by Jennie Lucas
“I saw pictures of her,” Irene said miserably. “She’s beautiful.”
“Yes,” he said dully. He exhaled with a flare of nostril, looking away. “Very beautiful.”
Looking at him, Irene’s heart broke.
“Don’t do it,” she said. “Don’t marry her.”
“I gave my word.”
“Break it,” she said desperately.
He gave a low, humorless laugh. “You are saying this? You?”
She swallowed, remembering all the times she’d insisted on honor, on love, on the importance of marriage and honesty.
He looked at her. “Even if I could discard my honor so lightly, Kalila comes from a powerful Makhtari family. If I offended her father, it would start trouble. It could even start a war.”
“It’s not fair,” she said tearfully. “You made the promise when you were fifteen—a boy!”
“I knew what I was doing.” He pushed back a tendril of her damp hair. “And if I could so lightly break my promise to Kalila, how could anyone ever trust my word again?” Looking down at her, he said softly, “How could you?”
“I could,” Irene insisted, even if part of her wondered. She gripped the towel wrapped tightly over her breasts, over her breaking heart. “I know you, Sharif,” she said, her voice cracking. “Honor, caring for your family, for your country—that’s everything to you. You can’t—”
A heavy door banged against the wall. Cold air rushed into the hammam, causing the steam to melt away. Irene jumped when she saw the bath attendant rush in. The woman didn’t even look at her, just went straight to Sharif and spoke in rapid Arabic. The words were too quick for Irene to understand, but she saw the instant tension of Sharif’s body, like a man who’d just been cut with steel.
“What is it?” she asked as the attendant bowed and hurried away. “What’s happened?”
Sharif walked to a wall. He flicked on an electric switch, and the bath was suddenly filled with harsh light, causing all the shadows and mysteries to disappear, leaving only cold reality.
“You need to get dressed.” His voice had no expression.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Longing to put her arms around his naked chest, to offer him comfort, she went close to him, trying to see his face. He looked at her. He was once again the powerful emir in control. The vulnerable man she’d so briefly seen beneath the mask had disappeared as if he’d never been.
Emotionlessly Sharif said, “My future bride has seen fit to honor us with a visit.”
Irene’s lips parted. “You can’t mean—”
“Kalila has just arrived unexpectedly at the palace.” He turned empty eyes to hers. “Come, Miss Taylor,” he said. “Come meet my beautiful bride.”
CHAPTER NINE
“YOU CAN’T TRUST servants. Any of them.” Kalila Al-Bahar’s red-nailed hand waved airily over the dining room table. “Thieves and liars, most of them. And the precious few who aren’t, well, they’re generally stupid and lazy.”
Irene blushed, exchanging glances with Aziza, who sat wide-eyed beside her. Kalila seemed completely unaware that the long dinner table was, in fact, surrounded by twelve palace servants, all of them within earshot, all of them stone-faced.
“Oh,” Kalila turned to Irene with a saccharine-sweet smile on her sharp red lips, “I do beg your pardon. Of course I didn’t mean you, Miss Taylor. I’m sure you’re...none of these things.”
“Of course,” Irene said through gritted teeth. Her eyes met Sharif’s. He was at the head of the table, in his traditional white robes, as was right and proper for the Emir of Makhtar entertaining the daughter of the former vizier, now wealthy governor of Makhtar’s eastern region.
Sharif’s handsome face was as expressionless as a statue, but oh, she knew what he was feeling. Her heart twisted painfully.
This horrible woman was to be his wife—the partner of his life—the mother of his children?
Irene had been so nervous to meet the beautiful Kalila. After leaving Sharif at the hammam, she’d rushed to her room, tidied up, showered and dressed. She’d been relieved to see a new box of contact lenses from the local optometrist waiting on her writing desk. Her hands had trembled as she put on red lipstick and a simple black sheath dress, adding a rope of fake pearls around her neck, like armor.
As if any lipstick or fake pearls could make Irene compete with Kalila Al-Bahar. When Irene had first met her at the start of dinner, she’d been overwhelmed with misery. The Makhtari heiress was even more beautiful and thin and impossibly glamorous in person. She had dark eyes lined with kohl, dark hair streaked blond, red lips, long red fingernails, tight red dress. The February weather in Makhtar was pleasantly warm, but she’d still draped herself in a mink coat. She looked like a gorgeous 1950s film star, Irene had thought, crossed with a dash of anorexic porn actress.
Then Kalila had started to speak, and she hadn’t stopped since. She had a beautiful, husky, magical voice. But she dominated every conversation with selfish, ugly words.
“If I had my way,” she continued now, “I’d bury every servant in the desert, and replace them with—I don’t know, anything. Trained dogs. Robots.” She sighed. “But robot technology is just so damn slow.”
The silence that greeted this bombshell was immediate. Even Kalila sensed something in the air.
“But enough about that.” She turned abruptly to Aziza. “I heard you like to shop. I should take you shopping.”
“Thank you,” Aziza murmured, tossing Irene a panicked look out of the corner of her eye.
“Do not worry,” Kalila said kindly. “I can show you where to go and what to buy. Once you are in my hands, in the right clothes, we’ll be able to disguise how you’re so hideously fat and plain.”
Aziza gave a funny little intake of breath.
Irene saw the pain in the younger girl’s face, and her lips parted as if she’d taken the blow herself. It was one thing to insult her—Irene could take it—but to purposefully hurt someone as sweet and defenseless as Aziza...
Putting her hands on the table, Irene started to rise to her feet, intending to say something sharp and reckless. But Sharif beat her to it.
“Enough, Kalila.” He was standing at the end of the table, cold fury on his face. “You will apologize to my sister for your words that are both hateful and untrue.”
Glaring at him, Kalila tossed her head. “High time someone told the girl to do something with herself!”
“It’s all right, brother.” Aziza tried to smile, but her eyes still looked suspiciously moist. “She’s right. I have many flaws. I could stand to lose a few pounds.” She looked down at her tightly folded hands, all her usual excitement deflated as she whispered, “I am lucky that the sultan even wants to marry me...”
Sharif stared at her.
“No,” he said gently. “I meant to tell you. You won’t be marrying him, after all.”
Her eyes widened, then she said miserably, “Did he change his mind because I’m too fat?”
Her confidence was so shot, Irene wished ardently to slap the cold superior smile off Kalila’s face.
“No. He wanted to marry you. But I called it off,” Sharif said firmly. He glanced at Irene. “Miss Taylor convinced me that college is the proper place for a young woman as bright and determined as you.”
“Bright?” Aziza breathed. “Determined?”
Walking to her place at the table, Sharif put his hand on his young half sister’s shoulder. “Yes,” he said quietly. “And brave and strong. Your whole life is ahead of you. You might become a scientist, an economist, who knows? There are many ways for a princess to benefit her country.” He smiled down at her. “You will do good things for Makhtar in ways I cannot even yet dream. I trust you to find the right path.”
“Oh, brother...” Bursting into tears,
Aziza rose to her feet and threw her arms around him. “Thank you,” she breathed. She shook her head, wiping her eyes. “You won’t regret this.”
Watching them, Irene had a lump in her throat.
“You’re throwing away her only chance for a good marriage,” Kalila said, looking down at her red-tipped nails. “No man will ever want to marry a fat, smart girl.”
It was the final straw. Throwing her hands against the table, Irene jumped to her feet. “You horrible, dreadful woman!” she cried. “You, be queen of Makhtar? You’re not fit to even clean the palace bathrooms!”
Kalila looked at her, all cold, thin, glamorous beauty.
“Ah, so the claws come out at last,” she murmured, “of the famous Miss Taylor that half this city has fallen in love with.” She narrowed her eyes, and Irene suddenly wondered if she’d heard rumors—if she was the reason that Kalila had come here so abruptly. Tilting her head, the heiress said with venomous sweetness, “But with Aziza’s wedding canceled and her leaving for college soon, there is no reason for you to remain here anymore as her companion, is there? I will thank you to leave my table.”
Irene shook with rage. “Your table?”
“Yes. My table,” she said coldly. She waved her skeletal arm. “This palace will be mine. The country will be mine.” With a hard smile, she looked straight into Irene’s eyes. “Sharif will be mine.”
Kalila’s vicious words sliced through Irene’s heart, causing her to stagger back.
The other woman watched her reaction with spiteful pleasure, then turned to Sharif and said sweetly, “I have finally decided to set a date. With your sister’s engagement off, we will officially announce our engagement tonight.”
“No...” The word was a barely audible whisper, coming unbidden from Irene’s heart.
Sharif stood beside his sister, his shoulders tight, as cold and expressionless as a statue.
“Well?” Kalila said.
He glanced at Irene. For an instant, she saw the flash of pain in his dark eyes. Then he turned to Kalila with perfect manners and no emotion whatsoever.
“As you wish. It will be arranged within the hour.”
“And since all our country is expecting a royal wedding at the end of the week...” She waved her arm, causing her diamond and platinum bangles to clink together loudly. “It would be a waste of money not to take advantage of the arrangements already in place, don’t you think?”
A dawning horror rose in Irene’s heart.
Sharif’s expression sharpened. “We cannot simply switch my sister’s wedding for ours, Kalila. Royal protocol must be followed.”
“You are emir. You set the protocol.” Kalila tilted her head. “Unless you have changed your mind. Surely you do not wish to disappoint our people, Sharif? Surely—” her voice took an edge “—you do not wish to insult my father?”
Brief hatred flared in his eyes, then died.
“No,” he said dully. “I do not.”
Irene grabbed his arm desperately. “Sharif,” she gasped, too stricken to realize she was calling him by his first name in front of everyone in the dining room, “Please. You cannot...”
He looked down at her.
“My bride is right,” he said coldly. “We no longer need you, Miss Taylor.”
“What?” Irene whispered, dropping her hand. He was staring at her as if she were a stranger. As if they hadn’t spent all these months together. As if, just a few hours before, he hadn’t nearly made love to her. As if she were nothing and no one.
She swallowed, blinking fast. She shook her head.
“But I can’t...” she choked out. I can’t leave you. Then she looked around the dining hall, at Kalila staring at her smugly, at Aziza with big eyes in her pale face, at the servants who were trying and failing to pretend they weren’t hearing every word.
Turning away from them, Irene looked at the handsome face of the man she loved.
“But I love you,” she whispered.
Sharif seemed to flinch, as if he’d taken a bullet to the heart. But his expression was granite as he looked at her.
“Thank you for your service,” he said, making the words meaningless and cold. “You will be paid the entire amount, as agreed.” When she did not move, his jaw hardened. He grabbed her wrist. “It is time for you to leave.”
Without another word, he physically pulled her from the cavernous dining hall. Once in the hallway, he dragged her hard along with him, speaking sharply in Arabic to his bodyguards as they passed. The bodyguards fell into place behind him, one of them speaking into his earpiece to someone else unseen. Irene looked at Sharif’s face. “What are you doing?”
He looked at her. “I’m sending you away. To the future you deserve.”
Irene wondered how she could have not known immediately, beneath the pretense of the playboy she’d first seen in Italy, exactly who he was. A good-hearted man. She should have loved him from the moment he’d first pursued her on the shores of Lake Como. Fighting back tears, she shook her head. “I won’t leave you.”
He looked away, tightening his grip on her arm, pulling her rapidly down the long hallways of the palace. “You must.”
“Not like this,” she choked out. “Not with her.”
Sharif stopped, his face grim. He signaled to his bodyguards, and they moved ahead without him. Once alone, he cupped her cheek, looking at her urgently.
“Kalila will be my wife. I’ve always known this. From the very day I met you, Irene, at the wedding of someone I barely knew, I was trying to accept my fate. I couldn’t then. But—” he took a deep breath “—I can now.”
“What?” she said, stricken.
He looked down. “Because of you,” he said in a low voice. “Because of what you taught me.”
“I never taught you to marry someone you hate, someone who is horrible like that—to make her the queen of your country—”
“You taught me how to believe again.” He looked up. “You taught me to love. For the rest of my life. As I will love you.”
Their eyes locked in the shadows.
Then a sob escaped her as she flung her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his chest, against his white robes. “I can’t leave you. I won’t. It’s too soon—”
Fervently, he kissed her forehead, her hair. “Better now than later. Before anything happens that we both—regret.”
Tears were running openly down her face. “I regret only that I didn’t let you make love to me every single day.” Looking up at him, she shook her head. “I should have let you kiss me, from the night we first met—”
“Shh.” He put his finger on her lips. “It is better this way. You’ll find someone who can make you happy. Who can give you what I never could.”
“Another man?” The thought was like death. “How can you even hope that for me?”
His black eyes looked infinitely deep and sad. “Because I need your happiness more than my own.”
A bodyguard came back and gave him a nod. Sharif turned back to her and said simply, “It is time.”
Gently taking her hand in his own, he pulled her out a side door and into the warm night. She heard the burble of the fountain, the soft cry of night birds. She saw the black outline of palm trees swaying against a violet sky scattered with stars. She loved everything about this country. Somehow, it had become home to her. Every part of it—especially its emir...
Then she saw a limousine waiting to take her to the airport.
“No!” she cried, backing up desperately. She tried to think of an excuse to linger, just ten minutes more. Five. “My clothes—I need to pack my things...”
“It will be arranged. Here is your bag. Your passport.” He snapped his fingers and a bodyguard gave him something. Sharif held out her purse. “My plane is waiting to take you
home. Your final paycheck will be transferred to your bank account in Colorado before you land.”
This was really happening. “How can you do this to me?”
“Do it to you?” He took a deep breath. “It’s for you that I’m doing this.”
“At least let me stay the week. I will stay here with you until the bitter end. Even—” she lifted her gaze to his “—after...”
His lips parted with shock. “You mean, even after I am wed, you would—”
Her voice was small. “I won’t leave you. Not even then.”
Sharif stared at her, then shook his head fiercely. “No. Even if you were willing to give up all your dreams, I wouldn’t let you.” Pulling her into his arms, he searched her gaze. “Don’t you understand? I have to believe in something. Something more than just cold duty to my country. And it’s you.”
Her legs were trembling. She clung to his shoulders, barely holding on. She wanted to fall to her knees and wrap her arms around him and beg him not to make her leave, at any cost.
“Don’t marry her. Marrying someone you hate will ruin your life.”
“It is already ruined,” he said softly, looking at her, and suddenly tears were choking her as she read everything in his eyes.
“Sharif—”
“I love you, Irene,” he said. “For the first time in my life, I understand what that means. Because my love for you will last for the rest of my life.” He cupped her cheek. “You were right.”
A sob escaped her. “No—”
“Be happy,” he whispered. He kissed her one last time with all his passion, his lips tender and yearning and full of grief and love. Then he let her go. He held up his hand, and two bodyguards came forward to escort her into the limo.
“Sharif,” she screamed, fighting them. “Sharif!”
But they pushed her into the backseat of the car, and the door was slammed shut behind her. As the limo sped away, Irene looked back with a sob through the rear window. She saw Sharif’s forlorn figure get smaller and smaller in front of the palace, until he disappeared altogether and all she had left of him was that last image of his stricken face, burned forever into her heart.
