Читать книгу The Taste of Romance Collection - Maureen Child - Страница 17

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.

* * *

Long after the limo had disappeared past the palace gate, Sharif remained immobile, staring at the clouds of dust on the road. He closed his eyes, still seeing Irene’s tear-stained face as it had looked through the rear window. He knew he’d never see her again.

“Your Highness?”

He opened his eyes bleakly to see Hassan standing in the side door of the palace. “I have the head of the top Makhtar PR agency on the phone,” he said. “He’s saying he received an urgent message. I can of course take a message if you—”

“No,” Sharif said, and barely recognized his own voice. Kalila must have called them immediately—but then, she knew all the angles. She’d probably already announced their engagement on her social media accounts, making it all sound romantic, making everyone envious of their great love. “Ask him to come to the palace at once. We’re going to announce our engagement.”

“You and Miss—”

“To Kalila,” he cut him off.

“But—Miss Taylor?”

“I sent her home.”

“But you...I thought...” He hesitated. “When the rumor swept through that you’d rushed to see her in the women’s hammam, the whole staff greatly hoped...”

“Speak to me no more of Miss Taylor,” he said harshly. He turned away. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Get what over with, exactly, Your Highness?”

“My engagement. My wedding.” My life.

After they returned to the palace, his chief of staff and bodyguards went their separate ways, as each man’s duty required. And so did Sharif.

He walked slowly down the hallway, back toward the dining room. But with every step farther away from Irene, the strength seemed to leave his body. He felt like an old man. No. He felt as if he’d already died.

He stopped.

Irene. Her name was like a prayer in his heart. He pressed his fists hard against his eyes. She would have everything he could not give her. A man who would love her, marry her, have children with her. All her dreams would come true, even without him. He had to believe he’d done the right thing. Loving her, remembering the brief moments they’d shared, would have to be enough to sustain him for the rest of his life. The memory of her, and the knowledge that she’d someday be happy with someone else...

Bleakly, he went back to the dining room. It was empty. His sister had left. His servants had cleared the table.

Only one person remained, standing by the open window, smoking a cigarette. She turned to face him.

“So you tossed her out,” Kalila said. “I confess you surprised me. I did not expect you to let this one go so easily.”

“What do you want, Kalila?” he said wearily.

She gave him a hard smile. “Your assurance that, after we are wed and I give you your heir, you will leave me alone, with all the same rights to play that you have.”

Sharif stared at his future bride in the shadows of the empty dining hall. “We are not yet wed, and you are planning how you wish to be unfaithful?”

She gave a cold laugh. “Don’t take that outraged tone with me. I’m not one of your doe-eyed little virgins.” She took another elegant drag off her cigarette. “Not like her.”

He jolted. “You knew we were never lovers?”

“Of course, I could tell. Stupid little virgin, hanging on your every word, staring up at you with those big needy eyes.” She took another puff. Her fingers were almost as thin and white as the cigarette. “Have her, if you want. And I intend to have my own fun. I don’t care if you hate me. Our marriage is about power, not love.”

She made the word a sneer. Just as he once had.

“When you are my queen,” Sharif said tightly, “I expect you to rule with respect and dignity for our customs and laws.”

She shrugged her skinny shoulders. “I’m no fool. I’ll be discreet.”

“This I doubt.”

She snorted. “More than you have been,” she said pointedly, “sneaking around with your sister’s companion. Even if you weren’t lovers, I heard whispers about your—relationship—all the way to New York. My father was the one who called me.”

Sharif’s lips twisted sardonically. “So that is why you raced here? Because you feared I wouldn’t keep my word—that I would marry her?”

Kalila looked away abruptly, then lifted the cigarette to her lips with trembling fingers. “I should have nailed this down a long time ago.” Looking out the window, she said in a low voice, “I won’t let one mistake keep me from everything that should be mine.”

Sharif’s eyes narrowed. “She wasn’t a mistake.”

“What? Oh. Yes. Miss Taylor. But she’s gone now. And we understand each other, do we not?” She jerked her chin with glittering eyes. “We’ll be wed next week in your sister’s place. Then we will consummate the marriage...as often and frequently as we must...”

He tried not to flinch.

“Once you get me pregnant, I do not care what you do. Bring your precious Miss Taylor back. Install her in your bed, for all I care.” Kalila abruptly put out her cigarette on the windowsill, leaving a burn mark before she dropped the cigarette carelessly to the floor. He watched the lingering ashes fall against his tile floor like gray snowflakes. “It means nothing to me.”

Staring at her, Sharif had a sudden flashback to shining brown eyes. When I marry, it will only be for love. And our wedding night will be truly about making love. The kind that will last forever. He remembered the tremble of Irene’s voice just an hour before, when she’d told him she loved him.

“Our marriage is nothing but a means to an end,” Kalila said. “Something to endure, and ignore, until we both are dead.”

He abruptly focused on her face, on those black eyes with fake black lashes, beautiful, yes, but so cold, with an almost reptilian stare. So different from loving, warm brown eyes that glowed at you with the heat of summer, like the warmth of an embrace. He looked at his fiancée’s hollow cheekbones, so different from the healthy rose-dusted cheeks that blushed with modesty or shyness or even anger.

Kalila didn’t seem to feel anything, care about anything, so long as she had two things: money and power. She wanted the prestige of being Her Highness, the Sheikha of Makhtar, the mother of the future heir—and the pleasure of enjoying herself with any man she pleased during the length of their marriage.

She was shallow. Terminally shallow.

And once, Sharif suddenly realized, he’d been just like her. Oh, he’d always cared about doing his duty by his country, and by his family. But other than that, he’d cared for nothing and no one. He’d wasted endless days on meaningless love affairs, trying to distract himself from his own empty soul.

Then he’d had the grace and fortune to meet Irene. It was the miracle of his life.

And the tragedy.

“Not a word in reply?” Kalila took a step toward him, frowning. “What has changed in you, Sharif?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re different somehow. You...” She sucked in her breath, covering her hand over her mouth with an astonished giggle. “But wait. Don’t tell me you’re actually in love with her?”

“Be quiet,” he snapped.

“Your sweet virgin. So tender. So true...”

“She’s worth a thousand of you,” he said.

“You love her.” Kalila cackled a laugh. “The great Emir of Makhtar is chained down at last. How very amusing to see you caught this way. Just like—”

“Like what?” he said, expecting an insult. She looked away.

“Nothing,” she muttered. “It’s just funny, that’s all. Your precious Miss Taylor—”

He grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t ever,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, “speak her name again.”

Kalila blinked, then gave another low laugh. “Have it your way.” She ripped her bony arm from his grasp. “Keep your sweet memories. I will take my throne.” Her eyes were feverishly bright. “I think this marriage will suit me very well.”