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He paused, as his large frame filled the doorway. “It’s good to see you, Jasmine.” And he closed the door behind him.
Good to see her?
As soon as he was gone, she dug frantically through her suitcase and found nothing at all to wear. She lifted up the crumpled green chiffon dress from the floor only to discover a stain on the bodice.
Why was Kareef doing this to her? Why couldn’t they just ignore the past? Why couldn’t they just pretend it did not exist?
You know you cannot marry him.
She took a deep breath. They’d share one meal. He would speak a few careful words, and it would be done. They could both go on with their lives.
She grabbed a white sundress, fresh and pretty with a modest neckline. It wasn’t nearly fancy enough for a fifty-person banquet in the blue room with the king, but it would just have to do. She added sandals and a string of pearls. All sweet and simple, and hers. Not selected for her by Umar from a designer boutique. She brushed her long hair, and looked at herself in the mirror.
Bewildered brown eyes looked back at her. She looked young and insecure, nothing like the powerful woman she’d become in New York. Being close to Kareef made her feel vulnerable again. As if she were sixteen.
Her feet dragged as she left her room and headed toward the east wing. The hallways were oddly quiet but she passed two women as she made her way to the blue room—the Sheikha, Kareef’s mother, and her much younger companion trailing behind in her black abaya. The Sheikha saw Jasmine and her wrinkled, kindly face lifted into a vague, benevolent smile. She probably didn’t remember who Jasmine was. Jasmine bowed deeply.
When she looked up, she saw the Sheikha’s companion smiling down at her. It was Sera, her childhood friend! But the Sheikha was in a hurry. Sera had only time to whisper, “Glad you’re back,” before she had to quickly follow her employer down the hall.
A surprised smile rose on Jasmine’s face as she stared after her old friend. Sera still remembered her after all these years? A surge of happiness went through Jasmine, then she turned back to hurry down the hall. The palace seemed strangely silent, almost desolate. Had the big fancy dinner been canceled? Was she late? With a deep breath, Jasmine pushed open the double doors.
The long dining table, big enough to seat forty-eight, was lit by long-tapered candles. Only one person was seated there.
“Jasmine.” Kareef rose to his feet with a short, formal bow. He moved to the place beside his at the table, standing behind her chair. “Please.”
Shocked, she looked right and left. “Where is everyone else?”
“There is no one else.”
“Oh.”
“I told you. Simple and quiet.”
She was having dinner with Kareef…alone? Feeling like she was in a surreal dream, she walked toward the table. The candles flickered light and shadow upon the white wainscoting and pale blue walls of the cavernous room. She swallowed, then lowered herself into her chair. He pushed it forward for her. As if they were on a date.
No—she couldn’t think that way! This was the opposite of a date!
Kareef sat down in the chair beside her, then nodded regally at two servants who appeared from the shadows. She jumped as they took silver lids off trays to serve two exquisite meals of cool salad, cucumbers, exquisite fruits, bread and cheeses. They opened a bottle of sparkling water, then a bottle of expensive French wine. After serving the trays, they backed away with a bow and disappeared, closing the double doors softly behind them.
They were alone. And Jasmine felt it. She licked her lips nervously. “What is all this?”
Kareef leaned forward to pour her a glass of wine. “You didn’t eat at your engagement party. You must be hungry.” His sensual lips quirked. “I allow no one to starve while under my protection.”
She watched him, involuntarily noticing the way the candlelight cast shadows across the astonishing masculine beauty of his face.
He looked up, and his blue eyes sizzled through hers with the intensity of his gaze. “Are you?”
“Am I what?” she stammered.
“Are. You. Hungry,” he said with slow deliberation, and she found herself looking at his lips and remembering the last time he’d kissed her. So long ago. Or was it? It seemed like it was yesterday, and all the long years since had just been a dream. “Jasmine.”
With an intake of breath, she looked up. “Starving,” she whispered.
He smiled, then indicated her plate. “One of the few perks of being king,” he said. “A world-class chef at my beck and call. A far cry from what I’m used to at my home in Qais.”
She took a bite of the food and noticed it was indeed delicious, and she was indeed starving. But as she ate, she couldn’t look away from Kareef’s face.
Oh, this was dangerous. She couldn’t trust him. He’d betrayed her! Ruined her! But her body didn’t seem to care. Every time he looked at her, she trembled from within.
She set down her fork. “Kareef. I don’t want to be here with you, any more than you want me here. So if you’ll just do what must be done—”
“Later,” he interrupted. He pushed the crystal goblet full of ruby-colored wine toward her. “We have all night.”
All night. Trembling, she took a bracing gulp of wine and wiped her mouth. “But with your coronation in a few days,” she stammered, “you must have many demands on your time. I heard something about fireworks tonight, given by the city council in your honor—”
“Nothing is more important—” he refilled her wineglass “—than this.”
Why was he stretching this out? Why? What possible reason could he have?
Helplessly, she took another sip of wine. Silence fell in the shadows of flickering candlelight as they ate.
He glanced at her enormous diamond ring, heavy as a paperweight on her hand. “An expensive trinket, even for a billionaire,” he said. “Hajjar values you high.”
Embarrassed heat flooded her cheeks. “I’m not marrying him for his money, if that’s what you think!”
Something like a smile passed briefly over Kareef’s face. “No,” he said. “I know you are not.”
What was that smile hiding? Some private joke?
Once, she’d known him so well. The boy she’d loved had hidden nothing from her. But she did not know this man.
She watched him take a sip of wine. There was something sensual about watching his lips on the crystal glass, his tongue tasting the red Bordeaux. She could almost imagine those lips, that tongue, upon her body.
No! she ordered herself desperately. Stop it!
But every inch of her skin shivered with awareness that she was sitting beside the only man she’d ever loved.
The only man she’d ever hated.
“Do you like New York?” he asked, taking a bite of fruit.
“Yes,” she said, watching his sharp teeth crunch the flesh of the apple. “I did.”
“But you’re eager to leave it.”
She looked away. “I missed Qusay. I missed my family.”
“But you must have made many friends in New York.”
There was something strange beneath his tone. She looked back at him. “Of course.”
His tone was light, even as his hand tightened around the neck of the goblet. “Such an exciting city. You must have enjoyed the nightlife frequently with many ardent…friends.”
Was that an oblique way of asking if she’d taken lovers? With a deep breath, she took another sip of wine. She wasn’t going to tell him he’d been her only lover. It would be too pathetic to admit she’d spent the best years of her life alone, dreaming of him against her will. Especially since she knew he’d replaced her the instant he’d left her. She wouldn’t give Kareef the satisfaction of knowing he’d been not just her first—but her only!
Taking a bite of salad, so delicious with its herbs and spices and multicolored tomatoes, she deliberately changed the subject. “What’s your home like?”
He snorted. “The palace? It has not changed. A rich and luxurious prison.”
“I mean your house in the desert. In Qais.”
Taking another sip of wine, he blinked then shrugged. “Comfortable. A few servants, but they’re mostly for the horses. I like to take care of myself. I don’t like people hovering.”
She nearly laughed. “You must love being king.”
“No.” His voice was flat. “But it is my duty.”
Duty, she thought with sudden fury. Where had his sense of duty been thirteen years ago, when she’d needed him so desperately and he’d abandoned her?
Anger pulsed through her, making her hands shake as she held her knife and fork. But it wasn’t just anger, she realized. It was bewilderment and pain. How could he have done it? How?
Placing her hands in her lap, she turned her head away, blinking fast.
“Jasmine, what is it?”
“Nothing,” she said hoarsely. She would die before she let Kareef Al’Ramiz see her weep. She’d learned to be strong. She’d had no other choice. “I just remember you once dreamed of a house in the desert. Now you have it.”
“Yes.” His voice suddenly hardened. “And I will be your neighbor. My home is but thirty kilometers from Umar Hajjar’s estate.”
She turned with an intake of breath at mention of her fiancé’s name. Oh God, how could she have already forgotten Umar? She was an engaged woman! She shouldn’t be looking at another man’s lips!
But she could not stop herself. Not when the man was Kareef, the only man she’d ever loved. The only man she’d ever taken to her bed. And until yesterday—the only man she’d ever kissed.
Umar had kissed her for the first time only after she’d accepted his marriage proposal. His kiss had been businesslike and official, a pledge to seal the deal when a handshake wouldn’t do. He did not seem particularly keen to sweep her immediately into bed, which was just fine with Jasmine. Their marriage would be based on something far more important: family. And she wasn’t just getting back her parents and sisters. She would finally be a mother. She would help to raise his young sons, aged two to fourteen.
“Do you know his children?” she asked thickly.
He nodded. “I am godfather to his two eldest—Fadi and Bishr. They are good children. Respectful.”
Respectful? They hadn’t seemed that way when she’d met them last year in New York—at least not respectful to Jasmine. The four boys had glared at her, clinging to their father and their French nanny, Léa, as if Jasmine were the enemy. She sighed. But who could blame them for being upset, when their mother had just died?
“I hope they’re all right,” she whispered. “I met them only once. His poor children. They’ve had a hard time. Especially the baby,” she added, looking away.
“They need a mother,” Kareef said softly. “You will be good to them.”
She looked at him with an intake of breath. He leaned across the table, his gaze intense in the candlelight. He was already so close, his knee just inches from hers.
“Thank you,” she said softly. Sadness settled around her heart as unspoken memories stretched between them.
“Didn’t you know she was pregnant, my lord?” the doctor’s voice echoed in her ears, from the dark cave long ago. “She’ll live, but never be able to conceive again…”
Remembering, Jasmine dropped her silver fork with a clatter against her china plate. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap, she tried to close off the memories from her mind.
“You’ve always wanted children,” Kareef said. There was a grim set to his jaw. “And now you’re to be married to Umar Hajjar. A fine match by any measure. Your father must be proud.”
“Yes. Now,” she whispered. She shook her head. “He’s never cared about my success in New York. He even refused the money I’ve tried to send the family, as his fortunes have faltered while mine have grown.” She lifted her gaze. “But I’ve always believed some corner of his heart wanted to forgive me. My success in large part came from him!”
Kareef shifted in his chair.
She continued. “When I first arrived in New York at sixteen, I had nothing. No money. My only friend there was an elderly great-aunt, and she was ill. Not just ill—dying. In a rat-infested apartment.”
“I heard,” he said quietly. “Later.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, feeling a surge of bitterness. “I worked three jobs to support us both. Then,” she whispered, “out of the blue the month before she died, I got a check from my father for fifty thousand dollars. It saved us. I invested every penny, and gradually it paid off. But if not for him,” she said softly, “I might still be an office cleaner working sixteen hours a day.”
He picked up his glass, taking a sip of wine.
Jasmine frowned, tilting her head. “But when I tried to thank my father for that money today, he claimed not to know anything about it.”
Kareef stared idly at the ruby-colored wine, swirling it in the candlelight.
And suddenly, she knew.
“My father never sent that money, did he?”
He didn’t answer.
She sucked in her breath. “It was you,” she whispered. “You sent me that money ten years ago. Not my father. It was you.”
Pressing his lips together, he set down the glass. He gave a single hard nod.
“The letter said it was from my father.”
“I didn’t think you would accept it from me.”
“You’re right!”
“So I lied.”
“You…lied. Just like that?”
“I intended to send you more every year, but you never needed it.” Kareef’s voice held a tinge of pride as he looked at her. “You turned that first small amount into a fortune.”
“Why did you do it, Kareef?”
He turned to look at her. “Don’t you know?”
She shook her head.
