CAROL MARINELLI - Midnight in the Harem - For Duty's Sake / Banished to the Harem / The Tarnished Jewel of Jazaar

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.”

“Was this before, or after you had your first affair?” What was she asking? Her brain and mouth were connected without a filter in there somewhere.

“It does not matter.”

“I’m sure it did to Mom.”

“She would not even try to give me a son.”

“I am sorry to have been such a disappointment to you.” And she’d never even known she had been.

“That is not what I meant.”

Strangely she believed him. Her father hadn’t ever done anything to make her feel like he had wished she’d been a boy. “I thought you didn’t care if you had an heir since you aren’t actual royalty.”

“You know our people, though you were not raised full-time among them.”

And in the culture of his homeland, to have no son to leave his name and worldly possessions was a great tragedy.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, feeling her father’s pain across the distance between them.

She understood the dynamics of her parents’ marriage a little better, but she still had no desire to emulate it. “Mom loves you. She always has.”

“I know that now.” For the first time since their initial greeting, her father’s voice held a measure of contentment. “I say again, Zahir is not me. He will not make my mistakes.”

Memories of the photos she had left in Zahir’s room rose to taunt Angele as she pulled her rolling case to the private plane security checkpoint. Even so, she did not reveal to her father that Zahir was no lily-white duty-bound sheikh, no matter what everyone else believed.

“I can’t marry him, Father.”

“You must.”

“No.”

“These are just prewedding jitters.”

“We aren’t even officially engaged.” Sheesh. “This is me being smart enough to avoid a future that holds no appeal for me.”

“It’s a future you are imagining, not the one that will be.”

“Have you always loved Mom?” she asked instead of answering.

The answer was immediate and without doubt.

“Yes.”

“And still you hurt her for years, as she apparently hurt you as well.” Angele understood now it had gone both ways, but that certainly did not give her more hope for her own future. “If you two, loving each other, could do so much emotional damage, how much worse in a marriage that only one person feels love?”

“Zahir is not a man to love.” Her father’s instant answer without even pausing for thought to consider which of them felt that love was another brick in the wall Angele was trying so hard to build around her heart.

“My flight is leaving in a few minutes.”

“You are not leaving Zohra.”

She heard the threat in her father’s voice, but she ignored it. She’d taken precautions to make sure she could and would leave today. She’d finagled a spot on a private plane headed to the States. So, even if the commercial flights were grounded while the royal guard searched for her, she would be going. Even so, she had timed her call to her father so that it would take a miracle for her flight to be discovered and stopped in time.

“Please, accept it. The press release has already gone out.”

“We can say it is a hoax.” “I’ll do a live interview.”

“You will not.”

She would do whatever it took to stand by her decision and let her silence tell him so.

Her father cursed fluently in Arabic. “Malik will disown our friendship.”

“He’s not that vindictive.”

“It is a matter of pride.”

“Yours. If it was all that important to either of the kings, one, or both of them, would have pressed for an official date before now. The agreement has been in place for a decade.”

“You have only been an adult for five of those years.”

“Half a decade.”

“They are pressing for it now,” he said, rather than argue the point.

Very typical for her father. Focus on the now, on the positive and ignore everything else.

She wasn’t so sanguine and never had been. “It’s too late.”

Her father cursed again and she winced. She had known this conversation would be hard, but had foolishly thought herself immune to her father’s disapproval.

“I love you, Father. I hope you’ll be able to forgive me one day.”

She hung up before he could say anything more.

She went through VIP customs, barely registering the words spoken to her or those she used in reply. Her heart ached. Whoever said emotions are felt in the head had never been in love. Her chest felt tight, like any second her heart was just going to give up and stop beating.

No matter what she’d said in her letters or on the phone to her father, walking away from Zahir was the hardest, most painful thing she’d ever done.

Last night had been the most amazing experience of her life, but then she’d looked at those pictures again and she knew. No matter how good a lover Zahir might be, he didn’t love her. Only right now, she almost thought living with him without his love would be better than living without him at all.

She forced her feet to move forward, to climb the stairs to the private jet. The owner said something to her. She replied, but couldn’t remember what either said as she buckled herself into her seat. She did remember pleading a headache, glad when that seemed to buy her the silence and privacy she needed.

She didn’t know the retired statesman or his wife very well and they appeared content to keep themselves to themselves. As far as they knew, they were doing a favor for the Royal House of Zohra, but they clearly didn’t expect conversation.

For which she was grateful, rather than offended. She wasn’t up to it. It was taking all her strength to stay in her seat and not return to the palace and a passel of angry royals.

The captain had just announced he would be taxiing into position for takeoff shortly when Angele’s mother’s number showed on the screen of her phone. She turned it off as the engines warmed up.

Nothing productive could come from her talking to her mom right now. And her call with her father had been difficult enough.

Angele’s mother’s love and approval had always been freely given. The prospect that breaking the contract with the royal family of Zohra might change that was not an outcome she felt emotionally ready to deal with.