in Azmahar. She’d thanked the fates for the job that had gotten her mother and herself here. When they were invited to that ball, she’d felt like a Disney heroine entering a world of wonders way beyond her wildest dreams. The impression had grown stronger when she’d met Jalal.
Then she’d seen Haidar.
Just the sight of him, an apparition of aloof, distant grandeur, had kicked to life every contradictory emotion inside her. She’d bristled with defensiveness, burned with challenge and melted with desire.
Jalal turned to her now, taking his account from the profoundly personal to the shared past. “I saw your instant attraction to him, and out of habit, I challenged him for you. We both know how far he took that challenge. But I swear to you, I forgot that silly bet in minutes. Everything you and I shared was real. You were the friend I could share everything with, the sister I never had.”
And he’d been her confidant, champion and the brother she’d always longed for.
Still afraid of reopening her heart and letting him seal the hole losing him had blown in it, she narrowed her eyes. “So why did you wait six years to approach me? And even then, give up after just one phone call?”
“Because after you walked out and didn’t call me, I assumed you’d overheard us and included me in your hostility. My first impulse was to run to you, tell you what I just told you now. But as I was heading out to your house the next morning, I learned that your mother had been … dishonorably discharged. I held back then because I believed further contact with me might cause you more … damage.”
She blinked her surprise. “Why did you think that?”
“Didn’t you ever suspect why your mother was fired?”
“Sure I did. I suspected Haidar.”
It was his turn to be shocked. “You thought he was punishing you for walking out on him through her?”
“You find that far-fetched?”
He clearly did, found her suspicion very disturbing. “I prefer to think there are some lines he wouldn’t cross.”
“You think seducing me for a bet was an okay line to cross, but destroying my mother’s career to get back at me wasn’t?”
“I …” He drove his fingers into his sable mane in agitation. “I guess it’s not impossible, considering he must have been enraged at the time, but it just doesn’t … feel like him.”
“So if it wasn’t Haidar you were worried would harm us more if you maintained a relationship with me, who were you afraid of?”
“My mother.” He grimaced when her jaw dropped. “I don’t have proof, but I felt her hand in this. She employed similar tactics to drive those she didn’t approve of away from Haidar and me. Again, I never found proof, but I just knew she was behind all those incidents. That’s why I ventured to contact you only when she was exiled. Until then, there was no telling how far she’d go if she learned you were still in my life.”
She gaped at him. This was a scenario she hadn’t considered. Not because she didn’t have the worst possible opinion of former queen Sondoss. But she’d thought the queen had already been done with her, had no more reason to go after her or her own.
Then again, knowing that woman, why not?
Could it be? All these years she’d been so busy demonizing Haidar, she’d missed the mother of all demons at work?
Feeling her entrenched convictions being uprooted, leaving her in a free fall of new confusion, she released a tremulous breath. “You’ve got yourself one effed-up family, Jalal.”
“Tell me about it.”
She teetered on the verge of throwing herself into his arms and hugging the despondency out of him.
One more thing first. “So why didn’t you persist, after your mother was out of the picture and I was no longer in her range?”
His look of self-blame almost made her stop him from answering. “Because I was going through some … heavy stuff, with Haidar, with … other people, and I acutely felt the kind of anger and hurt that could fuel your hanging up on me after six years. I thought I’d be a reminder of your worst memories after you’d moved on. I was also not in any shape to take more emotional upheavals at that time.”
Her hands fisted on the urge to reach out. “What’s changed?”
“You did.” His golden eyes blazed with pride and fondness so powerful and pure, hers started burning. “You came back. It proved to me you’re ready to face your demons, to snatch what you deserve from their fangs. I now think having me back in your life won’t resurrect painful memories—you’re ready to remember the good ones and form new and better ones. And I have also changed. I’m removed enough from my ‘effed-up’ family that I can be your haven again. And the big gun in your camp.”
The tears she’d been holding back for eight years cascaded down her cheeks. He reached for her as she did him, took her into his long-missed affection and protection.
He kissed the top of her head. “Does this mean you believe me?”
She raised a face trembling with mirth and emotion. “What else could it mean, you big, wonderful wolf?”
“That you’re too softhearted, that you forgive me even if you still believe I befriended you to seduce you away from Haidar.”
She smirked, poked her finger into that dimple in his left cheek. “As if you could have seduced me. Or even wanted to.”
His smile was relief itself. “Aih, I would have found Haidar’s accusations hilarious, if I hadn’t been so incensed with him. You felt like my real twin from the first time we met, ya azeezati.”
A sob escaped her at hearing him call her “my dearest” again. “You don’t know how much I missed you … ya azeezi.”
“That’s it?” he mock reprimanded her. “You’re taking me back into your heart? And I’d hoped you’d grown as diamond-hard as the exterior you project. You still have a gooey center.”
She knew what he was doing. He was taking this away from acute emotions, even if the positive, wonderful variety. “Takes one mushy core to know another.” She jumped to her feet, dragged him up with both hands. “I didn’t have breakfast yet. Share it?”
His grin lit up the whole world. “Sure will. I haven’t eaten a thing since yesterday, dreading this confrontation.”
“Says the man who once went swimming with sharks.”
“Azeezati, first, that was for a zillion dollars in donations for your list of causes. Second, your possible rejection—and worse, my inability to heal your pain—were far scarier propositions than being gnawed on by sharks.”
She kissed him soundly on the cheek for that.
For the next hour, they talked and laughed and shared news and opinions as if they’d never stopped. It felt like being in the past, when she’d raced through her work so she could run to her squash date whenever he was in the
