“I thought you’d at last become a respectable, dutiful girl.” He shook his head, his black eyes suspiciously bright. “Why would you agree to marry a respectable man, only to betray him with the king before you have even spoken your vows?”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand!”
“Tell me you’ve never lain with the king,” he said. “Tell me it’s just an ugly rumor, and I’ll believe you.”
Blinking fast, she looked away. Her father’s disappointment hurt her so badly she could hardly bear it. “I’ve betrayed no one except myself. There is no shame if I am with the king, not when he…not when we…”
Not when we’re married. But the words caught at her throat. She couldn’t reveal their secret. The king’s word of honor was admired around the world. How could she reveal that he’d hidden such a secret for thirteen years?
As a girl, she’d remained silent to protect him.
As a woman, she still would.
“You see nothing wrong in sleeping with a man who is not your husband?” her father continued, his voice sodden with grief. “That sort of behavior might be acceptable in the modern world, but not in our family. Your sister needs you. Marry Umar. Return to New York with your new husband and family. Help Nima raise her child!”
Jasmine’s jaw dropped. “You’ve spoken to her?”
“She called us two hours ago.” He looked away, his jaw clenching. “She says she doesn’t know how to be a mother. She’s threatening to give the child to strangers when it’s born! She’s scared. She’s so young.”
Fury suddenly raced through Jasmine, fury she could not control. She raised her head.
“Just as I was!” she cried. “I was sixteen when you threw me out of our family, out of our country!”
“I was angry,” he whispered. Tears filled his bleary eyes. “I had different expectations of you, Jasmine. You were my eldest. You had such intelligence, such strength. I took so much pride in you. Then…it all fell apart.”
Her heart turned over in her chest.
“Go back to New York as a married woman. Steady Nima with your strength.” His eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Tomorrow, I will be in Qais, expecting to see a wedding.”
Turning to leave, he stopped when he saw Kareef standing behind them, his body tense in the ceremonial white robes.
Her father’s face went almost purple. Distraught, he raised his fists against the much taller, stronger man. “I should kill you for the way you’ve shamed my daughter!”
Kareef didn’t move. He didn’t flinch. He just stood there, waiting to accept the blow.
Her father dropped his fists. Tears streaked down his wrinkled face.
“You’re no king,” he said hoarsely, his voice shaking with grief. “You’re not even a man.”
Turning on his heel, he stumbled down the palace hallway.
Jasmine watched him. When he was gone, she crumpled. Kareef pulled her into his arms and held her fast as she cried.
Softly stroking her head, he looked down at her, cupping her face with his hands. His eyes were deep and dark as he wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. He took a deep breath. Then his shoulders fell in resignation.
“Come with me,” he whispered.
In the ballroom behind them, she could still hear the eerie music and shouts of the performers behind the closed doors. But Kareef led her down the dark hallway, passing several servants who pretended not to notice, who pretended not to see that the king had left his own banquet with a woman who belonged to another.
Kareef took her down the hallway into the east wing, into his bedchamber. Closing the door behind them, he set her down on the enormous bed.
Sitting on the bed beside her, he leaned over and kissed her. Tears streamed unchecked down her face as she kissed him back with all her heart. Everything she felt for him, all the tenderness of a young girl’s dreams and the fire of a woman’s desire, came through in her kiss.
His enormous gilded bedroom was dark. The balcony window was open, and a hot desert wind blew in from the garden, along with the noise, sudden explosions of laughter and applause from the ballroom on the floor below. But they were a world apart.
Gently, tenderly, he lay her back against his bed and made love to her one last time. The ecstasy of her body was as sharp as the pain in her heart.
I love you, her soul cried. I love you. But she knew her love changed nothing.
When he brought her to aching, gasping fulfillment, she wept. For a moment, he held her tightly against his chest, in his arms, as if he never wanted to let her go.