aching pain constricted his chest, but he ruthlessly pushed it down. For the past three weeks he’d indulged in a haze of unreality, in believing that perhaps he wasn’t as damned as he’d always believed. Bumping into Jamilah, seeing her again—seeing how utterly beautiful she’d become—had broken something open inside him. He’d had the gall to think for a second that some of her innately pure goodness could rub off on him.
When he’d seen Jamilah cross the street minutes before, a huge grin on her face, he’d realised that she’d meant what she’d said that morning—she was in love with him. He’d tried to block her words out all day, tried to reassure himself that she hadn’t meant it … tried to ignore the uncomfortable feeling of guilt and responsibility.
He’d felt in that moment as he’d watched her approach his apartment as if he was holding a tiny, delicate butterfly in his hands, which he could not fail to crush—even if he wanted to protect its fragile beauty.
Eloise, his colleague, who had followed him up to his apartment on the flimsy pretext of getting a document, had come on to him at that exact moment, her brash, over-confident sexuality in direct contrast to the subtle sensuality of the woman approaching his apartment. In that moment he’d known he had to let Jamilah go … so comprehensively that she would be left in no doubt that it was over. So when his concierge had confirmed that Jamilah was indeed coming up, he’d felt something shut down inside him. He would crush the butterfly to pieces. Because he had no choice—had nothing to offer other than a battered soul riven with dark secrets. He could not love.
For a long moment Salman said nothing, just looked at Jamilah until she felt dizzy. Perhaps she’d imagined the awful scene? His frosty manner? That woman … For a second she thought she saw something like regret in his eyes, but then Salman finally spoke, and he stuck the knife in so deep that Jamilah felt her heart slice in two.
‘I knew you were coming up. The concierge warned me.’ He shrugged, and she knew in that moment what real cruelty looked like. ‘I could have stopped myself from kissing Eloise, but I figured what was the point? Better that you find out now the kind of person I am.’
He twisted the knife.
‘This never should have happened. It was weak of me to seduce you.’
Immediately Jamilah read between those words: what he meant was it had been all too easy to seduce her.
‘You should leave. I imagine you have plenty to prepare for going back to Merkazad.’ His mouth was a thin line now. ‘Believe me, Jamilah, I’m not the kind of man who can give you what you want. I’m dark and twisted inside—not a knight in shining armour who will whisk you away into a romantic dream. This is over. I’ll be taking Eloise out tonight and getting on with my life. I suggest that you do the same.’
Numb all over, Jamilah said threadily, ‘I thought we were friends … I thought …’
‘What?’ he said harshly. ‘That just because we grew up in the same place and spent time together we would be friends for life?’
Something inside Jamilah wasn’t obeying her mental command to just shut up. ‘It was more than that … What we had was different. You spoke to me, spent time with me when you wouldn’t with anyone else … This last three weeks … I thought what we’d always shared had grown into something …’
A look of forbidding cold bleakness crossed Salman’s face, and finally Jamilah curbed her tongue, wondering why on earth she was laying herself bare like this.
‘You followed me around like a besotted puppy dog for years and I never had the heart to tell you to leave me alone. This last three weeks was about lust, pure and simple. You’ve grown into a beautiful woman and I desired you. Nothing more, nothing less.’
That was it. Whatever feelings Jamilah might have harboured for Salman over the years froze and withered to dust inside her. He’d also destroyed any halcyon memories she’d had of a bond between them. She forced words out through the excruciating pain. ‘You don’t need to say any more. I get the message. Whatever heart you may have once had is clearly gone. You’re nothing but a cold bastard.’
‘Yes, I am,’ Salman agreed, with an indefinable edge to his voice.
Jamilah finally managed to move, and turned round to go, stepping out of the destruction of the fallen shopping around her. She couldn’t even attempt to pick it up.
At the door she heard Salman say, with cynicism ringing in his voice, ‘Say hello to my beloved brother and Merkazad for me. I don’t intend seeing either any time soon.’
Or you. He didn’t have to say the words. They hung in the air. Jamilah opened the door and walked out, and didn’t look back once.
One year ago.
The Sultan of Al-Omar’s birthday celebrations were as lavish as ever. They were taking place in the stunning Hussein Palace, which was in the heart of the glittering metropolis of B’harani, right on the coast of the Arabian peninsula, about two hours drive from mountainous Merkazad.
One of the Sultan’s aides had been pursuing Jamilah on and off for years, and she’d finally relented and agreed to come to the party as his date. Her belly clenched now, because she had to acknowledge that the main motivation behind her decision to come was because Salman was going to be there.
Each year the tabloids across the globe exulted in reporting feverishly on which A-list beauty he’d decided to take as his new mistress. He never came to the party with anyone, but he always left with someone.
Her date had left her side for a moment in the thronged ballroom. It was the first night of celebrations which were meant to be for family and close friends only, but approximately two hundred people milled about the room.
Jamilah’s skin prickled, and she cursed herself for her rash decision. She’d taken it because in all the years since she’d last seen Salman in Paris she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head, and she’d started having dreams again. Dreams of when she was six years old and standing at her parents’ grave, when Salman had come to take her hand and infused her with a strength so palpable she’d never forgotten it.
She knew it was ridiculous, but she’d fallen in love with him at that moment. And even though she’d long since disabused herself of the notion that that childish love had grown and developed into something deeper, she couldn’t help her heart clenching at the evocative memory.
She cringed inwardly now when she thought of how her teenage years had been lifted out of the doldrums every time Salman had made a visit home from school in the UK, and she, tongue-tied and blushing, had been reduced to a puddle of hormones. But then his visits had become more and more infrequent, until he’d stopping coming home at all, turning her world lacklustre and dull.
She didn’t have to be reminded of how Salman had regarded her lovesick attentions. It was bad enough that her motivation for going to Paris to study had had as much to do with the fact that Salman lived there than because it had always been her father’s wish that she study in his home city. And she’d paid heavily for that decision.
Bitterness flooded her.
The dreams were the last straw. She couldn’t go on like this, so she’d hoped that if she came to the party, if she saw Salman living the debauched lifestyle of the notorious playboy Sheikh that he was, he’d disgust her and she’d be able to move on. At least enough to feel some measure of closure.
She’d
