Читать книгу Midnight in the Harem - Люси Монро, Susanna Carr, Люси Монро - Страница 10

HEART heavy with guilt at his envy, Zahir listened to his youngest brother speak his wedding vows.

Amir’s voice came close to breaking as he promised, not just simple fidelity, but also love to his bride. Grace’s eyes glistened, but her smile grew as she gazed at her groom with rapt fascination. Her own voice trembled as she returned the promise of love.

Love.

Both his brothers had found it with women not altogether suitable. But as neither were heir to the throne, their choices were hardly world-shattering. It was not the same for him.

His choice of bride had been set by an agreement between Zohra and Jawhar a decade past. His gaze skimmed the guests nearest the bridal party, gliding past his beaming father, king of their small Middle Eastern country, and his teary-eyed mother, to the woman he would one day wed. Though they shared no blood relation, Angele bin Cemal was treated as a favored niece by his uncle, the King of Jawhar.

Their eyes met, but she broke the gaze immediately, firmly fixing her gaze on the couple saying their vows.

He felt the dismissal, but was not surprised by it. Not after the past months preparing for the royal wedding.

Shocking everyone, the woman both royal families acknowledged would one day be his wife had refused to be a member of the bridal party or to participate in any meaningful way in the wedding. Citing her lack of close relationship to either the bride or the groom as her excuse, Angele had stood firm against every attempt by his mother and even Grace to include her.

Zahir had taken her uncustomary intransigence for what it was: a demand that he formalize an engagement between the two of them. Clearly she was done waiting patiently for her own nuptials. And, after the events of the past month, he realized the time had come to do his duty.

Besides, her father had kept his part of the bargain; he’d long since cleaned up his behavior so that he no longer courted tabloid attention.

After Zahir’s mother had told him how devastated Angele was by her father’s string of infidelities and the fact she had not spoken to the man in more than a year, Zahir had decided the time had come to do something about it. He wasn’t close to his future bride, but Cemal would one day be a member of his family and Zahir wasn’t about to stand by while the older man embarrassed them with his lack of discretion.

So, Zahir had laid down the law to Cemal. He’d told the older man that he would not marry a woman whose father’s tabloid fame rivaled that of a European rock star.

Cemal had believed him. He’d patched things up with his wife and had not been featured in a scandal rag for almost five years, proving he took his daughter’s future more seriously than his own marriage vows. Zahir kept the grimace such thoughts brought from his face.

He would never be that man—loveless marriage, or not.

He suspected that, unlike her mother, Angele would never tolerate it. Her surprising streak of stubbornness gave him hope for the years ahead. He did not want to tie his life to a doormat.

Regardless of how intriguing Zahir found this new side of Angele, his patience grew thinner by the minute as the wedding festivities marched forward. She took her stubbornness to a new, inexplicable level. She repeatedly declined to be in any of the formal wedding photos.

“Come, my little princess, I believe your point has been made.” King Malik of Jawhar patted Angele’s shoulder, his words showing he had put the same interpretation on her actions as Zahir had done. “Do not be the camel that tries to drink with its tail.”

Angele smiled at her honorary uncle, though the expression did not reach her too serious eyes, and shook her head. “The formal shots are for family, not friends.”

Stunned, and a little impressed, Zahir frowned. He had never heard her deny the king before.

“You are nearly family.” And would be soon enough, Zahir implied, knowing she was intelligent enough to get his meaning.

She simply shook her head again and turned as if to go.

He reached out to grab her arm and then yanked his hand back, realizing what he’d almost done. They were not formally betrothed and to touch her so familiarly in this setting would be highly improper. As future king of Zohra, Zahir never acted without propriety.

At least in a public setting.

His behind-the-scenes impropriety was over as well, and he still felt a fool for pining after what he could not have.

A life of love and happiness, as his brothers were building for themselves, was not to be for him.

King Malik laughed. “You begin to see the child as a woman with her own will, do you not?”

Zahir could not deny it. He had never seen Angele dressed with such an evident intent to entice, either. It had worked. He found her quite alluring. Used to barely noticing her at all, he’d been shocked by the low burn of arousal he’d felt when she had arrived. With new highlights shining in her dark brown hair, she wore it swept up to show off the slender column of her neck and the creamy, delicate slope of her shoulders.

The soft peach color of her couture dress was the only thing demure about it. Clinging to her slight curves, it fell inches short of her knees. While she did not share her mother’s supermodel stature, in the dress and matching heels that added at least four inches to her height, Angele’s legs looked every bit as long as the Brazilian beauty’s today. And twice as sexy.

Add to that the fact that her stubborn refusal to participate in the wedding as a member-to-be of the family had intrigued him from her first refusal three months ago, and it was a lethal combination to his recently restrained libido.

Reminding him that his future wife had not been raised in the secluded environment inhabited by the women in the royal palace of Jawhar, she had continued to stand by her first denial. He’d been more than a little stunned to realize he liked it.

While his marriage would not be the love-match his brother had made, it would not be as much of a dry connection of two overly similar lives as he had always anticipated, either.

Frankly love could go hang, as far as he was concerned. This newfound passion and interest was all that he required, or wanted.

“Wasn’t the wedding beautiful?”

A bittersweet smile curving her lips, Angela looked up at her mother. “It was, but the love between Amir and Grace made it even more so.”

“It reminds me of your father and my wedding.” Lou-Belia sighed with a fond reminiscence that Angele found difficult to understand. “We were so much in love.”

“I do not think Amir is like my father.”

Lou-Belia frowned. “You know Cemal has settled down.”

Angele did know. She still floundered in her feelings for a man who spent the better part of two decades flaunting his marriage vows, only to become the model of propriety in the face of his only child’s betrayal-fueled rage and disapproval.

She was thrilled for her mother that the older couple’s marriage seemed to be working again. The two spent a great deal more time together now, going so far as to live in the same domicile even. Her father was quite affectionate toward her mother these days, too.

But it hurt something deep inside Angele that her father had not stopped his behavior until she had confronted him, and then refused to have anything to do with him for more than a year. What did that say of the strength of his love for his wife?

He’d pleaded with her mother to fix the breach between them and in the process, Cemal and Lou-Belia had found each other again.

“So, the past does not exist?” she asked helplessly.

“We let it go for the sake of the future.” Lou-Belia’s world-famous smile was soft but tinged with chiding. “It has been five years, menina.”

Little girl. Angele hadn’t been her mother’s little girl for a long time, no matter what Lou-Belia, or Zahir for that matter, believed.

Still, she gave her mother a tight hug. “You are a kind and forgiving woman. I love you.”

But I don’t want to be you, she thought to herself.

With that truth burning in her mind, she went looking for the man who would one day be king.

Some minutes later, Angele slid around the partially opened door to Zahir’s office. He had disappeared from the wedding feast and she’d known she would find him here.

“Shirking your duty, Prince Zahir?” Her arms crossed over the sweetheart neckline of her short-short designer original. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. What would your father say?”

The room was very much like Zahir: masculine, rich and imposing. And yet there was something in the artwork and the old world furnishings that reflected more, something special—an appreciation for beauty that she knew few were aware of.

But while Zahir didn’t pay her any particular attention, she had watched him closely and probably knew more about the real man than most. She still wondered at her ignorance of the secret revealed short months ago.

She’d decided it was willful blindness on her part, but that had not made her feel any better. Only mind-numbingly stupid.

She was a twenty-three-year-old virgin with no prospects and she knew she was to blame for that fact. She had clung to hopes and fairy tales that would never come true in the real world. Her parents’ marriage should have made her realize that.

Zahir looked up from some papers on his desk, his gray eyes widening a fraction at the sight of her. He quickly stood to his full, impressive six feet four inches. He wore the traditional robes and head covering of a crown sheikh over a tailored suit that made him look mouthwateringly attractive to her.

Not that he was even remotely aware of the effect he had on her. She would have to be on his radar as an actual woman for that to happen.

“Princess Angele, what are you doing here?” He had always called her Princess, though she was not one.

But her godfather, King Malik, had nicknamed her such and the nickname had stuck. She’d always thought it sweet, but now realized it was one more barrier that Zahir kept between them.

His refusal to call her simply by her first name, as any man intent on marrying a woman might do.

He looked past her, no doubt expecting some kind of chaperone. But she’d left her mother and all other potential protectors of her virtue at the feast. She pressed the door closed, the snick of the catch mechanism engaging loud in the silent room.

“Have I forgotten we were to meet?” he asked, sounding perplexed, but not wary. “Did you expect me to escort you to the table?”

“I’m perfectly capable of walking to my own table.” At her request, they had not been seated next to one other. “I know about Elsa Bosch.”

She hadn’t meant for that to be her opening salvo, but it would have to do. She’d paid the blackmailer, not once, but twice. After this weekend, Zahir’s reputation would no longer be her concern. The picture taker would have to find another cash cow.

Distaste flicked over Zahir’s features, at what she was not sure. Was he disgusted by the gossip rag that had printed a picture of him and his lover at a tête-à-tête in Paris the week before last?

Compared to the pictures Angele had seen, the two sitting at an intimate table for two was a boringly tame image. But as she’d suspected, the very fact Zahir was “friends” with the actress was cause for speculation and scandal.

Or was he disappointed in his prim and proper almost-fiancée bringing the subject up? She’d worked so hard for so many years to be the perfect image of his future queen.

Little did he know it, but that Angele was in ashes on the floor of her office back in America.

“That is not something you need concern yourself with.”

Those words shocked her, hurting her when she thought no more wounds could be made. She had expected his anger. Disdain. Frustration, maybe. But not dismissal. She’d not expected him to believe that she had nothing to say about the women he shared himself with while leaving her untouched. Unclaimed. And achingly unfulfilled.

She wasn’t ignorant. She knew that sex could and should be wonderful for a woman, but she was entirely inexperienced and she intended for that to change. Tonight.

The realization that Zahir had more in common with her father than she had ever believed almost derailed her determination but, in some strange way, it made it okay for her to make her bargain.

“The picture was rather flattering, to you both.”

He stood up, “Listen, Princess—”

“My name is Angele.”

“I am aware.”

“I prefer you use it.” If only for this one night, he would see her as a person in her own right. “I am not a princess.”

And never would be now. Nor was she the starry-eyed child who had reacted with delirious joy upon the announcement of their future marriage. The past ten years had finally brought her not only adulthood, but a definitive check with reality.

The man she had loved for too long and if her mother was to be believed, would probably love until the day she died, had no more desire to marry her than he wanted to dance naked at the next royal ball. Perhaps even less.

“Angele,” he said, as if making a great concession. “Ms. Bosch is not an issue between us.”

He was so wrong. On so many levels, but her plan did not include enumerating them, so she didn’t. “You were smiling in the picture. You looked happy.”

Certainly he had never given Angele the affection filled gaze he’d given the German actress even in that single, oh so tame, picture in the tabloid.

Zahir looked at Angele as if she had spoken something other than one of the five languages he conversed in with extreme fluency.

“I read that you broke things off with her.” Angele had gone from supremely ignorant of her fiancé's social activities to an expert on the gossip surrounding him.

“I did.”

“Because you were photographed together.”

He frowned, but gave a quick jerk of his head in acknowledgment. “Yes.”

She found that sad. For Zahir. For herself. For Elsa Bosch even. Had the woman realized she was so expendable? Then again, she might well have been the person who had extorted money for silence from Angele.

Regardless, Elsa was not the real issue here. And Angele needed to remember that, no matter how hot her retinas burned with the images of the other woman in Zahir’s arms.

She pushed away from the wall and went to look at the statuary displayed in a dark mahogany case. Her favorite was a Bedouin rider on a horse, carved from dark wood. They looked like they would race off into the desert.

But she noticed a new piece. It was another Bedouin, but this figure was only the man, in the traditional garb of the nomadic people. He looked off into the distance with an expression of longing on his features so profound her heart squeezed in her chest. “When did you get this?”

“It was a gift.” “From whom?” He did not answer.

She turned to face him. “It was Elsa, wasn’t it?” His jaw locked and she knew he would not reply. She refused to let that hurt her. “She knows you well.”

“I will not lie. Our association was measured in years, not days.” His tone had an edge to it that Angele had no hope of interpreting.

And his use of the past tense did nothing to assuage Angele’s feelings.

“Yes, I gathered.” The photos she had been sent spanned a timeline that could not have possibly been anything less. Someone who did not know and watch him so closely would not have noticed perhaps, but it had been obvious to Angele.

“The tabloids print trash. I’m surprised you read it.”

She did not react to the taunt. Nor did she answer the implied question of where her information had come from. She said the one thing that needed saying. “You don’t want to marry me.”

“I will do my duty by my father’s house.” Which was more a confirmation of his lack of desire than she was sure he meant it to be.

“You’ll make a great king one day.” He was already an accomplished politician. “But that is not a direct answer and you neglected to note, I wasn’t asking a question.”

“If this is about Ms. Bosch and our now defunct association, please remember that you and I are not officially engaged.”

“I am to take comfort in the inference you would not be unfaithful if we were?” she asked carefully.

His brows drew together and for the first time since the discussion started, she saw anger make its way to the forefront. “Naturally.”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Prin—Angele, I am not your father.”

“No, you aren’t.” And she would never give him the opportunity to prove them both wrong, either. “This isn’t about Elsa Bosch, not really.”

Ultimately it was about love. It was about loving someone enough to let them go. Only that sounded so cheesy, she’d never speak the words aloud. And it was about knowing she deserved to be loved, fully and completely, by the man she would spend the rest of her life with.

He did not look like he believed her claim and she could practically see the thoughts zinging around in his facile brain. He was trying to figure out the right words to reassure, when in fact none existed.

None that he could say anyway.

Again it was time for truth. “Your brothers have both found wonderful happiness while you have been stuck in a promise made on your behalf by two men with too much power and too little comprehension of the cost of their dynastic plans.”

“I do not consider myself stuck. I was an adult when that agreement was made.” Yes, he’d been all of twenty-four and as bound by duty as any young adult male could be. “I chose my future.”

An alpha male like Zahir would have to convince himself of that, or he could not accept the limitations imposed on him by others. It simply was not in his nature. He had the heart of a Bedouin, if also the responsibilities of a landed royal.

“You do not wish to marry me,” she repeated, refusing to be sidetracked. “And I won’t let you be forced into doing so by duty.”

Nor would she allow herself to be railroaded into a marriage with the potential to be every bit as miserable as her parents were for so many years.

His eyes narrowed, his expression turning even more grim than usual. “You are not making any sense.”

“We’ve been promised for ten years, Zahir. If you had wanted to marry me, we would already be living in wedded harmony here in your family’s palace.” They would definitely at least be formally engaged.

“It has not been the right time.”

She’d heard that argument before. And believed it. First, she’d been too young. Then, his father’s health had been precarious. The idea of announcing an engagement during such a time was not appropriate, or so Zahir had claimed. Then, Khalil had gotten engaged and stealing his spotlight during the preparations for, celebration of and immediate time after Khalil and Jade’s wedding would have been wrong. The same excuse came convenient to hand when Amir and Grace became engaged.

For ten years, five—if you only counted the years since she became an adult—they had not found the right time to announce their engagement, much less actually get married. And they never would, if it meant finding a time when Zahir wanted the nuptials to take place.

Though Crown Sheikh Zahir bin Faruq al Zohra would no doubt eventually allow duty to force him into following through on a marriage he did not desire.

Since she would be the other half of that marriage, she wasn’t going to let it happen. Realizing that had meant giving up her dreams. And that had hurt, even more than seeing the photos of Zahir kissing Elsa.

But then who was Angele kidding? Certainly not herself. Seeing the unfamiliar happiness on Zahir’s face had lacerated her heart far more than the passion. The numbness having long since given way to a devastation she would have happily avoided for the rest of her life. And her heart was still bleeding.

Better that, than a lifetime of pricks from the knife edge of the constant knowledge that she was not the woman her husband wanted to be with however. When she’d conceived her current plan, a steel band had formed around her chest, and that constriction was still there. Sometimes, she felt like it was the only thing stopping her from falling apart.

But that, too, would fade. Eventually. It had to.

How much worse would it be to live the rest of her life married to a man who did not love her and never would? Who did not even like her enough to spend any time with her not dictated by their roles and responsibilities?

To watch Zahir find joy in the arms of other women as her father had done over and over again? Angele wasn’t about to go that route.

Even after receiving the packet of pictures, funnily enough it had been the announcement of Amir’s marriage that had settled the issue for her. Amir had been meant to marry another member of a powerful sheikh’s family, but Lina had refused the match and Amir had ended up married today to the woman who held his heart instead.

As Angele had told her mother, Amir and Grace’s very real love had made the wedding ceremony beautiful.

What she had not told her mother was that she had seen the envy in Zahir’s expression when he had looked at Amir as he stood up with him. No one else had noticed, of course, but Angele had spent a lifetime watching Zahir with more attention than research scientists gave their life’s work.

Lina’s courage had given Angele the courage to come up with her plan. And Amir’s happiness today had cemented her determination to follow through with it. If there was any chance Zahir could know his brother’s happiness, he deserved to have it.

She could do no less for the man she loved with her whole heart.

And she would accept nothing less than that, either, even if it meant spending the rest of her life alone.

“Zahir, I have always found you to be honest. A man of deep integrity.” His liaison with Elsa had not changed that.

As he’d pointed out, Angele and Zahir were not actually engaged. And he had never once lied about it. She’d simply never thought to ask point-blank if he had sex with other women. However, she was no longer rock-solid in her belief he would not take mistresses after their marriage. In fact, that certainty had died a pretty painful death.

No matter what he’d said today. “I am.”

“Are you in love with me?” One of those point-blank questions she could not avoid asking. Not now.

He did not even blink, his handsome features set in an emotionless mask. “Our association is not a matter of love.”

“No, I know it isn’t, but please, this once, just answer my question with a simple yes or no.” His jaw tightened. “Please.”

“I do not see why you would ask.”

“I’m not asking you to understand, simply to answer.”

“No.”

She almost asked if his negative was a refusal to answer, but then she looked into his gray eyes and saw the smallest glimmer of pity. He knew she had feelings for him he did not return.

The pain his answer caused wasn’t mitigated by the fact she’d been expecting it. Though she really wished it had worked like that. Knowing he did not love her and hearing it from his lips were apparently in totally different realms of experience.

She managed to nod. “That is what I thought.”

“Love is not necessary in a marriage such as ours.”

“I don’t agree. I will not marry a man who has no hope of loving me.”

“I—”

“Have not found something worthy of love in my person in ten years—you are not likely to find it now.” In fact, she was so certain of that impossibility, she was ready to take desperate action.

“You are all that is admirable in a future princess and eventual queen.”

But not as a woman he could love. She left the words unsaid as he did. “You deserve the happiness your brothers have found.”

“It is not in my stars.” His tacit agreement sent another javelin of pain straight through her, but she refused to buckle under the fresh wound.

She had a plan and in the end, it would be best for both of them. “It can be.”

“I will not turn my back on my duty.” And his tone censured her for suggesting he try.

“I will.”