But still…
Forgive me, he thought, closing his eyes. Then he turned to Jasmine. “Come,” he said quietly. “Before you leave this city forever, you will watch me speak the words that bind me.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AS KAREEF led her across the courtyard toward the old Byzantine ruin on the edge of the cliff, Jasmine knew it would be painful to watch him speak the words that would make him forever Qusay’s king. But she took a deep breath and followed him anyway. She loved him, and knew this would be the last time she would ever see him. She wanted their last memory together to be of her face shining with love—not those horrible words she’d said to him last night.
He abruptly let go of her hand, leaving her behind the three hundred guests seated in chairs placed tightly amid the old stone columns. Kareef and his brother Prince Rafiq continued walking, straight up the aisle of the ancient, roofless ruin.
She felt some people turn to look at her, a few with scorn, others with envy. Then they turned back around as Kareef faced them. He shook hands with his brother before Rafiq bowed and left to sit in the audience beside her old friend Sera. Those two seemed rather cozy, Jasmine thought. Was there something going on between Prince Rafiq and the Sheikha’s widowed companion? Then the music swelled, and suddenly no one was looking at Jasmine at all.
Kareef stood at the front in his white ceremonial robes with the jeweled sword at his hip, set in emeralds, and no one could look anywhere else. Tears rose to Jasmine’s eyes. He was strength. He was power.
He was her love.
As the vizier started to speak in the old dialect of Qusay, her heart lifted as she stared at Kareef, so regal before the crowd. Even now, after it had ended in heartbreak, Jasmine couldn’t regret their affair.
She wouldn’t regret loving him—ever.
The music suddenly stopped. She heard the wind, the sound of the waves crashing beneath the cliffs. The ruins of the thousand-year-old citadel seemed to vibrate beneath their feet.
The vizier paused, and as the ceremony demanded, Kareef turned to the crowds. He was darkly beautiful. The perfect king.
His eyes met hers across the audience. And he spoke.
Not in the old dialect, as the ritual decreed, but in words everyone could understand, in a clear, low voice that rang across sand and sea.
“I renounce the throne.”
There was a gasp like thunder, echoing across the crowd. She heard the vizier cry out in distress. Someone else gave a low shocked hiss—was it his brother?
Kareef remained steadfast and calm, the eye of the storm.
“Thirteen years ago, I asked a woman to marry me. A young virgin, pure and true.” Everyone fell silent, struggling to listen as he said with a harsh lift of his chin and glittering eyes, “That woman was Jasmine Kouri.”
A gasp arose from half the crowd as they turned to look at her. “The Kouri girl.” The whispers were repeated, even as the foreign dignitaries frowned in bewildered confusion. “The old scandal.”
Kareef’s face hardened. “Jasmine bore the scandal—alone. But there was no shame. She lost our child in an accident. But before that, she was my bride.” He stretched out his arms and proclaimed, “I owe her a debt that supersedes any other duty or obligation.”
She was in shock, her heart in her throat as people got whiplash looking between them.
He took a single step down from the dais, his blue eyes locked on hers.
“Jasmine Kouri, you will marry me.”
“No,” she gasped.
He stepped down to the aisle.
“Jasmine Kouri, you will marry me,” he commanded.
She stared at him, unable to answer against the pounding desire of her own heart.
He continued to come down the aisle, his eyes never looking away from hers. Suddenly, he was right in front of her. He towered over her, his body inches from hers. All eyes were upon them.
“Jasmine Kouri,” he said softly, “you will marry me.”
There was a breathless hush across the ruin.
She looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
“Yes,” she choked out, her heart full of joy. “Yes. Yes!”
The smile of happiness across his handsome face was like nothing she’d ever seen. He took her in his arms and kissed her.
“Now,” he whispered urgently when he finally pulled away. “Right now.”
“I love you,” she whispered in reply.
The vizier rose behind him like a furious serpent. The old man’s beard waggled in rage and frustration before he turned away sourly.
“Kareef Al’Ramiz has renounced the throne,” the vizier pronounced in a hollow voice that echoed beyond the ancient ruin, across the sea. “There must always be a king of Qusay. Long live…King Rafiq!”