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Shaheen nodded, accepted Harres’s bolstering hug, watched him hug the women and stride away.
Shaheen looked back at the fidgeting Aliyah and Laylah, a calculating smile spreading his lips even as his heart twisted inside his chest. “How about you atone for your sins by granting this doomed man a last request?”
They both jumped, voices intertwining with promises of anything at all if it would make him feel better.
He looked back at Johara, who again turned her eyes away and bestowed a brittle smile on the group surrounding her.
“Remember Johara Nazaryan?”
Both women looked to Johara.
“Oh, yes,” Laylah said. “My mother used to drag me away every time I tried to talk to her. Now look at her, flitting around Johara as if she were an A-list movie star.”
Aliyah smirked. “It’s not only your mother. All our female relatives and acquaintances who never deemed to speak to her or her mother before are falling over themselves to be reintroduced.”
Laylah giggled. “Bless their superficial souls. They never acknowledged what a classy, talented woman Jacqueline Nazaryan was, or what a sweet girl Johara was. But now that Johara has become the new designer on the cusp of international stardom, they all want to secure a chance to be the first to wear her latest exclusive designs.”
“It’s amazing to see that they consider their next outfit more important than their husbands.” Aliyah’s lips twisted. “Their men are about to flood the ceremony hall in drool, and the women can’t care less.”
Shaheen blinked, noting the people gathered around Johara for the first time. Women who’d treated her with condescension, or at best the dismissive courtesy due to a valuable employee’s family member, were now treating her not just as an equal but as a celebrity.
But it was the men’s behavior that made aggression swirl inside him. Many were openly ogling her and courting her attention and favor. His muscles turned to steel as every territorial cell in his body primed for a to-the-death fight for his mate.
Yes. No matter what she’d done or how impossible it all was, his body, his very being, considered her his mate. Accepted nothing else.
Aliyah turned back to him. “What about Johara?”
His burning conviction seemed to force Johara’s gaze to him. He muttered, low and hungry, “Bring her to me.”
Shaheen was about to combust.
With frustration.
It had been two hours since he’d told Aliyah and Laylah to pluck Johara from her new rabid fans and bring her to him.
After a brief surprise, the two women, who clearly weren’t aware of the seriousness of the situation that necessitated his making a marriage of state, thought it a brilliant idea.
They thought he should flaunt the royal council’s decrees and marry whomever he liked. And with their former connection, who better than Johara?
They’d gone after her as dozens of people inundated Shaheen again. He’d fended them off as he struggled to track the two women’s efforts to disentangle Johara from her companions.
After sinking in the quicksand of the court’s convoluted maneuvers, the two women could only look on as they lost Johara to another tide of eager fans until she exited the hall.
He had no doubt she’d thwarted them on purpose, had escaped. He had no idea where she’d gone, or if she’d even remain in Zohayd.
By the time he’d freed himself, he’d had a choice between interrogating guards and servants and having the news that he was looking for her spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom, or inspecting every guest suite in the palace himself and causing an even bigger scandal for his—and her—father.
So here he was, pacing his quarters, barely stopping himself from driving his fist through a wall.
He couldn’t let her avoid him. He had to confront her. If only for one last time.
Plans were ricocheting in his mind, each seeming more ludicrous than the next, when a knock floated to his ears from his apartment’s door.
“Go away,” he growled at the top of his voice.
He’d thought whomever was unfortunate enough to seek him now had heeded his order when the knock came again, more urgent.
He stormed to the door, flung it open, ready to blast whomever it was off the face of the earth.
And there she was. Gemma. Johara.
She stood there, in the gold dress that echoed her hair’s incredible shades and luster, looking up at him with anxiety in her gaze, a tremor strumming those lush, petal-soft lips he’d been going mad from needing beneath his for eight agonizing weeks.
“Shaheen …”
The memory of that night when she’d said his name, looked at him like that and changed his life forever ripped through him.
He didn’t give her a chance to say anything else.
He swooped down on her with the same speed and determination he had two decades ago, when he’d snatched her away from death’s snapping jaws. He hauled her into the room, his feet feeling as if they were leaving the ground in his desperation to have her against him, beneath him, with him.
Everything merged into a dream sequence. Gemma, Johara, filled his arms, her sweet breath mingling with his, her lips pressing desperately against his own, her flesh cushioning his, her heat and hunger enveloping him.
But questions gnawed at him, eating a hole through his gut as big as the one her disappearance had left in his heart. Why had she withheld the truth from him, why had she left him that way, why had she chosen now to come back, and the most important question of all—had she come back for him?
Nothing came out but an agonized, “How could you?”
She jerked as if the words singed her. She wrenched away, pressed her face into the bed. “You’re angry.”
“Angry?” He rose on one elbow, gazed down at her trembling profile. “You think I’m angry?”
“N-no.” The tears he could see glittering in her eyes welled, spilled over to drench her cheek, making a wet track down to lips that trembled. “You’re way more than angry. You’re enraged. And outraged. And y-you have every right to be both.”
“I’m none of those things. I’m … I’m …” He sat up, raked his hands through his hair, felt close to tearing it out. “I still can’t believe you did this to me.”
“I’m so sorry. I know I should have told you who I was …”
“Yes, you should have. But that isn’t what I meant. How could you leave me like that? Didn’t you realize how I’d feel? I felt …” He paused as she hesitantly turned to face him, searched for the words to describe his desperation and desolation after her disappearance. Nothing came to him but one word. It gashed out of him “Bereaved.”
She lurched as if he’d shot her. Emotion crumpled her face, and more tears poured from her.
He studied her, paralyzed by the enormity of the distress radiating from her, then he reached for her, even now fearing he’d grab thin air. He groaned his remembered anguish as he pressed her harder into him, lost the ability to breathe as her precious body filled his empty arms, when he’d despaired he’d ever hold her this close again.
“I never intended for any of that to happen.” She sobbed on his shoulder. “I-I only came to the party to see you, didn’t dream you wouldn’t recognize me. But when you didn’t … when you were …”
He pulled back to watch her, to fill his eyes with the reality of her, her nearness, threaded his aching fingers into her hair. “Were what? All over you? Out of my mind with wanting you on sight?”
“I never imagined things could go that far. I thought I’d see you one last time before you got married and I no longer had the right to … to … I should have told you who I am, but I knew if I did, you would pull back, treat me like an old acquaintance, and I couldn’t give up that time with you. If I’d told you, you certainly wouldn’t have made love to me. So I didn’t, and I-I compromised you. And I had to leave before I did anything even worse.”
Shaheen stared down at her, life flooding back into him.
This was why she’d left. She’d thought she had to. For his sake. It had been as magical for her as it had been for him. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and it had killed her as much as it had him when she’d walked away.
But one thing stopped his elation in its tracks. Her mortification, her self-blame. Setting her straight took precedence over every other consideration.
He grabbed her hands, covered them in kisses. “You’re wrong, my Gemma, ya joharti, my Johara. You didn’t compromise me—you energized me, stabilized me. You liberated and elated me. And you were wrong about your doubts, too. I might have hesitated when I found out who you were, mostly from surprise, but nothing would have stopped me from taking you. Nothing but you, if you didn’t want me.”
Her tears stopped abruptly, the remorse dimming her eyes then giving way to the fragility of disbelief, relief and finally the radiance of wonder.
His heart expanded, his world righting itself. A hand behind her head and another behind her back gathered her to him, fitting her into him, the half he’d felt had been torn away from his flesh.
“But you wanted me,” he murmured into her mouth, tasting her, plucking at her clinging lips, over and over. “You still want me.”
She moaned, opened to him, let him into her recesses, the most potent admission of desire. He took it all, gave more, one thing filling his awareness. His Johara was back in his arms. And he planned to keep her there, to never let her go again.
He told her. “And I’ll never stop wanting you.”
Johara cried out as Shaheen’s lips came down on hers in full possession. Her world spun in a kaleidoscope of delight, her body in a maelstrom of sensation.
But she wasn’t here for this.
No matter that she’d been dying for him, shriveling up from deprivation.
She dug her shaking fingers into the vital waves of his hair, tried to tug at them, to have him allow her a breath that didn’t pass through both their bodies. Before he dragged her any deeper into pleasure, submerged her into union with him. She failed.
But as if sensing her struggle, he withdrew his lips from hers lingeringly, rose to look down at her, his eyes a mixture of tenderness and ferocious possession. “What is it, ya joharti? Your heart is flapping so hard I can feel it inside my own chest.”
“Th-this isn’t why I came here, Shaheen. I just wanted to explain, to say goodbye—”
“There will be no goodbyes between us, ya galbi. Never.”
Before she could cry out that there would be, no matter what either of them wanted, he claimed her lips again.
And she drowned. In him, in her need, in a realm where only he existed and mattered. She let herself sink, promising herself it would be the last time …
“I’m sorry. I did knock. Repeatedly.”
Johara jerked as the soft apology came from far, far away, shattering the cocoon enveloping her and Shaheen. She shuddered, felt Shaheen stiffen above her.
“Get out of here, Aliyah.”
Silence met his growl, then a distressed intake of breath.
“I’m really sorry, Shaheen, but this can’t wait.”
Johara lurched again as Aliyah’s strained words brought the outside world crashing back on her like an avalanche.
Earlier, Aliyah and Laylah had tried to cajole her into speaking with Shaheen. She’d made her escape then, thinking she’d saved him from making more compromising mistakes because of her. But if she’d feared any suspicion of their relationship would tarnish his image and hurt his marriage plans, she’d done far worse now. She’d just given Aliyah evidence.
She lay beneath Shaheen, her dress riding up to her waist, her splayed legs accommodating his bulk as his hands cupped her buttocks through her panties and his hardness ground against her. Her dress hung off one shoulder exposing half a breast that had just been engulfed in his mouth.
Mortification drenched her, all the more so because the arousal coursing through her didn’t even slow down. She wouldn’t have been able to bolt out of the room even if she wasn’t pinned down by Shaheen. She couldn’t move.
She didn’t need to. Shaheen relinquished his possession of her flesh with utmost tranquility, rearranged her clothes with supreme care. Then he scooped her up from the bed and steadied her on her feet, smoothing her mussed hair, gently massaging her worried features.
With one last look of reassurance, one last, lingering kiss, he turned to his sister.
Aliyah looked an apology at Johara. It was clear she did have a paramount reason for being there. One she wasn’t about to divulge in Johara’s presence.
Seeing this unfortunate development as an opportunity to escape, Johara rushed forward to leave.
Shaheen’s hand on her arm stopped her.
“Please, Shaheen,” she choked out, hoping that Aliyah, who’d moved away discreetly, wouldn’t hear. “Let me go. I’ll soon be gone and you won’t see me again, for real this time. I beg you, for as long as I must stay in Zohayd, you must stay away from me.”
She bolted away, gathering the heavy layers of her silk dress in her hands so her stumbling legs wouldn’t snarl in their folds.
She still almost fell on her face when she heard his beloved voice behind her, intense, low, permeated with voracity and finality.
“There is no way I will stay away from you, ya joharti.”
Six
“This had better be good, Aliyah.”
Shaheen heard irritation sharpening his voice as he closed the door. He stood there, vibrating with the need to storm after Johara. Instead, he turned to Aliyah. He’d never been upset with her in his life, but he was furious with her now. Not because she’d interrupted his and Johara’s surrender to their deepening bond, or because he was seething with frustration. But because her intrusion had upset Johara, had given her another reason to pull back from him.
Johara evidently knew about the gravity of his situation, as often the families of those who worked in sensitive areas in the palace did. And she had extreme feelings about compromising him. She’d put them both through hell so she wouldn’t. She must think Aliyah witnessing their lovemaking the ultimate exposure.
And instead of only fighting the world for her, he now had to fight against her own anxieties, too. He had to convince her to stop trying to do what she thought was right for him, to let him worry about his problems, to realize his best interests lay in having her with him.
He still had no idea how he’d achieve that, but now that he knew she’d never really left him, still wanted him, he would renege on his promise to his father, to his kingdom. He would face anything on earth to be with her, come what may.
“Actually this is bad. As bad as can be,” Aliyah finally answered his exasperation, her voice measured.
And in spite of the situation and what she’d just said, his heart softened with love and admiration for her.
Aliyah had had the harshest life of them all, had triumphed over impossible odds. He still couldn’t believe how she’d come back from a prescription drug addiction that doctors’ misdiagnoses and overanxious parents had plunged her into, how she’d made the decision to face her addiction and the world alone at the tender age of sixteen. It never ceased to be a pleasure for him to see her so healthy, to watch her blossoming daily with Kamal’s love, settling deeper in contentment with the blessing of their happiness and two children and filling her position as one of the most beloved queens in the world.
He watched her as she approached with the grace of the old supermodel and the new queen. She was truly regal, dressed in honeyed-chocolate, the color of her eyes; she was as tall as Johara, if differently proportioned. But her every step closer struck a chord of foreboding in his heart.
She stopped before him, her turmoil more obvious close up. She gestured to herself. “See anything wrong with this picture?”
“Is this about you?” He took her by the shoulders, his eyes feverishly scanning her. “Are you …” He stopped, swallowed the ball of panic that suddenly blocked his throat. “Are you okay?”
She reached out an urgent hand to his face. “Oh, I’m fine. It’s not about me. It’s about these.”
His gaze followed her hand to where it rested on the magnificent diamond-and-precious-stone necklace gracing her swanlike neck. Matching earrings dangled to her shoulders and an elaborate web-ring bracelet adorned her wrist.
