She looked down and saw the handcuffs at the same moment she felt Shaheen surrounding her.
She’d been so absorbed that she hadn’t felt his approach for the first time ever.
“The best morning in history to you, my crafty Gemma.”
She beamed up at him, opened her mouth for his luxuriant invasion. She’d undone the handcuffs and slipped out of bed two hours ago. She couldn’t bring herself to wake him up, but had been burning to examine the jewels. And she had.
He let her surface from his kiss, slid a loving touch down her cheek. “I see you’ve filled a whole notebook with observations. Can I hope that you have a list for us?”
“No.” She saw dismay gather in his eyes and rushed to deliver the rest of her verdict. “I have better than that. I know exactly who forged these jewels.”
She met his solicitude and again wanted to tell him that she wasn’t sure. And again dismissed the thought as it formed.
She nodded to him, kissed the hand that swept down her cheek. His eyes softened even more before they snapped back to the road.
They’d flown here on his private jet hours after she’d delivered her verdict. Not that he was asking her if she was sure of
that.
Shaheen, as she became more certain with each passing moment, took everything she said as incontrovertible fact. He had absolute faith not only in her integrity but also in her expertise. He was confident that her deduction of the identity of the forger was incontestable. Equally because he believed she knew her business, and that she wouldn’t accuse someone if she wasn’t certain beyond a shadow of doubt.
She was. Although she’d been tempted to say she wasn’t. Because she felt the moment her role in uncovering the conspiracy was over, her time with Shaheen would be over, too.
Nothing worked to allay that fear. Not even when he said they had time to abort the conspiracy and had forever together. In fact, the more he said that, the more desperate she became. All this bliss couldn’t possibly continue. Not at anything less than a terrible price. One she would be unable to let Shaheen or Zohayd pay.
She’d started counting down her remaining time with him from the moment she’d given him her verdict.
He and Harres and Amjad had at first said they’d handle it. They would besiege the forger with their special influence and force a confession. She’d insisted on being the one to approach him. She believed no coercion would be needed. Shaheen had at once trusted her judgment, supported her decision.
But he sensed her agitation, was worried that she was outside her comfort zone. And she was, if not for the reason he thought.
They stopped at a gated parking lot. The attendant recognized both of them and at once let them into the area reserved for the exclusive establishment’s most elite clientele.
Shaheen stopped the car, turned to her.
“Kolloh zain?”
She pulled him to her for a brief, fierce kiss. “Yes, everything’s all right. Let’s do this.”
In moments they were walking hand in hand into the avant garde reception area of the showroom of LaSalle, one of the most celebrated designers of original jewelry in the world.
As more people recognized them, they were given the treatment only a star fashion designer and a billionaire prince could be given. In seconds they were let into the sanctum of Théodore LaSalle, the establishment’s owner and the brand’s namesake.
Dressed in fifties-movie-star elegance, the David Niven look-alike rushed to meet them in the foyer leading to his office, his face split into a wide smile of someone expecting an unrepeatable honor and a transaction worth a year of magnificent sales.
“Doesn’t look as if he suspects why we’re here,” Shaheen muttered under his breath as the man ushered them into his office and rushed to his desk. “Or he’s a superlative actor.”
“What can I offer you,
mes cheries?
” LaSalle asked, one finger on his intercom. “All refreshments are available.”
“That won’t be necessary,
Monsieur
LaSalle,” Johara said. “Please, come sit with us. We have something of extreme importance to discuss with you.”
LaSalle’s face fell as he walked to his sitting area, where Shaheen had led her to a love seat opposite the seat he gestured for the man to take.
Trepidation seized LaSalle’s face. Shaheen said something to her in Arabic. That this looked like a guilty man. She squeezed his hand, and he nodded. Whatever he thought, he would let her deal with LaSalle. She’d told him she believed not only in the man’s artistry but in his integrity, too. She would give him every benefit of the doubt first.
She started, careful not to make her words either a question or an accusation. “It’s about the duplicates of the Pride of Zohayd collection, Monsieur LaSalle.”
The man didn’t even look at her, his gaze pinned nervously on Shaheen. Johara could imagine how her husband looked to the man, a lethal predator crouched in deceptive calm, but clearly only on a tight leash, and would launch into a slashing attack at a word from her.
“Are there any complaints about any of the pieces, Prince Aal Shalaan? I am, of course, willing to replace any that have been damaged, even if due to negligence. I produce my pieces with a lifetime guarantee. But if this is about the quality, in my defense—” he swung his gaze to her, as if asking her support “—you of all people, Mademoiselle Nazaryan—
pardonnez moi,
Princess Aal Shalaan—know the difficulty of working from photographs, even the most detailed and multiangled of close-ups.”
Johara sat forward, placed a placating hand on the man’s trembling one. “The quality is what only you can achieve, Monsieur. It was the sheer genius of the duplication that narrowed down my options to you. It’s imperative that you tell us everything about how you came to make those duplicates.”
“You mean you don’t
know?
” LaSalle gaped at her. “But it was the royal house who commissioned the duplicates.”
After a stunned moment when Johara thought they’d gotten this all wrong, she asked slowly, “You mean King Atef personally commissioned them?”
The man shook his expressive hands. “Of course not. I don’t even know who did, but it was understood it was the royal house.”
“How was it understood?” Shaheen grated.
The man gave a helpless, eloquent shrug. “Owners of invaluable treasures frequently wish to have duplicates to use if their jewelry will be worn or displayed in less than totally secure conditions.”
“So who approached you from the royal house?” Shaheen asked.
“I wasn’t approached directly. In fact, it was through a quite convoluted method of double blinds.”
“And you still thought this was aboveboard?” Shaheen hissed.
The man was looking more mortified by the moment. “Yes. The rich and royal always wish to hide their true dealings, and it made sense that the royal house would not want it to be known that the duplicates existed. And then, who else could have provided me with all those photographs? Who could afford to pay the astronomical fee I was given?”
“Who indeed.” Shaheen huffed. “But didn’t it seem suspicious that they didn’t entrust their own royal jeweler with the chore?”
The man nodded vigorously. “But I was told Berj was not well, and I even called him to make sure of that. My contacts said they didn’t want to burden him in his state. They also feared if he heard a whiff of this, he’d feel slighted that he’d been bypassed for this assignment, that he’d feel his usefulness to the royal house had come to an end. As a fellow master craftsman, this was even more incentive for me to keep silent than the money I was paid. I appreciated my clients’ need for absolute accuracy more when it was their effort not to tip him off to the fact that he’d be maintaining duplicates. I did warn them that he would know, no matter how accurate the replicas, but I was assured he was in no condition to notice, if I made them close enough.”
She stared at LaSalle, a terrible suspicion spreading through her. She turned to Shaheen only to see it reflected in his eyes.
Then he put it into words. “They were certain of his inability to recognize the fakes because they’ve been drugging him. This explains his deteriorating condition of late. And when he believed there was something wrong with him and started taking medication for his so-called depression, the drug interactions must have caused his heart attack.”
“They could have killed him!” Johara cried out, her heart rattling with rage.
Shaheen gave a solemn nod, eloquent with his determination to punish those responsible for this most of all. “But since they didn’t want a new jeweler, a younger and more vigilant one in his place, they pulled back, counted on his unwarranted medications to confuse him enough for their purposes.”
“This is appalling!” Monsieur LaSalle exclaimed, horror seizing his face. “I’ve been party not only to a fraud, but to almost having a hand in Berj’s death?”
“You are not in any way accountable,” Shaheen assured him. “But we need you to tell us every detail about how you were contacted, how you were paid and how you delivered the duplicates. Any information you give us will be the only leads we have toward apprehending the culprits and returning the real jewels.”
The man exploded to his feet. “You have my full cooperation. And if they approach me again, I will keep playing the game, so they’ll either give me more information or grow secure and do something that will help you expose them.”
As they approached Shaheen’s jet, she saw a black Jaguar parked near its stairs. Amjad and Harres were leaning against it.
As soon as she and Shaheen stepped out of the car, Harres met them. Amjad remained where he was, hips braced against the hood, legs crossed at the ankles and hands deep in his pockets.
“Any news?” Harres asked.
“What we can use only, please,” Amjad interjected.
Shaheen shot him an exasperated glance then answered Harres. “The forger is a reputable jeweler who was duped like the rest of us. He offered to do all he can and promised to keep working with us.”
Amjad sighed. “If you say so. Or is it Johara who does?”
Shaheen ignored him. “The thieves have access to funds on par with us. And they have infiltrated the palace on every level.” He gave Harres the tape with LaSalle’s recorded details. “I think this has enough threads to lead us to the mastermind.”
Harres put the tape in his pocket. “I’ve already started investigating everyone who was in the palace during the past year. But this will narrow down my search. It will narrow down your sweep, too, Amjad.”
Amjad shrugged, the picture of nonchalance. “Why should I narrow it down? I’m having a ball tracing every transaction that occurred in the accounts of everyone who was
ever
in the palace and cross-referencing those with just about everyone in the region and their dogs. Even after I find the funds exchanged in the conspiracy and the hands that exchanged them, I’m keeping this up. Seems the Pride of Zohayd is not the only treasure to be found here. I’m exposing dozens of priceless secrets. I now have something ruinous on just about everyone, it’s just sublime.”
Harres thumped Amjad on the back. “What he meant by all that is that he, like all of us, is forever in your debt, Johara.”
Johara looked Amjad in the eye. “I’ll accept his gratitude when he actually proves effective in getting the jewels back.”
Amjad’s lethal smile acknowledged her third-person payback. “Oh, I will. But now it’s time to return to Zohayd and face the music. Harres should have stayed back and announced code red. Your wedding has the tribes up in arms. Expect the worst.”
It still took hearing it to make it real, to tip her from the edge and into the nightmare.
“The council is in session right now, Shaheen,” King Atef said as soon as they entered his stateroom, his voice heavy with sorrow. “They have made a final decree. You are to dissolve your marriage to Johara. A bride has been unanimously chosen for you, and neither she nor her family will accept her being a second wife. And they demand that her offspring be your heir, not your child from Johara. They are gathering their people on our borders, in all the hubs of unrest within the kingdom. They say your answer would decide their next actions.”
Johara felt as if a scythe had cut her down at the knees. Shaheen’s arm came around her, held her up, hugged to him.
“Don’t worry about those thugs, Father,” Harres growled. “I’ll send them running with their tails between their legs.”
“And afterward, Harres?” Everyone, including Harres was startled when Shaheen spoke up. Johara shuddered at his calmness. “You think force will create any long-term or real peace?”
Harres’s scowl was spectacular. She could see him fighting to the death over this. “They’re bluffing, and I’ll show them that I don’t take kindly to bluffs. And if they’re not, I’ll show them I’m even less forgiving of threats. This same council entrusted me with the peacekeeping of this kingdom, and
B’Ellahi,
I’m keeping it.”
“This is not a bluff, Harres,” King Atef said. “And if they carry out their threats, it is my fault. I’ve misled them for too long. Now they’re enraged. And unreasonable.”
Aggression blazed in Harres’s feral eyes. “Give me the word, and I’ll show them unreasonable!”
Amjad stayed pointedly silent through it all. Watching her.
Shaheen only shook his head at Harres. “There will be no need for any of that.” He turned to his father. “I wish you’d let them tell me that to my face instead of hiding behind you and burdening you with their pompous and insane demands.” Then he turned to her. “Stay here,
ya galbi.
I’ll be back in minutes.”
Johara watched Shaheen walk away and felt as if she’d lost him already. He would try to talk the council out of their decision. And he’d fail.
Her vision swam as it wavered to the men who’d been a major part of her life. They were Shaheen’s family, were hers, too. Harres growled that he’d beat back any attempt at an uprising so hard, the dead would reconsider their mutinies. The king argued that he couldn’t give the order to plunge the kingdom into war. Amjad watched her. She sank deeper in despair.
Then Shaheen came back. His
kabeer el yaweran
was behind him, laden in dossiers.
He took her hand to his lips then folded her arm through the crook of his. “Shall we,
ya joharet galbi?
”
She walked only because he steered her, could barely see the route they took through the palace to the council hall or the Roman senatelike assembly all around them once they entered it, barely heard the din die down as Shaheen brought her to a stop in the middle of the floor.
He spoke at once, his voice an awe-striking boom. “I will never divorce Johara. Or take a second wife. And this is final.”
The hall exploded.
Shaheen raised his voice over the cacophony. “But…I have a solution.”
The clamor again died down as everyone recognized the determination and certainty in Shaheen’s voice and demeanor.
He went on once there was total silence. “My solution will exonerate my king, my family and my tribe of my actions, end any ill will you now bear toward them.”
He let a beat pass when everyone and everything seemed to hold their breath. Then he said, “Exile me.”
Johara’s heart stopped.
She felt every heart in the gigantic hall follow suit.
Then Shaheen continued, and her heart burst into thundering shock and horror. “I offer that my family disown me, strip me of my name, and for the kingdom of Zohayd to forever forbid me, and my children, entry to its soil.”
As the uproar rose again, his voice again drowned it out. “But this will only appease the insult I’ve dealt you by breaking my vows. To compensate you, my venerable lords, for any loss you may suffer from my refusal to enter the beneficial union you demanded…” He beckoned for his
kabeer el yaweran
to come forward. “I give you all my assets.”
Silence crashed over the hall.
Nothingness roared inside Johara.
Shaheen was saying…offering…
Suddenly, a voice rent the silence. “Yes, make an example of Shaheen Aal Shalaan!”
Another roared, “It’s the only way to appease our tribes. Exile him!”
More voices rose, tangled.
“Prove that not even the king’s son can renege on his word.”
“Show every royal they cannot play with us all and get away with it.”
Shaheen only smiled down at her. The smile of someone who’d achieved exactly what he was after. Then he steered her away and out of the council hall.
They might have walked two steps or two miles when it all sank in. She wrenched on his hand, bringing him to a stop.
“Are you out of your
mind?
”
His smile broadened, his face the picture of relief. “I’ve never been more in it, and I—”
She cut him off, words colliding as they spilled out of her. “
This
is what you meant every time you told me you’ll resolve this?
This
was your solution all along?”
“Yes. It took me a while to work out the details that will hand everything I own and control over to others without causing the businesses to collapse or the people populating them to go bankrupt or lose their jobs—”
She barged in on his explanation, panting now, almost raving. “But that is not a solution! That…this…is a
catastrophe.
You’re sacrificing everything that you
are!
”
“And I’m so relieved this is over. It’s
not
a sacrifice, by the way, just a tiny price to have you and our baby. But you don’t have to worry. I’ll rebuild my success and my fortune.”
“I’m not worried about
that.
” She stamped her foot, feeling her brain overheating, her body shaking apart. “I’m making more money all the time and I have enough for both of us, which you can use as capital to rebuild your empire. What I am is
devastated
at the enormity of the sacrifices you just offered—your name, your family, your country, everything you’ve worked for…”
And he dared chuckle. “So what? I have a wife who’ll support me.”
She gave a chagrined shriek. “You…you…” Words shriveled to ashes in her mouth. Only one hope remained. “They’ll say no.”
“Oh, no, they won’t. If we’d stayed one more minute, we’d have been flooded in the drool of their eagerness to grab my assets. I’m worth far more to them dead and gone, figuratively speaking, than alive and begetting children of their blood.”
And she grabbed him by the arms and shook him. “Go back right now and say you take it all back! You tell them that you—”
He hugged her off the ground, ending her tirade. Before she could twist out of his arms, he buried his face in her neck. “I’m not repeating my father’s mistakes,
ya galbi.
He gave up his only chance at love, married women he could barely tolerate for the sake of his kingdom and throne. But I’m giving away replaceable things, just giving the tribes what they want so I can be what I want to be. Yours. It doesn’t matter what else I am.” She squirmed in his arms, sobbed, and he only pressed her closer. “I’ll always remain who I am, in my heart, to my loved ones. As for my success, it might have been in part due to my status before, but now I am formidable in my own right with my knowledge and experience. Even if I never attain the same success or wealth again, what does it matter when I have the ultimate treasure—you and our baby?”
She at last made him put some distance between them, took his face in her trembling hands. “But you’ll
always
have us, no price needed. Divorce me, Shaheen, give them the marriage they want. Both I and our baby will be yours forever, no matter what.”
“Okay, Romeo and Juliet, move it.”
Johara jerked as a hand clamped her arm. It was Amjad. He was also holding Shaheen’s arm. Before either of them could say anything, he dragged them back into the council hall.
In the middle of the floor where they’d stood minutes ago, he stopped and stepped in front of them.
“All right,
venerable
lords, listen carefully.” The noise again dissipated at Amjad’s terrifying growl. “You always called me the Mad Prince, and now’s your chance to find out just how crazy I am. All you have to do is vote against Shaheen, and I’ll make each and every one of you and your spawn into the next five generations sorry to have ever been born.”
“I second that.” Harres came forward to stand beside Amjad.
Shaheen’s younger half brothers, Haidar and Jalal, joined the lineup, forming a barricade of towering manhood and power in front of her and Shaheen.
“Third and fourth, here,” Haidar said for both him and his twin. “You might be all-powerful tribal lords here, but let us remind you
we
are not just the king’s sons. Each of us packs more power in the world at large than you can probably imagine.”
“You
don’t
want to make enemies of us.” Jalal’s face was reminiscent of Amjad’s cruel handsomeness, a younger and even more reckless version of Amjad’s demon evidently incubating inside him.
Harres gave his younger brothers a look of approval. “So to sum up, if you vote to exile Shaheen, if you touch a cent of his assets, we will all be your enemies until the day you die.”
“
But,
if you free him and apologize for all you’ve put him through,” Haidar elaborated, “you’ll have our…gratitude.”
Amjad gave a loud, irreverent snort. “Yeah. And you do want to see me grateful, I assure you. You will love it.”
Harres nodded. “So either join us in the twenty-first century, forget the blood-mixing rituals and do business through more…lucrative means, or…piss us off. Your choice.”
With that, the brothers turned and started to walk out.
Shaheen pushed at them. “I
won’t
let you do this—”
Amjad grabbed Shaheen’s arm, dragged him along, hissing, “Ever heard of a strategic withdrawal, Romeo? Walk with me.”
Once outside, Amjad flicked a hand at the guards and they all scattered. Then he hooked his hands low on his powerful hips, twisting his lips at Shaheen. “What’s wrong with you? We were driving a bargain in there. You don’t outbid your team.”
Harres gave a harsh laugh. “And the greedy blowhards are having mini heart attacks in there, thinking of all they could milk out of our carte blanche.”
Shaheen shook his head, adamant. “I won’t let you do this. This is my responsibility.”
Amjad rolled his eyes. “Bored now.”
Harres turned to Haidar and Jalal, sent them back into the hall to find out the council’s verdict.
Once they left, Johara realized he’d sent his younger brothers away so that he could talk freely. “I only wish we could tell the council they actually
owe
you, and more so Johara, more than they could ever repay, for giving us the first solid leads to abort the conspiracy that would tear apart the kingdom they’re squabbling over pieces of.”
Haidar and Jalal came back almost as soon as they’d gone in, their faces spread with cynical smiles.
“That had to be the fastest decision in the history of the kingdom,” Jalal chuckled. “Money sure talks, and talks big.”
Amjad slapped him on the back. “Shut up and spit it out.”
Jalal smirked at him. “They release Shaheen of his vows, demand no punishment. And to ‘give peace a chance,’ they’re ‘willing’ to negotiate a ‘suitable’ compensation.”
Johara shook with relief and confusion, still unsure what this meant for all of them, what kind of losses they’d sustain so she and Shaheen could remain together.
“That’s it?” She heard her voice trembling on the question. “They want…money? Why didn’t they just ask for it in the first place?”
Shaheen put a finger below her chin, raised her face to his, his eyes adoring. “You would have ransomed me,
ya joharti?
”
She gave a vigorous nod. “I certainly would have. I will pay all I have now as part of this compensation.”
Shaheen hugged her closer, delighted, defusing her turmoil. “They wouldn’t have taken anything in settlement without reaching this point of crisis. The ways of tradition are too demanding, and people in our region have entered grueling and needless wars to keep a vow or save face.” He turned to his brothers. “I know they wouldn’t have agreed no matter how much they had to gain if you hadn’t stood together and scared them off. You have my and Johara’s gratitude, but now that they’ve given up the macho posturing, I’ll be the one to negotiate with them. Money, as Jalal said, and massive favors are more potent than magic.”
“And let you give up your right as the ‘middle’ child to always cause us the most trouble?” Jalal winked at him.
“It is more cost effective to give those vultures bites of each of us rather than help you rebuild your empire.” Haidar grabbed Jalal and turned back to the hall. “Now excuse us as we get to the nitty gritty on the bite sizes expected.”