“So, your family is really moving, huh?” He tilted his head, his eyes smoldering in the way that had once made her heart beat faster. “It’s a shame. Because I was kind of thinking maybe...you’d give me another chance.”
She stared at him. “You what?”
“Yes.” He ran his hand through his tousled dark blond hair. “I think I made a mistake. About you.”
She stared at Carter, wondering how she could have ever thought she loved him. The truth was, she’d never even known him. He’d been just a symbol to her. A way of getting out of an unhappy life.
“Oh, Carter. I’m afraid...I must decline your kind offer.”
He blinked. “I thought you had a thing for me.”
She gave a low laugh. “I thought so once, too.” She looked away. “I thought if I could get a man like you to love me, it would mean I was worth something. But that’s not love.”
“Then what is?”
“It’s not about trying to feel better about yourself,” she said slowly. “Love is about protecting the other person.” Her throat went dry. “It’s about doing everything you can to give the person you love the life they deserve...” Irene’s voice trailed off as she remembered how Sharif had done exactly that.
And she’d left him. In that woman’s clutches.
But there was nothing I could have done! She told herself desperately. It wasn’t as if she had any kind of control over Kalila—or way to stop her from—
The emir is getting what he deserves. Basimah’s voice came back to her. If I could do something to prevent his wedding, if I knew something that would prevent it, I still wouldn’t lift a finger.
Irene stared off in the distance, her lips parted. Basimah had said that long ago, but she’d been too distracted with her own jealousy and misery to pay attention to the words. How had she missed it? How had she not heard?
Even Basimah is surprised, Aziza had said. She told me, since you didn’t call after my wedding was canceled, you must not love Sharif at all.
“Irene?”
She focused abruptly on Carter’s handsome, pouting face.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I need to make a phone call. Thanks for stopping by.”
“You’re—throwing me out?” he said incredulously.
“I’m wishing you all the best. But not with me. Sorry. I’m in love with someone. And he needs me now.”
Scratching his head, Carter threw her one last sorrowful, disgruntled look and left. But Irene had already turned away to dial a number in her phone.
“I was wondering why you didn’t ask me about it days ago,” Basimah said sourly a few minutes later. “I all but told you everything. After he set my lamb free, canceling her wedding, I expected you would ask. But you didn’t, you just left, and I decided you must not have loved him as much as I thought. Although abandoning him to that Al-Bahar woman seemed cold...”
“Tell me everything,” Irene begged, kicking herself. She listened to Basimah’s story, and her heart was suddenly in her throat.
“Go to Sharif. Tell him everything!”
“Me? Get involved in a palace scandal? No. I keep my head down. And so does my sister. That’s how we’ve kept our jobs so long.”
“Tell Aziza, then. She can go to her brother and—”
“I’m not having her involved, either. Poor lamb has suffered enough. And she has enough to think about, applying to colleges and preparing to face the big wide world. No. You love him, you save him yourself.”
“But he’ll never accept this without proof.”
“So get it.”
Irene wetted her lips. “That would take money. More money than I can even imagine. If he’s been blackmailing her for so long, he’ll never let that go for cheap. Even if I gave him every penny I have left, he’d just laugh—”
“Do what you want. I’m out of it, and so is my sister, and so is Aziza. It’s your problem now,” Basimah said simply, and hung up.
Clutching her phone, Irene sank to the rough wood floor of the porch in despair. She’d just been handed the key to everything. But it was too late. It came down to a problem of money. And time. The wedding was in two days, half a world away.
If only she’d kept that diamond necklace Sharif had tried to give her in Italy, she suddenly thought. She gave a half-hysterical laugh. She hadn’t realized then she was throwing away her future. And worse: his.
If you don’t want the necklace, toss it in the lake. Bury it in the garden. I care not. It’s yours. I won’t take it back.
But he had. She’d forced him to take it back, pressed it in his hands, and he’d never had another chance to...