Читать книгу Midnight in the Harem: For Duty's Sake / Banished to the Harem / The Tarnished Jewel of Jazaar - Люси Монро, Carol Marinelli, Люси Монро - Страница 12

ZAHIR lowered himself and Angele into the steaming, fragrant water of the bath. Worthy of communal baths anywhere in Zohra, the traditional mosaic tiled rectangular bath could easily accommodate four adults. It would only ever serve him and Angele however.

As her toes touched the water, she began to stir.

The soft lighting was brighter than the candlelight in the bedroom, but not so bright it should hurt her eyes. Nevertheless, he bent protectively over her as she wakened. He’d never had a lover fall into dozing like she had, a picture of perfect peace and contentment.

It had stirred something inside him he did not want to examine too closely.

“It smells so good,” she whispered as she snuggled her head into the joint of his shoulder and neck.

A small bag of fragrant herbs floated on the surface near them. He had added the vial of specially prepared oils to the steaming water as well. “It is the traditional bathing treatment for after the wedding night.”

“For all of Zohra, or for your family?”

“These herbs and spices are mixed only for the royal family.” He brushed his hands down her stomach, tempted to go lower, but refrained. She needed time to recover before he made love to her again. “They are supposed to help assuage the aches and pains post coitus.”

“They’re doing a bang-up job.” The husky tone of her voice challenged his intentions further.

“I am glad you find it so.”

“Don’t you?” she asked, as if daring him to deny the lovemaking had not been impacting for him as well. He had no desire to attempt such a falsehood. “I do.”

Though he suspected he found the bath slightly more reinvigorating than she did. He could not imagine a more pleasing wedding night. The marriage would have to be organized and dignitaries from all over the world invited, but he had no intention of maintaining chastity with her between times.

He could even be grateful they had this time to explore their sensual relationship without concern of the next heir’s conception. He wondered what form of birth control she had decided on, but did not feel tonight was the one to discuss such mundane matters.

Tomorrow would be soon enough.

Angele was intelligent and highly organized. He had no doubt whatever option she’d chosen it was the best and most reliable on the market. When she planned something, she did it with a thoroughness that impressed even his father, or so the king had told Zahir.

He felt honored she had planned this time for them, no matter what nerves had prompted it.

“Your en suite is huge. Is that a royal thing or a rich thing?”

“It is a Zahir thing.” He spent his life serving his people. When he got an opportunity to relax, he wanted to be able to do so in absolute comfort.

“I suspected, but well … it’s not as if I’ve ever gone into my parents’ en suite or my uncle’s, for that matter.”

“You have refused to live in your parents’ home since their reconciliation.”

“It happened when I was an adult.” She paused as if thinking of the past. “It was time for me to get my own place anyway.”

“Had you been raised in Jawhar, you would have remained with your parents until our marriage.”

She tensed, but her tone was even as she said, “But I was not raised in Jawhar.”

“No, you were not.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No.” While he found her independence somewhat disconcerting, he found he liked the woman floating in his arms.

“You’ve made a couple of comments that implied it did.”

“Mere observations on differences are not an accusation of unacceptability.”

“Sometimes, they feel like they are.” “Feelings are not fact.”

“True.”

“Emotions cannot be trusted.” That reality had been drilled into him from childhood as he trained from his earliest memory to take over leadership of the kingdom of Zohra.

“Perhaps that is true sometimes, Zahir, but the lack of emotion can be just as bad.”

“To control one’s emotions is to control the negotiation.”

She sat up, unexpectedly sliding away from him in the water. “All of life is not a political negotiation.” She settled on the underwater bench opposite, her gaze searching, her expression earnest. “Don’t tell me you use those tactics when dealing with your family?”

“Not telling you would not make it any less true.”

Her lovely brown eyes widened and then narrowed. “You mean that.”

“I do not make it habit to lie.”

“You hid your relationship with Elsa Bosch for years.” An expression of chagrin came over Angele’s features before she bit her lip, clearly wishing she had not said that.

Nevertheless, he would answer the implication. “I kept it private. This is a necessary survival tactic for those of us who spend the majority of our lives in the public eye.”

“Discretion is minimal, subterfuge preferred,” she said quoting something he knew his uncle often said.

“Sometimes subterfuge is necessary, but that does not make me a liar.”

She looked away, her brows drawn together, but then she sighed. “So, you treat your parents like competing world leaders?”

While it was hardly a subtle way for her to change the subject, he did not call her on it. He had no desire to discuss one of the major mistakes of his life.

“My father especially. I successfully negotiated for my first horse.” He smiled at the memory. “I lost the negotiation for a private family-only birthday party when I was ten, though.” “You were shy?”

“Timidity is not an acceptable trait in a world leader.”

“You were ten.”

“Nevertheless, I was not shy.”

“Then why no other children?”

“That option was not on the table for negotiation.”

Her brow wrinkled charmingly. “I don’t understand.”

“I lobbied for a party with my siblings. My father insisted on a state dinner.”

Her gasp was far too adorable. Perhaps even he could be influenced by the emotion of the moment the first night with his bride.

“You mean you weren’t allowed to have a children’s party at all?”

He shrugged and admitted, “I was seven when I had my last children’s party.”

He had continued to try to negotiate for one until his twelfth year, when his father had informed him he was a man and had to put away childish things. It was the way of things for someone in his position. He knew his cousin in Jawhar had been raised with a similar set of ideals.

“That is terrible.”

He shook his head. “You are too softhearted.”

“No child of mine would be forced to have a state dinner for his birthday celebration.” She sounded like she was discussing some form of torture.

And he could not help chuckling. “I learned the importance of my role and responsibilities.”

It had been an effective lesson in putting the needs of his people before his personal desires.

“You learned that you were not allowed to be a child.” Her tone implied she had just discovered something of importance about him. “It wasn’t the same for your brothers.”

“Naturally not.”

She glided back toward him through the water. “Tonight, no one else is here. This is not about duty and obligation.”

Suddenly a stricken expression took over her features. So, she remembered she had made this night a condition of the ridiculous “offer” she had made to let him out of their families’ agreement.

He was tempted to let her flounder simply because the entire premise to this night was so very ludicrous.

However, she was right. “Making love to you in no way feels like a duty.”

Her gaze searched his, as if trying to ascertain the truth of his statement. He knew she would find what she sought. For he spoke the truth.

Which was something of a relief for him, though he would never admit it.

The brilliance of her smile was worth his admission. “Tonight you are simply Zahir, not Crown Sheikh.”

He was never anything less than what he was, leader and servant to his people. Not even during his time with Elsa, though for those stolen hours he had come closest to being simply a man than any other.

It was not a thing Angele could comprehend. Even had she been raised among their people. To know from birth that an entire country depended on you for its well-being was a circumstance known by only a handful in the entire world. And from those he had met, he knew not all were raised from infancy with the sense of responsibility to their people that his father and mentors had instilled in Zahir.

He would not shatter Angele’s beliefs however and they were not entirely false. While not the entire truth, either. This night, he was as far removed from his position as dutiful sheikh as he could allow himself to be.

Fully cognizant he needed to make the night special so Angele would lose her fear of intimacy between them, there was still no denying that making love to her in this way—without the benefit of an official wedding—was not the action of a dutiful, responsible sheikh of his people. An internal voice, that sounded suspiciously like one of his mentors, chided him. Telling him there were other ways he could have allayed Angele’s fears.

The simple truth, as unexpected as it had been to realize, was that Zahir wanted Angele. He found her more sexually desirable than he’d ever allowed himself to realize. The years they had waited to formalize their engagement, much less marry, had taken a toll on him as well. Though he had not known it.

He had forced himself never to think of her sexually. At first, because she had been so young and later because that part of his psyche was reserved for Elsa.

He now accepted that Angele was the ideal woman to share his bed and had been all along.

He pulled her back into his arms. “Are you ready to continue this night out of time?”

Her doe-soft eyes darkened with desire and she nodded before angling her head in a clear invitation to kiss.

It was an invitation he would never reject again.

Angele woke to pleasurable, never before experienced aches in her body. No doubt the pain would be acute but for the two soaking baths Zahir had insisted she share with him the night before.

A night filled with more passion and pleasure than she had ever thought possible.

The temptation to ask him to maintain their status quo as promised for future marriage was so strong, she’d literally had to bite her tongue to keep it back as they said their goodbyes in the wee hours of morning.

Though she would have much preferred waking in Zahir’s arms at least one time in her life, she understood his concern with the possibility their tryst would be discovered if she did not leave while all but the security men on duty slept. So, she had gone, her body sated and her heart filled with longing for what would never be.

Although she had showered with Zahir before leaving his rooms, she took another bracing one in semicool water now. She needed every trick to maintain her resolve.

She packed quickly, leaving out the four envelopes she had prepared before stepping foot in Zohra.

One held a letter to her pseudouncle, the King of Jawhar telling him she was backing out of the agreement to marry Zahir sometime in the distant future. She apologized, pleaded with him not to hold her father accountable for her choices and told him she would understand if he no longer recognized her as part of his family. Her heart would have broken at the prospect, but it had shattered all those months ago when she’d first seen evidence of Zahir’s affection for Elsa Bosch and there wasn’t anything left to break. Or so she told herself.

The second envelope was similar to the first, only the letter inside was written to Zahir’s father. In this one she once again apologized and begged the king to consider her actions her own and in no way a reflection on her pseudouncle or her own parents—as none were aware of her growing discontent with the agreement as it stood.

The third envelope was thicker. It contained a letter to Zahir, this one the only one she had written this morning. She thanked him for their one special night and told him she would never forget it.

She also explained about the enclosed pictures, detailing when she had first received them and how. She gave him as much information regarding the blackmail as she could, including a list of payments she had made and how she had done so. She assured him she had told no one, not even her parents of the pictures or the blackmail monies she had paid.

She hoped he would discover how best to keep them out of circulation, for his sake as well as his family’s. But come tomorrow, or perhaps even tonight, the blackmailer would know that Angele was no longer a pony in this race.

Her eyes flicked to the final envelope, the one that would ensure there would be no turning back. Though, really, it was only symbolic. It held a press release, scotching any “rumors” of a suspected permanent connection between the house of Jawhar and the house of Zohra vis-à-vis a marriage between her and Zahir. She had included a couple of personal quotes. One to the effect that she had no desire to live her life in the public eye as a royal and the other her absolute refusal to make a permanent home outside of her adopted country, America.

After reading it, her father might disown her and her mother would undoubtedly be furious, but Angele wasn’t going to live the rest of her life without love. She just wasn’t.

She might not be American by birth, but she’d been raised around an entirely different set of ideals to the duty-bound royals that led Jawhar and Zohra. While she loved the country of her birth and Zohra as well, at heart? She was a modern American woman.

She wasn’t about to allow Zahir to be forced into a marriage he so clearly had never really wanted, either.

She was under no illusions. He would probably enter another arranged contract, but this time he was older. Zahir would have more input into who his chosen bride was to be. Angele could only hope, for his sake, that it was someone he could develop real feelings for.

She snuck down the secret passageways for the last time and left Zahir’s packet in his room while she knew he was busy with his father. She left each of the letters to the kings with their respective secretarial staff. And finally she dropped the press release off with the PR department.

She had prepared a timed email with a duplicate release to be sent to the major news distribution agencies in a few hours. She would be in flight back to the United States when news hit.

Cowardly? Perhaps, but she preferred to think of it as politic.

Back in the U.S., her denial of a connection to the House of Zohra would constitute little more than a blip in the plethora of social news about drunk-driving celebrities and irresponsible megaconglomerates destroying ecosystems.

Once she was in the car headed to the airport, she pulled out her phone to make the most difficult call of her life. Her parents would not be pleased.

Refusing to take the easy route, she called her father first. That conversation went much as expected, but when he blamed her mother for insisting Angele be raised in the United States, she’d had enough.

“Had you managed to keep it in your pants, I would have grown up in Jawhar. Don’t you dare blame Mom for this.”

His outraged gasp at her crassness had no problem translating across the cellular connection.

“In point of fact, it was your ongoing infidelity that convinced me marriage to Zahir would never work,” Angele added. “I will not put myself in the position of living as Mom did.”

“She never wanted for anything.”

“If you really believe that, then you’ve learned nothing despite your change in behavior.”

“You do not speak to me with such disrespect, Angele.”

“The truth is not disrespect.” He couldn’t even accuse her of a snarky tone, because her voice was as devoid of emotion as her heart right now.

She preferred the dead feeling to the pain that was sure to come as her final separation from Zahir sank in completely.

“Your mother and my relationship is not your business.”

“I agree, but that does not change the fact that your example is one I absolutely refuse to follow.”

“Zahir is not a hot-blooded man.” The words like myself were implied but not said.

Angele wasn’t about to tell her father just how wrong he was. After the previous night, though, Angele knew the truth. And the certainty that Zahir had spent similar nights with Elsa Bosch managed to pierce her numbness with a hurt that Angele chose to ignore.

So much for a decimated heart having no capacity for further pain.

“You cannot do this, Angele.”

“It’s done.”

“We will discuss this further later.” The royals of Zohra and Jawhar had nothing on her father for arrogance. “Right now, I am to meet Malik and Faruq. I am sure you and I both can guess the planned topic of our conversation.”

“You are not listening, though why that should surprise me, I have no idea.”

“Angele!” The shocked way he said her name spoke volumes.

“Please, Father. I love you, but I don’t want to live my mother’s life. I simply won’t. I delivered letters to both kings with my stated intentions and apologies before leaving the palace.”

“Leaving the … where are you?” For the first time, her father’s voice sounded worried rather than angry.

The car pulled up outside the airport. She got out without answering her father, or waiting for the driver to open her door.

Once her luggage was on the curb, she said, “I’m on my way home.”

“Your home is here.”

“It never has been and it never will be.” She sighed, ignoring the twinge in her heart the words caused her. “Please listen to me, Father. I included a copy of the press release I sent out to the major news agencies with the letters I delivered to the kings. Your meeting would be best spent deciding how to deal with the PR ramifications of my decision than trying to determine how to change my mind.”

“Of course we will change your mind.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Damn it, I changed my whole lifestyle to ensure this wedding would one day take place. You will not derail that in a fit of feminine pique.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Surely Zahir told you about the little talk we had several years ago. He’s always been your hero.” Her father’s tone implied he’d neither enjoyed the little talk nor the fact he’d lost his place as Angele’s hero.

Tough. He was entirely responsible for both she was sure. And yet, she heard herself saying, “I’m sorry.”

Though why he should think Zahir would have told her about the discussion was beyond her. Before this wedding feast, the time she and Zahir had spent together alone could be measured in minutes, not hours.

It was her father’s turn to sigh. “Zahir informed me that he would not marry a woman whose father made headlines in the scandal rags on a regular basis.”

She had no problem believing that. Zahir’s near rabid protection of the family name and reputation of the royal house was well-known.

“So, you turned faithful …” She paused, swallowing down bile. She’d thought he’d done it to save their relationship and that had hurt enough, as she’d so wanted him to do it for her mother’s sake. To learn he’d done it to earn a more entrenched place in the royal house just made her sick. “Or at least circumspect, in order to make sure your daughter married into the Royal House of Zohra.”

“Faithful,” her father bit out. “I realized my actions were doing all harm and no good. Certainly they never had the effect I had hoped.”

“You hoped sleeping around would have some kind of positive impact?” she asked with patent disbelief.

“Your mother refused to get pregnant again. I accused her of becoming pregnant with you only to trap me into marriage to begin with.” A long drawn-out pause followed. “She never denied it.”

“Was this before, or after you had your first affair?” What was she asking? Her brain and mouth were connected without a filter in there somewhere.

“It does not matter.”

“I’m sure it did to Mom.”

“She would not even try to give me a son.”

“I am sorry to have been such a disappointment to you.” And she’d never even known she had been.

“That is not what I meant.”

Strangely she believed him. Her father hadn’t ever done anything to make her feel like he had wished she’d been a boy. “I thought you didn’t care if you had an heir since you aren’t actual royalty.”

“You know our people, though you were not raised full-time among them.”

And in the culture of his homeland, to have no son to leave his name and worldly possessions was a great tragedy.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, feeling her father’s pain across the distance between them.

She understood the dynamics of her parents’ marriage a little better, but she still had no desire to emulate it. “Mom loves you. She always has.”

“I know that now.” For the first time since their initial greeting, her father’s voice held a measure of contentment. “I say again, Zahir is not me. He will not make my mistakes.”

Memories of the photos she had left in Zahir’s room rose to taunt Angele as she pulled her rolling case to the private plane security checkpoint. Even so, she did not reveal to her father that Zahir was no lily-white duty-bound sheikh, no matter what everyone else believed.

“I can’t marry him, Father.”

“You must.”

“No.”

“These are just prewedding jitters.”

“We aren’t even officially engaged.” Sheesh. “This is me being smart enough to avoid a future that holds no appeal for me.”

“It’s a future you are imagining, not the one that will be.”

“Have you always loved Mom?” she asked instead of answering.

The answer was immediate and without doubt.

“Yes.”

“And still you hurt her for years, as she apparently hurt you as well.” Angele understood now it had gone both ways, but that certainly did not give her more hope for her own future. “If you two, loving each other, could do so much emotional damage, how much worse in a marriage that only one person feels love?”

“Zahir is not a man to love.” Her father’s instant answer without even pausing for thought to consider which of them felt that love was another brick in the wall Angele was trying so hard to build around her heart.

“My flight is leaving in a few minutes.”

“You are not leaving Zohra.”

She heard the threat in her father’s voice, but she ignored it. She’d taken precautions to make sure she could and would leave today. She’d finagled a spot on a private plane headed to the States. So, even if the commercial flights were grounded while the royal guard searched for her, she would be going. Even so, she had timed her call to her father so that it would take a miracle for her flight to be discovered and stopped in time.

“Please, accept it. The press release has already gone out.”

“We can say it is a hoax.” “I’ll do a live interview.”

“You will not.”

She would do whatever it took to stand by her decision and let her silence tell him so.

Her father cursed fluently in Arabic. “Malik will disown our friendship.”

“He’s not that vindictive.”

“It is a matter of pride.”

“Yours. If it was all that important to either of the kings, one, or both of them, would have pressed for an official date before now. The agreement has been in place for a decade.”

“You have only been an adult for five of those years.”

“Half a decade.”

“They are pressing for it now,” he said, rather than argue the point.

Very typical for her father. Focus on the now, on the positive and ignore everything else.

She wasn’t so sanguine and never had been. “It’s too late.”

Her father cursed again and she winced. She had known this conversation would be hard, but had foolishly thought herself immune to her father’s disapproval.

“I love you, Father. I hope you’ll be able to forgive me one day.”

She hung up before he could say anything more.

She went through VIP customs, barely registering the words spoken to her or those she used in reply. Her heart ached. Whoever said emotions are felt in the head had never been in love. Her chest felt tight, like any second her heart was just going to give up and stop beating.

No matter what she’d said in her letters or on the phone to her father, walking away from Zahir was the hardest, most painful thing she’d ever done.

Last night had been the most amazing experience of her life, but then she’d looked at those pictures again and she knew. No matter how good a lover Zahir might be, he didn’t love her. Only right now, she almost thought living with him without his love would be better than living without him at all.

She forced her feet to move forward, to climb the stairs to the private jet. The owner said something to her. She replied, but couldn’t remember what either said as she buckled herself into her seat. She did remember pleading a headache, glad when that seemed to buy her the silence and privacy she needed.

She didn’t know the retired statesman or his wife very well and they appeared content to keep themselves to themselves. As far as they knew, they were doing a favor for the Royal House of Zohra, but they clearly didn’t expect conversation.

For which she was grateful, rather than offended. She wasn’t up to it. It was taking all her strength to stay in her seat and not return to the palace and a passel of angry royals.

The captain had just announced he would be taxiing into position for takeoff shortly when Angele’s mother’s number showed on the screen of her phone. She turned it off as the engines warmed up.

Nothing productive could come from her talking to her mom right now. And her call with her father had been difficult enough.

Angele’s mother’s love and approval had always been freely given. The prospect that breaking the contract with the royal family of Zohra might change that was not an outcome she felt emotionally ready to deal with.