Shaheen blinked, noting the people gathered around Johara for the first time. Women who’d treated her with condescension, or at best the dismissive courtesy due to a valuable employee’s family member, were now treating her not just as an equal but as a celebrity.
But it was the men’s behavior that made aggression swirl inside him. Many were openly ogling her and courting her attention and favor. His muscles turned to steel as every territorial cell in his body primed for a to-the-death fight for his mate.
Yes. No matter what she’d done or how impossible it all was, his body, his very being, considered her his mate. Accepted nothing else.
Aliyah turned back to him. “What about Johara?”
His burning conviction seemed to force Johara’s gaze to him. He muttered, low and hungry, “Bring her to me.”
With frustration.
It had been two hours since he’d told Aliyah and Laylah to pluck Johara from her new rabid fans and bring her to him.
After a brief surprise, the two women, who clearly weren’t aware of the seriousness of the situation that necessitated his making a marriage of state, thought it a brilliant idea.
They thought he
should
flaunt the royal council’s decrees and marry whomever he liked. And with their former connection, who better than Johara?
They’d gone after her as dozens of people inundated Shaheen again. He’d fended them off as he struggled to track the two women’s efforts to disentangle Johara from her companions.
After sinking in the quicksand of the court’s convoluted maneuvers, the two women could only look on as they lost Johara to another tide of eager fans until she exited the hall.
He had no doubt she’d thwarted them on purpose, had escaped. He had no idea where she’d gone, or if she’d even remain in Zohayd.
By the time he’d freed himself, he’d had a choice between interrogating guards and servants and having the news that he was looking for her spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom, or inspecting every guest suite in the palace himself and causing an even bigger scandal for his—and her—father.
So here he was, pacing his quarters, barely stopping himself from driving his fist through a wall.
He couldn’t let her avoid him. He had to confront her. If only for one last time.
Plans were ricocheting in his mind, each seeming more ludicrous than the next, when a knock floated to his ears from his apartment’s door.
“Go away,” he growled at the top of his voice.
He’d thought whomever was unfortunate enough to seek him now had heeded his order when the knock came again, more urgent.
He stormed to the door, flung it open, ready to blast whomever it was off the face of the earth.
And there she was. Gemma. Johara.
She stood there, in the gold dress that echoed her hair’s incredible shades and luster, looking up at him with anxiety in her gaze, a tremor strumming those lush, petal-soft lips he’d been going mad from needing beneath his for eight agonizing weeks.
“Shaheen…”
The memory of that night when she’d said his name, looked at him like that and changed his life forever ripped through him.
He didn’t give her a chance to say anything else.
He swooped down on her with the same speed and determination he had two decades ago, when he’d snatched her away from death’s snapping jaws. He hauled her into the room, his feet feeling as if they were leaving the ground in his desperation to have her against him, beneath him,
with
him.
Everything merged into a dream sequence. Gemma, Johara, filled his arms, her sweet breath mingling with his, her lips pressing desperately against his own, her flesh cushioning his, her heat and hunger enveloping him.
But questions gnawed at him, eating a hole through his gut as big as the one her disappearance had left in his heart. Why had she withheld the truth from him, why had she left him that way, why had she chosen now to come back, and the most important question of all—had she come back for him?
Nothing came out but an agonized,
“How could you?”
She jerked as if the words singed her. She wrenched away, pressed her face into the bed. “You’re angry.”
“Angry?” He rose on one elbow, gazed down at her trembling profile. “You think I’m
angry?
”
“N-no.” The tears he could see glittering in her eyes welled, spilled over to drench her cheek, making a wet track down to lips that trembled. “You’re way more than angry. You’re enraged. And outraged. And y-you have every right to be both.”
“I’m none of those things. I’m…I’m…” He sat up, raked his hands through his hair, felt close to tearing it out. “I still can’t believe you did this to me.”
“I’m so sorry. I know I should have told you who I was…”
“Yes, you should have. But that isn’t what I meant. How could you leave me like that? Didn’t you realize how I’d feel? I felt…” He paused as she hesitantly turned to face him, searched for the words to describe his desperation and desolation after her disappearance. Nothing came to him but one word. It gashed out of him
“Bereaved.”
She lurched as if he’d shot her. Emotion crumpled her face, and more tears poured from her.
He studied her, paralyzed by the enormity of the distress radiating from her, then he reached for her, even now fearing he’d grab thin air. He groaned his remembered anguish as he pressed her harder into him, lost the ability to breathe as her precious body filled his empty arms, when he’d despaired he’d ever hold her this close again.
“I never intended for any of that to happen.” She sobbed on his shoulder. “I-I only came to the party to see you, didn’t dream you wouldn’t recognize me. But when you didn’t…when you were…”
He pulled back to watch her, to fill his eyes with the reality of her, her nearness, threaded his aching fingers into her hair. “Were what? All over you? Out of my mind with wanting you on sight?”
“I never imagined things could go that far. I thought I’d see you one last time before you got married and I no longer had the right to…to… I should have told you who I am, but I knew if I did, you would pull back, treat me like an old acquaintance, and I couldn’t give up that time with you. If I’d told you, you certainly wouldn’t have made love to me. So I didn’t, and I-I compromised you. And I had to leave before I did anything even worse.”
Shaheen stared down at her, life flooding back into him.
This
was why she’d left. She’d thought she had to. For his sake. It had been as magical for her as it had been for him. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and it had killed her as much as it had him when she’d walked away.
But one thing stopped his elation in its tracks. Her mortification, her self-blame. Setting her straight took precedence over every other consideration.
He grabbed her hands, covered them in kisses. “You’re wrong, my Gemma,
ya joharti,
my Johara. You didn’t compromise me—you energized me, stabilized me. You liberated and elated me. And you were wrong about your doubts, too. I might have hesitated when I found out who you were, mostly from surprise, but
nothing
would have stopped me from taking you. Nothing but you, if you didn’t want me.”
Her tears stopped abruptly, the remorse dimming her eyes then giving way to the fragility of disbelief, relief and finally the radiance of wonder.
His heart expanded, his world righting itself. A hand behind her head and another behind her back gathered her to him, fitting her into him, the half he’d felt had been torn away from his flesh.
“But you wanted me,” he murmured into her mouth, tasting her, plucking at her clinging lips, over and over. “You still want me.”
She moaned, opened to him, let him into her recesses, the most potent admission of desire. He took it all, gave more, one thing filling his awareness. His Johara was back in his arms. And he planned to keep her there, to never let her go again.
He told her. “And I’ll never stop wanting you.”
But she wasn’t here for this.
No matter that she’d been dying for him, shriveling up from deprivation.
She dug her shaking fingers into the vital waves of his hair, tried to tug at them, to have him allow her a breath that didn’t pass through both their bodies. Before he dragged her any deeper into pleasure, submerged her into union with him. She failed.
But as if sensing her struggle, he withdrew his lips from hers lingeringly, rose to look down at her, his eyes a mixture of tenderness and ferocious possession. “What is it,
ya joharti?
Your heart is flapping so hard I can feel it inside my own chest.”
“Th-this isn’t why I came here, Shaheen. I just wanted to explain, to say goodbye—”
“There will be no goodbyes between us,
ya galbi.
Never.”
Before she could cry out that there would be, no matter what either of them wanted, he claimed her lips again.
And she drowned. In him, in her need, in a realm where only he existed and mattered. She let herself sink, promising herself it would be the last time…
“I’m sorry. I did knock. Repeatedly.”
Johara jerked as the soft apology came from far, far away, shattering the cocoon enveloping her and Shaheen. She shuddered, felt Shaheen stiffen above her.
“Get out of here, Aliyah.”
Silence met his growl, then a distressed intake of breath.
“I’m really sorry, Shaheen, but this can’t wait.”
Johara lurched again as Aliyah’s strained words brought the outside world crashing back on her like an avalanche.
Earlier, Aliyah and Laylah had tried to cajole her into speaking with Shaheen. She’d made her escape then, thinking she’d saved him from making more compromising mistakes because of her. But if she’d feared any suspicion of their relationship would tarnish his image and hurt his marriage plans, she’d done far worse now. She’d just given Aliyah evidence.
She lay beneath Shaheen, her dress riding up to her waist, her splayed legs accommodating his bulk as his hands cupped her buttocks through her panties and his hardness ground against her. Her dress hung off one shoulder exposing half a breast that had just been engulfed in his mouth.
Mortification drenched her, all the more so because the arousal coursing through her didn’t even slow down. She wouldn’t have been able to bolt out of the room even if she wasn’t pinned down by Shaheen. She couldn’t move.
She didn’t need to. Shaheen relinquished his possession of her flesh with utmost tranquility, rearranged her clothes with supreme care. Then he scooped her up from the bed and steadied her on her feet, smoothing her mussed hair, gently massaging her worried features.
With one last look of reassurance, one last, lingering kiss, he turned to his sister.
Aliyah looked an apology at Johara. It was clear she did have a paramount reason for being there. One she wasn’t about to divulge in Johara’s presence.
Seeing this unfortunate development as an opportunity to escape, Johara rushed forward to leave.
Shaheen’s hand on her arm stopped her.
“Please, Shaheen,” she choked out, hoping that Aliyah, who’d moved away discreetly, wouldn’t hear. “Let me go. I’ll soon be gone and you won’t see me again, for real this time. I beg you, for as long as I must stay in Zohayd, you must stay away from me.”
She bolted away, gathering the heavy layers of her silk dress in her hands so her stumbling legs wouldn’t snarl in their folds.
She still almost fell on her face when she heard his beloved voice behind her, intense, low, permeated with voracity and finality.
“There is no way I will stay away from you,
ya joharti.
”
Johara evidently knew about the gravity of his situation, as often the families of those who worked in sensitive areas in the palace did. And she had extreme feelings about compromising him. She’d put them both through hell so she wouldn’t. She must think Aliyah witnessing their lovemaking the ultimate exposure.
And instead of only fighting the world for her, he now had to fight against her own anxieties, too. He had to convince her to stop trying to do what she thought was right for him, to let him worry about his problems, to realize his best interests lay in having her with him.
He still had no idea how he’d achieve that, but now that he knew she’d never really left him, still wanted him, he would renege on his promise to his father, to his kingdom. He would face anything on earth to be with her, come what may.
“Actually this is bad. As bad as can be,” Aliyah finally answered his exasperation, her voice measured.
And in spite of the situation and what she’d just said, his heart softened with love and admiration for her.
Aliyah had had the harshest life of them all, had triumphed over impossible odds. He still couldn’t believe how she’d come back from a prescription drug addiction that doctors’ misdiagnoses and overanxious parents had plunged her into, how she’d made the decision to face her addiction and the world alone at the tender age of sixteen. It never ceased to be a pleasure for him to see her so healthy, to watch her blossoming daily with Kamal’s love, settling deeper in contentment with the blessing of their happiness and two children and filling her position as one of the most beloved queens in the world.
He watched her as she approached with the grace of the old supermodel and the new queen. She was truly regal, dressed in honeyed-chocolate, the color of her eyes; she was as tall as Johara, if differently proportioned. But her every step closer struck a chord of foreboding in his heart.
She stopped before him, her turmoil more obvious close up. She gestured to herself. “See anything wrong with this picture?”
“Is this about you?” He took her by the shoulders, his eyes feverishly scanning her. “Are you…” He stopped, swallowed the ball of panic that suddenly blocked his throat. “Are you okay?”
She reached out an urgent hand to his face. “Oh, I’m fine. It’s not about me. It’s about these.”
His gaze followed her hand to where it rested on the magnificent diamond-and-precious-stone necklace gracing her swanlike neck. Matching earrings dangled to her shoulders and an elaborate web-ring bracelet adorned her wrist.
“What about them?” he asked, mystified. “Apart from looking more incredible with your beauty showcasing them?”
“Father did give them to me to showcase for this function. They are part of the Pride of Zohayd.” Shaheen nodded. He recognized them as part of the royal jewels, Zohayd’s foremost national treasure. “I was supposed to return them as soon as I took them off, as you know, but as I did I…”
“What? You…damaged them?”
If she had, Berj Nazaryan would fix them, and no one should be the wiser. Because if anyone found out, the situation
would
be grave.
Her gaze grew darker. “No. I discovered they’re fake.”
He gaped at her.
Fake.
Fake.
The word revolved in his mind, gaining momentum, until it catapulted him forward to touch the jewels, to inspect them.
He raised confused eyes to her. “They look the same.”
“That’s the whole idea of good fakes. And these are nothing short of
incredible.
”
Logic tried to make a stand. “But you’re not a jewelry expert. And you probably haven’t worn those before.”
“I did far more than wear them. You remember I was almost catatonic when I was in my early teens? Well, my shrinks recommended I have a creative outlet as part of my ‘therapy.’ I wanted to paint, and the only thing I wanted to paint was the jewels. Mother Bahiyah got me into the vaults regularly to paint them.”
So she did know the jewels intimately.
Denial took over from logic. “But it’s been so many years since you saw them.”
“Time doesn’t make any difference with my photographic memory. Tiny discrepancies screamed at me from the moment I took a good look at them. But without comparing them to detailed photos of the originals, I’m sure no one else would notice. No one but the experts, that is.”
Shaheen felt the frost of dread spread through him. He’d seen evidence of her infallible memory. As a supremely talented professional artist, Aliyah used it now to produce paintings with uncanny detail.
If she thought the jewels were fakes, they were.
His shoulders slumped under the enormity of the conviction.
Aliyah joined him in the deflation of defeat, lowered her eyes, then exhaled and tucked a mahogany tress behind her ear. She lifted her gaze back to his. “My first instinct was to rush to Harres with this. I did try to call him, but he’s incommunicado. I then thought of Amjad as our eldest, but I realized it should be you I told first. For now.”
He blinked, nothing making sense anymore. “What do you mean?”
“My decision was based on your past connection to Johara and the special interest you showed in her tonight. But then I came here and discovered it was far more than special interest. This isn’t the first time this happened between you. I could tell. Your passion, the depth of your involvement, almost burned me from twenty feet away. You’re her lover, aren’t you?”
“You…” Shaheen shook his head, still trying to assimilate her revelations. And assumptions. “You think Johara has something to do with this?”
Aliyah let her shoulders drop. “I honestly don’t know what to think. Between father and daughter, Berj and Johara are not only among the few who have access to the jewels, they’re among the few in the
world
capable of faking them. And then, there is her sudden reappearance in Zohayd and in the palace.”
Shaheen’s numbness evaporated under the ferocity of the need to defend Johara. “She came back for
me.
”
Aliyah’s gaze grew wary. “Is this what she told you?” He looked at her helplessly, because Johara hadn’t said that. Aliyah went on, her voice more subdued. “She came back three weeks ago. I was here visiting mother Bahiyah the day after her arrival. And I met her. She said she came back to see her father. The father who resigned his post as royal jeweler just before the reception.”
This time when she fell silent, Shaheen felt he’d never be able to talk ever again.
When the silence grew too suffocating, she sighed. “I can’t believe either of them could do something like this, either. But then, who knows what’s been going on with Berj? Mother Bahiyah told me tonight she wasn’t surprised when he quit, said he hasn’t been himself for a while. She said he’d been getting more morose, withdrawn, empty-eyed. And then he had a heart attack.”
The new shock forced his voice to work. “
Ya Ullah,
when?”
“Three months ago.”
“Why did no one tell me?” Berj, the endlessly kind and patient, stunningly creative man, like his son and daughter, had always been one of the dearest people to Shaheen. He loved him more than he loved any of his uncles.
“According to mother Bahiyah, he made Father promise not to tell anyone, even his family,” she assured him. Then she reluctantly added, “But maybe he felt his mortality, knew he wouldn’t be able to work for much longer. Maybe our enemies got to him.”
“To offer him what? Financial security? Do you think Father didn’t reward his two-decade career with our family more generously than anything anyone else could offer? Though the job has never been about money for Berj, he can now live a retired life of leisure and luxury. And if he doesn’t want that, he can afford to start his own business. He doesn’t even have any dependents to worry about. All his family are financially independent in their own right.”
“He might have a problem that depleted his funds—gambling, for instance.” Aliyah shrugged. “I’m as confused as you are. I’m just pointing out that he hasn’t been himself. And then, Johara has changed beyond all recognition, on the surface. What if she’s changed on the inside, too, and—”
He growled his unconditional belief in Johara, cutting Aliyah off. “
No.
No, she hasn’t. She’s still our Johara.
My
Johara.”
Aliyah looked at him with the same caution she would look at an enraged tiger who might lash out at any second. “I never really knew her, but I always got good vibes from her. I only met her again that day three weeks ago, then again tonight. I did like her again on sight, much more now that we’re both grown-up. But though I don’t see her as a manipulator, I do get the feeling she’s hiding something. Something big.”
“It’s her relationship with me.”
“No. I felt it again just now, when there was…nothing to hide about
that
anymore.”
He glowered down at her. “You won’t make me doubt her.”
“I’m just presenting you with the facts. I’d hate to think anything bad, let alone something that bad, of Berj and Johara, but right now I’m at a loss to come up with another explanation.”
“There
is
another explanation. Everything you mentioned is circumstantial evidence. Nothing more.”
“True. But we can’t afford to overlook any possibilities. This is too huge, Shaheen. The fate of the royal house—the whole kingdom—depends on it.”
Silence crashed again.
At last, Aliyah drew in a ragged breath. “What shall we do?”
“
You
will hand back the jewels as if you didn’t notice anything. And you will
not
say anything to anyone. Starting with Amjad and Harres. Give me a few days to sort this out.”
“Are you sure, Shaheen?”
There were no hesitation in him. “Yes.”
Aliyah chewed her lip, worry etched on her face. “I did want to give you a chance to sort this out. But that was before I walked in on you and Johara. You’re in love with her, aren’t you?” Shaheen only nodded. He was. Irrevocably. She exhaled. “Are you sure you can handle this? Do you think you can be objective?”
He wouldn’t even dignify that with an answer. “Give me your word that you’ll let me handle this, will let me recruit Harres and Amjad into the matter at my discretion.”
“You’re going to search for proof Johara and Berj have nothing to do with it, aren’t you? What if you don’t find any? What if we don’t have the time for you to investigate?”
“We have time.”
“How do you know that?”
“Think about it, Aliyah. The forgers probably faked all of the Pride of Zohayd collection, or they would have somehow made sure you were handed authentic pieces to wear tonight. But since no claim has been leaked that we failed to protect the jewels from theft, the thieves and forgers are waiting for the time when the biggest scandal can be achieved.”
Horror dawned on Aliyah’s face. “The Exhibition Ceremony!”
He nodded grimly. “Yes. And that’s still months away. So we have time. And I
will
take every possible second of it. Give me your word that you’ll let me have it, Aliyah.”
Aliyah’s expression filled with conflict as she met his gaze head-on. He struggled to bring his emotions under control so he wouldn’t give her more cause to doubt his judgment.
She finally nodded. “You have it. And Kamal’s, too.”
“You told him!”
“I tell him everything.” She suddenly dragged him into a fierce hug. “If you love her like I love Kamal, I wish nothing more than for you to prove her innocence, that you can have her and love her.”
He hugged her back for a long moment. Then he kissed the top of her head. She looked up at him one last time then walked out.
Shaheen staggered to the nearest chair, sank down onto it.
It was all too much to take in.
The bridal ordeal, finding Johara here, what happened since. Now Aliyah’s discoveries. Their possible explanations and ramifications. Yet one thing trumped it all.
Johara wasn’t here for him. She was here for her father.
Yet the realization didn’t pain him. She thought she had no place in his life. She hadn’t thought she
could
come back for him. In fact, it must have been torture for her to attend the reception tonight. To not only know he was getting married to someone else, but to watch him pick that wife.
And Berj had chosen tonight of all nights to hand in his resignation, and hours later, Aliyah discovered that his paramount duty, safeguarding the jewels, had been compromised.
No. He couldn’t doubt him. And he would never doubt Johara. There
was
another explanation.
But until he found it, this was a catastrophe in the making.
The Pride of Zohayd jewels were far more than the foremost national treasure.
Legend had it that each piece of jewelry opened doors where none existed, attained coveted results where they had seemed impossible, courted monarchs’ favor, brought true love, achieved undying glory and even cheated death.