Ashad’s jaw clenched. “That is not your concern.”
“How can you say that when you have slept with her at my suggestion?”
The door cracking open behind Ashad was every single one of his worst fears come to being.
Charlotte stood, staring at them both, her skin pale but otherwise a study in regal detachment.
“Is this true?” She asked Ashad, her eyes meeting his for a brief moment before shifting to rest on a point beyond his shoulder.
“No,” he sent Syed a fulminating glare.
“He didn’t tell you to seduce me?”
Ash froze. “He did,” he said finally. “But that’s not what this is.”
Charlotte forced herself to meet his eyes. Her hopes were there, her dreams, too. And her heart, crumpled inside of him, begging her to be strong.
“You don’t want to marry me?” She said, dragging her gaze to Syed. He looked utterly shocked.
“Your highness,” he said with a voice so like Ashad’s that her gut clenched. “I apologise. I had not realised you were in the apartment.”
She didn’t visibly react. “You don’t want to marry me?” She repeated.
Syed moved towards her, and she watched him almost as if from above. He lifted her hands into his. He was handsome. But he was not Ashad.
“I do not believe in arranged marriages,” he said thickly. “I mean you no offense. I have argued at length for this contract to be set aside, without success. Faced with no other options I asked that my cousin intervene on my behalf.”
Ashad was beside them, looking from one to the other. “Something I was reluctant to do,” he said urgently.
“To intervene how?” She blinked from one to the other. “Was your plan always to come here and sleep with me?” She pulled her hands free of Syed and paced across the room, her mind ticking over the circumstances. “No, not just to sleep with me.” She thought back to their conversation on the balcony and lifted her hands to her mouth. “My God. To get me pregnant too?”
“No,” Ashad swore. He moved towards Charlotte but she lifted a hand, silently insisting he stop. “And I did not sleep with you for any reason other than that I wanted to. You know me. You know me. You know what we are.”
“Just like I knew Marook,” she murmured, her throat thick with emotion.
Ash blanched visibly. The comparison made him sick to his stomach. He shook his head, his eyes locked to hers, imploring her not to think that of him. “Not like Marook,” he promised.
Syed interrupted. “Your mother is insisting our marriage happens today. I am on my way to the palace now.”
Charlotte stared at him. “No, you’re not. Not without answering all of my questions.” And she spoke with an imperiousness that had rarely been used to either of the men before. Charlotte was effortlessly taking control of the situation despite her emotional turmoil and Syed couldn’t help but admire the woman’s strength and leadership.
“What questions, azeezi?” Ash murmured. He saw her pain and ached to comfort it. To make everything better for her.
“You don’t want to marry me,” she said, nodding.
“Which is no reflection on you,” Syed spoke kindly, and Charlotte laughed.
A brittle sound that set Ash on edge because he heard the panic beneath the noise. “You do not need to worry that you are insulting me, Syed Al’Eba, as though I have been pining away for you all these years.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and she was magnificent. “I understand your objection to this sort of marriage. I am not offended. What was Ashad to do here? To sleep with me and then report this back to your father? To tell King Adin that Charlotte fell into his bed and is not a suitable bride?”
Syed, so used to being right, discovered he didn’t enjoy the sense of being utterly, completely, in the wrong. “It was a thoughtless suggestion,” he said angrily – all directed at himself.
“Yes,” she nodded. “But a suggestion is just that. The deed is what I care about.” Her eyes moved to Ashad and jerked away again, back to Syed. “You are released from your obligation. I will have the marriage contracts destroyed. You need not see my parents, Syed. And I would appreciate your discretion with regards to this … circumstance.” She blinked, clearing the heat from her eyes. She looked around them. Her shoes. Where were her shoes?
“Charlotte,” Ashad spoke urgently. “Do not even think about leaving.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. Her expression spoke on her behalf. Her face rang with devastation. A devastation Ashad knew he alone was responsible for.
“Listen to me.” He moved towards her but again, she froze, as though terrified he might touch her. Forcing himself to be gentle, he murmured, “I came here to see how you felt. Syed asked me to discover a reason for the wedding not to go ahead. Perhaps you were not as perfect as you were reputed to be,” Ash added. “Charlotte? What you have told me about Marook? This would have been enough. I could have spun that, and your parents’ failure to disclose it, into a reason to void this marriage.”
Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared as she expelled a hot, disbelieving voice. “But why stop with one failing when there can be two? One mistake is bad, but two is a pattern, and now you have what you needed. I am a slut, see? How nice for you to have rendered your cousin this service.” She spat the words angrily. “Where are my shoes?”
“Stop,” he was imperious, but when he looked to Syed there was fear in his expression. He turned back to Charlotte. She had found her ballet slippers and was sliding her feet into them. He couldn’t let her leave. He strode to her with purpose.
“You know that I love you,” he said, standing right in front of her, looking down into her eyes. “I am in love with you. That’s what this is.”
And for a second he thought he’d actually said something that she needed to hear. She looked at him for a long moment, reading his face, and then she lifted her hand and slapped him, hard, across his cheek.
“This is not love,” she said sharply. “It is sex and it is lies.”
She straightened and moved towards the door. She paused. “Consider our business concluded. Neither of you is welcome at the palace of Falina; please do not attempt to continue this conversation.”
“Charlotte,” Ash’s voice held a warning.
“No.” She glared at him. “No. It is done.” And now tears sparkled on her lashes, tears that had been cloying at her throat since she’d heard Syed’s first words thrown into the room and realised what a fool she’d been.
She looked at Ashad – allowing herself one last opportunity to memorise his face, because she would not see him again.
She could not.
CHAPTER TWELVE
One month later.
“I shouldn’t have come,” Charlotte said under her breath, so that only Mika caught the quiet utterance.
“Not something you could easily avoid,” she pointed out with a wink. “It is your father’s birthday party.”
Charlotte grimaced. How selfish she was being! Even a month after Ashad and Syed had left Falina, she was still capable of thinking only of her own heartbreak and hurt.
The party was in full swing, and there must have been almost a thousand guests. The ballroom where Ashad’s welcome party had been held had been transformed. It was just as beautiful, but now the Shareef family crests had been rolled down the walls. Gold thread against black fabric gave the banners a sense of serious formality. Charlotte moved along the edge, her eyes scanning the crowd.
There was an art form in looking at people without giving them a chance to stop you. A quick glance, a firm smile, and then an immediate removal of eye contact to discourage conversation. And Charlotte didn’t want to make conversation with anyone, with the exception of Mika who knew the entire saga.
Had it really been a month? Her face paled as she let her mind wander to that morning. Never before had she known such aching grief. She had cried the entire way home, and not quietly, either. She had sobb
ed, and sobbed, and instead of going to the palace had sought refuge in her apartment.
He had come, of course.
Ashad.
He had come every day for a week, insisting on seeing her. And she had refused.
Her spine straightened now as she remembered, with indignation, his nerve! How had he dared think he could come to her? She had been livid, and nauseatingly ill at the very idea of seeing him again.
Until he had stopped coming, and she had needed to face a reality without him in it, finally.
Her parents’ fury over her refusal to marry Syed had helped – at least it had given her a distraction to the grief she felt. They had tried every means possible to cajole her into marriage but she had been steadfast. Perhaps if she’d told them the truth they would have accepted it more easily. But she hadn’t been able to discredit Ash even when her heart had recognised that he was not the man she’d believed him to be.
None of it had been real.
He had seduced her, expertly, and she had loved him.
She made a quiet groaning sound and then, recalling where she was and the hundreds of eyes that could be trained on her, she pasted a radiant smile on her face.
“Char!”
She stifled a grimace, turning to see who was daring to interrupt her very careful anti-social promenade. But annoyance quickly gave way to grudging pleasure when she saw her dear friend Remi walking towards her.
“I haven’t seen you in months,” he said, folding her into an embrace. “Not since that night in Istanbul,” he said with a grin.
“The night you got so drunk you could barely walk and then vomited on my custom made Louboutin heels?”
He laughed. “Good times!”
She couldn’t help but laugh in response. That was not how she had characterised the evening, but then again, life was never dull with Remi around.
“So?” He asked with a tilt of his head. “What’s the deal?”
“The deal?”
“Yeah. You were meant to be getting married and then the papers all say it’s off?”
That wasn’t all the papers had said. She had stopped reading them after a while. The stories that had been floated had vacillated between insulting, rude and downright invasive. Had Syed copped the same treatment in Kalastan?
Probably not.
She had taken the blame.
She had told her parents she wouldn’t marry a man she didn’t know, period. That maybe she didn’t want to get married at all. How angry they’d been!
She shrugged her slender shoulders. “I guess I got cold feet,” she said.
Remi grinned. “Life’s too short to settle down at our age, anyway. Dance?”
She burst out laughing. “God, I’ve missed you.” She hugged him and he hugged her back and she felt a hint of her old self bubbling to the surface. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d be here either,” he said changing his position so he could lead her onto the dance floor. “I heard you’ve been staying indoors. Not answering your phone.”
“Wow. Have you been spying on me?”
He grinned. “I spy on everyone.”
She met his eyes, waiting for him to elaborate. “Your mum. My mum. They talk.”
“Of course they do.” She grimaced. “I’d hate to be a fly on the wall of those conversations. My mum was pretty angry.”
“I know.” He winked at her, his handsome face crinkling with the easy smiles he was known for. “But then she was worried. Far more worried than angry.”
Charlotte nodded. She had recognised both emotions in her mother, and yet she hadn’t had the emotional room to care. “Tell me about you,” she begged. “Distract me.”
“Char?” Remi stopped dancing, and pressed a finger beneath her chin. “I know you and I have fun together. But if you want to talk… I mean, really talk. I’m happy to be a sounding board.”
She smiled at him, touched by the offer. “Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.”
He pulled her closer and they danced, moving perfectly in time to the music. It was exactly what Charlotte needed. To dance with someone, to let her mind go blank, to enjoy the music. She kept her head on his shoulder, her mind pushing away any thoughts of Ash.
Forgetting him would take discipline, that was all. Eventually, she would be able to sleep without dreaming of him, to smile without remembering his smile – to smile at all!
“Mind if I cut in?”
She froze. Her body was as still as a statue as her mind tried to process the fact that she thought she had just heard Ash’s voice. Then, slowly, carefully, with an expression of confusion on her face, she turned around.
It was him. Not a figment of her imagination, but him! Ashad Al’Eba, standing in front of her, dressed in the royal robes of Kalastan, looking more handsome than her brain had let her remember. Her heart thumped hard and fast, her stomach was in knots.
“Ashad Al’Eba,” Remi said with a hint of awe in his words.
“Yes?” Ash flicked an impatient glance at the man who had his hands all over Charlotte; the man whose face Ash had been mentally rearranging for the last twenty minutes as he’d danced with Charlotte, his body pressed to hers, his lips moving close to her ear and making her laugh.
“What are you doing here?” Charlotte interrupted, not caring to make introductions.
“Your parents invited me.”
She swallowed, focussing all her energy on hiding her sense of betrayal. “I didn’t realise,” she said.
He stared at her. It was all he could do. His eyes roamed her face and dropped to her body. She wore an emerald green gown with a small diamond and emerald tiara. Her earrings matched and at her neck there was a diamond and emerald choker.
A beautiful outfit and though she looked regal and elegant, she didn’t look well. She had lost weight. A lot of weight. And her skin was pale.
“Dance with me.” It was a command. He spoke as he was used to addressing people, and expected her to obey, as was the general response to his commands.
Charlotte shook her head. “I’m danced out, thank you.” She reached for Remi’s hand and squeezed it. “Excuse us.” She walked quickly across the dance floor, Remi moving with her. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her eyes felt suspiciously moist.
She didn’t dare look behind her.
“Let me guess,” Remi murmured, stroking her back once they had been absorbed into the crowds. “He has something to do with the whole cancelled wedding saga.”
She lifted her lip in silent agreement. “More or less. I can’t believe he’s here.”
“Well,” Remi scanned the room until his eyes connected with Ashad’s fulminating, furious gaze. It was trained steadily on them. “From what I know of Ashad Al’Eba, if he wants to speak to you, he’s going to speak to you. So you might as well have a champagne, suck in a deep breath and get it over with.”
She blinked.
Remi was completely right. If Ashad had come to the party with the intention of apologising, yet again, then one way or another he would find a way to do so.
“You’re right.” She lifted up on tiptoes and kissed Remi’s cheek. “Excuse me.”
She didn’t need to approach Ashad. She could feel his eyes on her. She cut through the crowds, careful not to invite small talk, until she reached the entrance to the ballroom.
She slipped through them, and continued to walk through the elegant foyer of the public wing of the palace, towards the enormous gates that had been lifted to welcome guests.
His footsteps were unmistakable. He was following her.
She moved faster, ignoring the guards that flanked the grand entrance. People were everywhere. She didn’t want to be near people. Beyond the gates there were paths that led in all directions. Unconsciously, she took the one towards the tennis courts.
She knew the way by heart – she had walked the paths enough times.
Finally, when she was almost there, she spun around. He was so
close that they almost bumped into one another.
“What do you want?” She demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.
The light from the palace was dim, but the moon shone brightly and it bathed him in a silver glow. She saw his face tighten at her tone. “That is not an easy question to answer,” he said thoughtfully. “How are you?”
“Fine,” she snapped. “I told you not to come here.”
“I know.” His eyes bore into hers and she fought an urge to look away. “There are things I want to explain to you. Things you need to understand.”
“Ashad? I’ve had time to think.” She sucked in a breath, wondering how she could sound so calm when her heart was stammering in her chest. “I think I was looking for a way out. I think I wanted to cancel the wedding and didn’t know how to. Sleeping with you gave me an out. That’s all it was. That’s all we were.”
His eyes were loaded with mocking disbelief. “I hurt you,” he said, as though she hadn’t spoken. “And no matter what comes next, I will feel regret and remorse for that for the rest of my days. But I will not let you pretend you don’t love me.”
Charlotte’s stomach flopped. She shook her head, hating him in that moment far more than she’d ever loved him. “I don’t,” she said with finality.
His eyes clouded. “There are some details we need to discuss regarding the wedding contracts.”
“The wedding is off,” she said angrily. “I cancelled it. Remember?”
“Your wedding to Syed is off. I am referring to your wedding to me.”
Charlotte froze. Had she heard correctly? “I’m not marrying you,” she mumbled. “No way.”
His smile was pure, arrogant confidence. “You misunderstood my cousin,” he said softly. “You are basing your decisions and actions on the fact that you were hurt by what he said, and what you thought it meant. Allow me to explain now, so you can think through what you want.”
“I know what I want.” She squared her shoulders and turned, walking slowly towards the tennis courts. She breathed through the palm trees with relief. Ashad was with her, his frame a silent companion to hers.
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