beside the pool, she was almost tempted to ask him if there were any chance. Any chance at all. The words were trembling on her lips. Even though she already knew the answer.
“Kareef?” she whispered, then stopped.
“Hmm?” His face was pressed against hers, his body still naked beneath the sun. He didn’t open his eyes. The sun had already half-dried the dark wave of his hair.
She took a deep breath. “I was…I was wondering…”
Then a sparkle caught her eye. She looked out by the pool and saw the pants he’d discarded carelessly before he’d jumped into the water. Something had tumbled out of the pocket, now glistening green in the light.
The emerald.
The tiny heart-shaped emerald on a gold chain her parents had given her for her sixteenth birthday. She’d been wearing it when Kareef had asked her to marry him that day in the thicket of trees behind the riding school. According to the ancient Qusani ritual, she’d been required to give a token as pledge of her faith. So she’d pulled the gold chain off her neck, and placed it in his hand as she’d tearfully spoken the words that would bind them.
And now, after thirteen years, he was carelessly carrying the necklace around in his pants pocket, awaiting the moment he would divorce her.
Staring at the emerald glinting in the sun, she blinked hard as all her dreams came crashing around her.
Kareef lifted his head. “What is it?” he said lazily, his hand lingering on her breast. He sighed. “Don’t tell me. Do you already want more?” He yawned, but was already smiling as he reached for her. “You tire me out, woman…”
She closed her eyes. She did want more. More of him. More of everything. And she suddenly couldn’t allow him to touch her—not when she felt like crying, thrashing, wailing like a child for what she could never have.
He stopped. “Jasmine?”
“It’s nothing,” she whispered. “I’m just—” her voice broke “—happy.”
“As am I.” Kareef’s hand suddenly tightened on her own. “But you know our time cannot last.”
Her eyes flew open. Already? She wasn’t ready for him to speak the words. Her eyes fell upon the emerald necklace hanging out of his pocket in the shorts crumpled by the pool. She wasn’t ready! Not yet!
With a nimbleness born of fear, she leapt to her feet, backing away. “It’s a beautiful day. Shall we go for a ride?”
The way his jaw dropped would have been comical, if her heart weren’t breaking.
“A ride?” he repeated in shock.
“Horse riding,” she explained succinctly.
Frowning in bewilderment, he rubbed the back of his head. “But you hate riding. You…hate it.”
Was he remembering the same thing she was, of their long-ago horse ride in the desert? Of how he’d found her, thrown on the rocks after his horse Razul had been spooked by a snake? Kareef had fallen to his knees before her, his eyes dark with fear, his face pale and streaked with dirt beneath the red twilight. “Hold on, Jasmine,” he’d whispered as he’d carried her to the cave. “Just hold on.…”
Lifting her chin, she swallowed, pushing the memory away. “I don’t hate riding,” she said flatly.
“Since when?”
Her eyes flashed at him. “I’ve been gone a long time.”
“Have you changed so much?”
“How about we race, and see?”
“You—race against me?” He laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Are you scared?” she taunted in reply.
His face grew serious. He rose to his feet. Standing naked in front of her, beneath the shadows of the loggia, he cupped her face in his hands.
“You don’t have to do this, Jasmine.” His tender blue gaze, endless as the desert sky, whispered through her soul. “You don’t have anything to prove.”
“I know.” In his arms, beneath the deep intensity of his glance, she could feel her heart break with yearning to be his wife. Not just today, but forever. With a sharp intake of breath, she forced herself to pull away. “Race you to the stables!”
She hurried to their bedroom and ransacked the bottom of her suitcase. I’ll just enjoy this last day, she vowed to herself. I’ll emblazon it forever on my heart. Throwing on underwear beneath a long white cotton dress of eyelet lace, she quickly ran a brush through her long dark hair and ran out of the house.
A few minutes later, when Kareef appeared at the stables dressed in black pants and a white shirt, she’d already climbed into the saddle. When Kareef saw the horse she’d chosen, he stopped in his tracks.
“Not that one.”
“She’s the one I want,” Jasmine replied steadily.
Kareef glowered down at the wizened old horse master with skin like tanned leather who’d assisted her into the saddle.
“Bara’ah is the one she chose, sire,” the Qusani said with a shrug, his raspy voice tinged with the ancient dialect of Qais. “Give your lady the freedom of your house, you said. Obey her every whim, you said.”
Caught by his own command, Kareef scowled at them both.
Jasmine beamed back at him. She was determined to show them both how much she’d changed over the last thirteen years. She was strong. Independent. She didn’t need him to protect her as she once had, and she would prove that. To both of them.
Kareef stepped toward her, looking up. “Not this mare, Jasmine. Bara’ah is full of tricks. You saw how she escaped her paddock—she caused the car accident.”
“She didn’t do it on purpose.” She patted the horse’s neck sympathetically. “She was just tired of being trapped behind walls.”
“Jasmine—”
“You’re already losing the race,” she said, and lightly kicked the black mare’s sides. The horse sprung forward, flying out of the stable, leaving Kareef cursing behind her.
He caught up with her five minutes later across the flatlands, when she slowed the mare down to a controlled trot.
“You do know how to ride,” he said grudgingly. “Where did you learn?”
She gave him a sweet smile. “New York.”
She’d taken lessons in Westchester County, spending her free time riding in Central Park. She’d learned to ride English style, Western style, even Qusani bareback. She’d hoped it would stop her nightmares, stop her from dreams where she hit the ground and woke up with the taste of blood in her mouth.
It hadn’t. But at least
