Susanna Carr - Midnight in the Harem

She also explained about the enclosed pictures, detailing when she had first received them and how. She gave him as much information regarding the blackmail as she could, including a list of payments she had made and how she had done so. She assured him she had told no one, not even her parents of the pictures or the blackmail monies she had paid.

She hoped he would discover how best to keep them out of circulation, for his sake as well as his family’s. But come tomorrow, or perhaps even tonight, the blackmailer would know that Angele was no longer a pony in this race.

Her eyes flicked to the final envelope, the one that would ensure there would be no turning back. Though, really, it was only symbolic. It held a press release, scotching any “rumors” of a suspected permanent connection between the house of Jawhar and the house of Zohra vis-à-vis a marriage between her and Zahir. She had included a couple of personal quotes. One to the effect that she had no desire to live her life in the public eye as a royal and the other her absolute refusal to make a permanent home outside of her adopted country, America.

After reading it, her father might disown her and her mother would undoubtedly be furious, but Angele wasn’t going to live the rest of her life without love. She just wasn’t.

She might not be American by birth, but she’d been raised around an entirely different set of ideals to the duty-bound royals that led Jawhar and Zohra. While she loved the country of her birth and Zohra as well, at heart? She was a modern American woman.

She wasn’t about to allow Zahir to be forced into a marriage he so clearly had never really wanted, either.

She was under no illusions. He would probably enter another arranged contract, but this time he was older. Zahir would have more input into who his chosen bride was to be. Angele could only hope, for his sake, that it was someone he could develop real feelings for.

She snuck down the secret passageways for the last time and left Zahir’s packet in his room while she knew he was busy with his father. She left each of the letters to the kings with their respective secretarial staff. And finally she dropped the press release off with the PR department.

She had prepared a timed email with a duplicate release to be sent to the major news distribution agencies in a few hours. She would be in flight back to the United States when news hit.

Cowardly? Perhaps, but she preferred to think of it as politic.

Back in the U.S., her denial of a connection to the House of Zohra would constitute little more than a blip in the plethora of social news about drunk-driving celebrities and irresponsible megaconglomerates destroying ecosystems.

Once she was in the car headed to the airport, she pulled out her phone to make the most difficult call of her life. Her parents would not be pleased.

Refusing to take the easy route, she called her father first. That conversation went much as expected, but when he blamed her mother for insisting Angele be raised in the United States, she’d had enough.

“Had you managed to keep it in your pants, I would have grown up in Jawhar. Don’t you dare blame Mom for this.”

His outraged gasp at her crassness had no problem translating across the cellular connection.

“In point of fact, it was your ongoing infidelity that convinced me marriage to Zahir would never work,” Angele added. “I will not put myself in the position of living as Mom did.”

“She never wanted for anything.”

“If you really believe that, then you’ve learned nothing despite your change in behavior.”

“You do not speak to me with such disrespect, Angele.”

“The truth is not disrespect.” He couldn’t even accuse her of a snarky tone, because her voice was as devoid of emotion as her heart right now.

She preferred the dead feeling to the pain that was sure to come as her final separation from Zahir sank in completely.

“Your mother and my relationship is not your business.”

“I agree, but that does not change the fact that your example is one I absolutely refuse to follow.”

“Zahir is not a hot-blooded man.” The words like myself were implied but not said.

Angele wasn’t about to tell her father just how wrong he was. After the previous night, though, Angele knew the truth. And the certainty that Zahir had spent similar nights with Elsa Bosch managed to pierce her numbness with a hurt that Angele chose to ignore.

So much for a decimated heart having no capacity for further pain.

“You cannot do this, Angele.”

“It’s done.”

“We will discuss this further later.” The royals of Zohra and Jawhar had nothing on her father for arrogance. “Right now, I am to meet Malik and Faruq. I am sure you and I both can guess the planned topic of our conversation.”

“You are not listening, though why that should surprise me, I have no idea.”

“Angele!” The shocked way he said her name spoke volumes.

“Please, Father. I love you, but I don’t want to live my mother’s life. I simply won’t. I delivered letters to both kings with my stated intentions and apologies before leaving the palace.”

“Leaving the … where are you?” For the first time, her father’s voice sounded worried rather than angry.

The car pulled up outside the airport. She got out without answering her father, or waiting for the driver to open her door.

Once her luggage was on the curb, she said, “I’m on my way home.”

“Your home is here.”

“It never has been and it never will be.” She sighed, ignoring the twinge in her heart the words caused her. “Please listen to me, Father. I included a copy of the press release I sent out to the major news agencies with the letters I delivered to the kings. Your meeting would be best spent deciding how to deal with the PR ramifications of my decision than trying to determine how to change my mind.”

“Of course we will change your mind.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Damn it, I changed my whole lifestyle to ensure this wedding would one day take place. You will not derail that in a fit of feminine pique.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Surely Zahir told you about the little talk we had several years ago. He’s always been your hero.” Her father’s tone implied he’d neither enjoyed the little talk nor the fact he’d lost his place as Angele’s hero.

Tough. He was entirely responsible for both she was sure. And yet, she heard herself saying, “I’m sorry.”

Though why he should think Zahir would have told her about the discussion was beyond her. Before this wedding feast, the time she and Zahir had spent together alone could be measured in minutes, not hours.

It was her father’s turn to sigh. “Zahir informed me that he would not marry a woman whose father made headlines in the scandal rags on a regular basis.”

She had no problem believing that. Zahir’s near rabid protection of the family name and reputation of the royal house was well-known.

“So, you turned faithful …” She paused, swallowing down bile. She’d thought he’d done it to save their relationship and that had hurt enough, as she’d so wanted him to do it for her mother’s sake. To learn he’d done it to earn a more entrenched place in the royal house just made her sick. “Or at least circumspect, in order to make sure your daughter married into the Royal House of Zohra.”

“Faithful,” her father bit out. “I realized my actions were doing all harm and no good. Certainly they never had the effect I had hoped.”

“You hoped sleeping around would have some kind of positive impact?” she asked with patent disbelief.

“Your mother refused to get pregnant again. I accused her of becoming pregnant with you only to trap me into marriage to begin with.” A long drawn-out pause followed. “She never denied it.”