jerked when Aliyah reached out and squeezed her shoulder, her eyes widening on such a mixture of surprise and hope that Aliyah groaned. “It’s not your fault, okay? I may have thought that when I was still in shock and having an internal tantrum, but that’s just too far-fetched. You didn’t make the Aal Shalaans into grabby bastards, and you didn’t make Kamal a ruthless one.”
“You’re making me feel even worse, being so kind.”
“I’m just honest.” Aliyah smiled, prodding her to smile back, to lighten the mood. She had enough heartache in her future, she couldn’t take any now. “One way to look at things is that it’s a good thing you had me, or two kingdoms would be on the brink of civil war right now. I’ll go down in history as the chess piece that defused the whole mess. Not many women can boast such a pivotal role, even if it is, alas, a passive one. Still, most women marry for far, far less and do nowhere as much good. We can even say that your relationship with—let’s call him King Atef, since I can’t get around to calling him Dad, either—has been preordained, so you’d have me and I’d be the peace chip.”
Anna’s smile trembled, as did her voice. “That’s certainly one way to look at things.”
“Makes everything sound so much better and worthwhile, doesn’t it? How about we sanction it as the official version?”
Anna nodded, her eyes filling with a jumble of pain, relief and anxiety. “I never dreamed I’d cause anything like this. I didn’t know who or where you were, then Atef found me and I let him think Farah was his daughter, when she’s my…my…”
“Your adopted daughter. Your real daughter, really. Being your biological child doesn’t make me that. I always believed a child is raised, not born.”
Anna’s gaze faltered. “And you don’t want us to have any more than a biological link?”
She surged forward, put her hand on Anna’s knee. “Oh, I do. Though I don’t know if I can come to think of you as my mother. I already have one, whom I love, even though she let so-called experts mess with my life. But I know she did it out of an almost pathological need to see me healthy and normal.”
Anna gave her a sad smile. “Then that is something besides you that I share with Bahiyah. I almost messed up Farah’s life with the same pathological need.”
Aliyah’s lips twisted whimsically. “Hmm, another thing I have in common with Farah. Wow. I can’t wait to meet her.”
“She can’t wait, either. But she doesn’t want to impose on you.”
Aliyah gave her a mock-wicked glance. “Oh, I’ll impose on her. I have three days to get ready for the wedding of the century, as the list my ‘groom’ gave me indicates. I need all the eager-to-please people I can lay my hands on.”
The sounds of powerful cars gliding to smooth stops tickled her ears as she spoke.
Kamal’s cavalcade. She knew it. The king had come home.
She quirked an eyebrow. “Say—how about we stretch our legs?”
Anna nodded, swayed to her feet, smoothed her sky-blue skirt suit and fell in step with Aliyah as they exited through huge French windows to the enormous veranda leading to a dozen thirty-foot-wide stone steps and the wing’s garden, an explosion of flowers and rare plants.
Anna, still bent on elaborating on the main issue eating at her, didn’t seem to notice the cavalcade drawing to a stop at the palace’s main entrance. “You’re so willing to deal with the most awkward things, with your pain, so openly, and I have the feeling you can take on the whole world and come out the winner. Yet, with all your pragmatic approach, you haven’t accepted this marriage as you claim, have you? You’re feeling…trapped.”
Pragmatic? This lady had way too much to learn about her still. But she’d gotten one thing right at least.
She was trapped. In a marriage without love or respect. But she should console herself it was also with a time limit. In nine months’ time, if she proved to be a fertile little chess piece, he’d do an encore of his favorite trick and cast her aside.
Not much of a consolation when she thought of her track record. The first time he’d done that, he’d almost destroyed her. Any bets he’d succeed this time?
Aliyah heaved a huge sigh, nodded and stood straighter as Kamal stepped out of the middle limo.
He saw her the split second he straightened, his eyes slamming into hers across the distance.
In the next second anger radiated off of him like a shock wave.
Didn’t like that she was letting him see her, did he? Going against the dictates of their culture and its unreasonable demands of decorum, its servitude to and belief in the caprices of luck and its evil influences. Supposedly if the groom saw the bride in the five days before the wedding, their marriage would be blighted with inexplicable incompatibility and strife.
She couldn’t see how theirs could be blighted with worse than what they already had—ill will, bad blood and subzero expectations.
She held his gaze, came forward so he could take a good look at her. Disappointing you yet, ya habibi?
His imperious face and body filled with the answer, with the unmistakable intent to stride up to her and let her hear it, along with a few more decrees no doubt, maybe even a restraining order. She only made a face at him, tossed her hair and turned to Anna.
Anna gaped at Kamal for a moment before turning stunned eyes on Aliyah. “My. Oh, my. That was…intense.”
“Yeah, that’s Kamal for you.”
Anna shook her head dazedly. “I meant both of you. The vibes you generated were enough to send Judarian homeland security reaching for a nationwide red alert.”
Aliyah let out a resigned laugh, glanced sideways at Kamal, found him still standing there, glaring at her, looking like the bronze colossus of a wrathful god.
If only he didn’t look so…everything. And have a character to match. Except when it came to her. A shudder rattled through her.
Anna caught her gaze, concern showing in her heavenly eyes. “This marriage isn’t just a hated duty to you, is it? You want it, yet you believe it won’t work and you’re…scared?”
While that was a simplistic way to sum up the mess, Anna had again cottoned on to her basic turmoil. She took a last look at Kamal, saw the promise of retribution for defying him, for flaunting his precious customs, written all over him.
Her smile was conceding and defiant at the same time as she sighed. “Witless.”
“I like her already.”
Kamal rounded on Shehab, glowering. Shehab only grinned at him, his enjoyment glaring, chafing.
“A woman who isn’t intimidated by you, who can pull that face—ya Ullah, that face—on you, is all right by me. More than all right. She’s a once-in-a-lifetime find. A treasure.”
Kamal wondered how the international community would react if, during the countdown to his joloos and wedding, he engaged his smug older brother in a knock-down,
