious, rice and curries of the region, lamb and fish with potatoes and traditional spices, and fried plantain. It was a shame neither of them ate much, only using food as an excuse to be quiet.
Soft music played from the CD, ballads that fitted the sunset, so soft and pretty from this south-eastern beach. After a while, Alim pushed his chair back. ‘This is ridiculous,’ he said, with a violent touch.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, relieved to be saying something, anything.
‘I can’t pretend like this.’
‘I should go,’ she said, soft, sad.
‘No.’ He’d pulled back her chair and had her in his arms before she could move away. ‘Don’t go,’ he murmured, his cheek rough against hers. ‘I hate being with you knowing I can’t have you, but being without you is worse.’
She ached to wrap herself around him, to share the kisses of this afternoon; but the time had gone, the words I’m married had made everything real. ‘This only makes things harder.’
He held her tighter. ‘Things have changed in my country. Proxy marriages have been illegal in Abbas al-Din since Fadi’s rule. I don’t know if your father knew that—’
She closed her eyes when they burned. ‘Even if that’s true, I can’t repudiate the marriage after all these years. It would humiliate Dad.’
‘He ruined you.’ The words were filled with fury. ‘And don’t you think your running away from the marriage he’d organised for you shamed him publicly, embarrassed the entire family? Don’t you think clearing this matter will be better for them all?’
‘He’ll never forgive me,’ she whispered. ‘That’s why I can never go back. And you—you need a suitable wife, a princess who knows how to help you.’ She pulled back to look into his face, his beloved face, one last time. ‘Please, just let me go.’
‘I won’t let you go, not knowing you live in hiding, never planning beyond your next escape—’ He held her shoulders, his eyes blazing. ‘Come to Abbas al-Din. I’ll buy you a house, and we can…’
‘I can’t be your mistress,’ she murmured, broken. ‘It would destroy my family’s good name. I can’t hurt them that way after everything else.’
‘You’re the one who’s suffered because of them,’ he snarled. ‘After what they did to you, you care so much?’
She shivered and moved closer to him, burrowing into him as if the night were cold. ‘I thought I didn’t. I want to hate them, but I can’t. I can’t—I have two sisters and a brother who are innocent of anything against me.’
Alim’s mind raced like his cars around the circuits. ‘Then we’ll marry here in Africa. We can stay here.’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘You can’t renounce your position for me. I’d always be the woman who stole the sheikh from his people—and my family would be humiliated again.’
‘So they’re more important to you than what we have?’ he grated out. ‘Or are you just making excuses to leave me? Was the way you kissed me in the car just a sham, a nice goodbye to the infatuated freak?’
‘Don’t.’ She pushed at his chest. ‘I’m doing this for you. You know how much I feel for you—but this can’t work. I’m the wrong woman for you!’
‘You think any woman of high birth is what’s best for me?’ Finally he released her. ‘You know I married a princess once, right? It was a nightmare. They said she died of a rare form of pneumonia—but the truth is Elira killed herself after the doctors said she coul
dn’t bear the sons the nation needed from her. She was the perfect wife in public—but unstable, highly emotional in private, always screaming and crying, wanting what I couldn’t give. In three short years she drove me nearly insane, Hana. I won’t marry for reasons of state again.’
The words were so cold, bitter, she shuddered again. ‘Not all princesses are like that, surely?’ She tried to laugh—but he moved away, his eyes blank. ‘We had a semi-affair of a week’s standing. A few touches, a few kisses, can’t become the love of a lifetime,’ she went on, trying to smile, to be brave for his sake.
He interrupted her noble sacrifice with words dripping with ice. ‘I’m thirty-seven, not a raw boy. I know what I want. I want you. If you won’t marry me because I’m a sheikh, I won’t be one. Harun’s become an outstanding ruler anyway—the people only want me because I was once famous. If you won’t marry me, I’ll live alone.’
How could a heart soar and crash at the same time? She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘Sooner or later, you’ll surely find a suitable woman you can…love—’
‘Will you?’
The savage words threw her into confusion. ‘Of course not, I’ve told you I can’t—’
‘If he was dead, would you come to me—or would you find someone else? A suitable man—what is that to you?’
She shivered at his freezing tone. ‘I’d go home,’ she said quietly.
‘And find someone else?’ he pushed in a snarl. ‘Would you?’
She shrugged helplessly. How could she stand another man to touch her after what she’d shared with him? Brief moments, enough to live a lifetime remembering…
‘Tell me, Hana. Say the words just once.’
A raw command filled with all the betrayed hurt he wasn’t ashamed to show her. She gulped and looked at the floor. ‘I shouldn’t.’
‘Hana, it’s all I’m asking of you—well, all I’m asking it seems you can give me,’ he amended, with such painful honesty her heart melted. ‘You made no vows to Mukhtar, so you won’t betray your father; but only tell me if it’s the truth—if your kisses were real, if your desire for me was true. If it wasn’t, just walk out now and you’ll never see me again.’
Alim was right: the vows made hadn’t been her vows; she hadn’t made them. Alim’s pain melted her wavering resolution. Why not tell him how she felt, just one time?
She couldn’t look at him as she said words she’d never said to any man. ‘I love you,’ she said softly, and joy so poignant it hurt her soul spread through her, shining from within. Then she looked up into his eyes, glowing with bliss stronger, more lovely and heartbreaking for its being only for tonight. ‘I love you, Alim, I love you.’
His eyes were full of anguished love. How well he knew her; he knew she was saying goodbye. ‘I love you, Hana.’ He pulled her into his arms, and all that was cold and dead in her came to beautiful life. ‘I love you.’ And he kissed her.
Shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t all went out the window as she threw her arms around him and deepened the kiss to beautiful, pure passion that sent dark memories of Mukhtar’s one attempt to arouse her spinning to the mental garbage. This didn’t make her feel shamed or dirty, because it was Alim…
She felt him removing the rest of the burq’a to reveal her plain cotton skirt, rose-hued shirt and sandals as she wound a hand into his hair, the other holding him tight at his waist. She loosened his shirt and slid her hand beneath, palms and fingers drinking in the man she loved. ‘Ah,’ she cried as his mouth trailed over her jaw, her ear, shivering with a primal force growing with each time they touched. ‘Alim, say it one more time, call me your star.’
‘I love you, Sahar Thurayya,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘My bright, beautiful dawn star, you lit me up when I was hiding in the darkness, you made me a man again.’
Clinging to him, whispering clumsy words to him of her love, she felt the change begin, her joy fail. Their love was like the dawn star he’d compared her to: seen for a brief, shining moment, lighting her life like the morning sky, but it was impossible to hold within her hands. She was a beggar maid to his king, a gutter snipe to his poet. This wasn’t real love; it was gratitude for saving him, she knew that…but that he even thought he loved her now was her life’s private treasure. It had to be enough, because it was all she could have.
‘I have to go,’ she muttered as his kisses grew so frantic she knew it was now or never—and for his sake it had to be never.
‘Stay with me tonight,’ he murmured against her throat, hot, rough, demanding.
She shivered again, fighting temptation with all she had. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered, feeling a jolt of pain rush through her as she took her hands from him. ‘Please don’t,’ she cut in when he began to speak. ‘It will only make things worse.’
She had to cut the connection while there was a chance he’d get over it. He had to produce heirs for the sake of his nation—and she wasn’t kidding herself that he’d love her for ever. She knew she wasn’t unforgettable by the way Latif had left her life at a speed faster than Alim could create in his best Formula One car.
The passion died in his eyes, but the love, the care for her, grew stronger. ‘If he finds you, Hana…do you want that to be your first time? Or will he do worse to you to protect himself?’
She wheeled away. If he knew what she believed Mukhtar would do to her, no force on earth would stop him from trying to protect her from him. ‘I’ll be fine. I promise.’
‘You can’t promise. In the Russian-roulette life you live, there’ll always be another Mukhtar, another Sh’ellah.’ His voice was harsh, but not aimed at her. ‘Come back with me to Abbas al-Din. I swear you’ll be happy—and I couldn’t be otherwise if you’re near me.’
The lure of happiness pulled at her heart and soul, poor, helpless fish—but the hook he dangled with the lure was a killer. ‘I’ll be fine. I survived twenty-six years before I met you—’ she forced the teasing twinkle into her eyes ‘—I’m fairly sure I can stumble through the days, aft…’ The words dried up, and she closed her eyes. She couldn’t say it. After you’re gone.
‘For thirty-seven years I tried everything the world could offer, education, travel, excitement—and my heart wasn’t in anything, Hana. Then I met you and it was as if I crammed an entire lifetime into a few days. Strangers’ souls entwined for ever, my star. What we feel is for life, whether you believe it now or not.’ He turned her back to him, caressing her arms as he looked into her eyes. ‘This isn’t over. I won’t let it be over. I won’t let you hide from me.’
She blinked hard, but the tears welled up faster than she could control them. ‘It has to be over. Please don’t ask me again.’ She hiccupped on the last word.
His thumbs brushed her cheeks; his mouth followed, kissing her tears away, and more fell. ‘I mean it, Hana. This isn’t over. I’ll find a way for us. You have my heart, my wise, cheeky star, you bring light and love to my life. I refuse to endure life without you.’ He smiled down at her, as strong as he was tender, and another hiccup escaped her, a half-controlled sob of loss. His arms enfolded her. She snuggled in, trying to catch her breath, to stop her throat hurting so badly.
‘You’re tired. I’ll call Yandi to take you to your accommodation,’ he murmured, after a long time had passed, and the music on the CD player had faltered to silence.
She nodded against his shoulder. Alim helped her back into her burq’a, her old friend and shield that had begun to feel like her enemy, symbolising all she was leaving behind. Again.
When Yandi was waiting outside the house for her, Alim held the door open, and she almost ran through it. At the top stair of the wide balcony leading to the night-flooded beach, she turned for a moment. Taking her last look at him.
‘It’s not over. I’ll find a way for us,’ he said, low and intense.
She shook her head. ‘Go home. Be the man you were always meant to become. And—and be happy, Alim. I need you to be happy.’
She fled down the s
tairs before she could do something stupid, like tell him she’d changed her mind, she’d do anything to be with him another day. Another moment.
Chapter Ten
The next afternoon
THE female UN delegate looked directly at Hana. Alim could see she wanted to squirm every time one of them paid attention to her. She’d sat through the interview for three hours in silence unless someone asked her something directly. ‘Hana, you did a brave thing in saving Sheikh El-Kanar. If you ever need help with anything, please call me.’ She handed her a card.
‘Thank you,’ she said yet again, and rose. The need to get away, to hide once again was so strong on her face, he wondered if they could all see it. ‘I’ll leave you all now.’
With ten long strides he caught up to her in the doorway. ‘Hana.’
She gave a silent, mirthless laugh as she turned at the outside door. ‘I don’t know if I’d have been more disappointed or relieved if you hadn’t followed me.’
‘I told you we’re not over,’ he said, gently pushing her outside the door, closing it behind him. The sun shone brightly on them both; the warm breeze caressed them.
‘Please stop,’ she whispered with an anguished glance around, to see who watched. ‘We can’t do this, Alim, you know we can’t.’
His eyes blazed, but he spoke gently. ‘I made a few calls last night. There are things you need to know.’ He pulled a thick roll of paper from his jacket without ceremony.
Her gaze lifted, searched his for a moment. Slowly she took the paper from his hand.
‘I hereby find the marriage ceremony between Mukhtar Said and Hana al-Sud, signed by Malik al-Sud on behalf of his daughter Hana al-Sud, to be illegal according to Amendment 1904 of the year 2001 by The Supreme Ruler of beloved Memory, Sheikh Fadi El-Kanar, and therefore declare the marriage to be void. Signed, Mahet Raad, Supreme Justice of the nation of Abbas al-Din.’
Desert Jewels & Rising Stars Page 134
