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.”
Shaheen was about to combust.
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
