He pressed her hard, stopping her self-blame again. “As I told you last night, you’ve done nothing but make my life worthwhile. In the past, being with you was the best thing that ever happened to me…until Aram made me feel like a dirty old man.” She jerked at that. He almost kicked himself for bringing it up. He tried to divert her. “Then, from the night we met again—”
She wouldn’t be diverted. “How did Aram make you feel like that?” He shrugged. She clung to his arm, ebony eyes entreating, undeniable. “Tell me, please.”
How could he resist her when she looked at him that way?
And then, he wanted no secrets between them. Ever again.
He exhaled. “You remember how I used to spend every possible second with you and Aram, either individually or together. Then one day, after a squash match—he’d trounced me, too—I related something clever that you’d said to me the day before, and he tore into me. Called me a cruel, spoiled prince, accused me of ignoring him for years whenever he’d tried to warn me about treating you too indulgently, to stop encouraging your hopeless crush on me. Then he threatened me.”
“Wh-what did he threaten you with?”
“Not death or serious injury, don’t worry. But that was actually what shook me most—how intense but nonviolent he was. It was as if he hated me, and had for a long time. I would have preferred it if he’d beaten me up, broken a few bones. I would have healed from that. But I never healed from losing his friendship. He told me that if I didn’t keep you away from me, he’d make my father order me to never come near you again.”
“So that was why you suddenly shunned us!”
He nodded. “I tried to defend myself at first, said you were the little sister I never had and how dare he say I’d think of you—or encourage you to think of me—
that
way.”
“So you never thought of me…that way?”
“No.”
She seemed dismayed at his emphatic negation. “Come on, Johara, I was a man of twenty-two, you were a kid of fourteen. I would have been a pervert if I had thought of you that way. But you were
my
girl, the only one who ‘got’ me. I had to explain myself to everyone else, even to Aram and my family, but not to you. I loved you, in every way but
that
way. I love you in every way now.”
He poured his emotions into her eyes, then her lips. She surfaced from the mating of their mouths, panting. Then pleasure drained from her face as the pall of what they’d been discussing resurfaced. “What happened after that?”
He sighed again. “Aram said he didn’t give a damn what I thought or felt. He only cared that I was emotionally exploiting you. And he couldn’t stand by until I damaged you irrevocably. I realized he was doing what he thought best to protect you, which is why I was never really angry at him. Perhaps subconsciously, I
was
waiting for you to grow up so that I could feel that way about you. So in a fit of mortification, I swore I’d never talk to you,
or
him, again, that neither of you would have to put up with the ‘cruel, spoiled prince’ anymore. That’s why I pulled away, in a misguided effort to keep my word to him.
“Then, as I agonized over how much I’d inadvertently hurt my best friends, you left Zohayd, and your father announced that you wouldn’t be coming back. My last memory of you was of your forlorn face as you left the palace. I felt I’d betrayed our friendship. I left Zohayd soon afterward, and came back only sporadically through the years, until Aram left Zohayd a few years back. I felt I didn’t have the right to try to heal our friendship.”
She stared at him, chest heaving, emotions flashing in dizzying succession over her ultra-expressive face.
Then she threw herself at him, crushed him to her. “Ah,
ya habibi,
I’m so sorry. Aram was
so
wrong.”
His lips twisted as he looked down at their entwined nakedness. “I think he was
so
right.”
“He was wrong
then.
That’s what counts. You never led me on, never hurt me. I owe most of what I am today to your friendship. I think I’m not as messed up as he feared I’d be.”
“You’re perfection itself, inside and out.”
“See? He was absolutely wrong. Ooh!” She punched a pillow. “And the rat even told me you said you stopped talking to us because we were ‘the help.’”
“What?” he shouted. “All right,
now
I am angry at him.”
“Makes two of us. Just wait until I get ahold of him. I’m going to have his overprotective hide!”
“I hope you didn’t believe him!”
She slid a leg between his, stroked his face, laying everything inside her wide-open for him to read, to drink deeply of. “Does it look like I did?”
“No,
alhamdulel’lah,
thank God.” He stroked her back in wonder. “You’re all I want. It’s all I want, to be with you.”
A grimace wiped away her loving expression. “Wanting it and being able to do it are polar opposites here.”
He threaded his fingers through her hair, cupped her head through its thickness, took her lips in a fierce kiss. “Things might be complicated now, but I will resolve everything—”
“Please, don’t. Don’t promise me anything. I don’t want you burdening yourself with what you can’t accomplish, or with the guilt when you fail to. I will take what I can have with you, and I’ll always be happy that I did. That I love you. That you love me.”
Before he could protest, she dragged him to her, drowned him in delirious passion, taking the reins this time.
In the aftermath of pleasure, she slept in his arms. He remained awake, watching her.
And he knew he couldn’t tell her. About the jewels, or about his plan. He couldn’t bring the ugliness of the outside world into their happiness now. He wouldn’t sully hers if at all possible.
It was up to him to make it so.
He told her again and again not to worry, that he was working on securing a way for them to be together.
She believed he’d fail. That her time with him was counting down. Again. On a slower scale than that night she’d thought would be all she’d have of him, but counting down still. And when their time ran out, it would break them both.
But she couldn’t think of that now. She was bound on filling every second they had left with wonder and happiness and pleasure. Maybe if they charged every cell they could with love and closeness and cherishing, they might be able to endure the desolation of a life without each other.
She opened the front door to his villa, knowing she’d find it empty. He wasn’t here. A message ten minutes ago had told her he’d been detained, but would be there soon. And that he adored her.
She sighed in anticipation, soaking up the masculine elegance surrounding her. Acres of polished marble the color of the awe-inspiring beaches just steps from the back porch, whitewashed walls, deep brown furniture the color of the palm trees that seemed to form a natural fortress wall around the villa, and accents in gradations of emerald like the breathtaking sea that greeted her from every window, spreading to the horizon.
“I was told, but I couldn’t believe it.”
For the moment it took the words to sink into her brain, she had the conviction that Shaheen’s voice was the one that caressed her ears and slid down every inch of her skin, his presence that reached out to envelop her.
But even before she spun around, she knew. It was almost Shaheen’s voice, almost his presence. But it wasn’t him.
This voice had the same beauty and depth and influence, but instead of warmth it held an arctic chill, instead of emotion there was a void. This presence wasn’t permeated by humor and gentleness and compassion, but by sarcasm and aggression and cruelty. She knew who it was before she saw him.
Amjad.
Shaheen’s oldest brother. The crown prince of Zohayd. One of the most unstoppable forces in the world of finance.
And the most feared man in the region.
Her jaw almost dropped as she watched him approach her with the languid, majestic prowl of a stalking tiger.
This must be what a fallen angel looked like. Impossible beauty, hair-raising aura. His luminescent emerald eyes were said to be the only of their kind in the Aal Shalaan family in five centuries, inherited directly from Ezzat Aal Shalaan, the founder of Zohayd. Many even said Amjad was his replica, with the same imposing physique, frightening intelligence and overwhelming charisma. Some believed he was Ezzat reincarnated.
It was also said their lives followed much the same lines. Ezzat’s first wife had also plotted to murder him.
But that was where their destinies diverged. Ezzat had found his true love only a year after aborting the plot against his life, had lived with her in harmony from the time he’d married her at thirty-one till the day he’d died at eighty-five.
Amjad had exposed his treacherous wife eight years ago, and there was no sign that he’d find someone to love. In fact, from what she’d heard, he seemed determined to wrestle destiny into submission, thwarting any of its attempts to bring him any measure of closeness again.
“Now I see that what I thought to be ridiculous hyperbole is actually pathetic understatement. You’ve become a goddess, Johara.”
Johara blinked at Amjad, stunned.
His smile would probably cause a meltdown were any of Zohayd’s female population within sight and earshot. But it shocked her to see that predatory sensuality on the face of the man she’d always considered her oldest brother.
Not knowing what to say to that, she said what she did feel. “It’s so good to see you, Amjad.”
His eyes crinkled, making them even more chilling. “Is it?”
She swallowed, suddenly feeling like a mouse about to be made a bored cat’s swatting toy. “Yes, of course. It’s been so many years. You’re looking well.”
“Just well?” Amjad’s spectacular lips turned down in a pout. “I usually get a more…enthusiastic response from the ladies.”
She cleared her throat. “You know how you look, Amjad. Surely the last thing a man of your caliber needs is an ego stroke.”
“Ouch.” He winced, looking anything but hurt, the calculation in his eyes growing more cutting. “But then again, an ego stroke from a woman of your caliber is something to be coveted. Any kind of stroke would be…most welcome.”
She gaped as he stopped barely a foot away, tried to step back. He stepped forward, maintaining the suffocating nearness.
She, too, had thought the tales she’d heard about him had been exaggerations. They were absolute under-statements. This close, she got a good look at what Amjad had become.
It was as if his magnificent body was a shell, housing an entity of overpowering intellect and annihilating disdain. He’d used to be a loving, outgoing, deeply passionate and committed man. The woman who’d tried to poison him might have failed to kill him, but she’d poisoned his soul and killed off everything that had made him the incredible force for good he’d once been.
Regret squeezed her heart.
Suddenly every hair on her body stood on end, in sheer shock.
His hand slid around her waist, tugged her flush against his hardness from breast to knee.
She froze, unable to even breathe.
At last, she choked out, “Amjad, please, don’t—”
He pressed her closer. “Don’t what,
ya joharti?
”
Hearing Shaheen’s endearment for her from anyone else would have startled her. Hearing it from Amjad, spoken with that insolent familiarity, seriously disturbed her.
He didn’t disgust her. It was impossible for him to do so; he was Shaheen’s flesh and blood. He was like
her
brother, even if he was behaving as anything but. She only felt so sad she wanted to weep. Then she got mad.
She pushed at him with all her strength. “Don’t call me that. I’m not your anything.”
She could have been fighting a brick wall. His hold didn’t even loosen. He even pulled her closer. “Not yet. But I can be. Your everything, if you only say the word. I can give you everything, Johara. Just name it and it’s yours.”
Mortification washed over her as the full realization of what he was doing here radiated outward, drenching her in a storm of goose bumps. “Please…don’t do this.”
He caught her hands, dragged her arms around his neck, held them in place with one hand, the other keeping her head prisoner as he swooped down and latched his lips to her exposed neck. She might have cried out, but the next second, thunder drowned out all her efforts.
“
B’haggej’jaheem,
what are you
doing?
”
One hand was still locking both of hers around his neck. He brought the other one up and her horror deepened. To any onlooker—to Shaheen—it would seem as if he were unclasping the hands she had clamped there of her own will.
Then Amjad moved aside, affording her a direct look at Shaheen. He was standing under the arch between the foyer and the expansive sitting area. She would have sobbed if she hadn’t been struck mute. She’d never imagined Shaheen looking like that. He looked…frightening.
“Shaheen, you’re home early.” Amjad turned to his younger brother in a sweep of pure grace and power, unperturbed, imperturbable. “Johara and I were getting…reacquainted.”
Inside, she was screaming.
Don’t believe him.
Outside, she could only watch his reaction in mounting horror. Then realization descended and she gave up trying to break out of her paralysis.
Maybe this was for the best. Shaheen’s best. If he believed Amjad, he’d be hurt, betrayed. But he’d eventually be free of his love for her. Free of her. She wished that for him, the peace and freedom she’d never have.
Shaheen moved then, walked up to them. Even with desperation descending on her, his every step closer thudded in her now stampeding heart like the ticking of a time bomb. And he didn’t even meet her eyes. He kept his locked on his older brother’s.
Then he stopped, his gaze moving to the arm maintaining a hold on her waist. Without raising his eyes again he said, “Take your hand off Johara, Amjad. Or have every bone in it broken.”
She shuddered. His voice was now as pitiless as Amjad’s. Worse. Laden with barely contained aggression.
Amjad finally let go of her, raised both hands up in a cross between mock placation and false surrender. “Intense. And here I thought you were gentleman enough not to make this more…awkward than it is. So, little brother, is this your way of laying claim to a woman? Threatening other men off? Afraid if you let her choose which man best fulfills her…needs, she won’t choose you? So it is like Johara said. You are leaving her no choice but to succumb to your…attentions.”
“One more word and you’ll be flat on your back with a broken jaw, spitting out blood and teeth.”
“I should have believed you when you told me what a caveman he was being.” Amjad’s ruthlessly handsome face shifted from chillingly sincere as he addressed her to devilishly goading as he turned to Shaheen. “That was over a dozen words, by the way.”
Shaheen pounced, grabbed Amjad by his casual yet superbly cut zippered black sweater. Every nerve in her body slackened as the two majestic forces of nature prepared to collide.
They were equal in every way, so similar, yet seemed like opposites. Even in his fury, Shaheen’s spirit shone untarnished, radiating a spectrum of positive vibes and influences, while Amjad’s emptiness seemed to suck all light and life from his surroundings, to turn everything dark and hopeless.
After a breathless moment of tension as she trembled with the need to throw herself between them but forced herself to let this unfold without her intervention, with a mutter of disgust, Shaheen pushed Amjad away so hard that his older brother took several steps backward to steady himself.
“You’re not worth it,” Shaheen hissed.
“Go ahead, make me the villain here. But this was mutual.”
Shaheen bared his teeth on a fed-up grimace. “Shut
up.
”
“Or what? You’ve already decided not to sully your hands with my blood.” Amjad straightened his clothes, swept the hair that had rained down his face to frame his slashed cheekbones back in place. “I didn’t know you were that involved, but maybe it’s for the best. You really have to be objective, Shaheen. A woman has a right to look out for her best interests. Johara is justified in looking out for number one and going out
for
number one. And let’s face it. With your problems, you don’t make the grade.”
Shaheen gave a vicious snort. “Save your venom, Amjad, even if you have an unlimited supply of it. You must be far less shrewd and insightful than I gave you credit for if you believe for a second I’m buying this farce you staged.”
Amjad gave him a pitying glance. “Is that what you’re hoping this is? Something I staged? How would I have staged her arms around me when you walked in?”
“Knowing you, you bulldozed her into it. Knowing her, she was too considerate of who you are—to me, and to her in the past—to blast you off the face of the earth as you deserve.” Shaheen suddenly seemed to think Amjad deserved no more attention, swung to her, his face transforming in a heartbeat from intolerant and unforgiving to the very sight of tenderness and concern. “I’m so sorry,
ya joharet galbi,
that I exposed you to this indignity.”
Overwhelmed, she whispered, “You didn’t do anything…”
“It is on my account that Amjad has insulted you, in an effort to plant doubt in my mind about your feelings and intentions toward me.”
“You realized what he… You know that I…” She choked, unable to go on. That he trusted her, didn’t even pause to question…
All thought of giving him up for his own good forgotten, she threw herself into his arms, breath gone, her heart fracturing at his feet from too much love. He soothed her with gentle caresses, his words of love and apology unceasing. “I’ll always know what’s in your heart. You
are
my heart.”
“My, Shaheen…” Amjad’s sarcasm fractured their moment of communion. “This has to set a new world record for patheticness. Think, little brother. Why is she back now of all times? Contrary to you, she knows you’re not as clever as you think you are, that we were bound to find out about your ‘secret’ arrangement.”
Shaheen turned to Amjad, never loosening his hold on her. “We? You mean Father knows, too?”
Amjad gave a denigrating huff. “With the hoops you’re making him hop through and the condition he’s been in since Aliyah and Anna returned? Nah. But if
I
put his and hers together when I saw her coming back to the palace all flushed and flustered yesterday while you were pointedly away, I’m sure others of lesser insight will catch on and connect the dots.”
Shaheen shook his head in amazement. “So enlighten me, Amjad. What is Johara’s plan, in your opinion?”
Amjad sighed as if he had to explain that things fell down or water was wet to a moron. “She’s after a ransom. Yours. I was pretending to offer her myself in return for unhooking you from her claws when you interrupted.”
Shaheen massaged her waist, as if to erase Amjad’s accusations and disdain. “But I didn’t interrupt. You dragged me away on a wild-goose chase, waited for Johara, timed your performance so I’d walk in to see her presumably in your arms. And you thought I’d charge in and accuse her of betraying me.”
Amjad looked the image of uncaring boredom. “Would have been less…traumatic for you lovebirds if you had. Pity. I gave ‘nice’ a shot. I should have stuck with my forte—nasty. Now I will.”
“First, you’ll do nothing, Amjad. Second, if Johara wanted to be bribed to leave gullible me alone, why do you think she insisted on all this secrecy?”
Amjad gave him a ridiculing look. “Because letting you loose when you believe she walks on water will fetch a far higher price. And it worked. I was willing to pay top dollar.”
Shaheen only laughed at that, looked down at her, no longer seething with affront, but highly entertained. “What would it cost for you to let go of me,
ya joharti?”
A smile twisted with a wince on her lips. “You know.”
Shaheen stilled them in a fierce kiss before he looked back at Amjad. “Only I can make her let go of me, Amjad. And I’m never letting her go. So why don’t you get down on your knees and beg Johara’s forgiveness, then get out of here?”
Amjad huffed in disgust. “She really has you clinging around her pinky with your face smashed against it, doesn’t she? Fine. Every man has a right to choose his poison. But risking war for her? Tsk.”
“If you’re so concerned about war, why don’t you do something about it? Break your pathetic vow never to marry again and take one of those brides they want to shove down my throat.”
“Oh, I did break it, when I saw you kicking and screaming. I thought as crown prince they’d jump at my offer. But father came back to me with the consensus within an hour. No bride will have me. They believe I’ll go all Shahrayar or Othello on them. Even if their families are willing to sacrifice their daughters at the altar of my madness, the families think I’ll turn on the next of kin. Comes from being viewed as a force that can’t be approached let alone harnessed and profited from, I guess.”
Shaheen guffawed. “Aw, thanks for trying to spare me
that
at least. But I’m so glad you’re not shocked that you were turned down. You
have
been tearing through the kingdom—and the world—with borderline sane actions and insane gambles.”
Amjad’s gaze grew more ridiculing. “Really? Then how has each one paid off big-time? Maybe I’m not as irrational as you all like to think I am. Digest this and gain new insight into your mad brother’s actions and convictions. You’ll find I’m right about other things, too.” He flicked Johara a just-wait-until-I’m-through-with-you look. “Her, for instance. Even if you can’t think so now, being caught in her love spell.”
Johara saw Shaheen’s eyes soften. “It’s you who are under a spell—of hatred. You knew and loved Johara once, too. Yet you can’t access that knowledge or that love because of the paranoia you’ve been trapped in since Salmah. You will never understand that I’d mistrust myself before I would Johara. I trust her with my life, and far more.”
Amjad pretended to dust himself off. “Yuck. All that sticky nonsense will take some heavy-duty sense to wash off. Well, you go ahead and smother yourself in her honey trap for now, while I—”
He stopped, turned his head. Then she, too, heard what had caught his attention. A faraway drone. It was getting louder, nearer by the second. In moments, it was unmistakable.
A helicopter.
Amjad turned back, derision turning his beauty into that of an unrepentant devil. “Uh-oh. Sounds like the cavalry have realized what you’re up to and are charging here to save you from your mushy heart and malfunctioning mind.”
Giving him one last impatient look, Shaheen clasped her hand and led her to the western veranda, where she noticed for the first time a clearance that must be a launching/landing pad.
It was. In seconds, the helicopter landed there. As the rotors winded down, a very tall, broad man jumped down from the pilot’s side. He rushed to the passenger’s side to help a woman down, his movements as tender as Shaheen’s were with her. She worked out the woman’s identity when she recognized the man. Kamal Aal Masood, the king of Judar.
Sure enough, Aliyah came into view, proving Johara’s deduction. And deepening her agitation.
From the grim expression on Aliyah’s face as she approached the villa with her juggernaut of a husband, Johara knew that her reason for interrupting them the other night hadn’t been resolved. And Johara was certain that it concerned her. Probably Amjad’s same concern. And Aliyah was back to broach the subject with Shaheen, with a one-man army as reinforcement.
The regal couple walked into the villa. Shaheen received them with her at his side, hugging them both and introducing her to Kamal. Kamal gallantly kissed her hand. Aliyah gave her the accustomed three kisses, one on one cheek, two on the other. It all seemed genial enough, but Johara vibrated with the tension radiating from the couple, from the whole scene.
Amjad advanced on them, pulled Aliyah in for a quick kiss, thumped Kamal on the back, then got to the point without preamble, breaking the stilted cordiality. “So, Kamal, what warrants the presence of the king of Judar on our soil and on such a clandestine visit, too?”
Kamal gave Amjad a smile that echoed his own, that of a man who knew his own power to its last iota, was versed in wielding it to its most destructive limits, who tolerated nothing but his own way, always. “So which part of ‘clandestine’ don’t you get, Amjad?”
Aliyah arched an exquisite eyebrow at him. “Yes, Amjad, if we wanted you to be involved, we wouldn’t have come here.”
Amjad held a hand to his heart as if Aliyah had shot him there with a barb. “Whoa. My little cousin-turned-sister has grown some sharp fangs. Especially with your weapon-of-mass-destruction husband at hand.”
Kamal coughed a laugh. “If you think she’s baring her fangs because I’m here, then you should be reintroduced to your little cousin-turned-sister. I’m the one who holds her back when she wants to rip you to shreds. You remind her too much of me before she…unscrambled me.”
Amjad gave him a look of mock sweetness, belittlment blaring in it. “Yes, I can see you’re all ‘fixed.’”
Aliyah harrumphed. “You should be so lucky to find someone who’d ‘fix’ you, too, Amjad.”
“How about I pass, sis? For the next few rein carnations.”
Kamal stepped nearer, his smile becoming as confrontational as Amjad’s was disparaging. “How about I ‘fix’ you myself?”