“Yes,” he said, and in one bright flash she saw it all. The whole picture.
“You can’t have!” she breathed. “You didn’t!” Her voice broke on anguish. “Oh, God!”
“Noor, I love you,” he said, too late.
He tried to draw her into his arms, but like a wild animal she wrenched herself free of his hold and stepped back, staring at him, her face white.
“You had an EPIRB the whole time?” she whispered. “Right from the beginning, when we were in the raft? Tell me!” she shouted when he made no answer.
“You know it,” Bari replied, taking it from her trembling palm and setting it on the sand to beam its message to the stars.
“We could have been rescued as soon as the storm was over. Before we even got to the island!”
She stared at him, her mind spinning with confusion and misery.
“What was it—an experiment? You were trying to see if you could break me? You wanted to—to… And now, for some reason—” she gestured to the EPIRB “—now the game’s over and you’re letting me go home! I wonder why?”
“I love you,” Bari said urgently, for how could he believe that his love, which had changed everything for him, would have no power over her?
“No, that’s not it!” she said in dismissive contempt. “That’s not why you’re calling a halt.” She frowned, her mind whirling, trying to see her way through the jumble of impressions. “No, what changed between last night and this morning? Just one thing—I told you I loved you.”
Noor closed her eyes, the ice-water truth of it coursing through her blood. “That’s what you were waiting for, isn’t it? That’s what you planned here—a little Taming of the Shrew. Brainwash her, break her down, and hey presto! She’ll think she loves you!”
“No!” he protested, but it sounded like a lie.
“Rescue was going to arrive by chance, wasn’t it? You’d have found some explanation, and I’d never have known! Only, I woke up early.”
“I hadn’t even considered what to tell you,” he said levelly. “Please lis—”
“Bullshit you hadn’t! You’d considered the whole damned thing from beginning to end! You started plotting this—when? When we were still in the plane? Boy, nobody crosses you and gets away with it, do they? What was it—the breaking of Noor Ashkani’s spirit as prelude to a loveless marriage?”
“You are not broken,” he said, emphasizing each word. “And I planned nothing. I took advantage of the situation. I admit it. But—”
“I suppose you even faked the wounded leg!” she accused.
He suddenly lost his grip on himself. “Try to keep your accusations within limits!” he advised angrily.
“You’re walking now and you look pretty comfortable!”
“I’ve been able to walk for the past—”
“And I notice, belatedly I admit, that last night it didn’t give you many problems!”
Last night. Her breath hissed in through her teeth. “You really wanted to make me your slave in every way, didn’t you?” she whispered. “Did you enjoy having me fetch and carry for you? Are you happy? Was revenge tasty? And now we’ll go back to civilization—though nowhere can be called civilization, exactly, if you’re there—and then what?”
He abandoned his anger and said urgently, “Noor, don’t take it like this. Think of what you learned during this time. Think of what you know!”
“Learned? I learned what kind of…of self-satisfied, arrogant bastard you are!”
His jaw clenched. “That is not all you learned.”
“Screw you.”
She turned away, taking in the sight of their campsite, the little shelter, the fireplace, the stacks of salvage…the place that, she realized suddenly, had come to mean home to her, because Bari was there. The place where she had learned to rise to the challenge, where she had responded to necessity with invention, where she had learned what she could do, where she had discovered…
Now she suddenly saw it as an outsider would see it: a primitive place—a filthy, half-blackened, jerry-built shack, a stack of ragged boxes, an overturned half-deflated life raft, the detritus of the fire, the bubble wrap that served as their mattress…. And most primitive of all—herself, a half-naked savage with ratty hair, peeling face, scratched, scabbed arms and legs, sunburned skin, wearing a dirty scrap of once-white silk…
And a pathetic, handmade string of pearls around her neck.
That, suddenly, was the worst humiliation of all.
Noor’s stomach heaved. She had been so pleased with it, with herself for making it, had modelled it for Bari with such pride!
With choking revulsion, she lifted her hands and tore at the necklace. The fishing line was too strong to break, but at her ferocious jerking the knot slipped and gave at last. The pearls spilled into the sand at his feet, one by one.
Noor turned on her heel and headed toward the hut.
“Listen to me!” His hand caught her wrist, and he forced her to face him again.
Her jaw was clamped tight against tears, but her eyes were shuttered, showing no way in.
He had to try. “Did I have no excuse for what I have done, Noor? I don’t say I was right. It was an insane thing—but remember what had happened. Remember your own actions when you remember mine. I offered you marriage in good faith, believing that, if we didn’t love each other, still we could make a strong partnership. I had made up my mind that you were my life’s partner, the mother of my children. The whole of my world was there to witness that. And then the guard came to tell me you had been seen driving away in the limousine…. Did I have no excuse for anger? For madness, even?”
It made no impact, he could see that. Noor stood straight and cold. “You’ve had plenty of time to get over it, too. Are you trying to tell me you only now came to your senses?”
“Perhaps. They call love a madness—they say a lover is a madman. But for me perhaps it is the other way. Maybe learning that I love you brought me to my senses at last. Because I have learned it.”
She snorted. “Oh, do me a favour!”
“Noor, let us stop this before it leads to a path that neither of us can turn back from! We have each done terrible things to the other. Let us forget those hurts, in the name of love. I love you. You are my woman, my wife.”
“Oh, this from the guy who wouldn’t even lend me his jacket till I got on my knees and begged!” she recalled with renewed bitterness. “What it means to be the woman of Bari al Khalid, eh?”
“You love me,” he said. “You said it, last night.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “Don’t you believe it! Aren’t you the man who said women always talk like that during sex?”
“Not you, however.”
“Ah, but I’ve been trained by a master! And I’m a quick study, as you’ve noticed yourself. But don’t forget you also once called me heartless. If you brought me here in the hopes of breaking me down to the point of being willing to marry you,” Noor said, opening her eyes at him, “sorry, but you were a little premature with the EPIRB. Maybe you shou—”
She broke off when he wrapped his arms around her and dragged her tight against his body. Fierce black eyes burned her for a moment, and then his mouth smothered hers.
Her blood went up like gunpowder, but before the heat could reach her brain, Noor tore her mouth away.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Show me how you have been hurt by what I did, and I will let you go!” he declared fiercely, delivering kisses behind her ear, on her throat, in her hair as she twisted her face away. “Noor, I love you!”
Even in the heat of her anguish, his mouth could ignite her blood. Her heart beat in a wild, thrilling tattoo, as if it believed his love. Her body felt the strength of his hold, the hunger of his hands, read the passion in his eyes, and leaped from desire to hunger to drowning passion in a moment. She was melting for him as if she had made no terrible discovery between last night’s lovemaking and this moment.
“Marry me, Noor!”
he begged, his voice growling in his throat. “I love you, I want you. You are mine!”
From some distant coldness in her, she found the strength to thrust him from her. “Don’t touch me again,” she ordered coldly. “Don’t even speak to me.”
Fifteen
“Ow! Ah, ooh! Oh, don’t stop, Rudayba, it’s wonderful! Yow, that hurt! Oh, did I ever—aaah!—miss this!”
The full-body Shiatsu Massage with Cucumber and Nine Essential Oils was just what Noor needed, and if it brought tears to her eyes, who would look further for the cause?
Her cousin Jalia, that was who.
“So what now—you’re not speaking to him?” Jalia was sitting on the sofa by Noor’s head, lazily flicking through a pile of newspapers and magazines. The two cousins were in her suite in the palace, hiding out from Bari and, incidentally, from the media. Noor’s adventure was the kind of fodder the tabloids and celebrity magazines fed on, and they had smelled blood.
“Do you expect me to speak to him?”
Jalia shrugged. “I don’t get you. You were willing to marry him when you didn’t love him and he’d never said he loved you. Now he insists he’s crazy about you, and you’re breaking your heart for love of him—”
“I am not!”
“—but now you won’t hear of marriage. There’s a certain lack of fundamental logic, isn’t there?”
“I told you, Jalia,” Noor repeated doggedly. “When I said I’d marry him, I was so hypnotized I didn’t even realize that what I felt wasn’t love. On the island I thought I’d learned to love him, but that was just brainwashing, wasn’t it? It’s not real love.”
“Keep saying that, and you might even come to believe it. There’s more than one way to get indoctrinated. You can even do it to yourself.”
“That is just so ridiculous!”
“You’re a very different person from the Noor I used to know. I told you before. Your eyes smile. You’re…considerate. Is that why you’re so mad at Bari?”
Noor took a deep breath against the pain Rudayba was inflicting. “No,” she said softly. “No, I’m…I’m aware of that, and I’m grateful for it. But that doesn’t mean—” She blew out a hopeless breath.
Jalia shrugged and lifted up the magazine she was flicking through to show Noor the double-page spread.
RETURN OF THE CASTAWAY PRINCESS!
There were several photos of Noor and Bari climbing out of the rescue helicopter, their faces strained and worn, enveloped in the robes their rescuers had given them. In one of them the little rag doll was visible on Noor’s arm—the only thing Noor had carried with her from the island.
A few library photos filled up the rest of the space, the magazine’s attempt to disguise the fact that there was nothing apart from the fact of the rescue to write about. Neither Noor nor Bari had given any interviews yet, in spite of pestering that amounted to persecution. And considering her own family’s response to her story, Noor wasn’t at all eager to make explanations to the broader public. Her mother hadn’t spoken to her for an entire day.
“They want the next instalment, and they won’t wait forever. What are you going to tell everybody? The truth?”
“Ow! Ow! Rudayba, that one’s really—Ya Allah! Ooh, that’s good! No, are you kidding?” Noor continued to Jalia in English without a break. “The truth? He Never Loved Me, Sobs Broken-Hearted Princess? I don’t think!”
“Of course, you could always sue him.” Jalia tossed the magazine aside and picked up a newspaper. WEDDING FLIGHT MYSTERY STILL UNEXPLAINED, Noor read. “They’d love you if you did.”
“Sue him for what?” Noor demanded irritably.
“Involuntary forced confinement, of course. The media would gorge on that. You could give them all the details of the hardship your villainous, mercenary fiancé put you through, trying to break your indomitable spirit.”
“Rudayba, that’s enough digging for one day, thanks,” Noor said suddenly. The masseuse stopped, wiped her hands and discreetly left. Noor clambered off the table, wrapping the gigantic white towel around her. Cleanliness still seemed an unparalleled luxury.
“I’m going to take a shower.”
Jalia obediently followed her into the bathroom, where Noor examined herself in the mirror. After several days of serious facial and skin rejuvenation work, she was looking human again. Her hair squeaked, her hands had been soaked and scrubbed till her fingertips were nearly raw, the nails were neatly rounded and glossily polished. Her feet were similarly restored.
Various bruises and scratches were fading along with the aches and pains. In fact, it was back to her old life again.
The only things that didn’t fade were the memories. When she closed her eyes she still saw Bari’s face, felt his hands, his mouth…when she breathed her heart still ached.
“So, you want to call a lawyer?” Jalia flung herself into a plush chair as Noor started the shower.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to sue Bari!”
“Why not?”
Noor smiled sweetly. “Because that would require seeing him in court.”
“That bad, huh?”
Noor stepped under the water and picked up the plastic bottle of perfumed shower scrub. She stood looking at it for a moment before shooting the soft green liquid into her palm. How she had yearned to be here then, but somehow now…she would give anything to be back on the island, falling in love with Bari and believing that he was falling in love with her.
She felt tears burn her eyes and quickly pushed her face under the stream, rubbing the lather into her breasts, her neck, her arms, her stomach, fiercely trying to blank out the memory of that day by the falls.
But a brand isn’t got rid of so easily.
“If you don’t agree to see me, I’ll give an interview to the media,” Bari’s voice threatened. Noor tried to pretend to herself that she could listen to his voice without melting.
“And why should I care?”
“You might not like what I’m going to tell them. I plan to say you ran away because you were only marrying me for my money, and at the last minute you learned the family property was less than you thought.”
“What? Who’d believe that?”
“The media don’t care about the truth, they care about a story. I can make the story look good. On the other hand, if we were to talk, we might come up with an even better story to give them.”
“Are you threatening me? Is this blackmail?”
“You aren’t surprised, are you? You already know I’ll stop at nothing.”
“Why are you doing this?” Noor shouted. “What do you want?”
“That’s easy. I thought you knew. I want you. Now, and forever.”
Her heart thundered. “Well, you can’t have me,” Noor said doggedly. Then, because she couldn’t resist, “And anyway, how would telling a bunch of media types that I was marrying you for your money help you?”
“Isn’t it obvious? The only way you’ll be able to redeem yourself in the world’s eyes after a statement like that is by marrying me.”
She slammed the phone down.
“Princess, how do you feel about Jabir al Khalid’s ultimatum?”
The journalist had cracked her cell phone code and Noor had been fooled into answering. Now she was trapped.
She hesitated, wondering how to get the maximum information from the journalist while giving the minimum away. She was not experienced in dealing with the media, and she knew she should get off the phone as quickly as possible without offending the woman.
But she was wild to know what Bari’s opening salvo was.
So she laughed lightly. “I don’t really know what you’re referring to. Ultimatum?” Had Bari told the media about his grandfather?
“I’m talking about his discovery that you aren’t, after all, the granddaughter of his old friend.”
Noor’s jaw fell open. “That I’m…what?”
“Didn’t you know, Princess? It seems the old man thought you were th
e descendant of his best friend, and that’s why he approved of the marriage between you and Bari. But now he’s discovered that he had confused the names. Not so surprising at his age, I imagine. It turns out your grandfather, Faruq Durrani, was the Sheikh’s fellow Cup Companion, all right, but not his special friend.”
“Really?” Noor prompted, curious to know where this was leading.
“In fact, as I understand it, your grandfather was actually Jabir al Khalid’s rival in love. And Faruq Durrani won. Somehow Jabir al Khalid got the name of his enemy confused with the name of his friend.”
She paused compellingly.
“I guess memory can do funny things.” Noor knew enough to fill the gap with a platitude. She was unsure whether to believe this, but what was the point?
“Now that he’s remembered, apparently, he doesn’t want his grandson to marry you?” the reporter said, on a rising note.
“What?”
“Jabir al Khalid has changed his mind about wanting Bari to marry you, apparently.”
Noor sat stunned, the phone pressed to her ear. Was it true? Bari forbidden to marry her? Her heart nearly stopped at the thought. She lifted her mouth away from the receiver and tried to breathe quietly, sucking in gulps of air, fighting for calm.
“Uh, it’s a surprise to me,” she said when she could.
“It’s not true? Are you and Bari still engaged?”
“I think that’s for Bari and me to decide.”
“Because I hear the man who really was Bari’s grandfather’s friend has five granddaughters, and Bari is supposed to choose from them.”
“No comment,” Noor whispered.
“Why didn’t you and Bari get married, Princess?”
Noor put the phone down.
She paced the suite, racked with indecision and torment.
Could it be true? Had the old man made such a discovery? Or was this just the first salvo in the war Bari had promised her?
But when her mother called to tell her the same story, she had to believe it: Bari’s grandfather had made a mistake. He now saw the halting of the wedding—whatever had caused it—as a gift from God. And he intended to accept the gift. Bari was forbidden to marry Noor, who was the granddaughter of a villain.
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