Kitabı oku: «The Royal House of Karedes: The Desert Throne», sayfa 8

Kareef threw his linen napkin on his plate and went to her.

The shadows were dark and deep as he made his way through the ballroom. All the audience was mesmerized by the intricacies of a dance with flames and swords, set to the haunting melody of the jowza and santur. Kareef was invisible in the darkness. He passed many whispered conversations that he knew would never be spoken before the king.

“…Jasmine Kouri,” he heard a woman hiss, and in spite of himself, he slowed to listen. “Spending every day with him at the palace—and nights, too, I wager. The king’s a good, honorable man but when a woman is so determined to spread her legs…”

“And her an engaged woman!” came the spiteful reply. “She’s made a fool out of Umar Hajjar for wanting to marry her. You remember that scandal when she was young? She was bad from the start.”

“She’ll get her comeuppance. Wait and see.…”

Hands clenched, Kareef whirled to see who was speaking, but the women’s voices faded and blended into the rest of the crowd. He saw only moving shadows.

Oh God, give him an honest fight! A fight where he could face his enemy—not the whisper of spiteful gossips in the dark!

He was still trembling with fury when he reached the lower tables of the ballroom. He whispered Jasmine’s name silently. He craved her touch, yearned to have her in his arms. He yearned to keep her safe, to somehow give her shelter from the cruel words.

But when he reached for her chair, it was empty.

The instant the musicians entered the ballroom with their guitars, dulcimers and flutes in an eerie, haunting accompaniment to dancing swords of fire in the abruptly darkened ballroom, Jasmine bolted from her seat.

The banquet had been hell. She’d heard whispers and caught stares in her direction—some curious, some envious, a few hateful. It was clear that in spite of the fact that she and Kareef had neither kissed nor slept in the same bed since they’d returned to the palace, everyone already believed she was his lover. And they blamed her—only her—for that sin.

On her right side at the table, a fat, balding man had leered at her throughout the meal. On her left, a plain woman had stiffened in her mousy brown suit and pointedly ignored her for a solid hour.

Jasmine had watched Kareef across the ballroom. He was clearly adored and praised by his subjects, and he accepted their attention carelessly, as his due.

Kareef didn’t need her in his life, whatever he might say. He was surrounded by people begging for his attention, including the virginal blonde princess seated beside him. She was the type of woman he no doubt would marry—very soon.

She’d fled as soon as the ballroom went dark. She’d been desperate to escape before anyone could see her tears. But as soon as she was in the hallway, she felt a hand on her shoulder and whirled around, her hands tightened into fists.

Then her hands grew lax. Her body went numb.

“Father,” she whispered. “What are you doing here?”

Yazid Kouri seemed to have aged in just the last few days, his once-powerful frame grown stooped and thin. He looked her over from her careful chignon to the black formal dress she’d borrowed from her old friend Sera for the occasion.

He gave a harsh laugh. “Why did you come back here?”

“You know why—”

“I thought you’d at last become a respectable, dutiful girl.” He shook his head, his black eyes suspiciously bright. “Why would you agree to marry a respectable man, only to betray him with the king before you have even spoken your vows?”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand!”

“Tell me you’ve never lain with the king,” he said. “Tell me it’s just an ugly rumor, and I’ll believe you.”

Blinking fast, she looked away. Her father’s disappointment hurt her so badly she could hardly bear it. “I’ve betrayed no one except myself. There is no shame if I am with the king, not when he…not when we…”

Not when we’re married. But the words caught at her throat. She couldn’t reveal their secret. The king’s word of honor was admired around the world. How could she reveal that he’d hidden such a secret for thirteen years?

As a girl, she’d remained silent to protect him.

As a woman, she still would.

“You see nothing wrong in sleeping with a man who is not your husband?” her father continued, his voice sodden with grief. “That sort of behavior might be acceptable in the modern world, but not in our family. Your sister needs you. Marry Umar. Return to New York with your new husband and family. Help Nima raise her child!”

Jasmine’s jaw dropped. “You’ve spoken to her?”

“She called us two hours ago.” He looked away, his jaw clenching. “She says she doesn’t know how to be a mother. She’s threatening to give the child to strangers when it’s born! She’s scared. She’s so young.”

Fury suddenly raced through Jasmine, fury she could not control. She raised her head.

“Just as I was!” she cried. “I was sixteen when you threw me out of our family, out of our country!”

“I was angry,” he whispered. Tears filled his bleary eyes. “I had different expectations of you, Jasmine. You were my eldest. You had such intelligence, such strength. I took so much pride in you. Then…it all fell apart.”

Her heart turned over in her chest.

“Go back to New York as a married woman. Steady Nima with your strength.” His eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Tomorrow, I will be in Qais, expecting to see a wedding.”

Turning to leave, he stopped when he saw Kareef standing behind them, his body tense in the ceremonial white robes.

Her father’s face went almost purple. Distraught, he raised his fists against the much taller, stronger man. “I should kill you for the way you’ve shamed my daughter!”

Kareef didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. He just stood there, waiting to accept the blow.

Her father dropped his fists. Tears streaked down his wrinkled face.

“You’re no king,” he said hoarsely, his voice shaking with grief. “You’re not even a man.”

Turning on his heel, he stumbled down the palace hallway.

Jasmine watched him. When he was gone, she crumpled. Kareef pulled her into his arms and held her fast as she cried.

Softly stroking her head, he looked down at her, cupping her face with his hands. His eyes were deep and dark as he wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. He took a deep breath. Then his shoulders fell in resignation.

“Come with me,” he whispered.

In the ballroom behind them, she could still hear the eerie music and shouts of the performers behind the closed doors. But Kareef led her down the dark hallway, passing several servants who pretended not to notice, who pretended not to see that the king had left his own banquet with a woman who belonged to another.

Kareef took her down the hallway into the east wing, into his bedchamber. Closing the door behind them, he set her down on the enormous bed.

Sitting on the bed beside her, he leaned over and kissed her. Tears streamed unchecked down her face as she kissed him back with all her heart. Everything she felt for him, all the tenderness of a young girl’s dreams and the fire of a woman’s desire, came through in her kiss.

His enormous gilded bedroom was dark. The balcony window was open, and a hot desert wind blew in from the garden, along with the noise, sudden explosions of laughter and applause from the ballroom on the floor below. But they were a world apart.

Gently, tenderly, he lay her back against his bed and made love to her one last time. The ecstasy of her body was as sharp as the pain in her heart.

I love you, her soul cried. I love you. But she knew her love changed nothing.

When he brought her to aching, gasping fulfillment, she wept. For a moment, he held her tightly against his chest, in his arms, as if he never wanted to let her go.

Then he slowly rose from the bed. He put on his clothes. Without looking at her, he went to an antique, jeweled chest beside the bookshelf. He twisted a key in the lock and opened it. Reaching inside, he pulled something out and returned to where she sat, clothed and numb on the bed.

He held out her emerald necklace, dangling it from his hand. She stared at the green facets of the stone, without moving.

He took her hand and placed the emerald in her palm, folding her fingers over the gold chain.

She heard the ragged gasp of his breath. Then his posture became hard as granite. He placed his hand over hers. When he spoke, his voice was deep and cold, echoing in the cavernous royal bedchamber.

“Jasmine, I divorce you.”

CHAPTER NINE

THE next morning, Jasmine stepped out of the helicopter, craning her neck to stare up at the modern, gleaming racetrack that split the desert flatlands from the wide loneliness of the blue sky.

Qais. The desert she loved. But now the freedom had a sting. Horizons stretched out around her, mocking her as she stood dressed from head-to-toe in clothes chosen for her by someone else.

Her clothes had finally arrived from Paris, and she was now dressed to please her future husband, in a belted red silk dress from Christian Dior, Christian Louboutin black heels, a black vintage Kelly bag and a wide-brimmed black-and-white hat. Her beautiful designer clothes felt like a costume from the 1950s, stylish and severe.

She no longer had freedom here. Not even in the clothes she wore.

Jasmine looked up at the glass stadium that Kareef and Umar had built together. It wasn’t the only thing the two men would soon share. When the Qais Cup was over, her wedding would begin.

Kareef followed her with the rest of his bodyguards and assistants. She saw him hesitate, then grimly push forward. What more was there to say?

He’d already given the bride away.

Jasmine stared at his tense, muscular back as he walked ahead of her. She memorized the turn of his head, the line of his jaw. The shape of his supremely masculine body as he walked in his white robes.

Unwillingly, she remembered the feel of his naked body against her own. The sweet satisfied ache of pain as he possessed her, the way her lips felt bruised from his kiss, her inner thighs scratched from the sandpaper-roughness of his jaw. The memory made her body tighten with a rush of heat, even as her soul shook with the anguish of loss.

With a deep breath, she forced herself to look up.

Rising from the desert, the glass stadium competed with the blinding sun for brilliance. But even the desert sun couldn’t burn away the taste of Kareef, the exotic scent of his skin. It couldn’t burn away the memory of his hard body covering hers. Or the look in his blue eyes last night when he’d spoken the words to divorce her.

“My dear.” Umar stepped forward from a private side door of the stadium and leaned forward to kiss her cheek gently. “I am so glad to see you at last.”

In spite of his words, he looked pale. As he pulled away from her, she made no move to kiss him back, no attempt to even smile. “Where have you been, Umar?”

Umar’s pale cheeks turned pink. “France,” he muttered. “There was a family emergency. With Léa.”

“With your nanny?” Jasmine said. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine. Fine,” he said with an uneven smile. He seemed strangely nervous and jittery compared to the urbane, sophisticated man she knew.

Turning away, he started walking, practically running toward the door, though propriety demanded that the king should have gone first. They had to hurry to keep up with him, or else be left behind.

“And that’s all you have to say to me?” she demanded.

“The race is about to start.” Umar glanced back at her, his nose wrinkling like a rabbit’s before he sighed. “When it’s over, we’ll talk.”

Jasmine stared at him. Had he heard the rumors about her and Kareef being lovers? Did he no longer wish to marry her?

Was he going to abandon her at the altar, to her family’s eternal shame?

“Wait,” she choked out. “Whatever you’ve heard, I can explain—”

“Later.” Umar hurried toward the door. “Your family is already here. I had them seated in a place not too far from the royal box, in a place of honor.” He paused. “I’ll be sitting with my children in the box next to yours. You’re in the royal box with the king.”

So he’d heard!

“Wait!” she cried. “You don’t understand!”

Kareef came up behind her. “Afraid to be alone with me?” he said in a low voice.

She glanced back at him, and trembled at the darkness in his blue eyes. She swallowed, fighting back tears. This was hard. So much harder than she’d thought it would be!

“Is my arrangement acceptable, my king?” Umar asked Kareef with a bow of his head.

Kareef answered with a single hard nod, then looked back at Jasmine with glittering eyes.

Divorced. They were divorced. But that hadn’t changed her feelings. It didn’t keep her body from crying out for his touch. The divorce changed nothing.

“Thank you, sire.” Umar ducked inside the grandstand.

She felt Kareef’s fierce blue gaze upon her like the merciless desert sun, charring her soul, turning it to dust. He glowered, then walked past her.

Lifting her chin, she put one hand on her head, balancing her wide-brimmed hat as she followed him through the private door and up the stairs. They passed through an enclosed, air-conditioned private room with a one-way mirror overlooking the track, and finally came out into the open-air royal box.

Kareef went outside first.

When he was visible to the crowds in the stadium, forty thousand people rose to their feet, screaming his name.

He raised his hand to them.

The screaming intensified.

Coming out into the royal box behind him, Jasmine pressed her hand against her belly, holding her black handbag against her body like a shield against the roar of the crowd.

She looked at his beautiful, savage face. Saw the lines of strength and wisdom at his eyes, saw the powerful jut of his jawline. Honor was the heart of who he was.

She’d done the right thing, no matter how it killed her.

She’d set him free to be the king he was born to be.

Kareef finally sat down and she sank into the chair beside him. She was aware of him at every moment but didn’t look in his direction. Instead, she pressed her fingers against her wide-brimmed hat, blocking the sun from her eyes as she stared out at the racetrack.

Thousands of people stared back at her. Sitting beside the handsome, powerful young king, Jasmine knew she must appear to be very fortunate. Even though some of the older women whispered maliciously behind their hands, she could see their modern daughters looking at her belted, form-fitting red silk dress and handbag with envy. Looking at her expensive, pretty clothes and the handsome, powerful man beside her, they were no doubt thinking a lost reputation would be a small price to pay for such a glamorous life.

If only they knew what Jasmine really felt like on the inside. The truth was that she wished she had a spoon, so she could cut her heart out with it.

Beautiful clothes, wealth, attention and power—none of that mattered. Not when she couldn’t have the man she loved.

“Did you sleep well?” Kareef said in a low voice beside her.

“Yes,” she lied over the lump in her throat, turning away as she fought back tears. “Very well.”

The gunshot sounded the start of the race, and the horses bolted from the gates.

She felt the hot burn of Kareef’s gaze on her. Felt it by the way her neck prickled. By the way her nipples tightened and her breasts became heavy. She fanned herself with a program, sweating from a blast of heat that had nothing to do with the white desert sun above the grandstand.

In the next box over, she could see Umar sitting with his four young sons. The two-year-old baby was snuggled contentedly in the lap of the French nanny, Léa, who while not strictly pretty, had a sweet look to her plump face. She was only a few years older than Jasmine. Umar sat back in his chair until the horses pounded by their seats in a loud torrent of thundering hooves, and he rose to his feet, shouting at his horse in a mixture of cursing and praise.

The four boys were all adorable, Jasmine thought. She would soon be their stepmother. But even that thought didn’t cheer her as it used to. None of the children wanted her. They already seemed to have a mother—Léa.

As the horses neared the finish line, Umar gripped the railing, pumping his fist in the air as he watched. “Go! Go, damn you!”

Jasmine saw her mother and father sitting in a different section with her sisters, along with her sisters’ husbands and children. She hesitantly lifted her hand in greeting at her father.

Her father scowled at her in the royal box. He coldly turned his head away.

Jasmine set her shoulders. It didn’t matter, she told herself over the lump in her throat. Once she was married—if Umar still married her—her father would finally be proud of her. She would do the right thing. Even if it killed her.

She heard Umar shout with delight, heard him clap his hands. His horse had won. Ruffling the hair of one of his older sons, he rushed off to accept his prize, his children following behind with the nanny. Watching them, Jasmine felt more like an outsider than ever.

She rose to her feet and went to the front of the royal box. She watched Umar walking out onto the racetrack, waving to the crowd as he crossed the grass.

“It means nothing to you, does it,” Kareef said behind her in a low voice, “that you’ll give your body to him tonight, when you were in my bed only yesterday?”

She pretended to smile down at Umar on the racetrack as he exuberantly accepted flowers, patting his horse’s nose and shaking his jockey’s hand. “We are divorced,” she said, fighting to keep her voice even. “You mean nothing to me.”

“Don’t marry him, Jasmine.” His voice was hoarse and deep. She heard him rise from his chair. “Don’t.”

She saw her fiancé waving and smiling. He lifted his two-year-old son on his shoulder, and the crowd roared their approval.

She felt Kareef come up behind her, close enough to touch. She didn’t turn around. She couldn’t. The cheers of the crowd became deafening white noise, like static. Until all Jasmine could hear was the pounding of her own heart and the rush of blood in her ears.

She felt Kareef slowly pull off her wide-brimmed hat. The back of her neck was washed in the warmth of his breath. Her body tightened from her scalp to her breasts, and a sweet agonizing tension coiled low and deep inside her.

“Stay with me,” Kareef said in a low voice. “Not because you’re bound to me, but because it’s your free choice. Be my mistress.”

The king’s mistress.

For that kind of joy, Jasmine would have willingly sacrificed anything. Except one thing. Her gaze fell upon her family.

She squeezed her eyes closed. She’d thought she’d known pain before, but this was more than she could bear. With an intake of breath, she whirled around in his arms. Ripping the hat out of his grasp, she held it against her handbag as she backed away. “I can’t.”

“Jasmine—”

“Go back to the palace, Kareef,” she choked out. “Don’t stay for my wedding. It kills me to have you so close—don’t you see you’re killing me?”

She turned and rushed up the steps toward the air-conditioned private room, disappearing behind the door.

Kareef caught up with her almost instantly on the other side of the mirrored window. Grabbing her, he pushed her roughly against the wall. Both hat and handbag dropped hard on the floor. She struggled, but his hands wrapped around her wrists, holding her fast. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t escape. She couldn’t resist.

She braced for a savage plundering of her lips. She waited for him to crush her. Instead, he did something far worse. He lowered his mouth to hers in a kiss far more brutal than any mere force could ever be.

He kissed her…as if he loved her.

Kareef moved his hands over Jasmine’s red silk dress, savoring the feel of her curvaceous body in his arms. Relief filled him that she was back where she belonged. Desire sizzled through his veins like a drug as he tasted the exquisite sweetness of her lips.

He’d thought he’d almost lost her. He’d divorced her, as he’d given his word of honor to do. But he still wanted her. He wanted her to choose to be with him, of her own free will. To choose him over all other men, no matter how inconvenient or difficult their love might be.

Didn’t she realize that they’d already lost too many years of their lives apart?

She belonged to him. As he belonged to her.

He cupped her breasts through her dress, stroking her shoulders, her swanlike neck. He kissed her skin, biting almost hard enough to bruise. He wanted to mark his possession, to remove any memory of another man’s claim on her. To rip that damned diamond off her left hand.

“You belong to me,” he growled. “Say it.”

Her beautiful chocolate-brown eyes gleamed and shimmered, sliding over him with the sensuality of a hot desert night. His body’s memory of making love to her so many times, so urgently, roared through him like a blaze. His hands tightened.

“I belong to you,” she whispered with an intake of breath. “But Kareef, you must know that we—”

He stopped her with a hard kiss. He felt her tremble beneath him as he stroked her body through the red silk. He wrapped his hands in her lustrous dark hair, amid chestnut streaks like woven gold in the daylight.

They belonged together. Now, he would let the whole world know it. He would no longer hide his love for Jasmine in the shadows.

His love.

Oh my God. He loved her.

He didn’t just desire Jasmine. He didn’t just wish to spend his every moment with her.

He loved her. He’d never stopped loving her. It was why he’d never once felt tempted by the endless succession of women who’d tried to throw themselves into his bed. His body, his heart, were for one woman only.

Jasmine.

Even if it cost him his crown. Even if it cost him his life. He would have them together. In the open. In the sun.

Cupping her face, he kissed her tenderly, kissing her closed eyelids, her cheeks, her mouth. A sigh escaped her lips as she swayed in his arms, turning her face toward his.

He wrapped her left hand in his own, pressing it up against his heart as he looked down at her. “I’ll tell Hajjar the wedding is off.”

Smiling, he grasped the enormous diamond ring and started to draw it off her finger.

But she closed her hand into a fist. He stared at her in exasperation.

“Jasmine,” he demanded.

Her face was blank of expression as she shook her head.

“You will be my honored mistress,” he said, his brow furrowed. “My queen in all but name. There will be no more sneaking in the shadows, no shame for your family. I will treat you as the highest lady in the land, and the whole country will follow my lead.”

“And Umar?”

“He will forgive us.”

“And you?” She slowly looked up at him. “When you take your bride, Qusay’s queen? What will become of me then?”

He set his jaw. The thought made him sick.

“Perhaps I will die a bachelor,” he growled.

“But you need an heir,” she whispered.

He shrugged, a casual gesture that belied the repressed emotion in his eyes. “My brothers’ children can inherit,” he said lightly. “Or their grandchildren. I intend to live a very long life.”

“But your brothers are not even married. What makes you think they ever will be?”

He felt brief uncertainty, which swiftly changed to anger and impatience. “They will.”

“They don’t even care enough about Qusay to live here. Do you think Rafiq would give up his billiondollar business empire to come back from Australia and rule? And from what I’ve heard, Tahir is squandering his life away on the international party circuit—”

“People can change—”

“Are you willing to risk the throne of Qusay on that? To place that kind of burden on your younger brothers?” She shook her head desperately. “Even if they do someday have children or grandchildren…those grandchildren will know nothing of Qusay. You think our people would tolerate being ruled by someone ignorant of our languages, our customs?”

His jaw clenched as he looked away. When he looked back at her, his voice was full of agony he no longer tried to hide.

“Is there no chance you could get pregnant, Jasmine?” he said hoarsely. “Not even a small chance? We could see the best fertility specialist in the world, spare no expense, do whatever it took for you to bear my child—”

“No,” she said brutally. “I’ve visited some of the top obstetricians in Manhattan. I got second and third opinions. I can never get pregnant.” A sob rose to her lips. “I won’t destroy my family by becoming your mistress.” She wiped her eyes, lifting her chin. “I deserve more than that. And so do you,” she whispered.

He grabbed her shoulders savagely.

“I’ve waited for you for thirteen years. I’m not going to lose you again.” His hands tightened on her painfully. “Even if the whole world goes down in flames for it. I’m not going to let you go.”

She looked up at him, so impossibly beautiful. Unreachable.

Behind her, the bright flowers and garish red-and-gilt of the private room seemed flat, as if covered by dark mist. Outside the mirrored window, the green grass and brown horses and colorful shirts of the jockeys seemed to fade to black as Jasmine pushed away from him coldly, kneeling to pick up her hat and purse from the carpet.

“Marry another,” she said in a low voice, not looking at him. “Be the king you were born to be.”

He stared at her. “Is it so easy for you to thrust me into the arms of another?”

She sucked in her breath. Her eyes were stricken.

“No,” she choked out. “I hate the woman you’ll marry. Whoever she might be.”

“And I’ll hate any man who has you in his bed. Even the friend who saved my life.” He looked down at her, his jaw hard. “You won’t be my mistress. So there is only one answer. You will marry me.”

Her jaw dropped. “What?”

“Marry me. You must be my queen, Jasmine. Only you.”

Her eyes were huge. Then she seemed to shudder, blinking her eyes as if closing a door in her heart.

“It cannot be. You need an heir. If you married me—whatever you might think—you would be forced to abdicate.”

“I have the right to choose my own bride—”

“No,” she cut him off harshly. “You don’t.”

“But Jasmine…” he started, then stopped. He’d offered her everything. His kingdom. His name. He’d offered her everything he had, and she’d refused.

But he hadn’t offered her everything. There was one risk he hadn’t taken.

“But you have to marry me, Jasmine,” he said. “You have to be my wife, because I…” He took a deep breath and looked straight into her eyes. “I love you.”

Her eyes widened. He saw her tremble. Then slowly, ruthlessly, she squared her shoulders.

“Then you’re a fool,” she said evenly. “I pity you with all my heart.”

With a growl, he started toward her. “But you love me,” he said. “Tell the truth. You love me, as I love you!”

She held up her hand.

“The truth is that I want what you cannot give me.” Her voice was cold as ice, like a sharp icicle through his heart. “Marrying Umar might be my only chance to ever have children.” Her eyes narrowed as she delivered the killing blow. “You took away my chance to be a mother, Kareef,” she whispered. “You took away my chance to ever have a child.”

It was his greatest grief. His greatest fear. The guilty thought he’d whispered silently around the desert fire by night. Only this was a thousand times worse, since the accusation fell from the lips of the woman he loved.

His agonized blue eyes were focused on her. He took a single stumbling step backward, bumping a nearby silver champagne bucket on a table. It crashed to the floor in an explosion of ice. The bottle rolled against the wall, scattering ice and champagne across the carpet.

But he didn’t notice. Pain racked his body, ripping him into little pieces more completely and ruthlessly than any sandstorm.

You took away my chance to ever have a child.

Pain and grief poured through him, burning like lava.

She’d told him it had been an accident. She’d told him he was forgiven.

Lies—all lies!

Suddenly, he could not contain the rage and grief inside his own body. Savagely, he turned and smashed a hole in a nearby wall. She flinched back, gasping.

“Teach me how to feel nothing, like you,” he said in a low voice. “I’m tired of having a heart. From the moment I loved you, it has never stopped breaking.”

Walking away from her, he paused in the doorway without looking back. He didn’t want her to see his face. When he spoke, his voice was choked with grief.

“Goodbye, Jasmine,” he said, leaning his head against the door as he closed his eyes. “I wish you a life filled with every happiness.”

And he left her.