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

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.”

“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.

CHAPTER FIVE

HIS body beneath his robes of state rigid with shock, Zahir stared at his father. Replaying the words Faruq had spoken in his mind did not aid in making sense of them.

Angele would not have done this. She could not have done this. Not after their very successful night together.

“You did not expect this,” Faruq said with some censure.

No, Zahir had bloody well not expected anything like this. Not after last night. Especially after last night. But betrayal and shock were choking him, anger their close bedfellow, so he merely shook his head.

“Her leave taking, these letters …” Faruq wasn’t sounding like a father, but a disappointed king. “It all implies forethought and planning.”

“It’s one of her talents.” Zahir allowed with heavy irony to mask his growing fury.

His gazed jumped from his father’s grave expression to matching looks on the two other men in the king’s private study. King Malik’s frown was two parts anger, one part confusion. Cemal appeared resigned, though clearly not happy.

That attitude of resignation bothered Zahir more than he wanted to admit, feeding the anger he was doing his best to keep under control. “Did you know about this?” he asked the older man.

“No.” Cemal did not elaborate, but King Malik was more than willing to fill in the gaps. “She called him on her way to the airport.”

“And we were unable to stop her flight?” Zahir asked, knowing full well how feudal he sounded and really, not caring.

“She cut the timing too fine and left on the private jet owned by one of the wedding guests.” Zahir cursed.

“She outwitted us,” King Malik said with some admiration.

Zahir did not comment, but reached out in a silent demand to see the letter his father still held. He was not so impressed right now by Angele’s superb attention to detail.

Faruq passed the papers over. “She included a copy of her press release as well—it denies rumors of your possible betrothal.”

“You’re serious?” Zahir asked in an angry disbelief he was unable to entirely quash.

There was being thorough and there was being outrageously stubborn.

Faruq nodded grimly. “According to her letter, it won’t go live for a few hours.”

“She did not want us blindsided by the announcement,” King Malik said.

Blindsided? After the night they had spent in his bed, how could Zahir be anything but? He scanned the pages in his hand. “Like hell she does not wish to live in Zohra. She loves it here.”

Both kings nodded their agreement, though it was King Malik that spoke. “That has always been my understanding.”

“She chose the excuse most likely to lose her favor with the people of Zohra and Jawhar while increasing Zahir’s sympathy with them.” It was the first time since Zahir had entered his father’s study that Cemal had offered anything more than a monosyllabic answer to a question. “It is the equivalent of her falling on her sword.”

The words conjured up Angele’s claims she would not allow herself or Zahir to be railroaded into marriage, and her subsequent promise to take the blame in the media and with the royal families. He’d convinced himself she didn’t mean it. Clearly he’d been spectacularly wrong regarding her motives for their “wedding night.”

Not in the least comfortable with an image of himself as being so weak he needed such protections, the fury inside Zahir went from simmer to full boil. He was not that man. That she could not see that truth infuriated him, but like always, he kept his emotions under tight control.

“The fact she broke the engagement was enough of a sympathy vote for me,” Zahir said with cold sarcasm.

Cemal shook his head. “Not if she gave her true reason for doing so, which I’ve no doubt she did to you.”

Zahir remembered the conversation he’d had with his intended only three nights ago, words he had dismissed as nerves. “You believe she spoke to me of this?” He shook the papers in his hand, his grip so tight they wrinkled.

He wasn’t denying it, but he wasn’t admitting anything, either.

“I know my daughter. She does not take the easy way out.”

“That is why she called our engagement off with a letter,” Zahir mocked.

How had she considered it unnecessary to speak to him personally? Had she thought her illogical claims in his study that night to be sufficient final word on their future?

If she did, it only showed how very little she truly understood the man who she would one day marry.

Cemal wasn’t buying it. “She called me and I’m confident she spoke directly to you.”

“Did she?” Faruq demanded of his son.

Zahir gave a jerk of his head. Regardless of whether he accepted that conversation as definitive word on the subject, obviously Angele had seen things differently. He ignored a curiously sharp pain in the vicinity of his heart at her easy dismissal.

“And you did not feel it politic to warn me, or her uncle?” Zahir’s father demanded, his own anger blatant and no distant relation to the emotionless facade he had always demanded of Zahir.

“Adopted uncle,” Cemal stressed, once again entering the discussion. “And it’s not an engagement. Their relationship was never formalized. Not in ten years.”

“We all know the reasons behind that,” Zahir said.

“Camel dung.” Cemal made no attempt to hide his disgust. “You could have announced the formal engagement anytime, but you chose not to and my daughter got tired of waiting.”

“So, she thought to force my son’s hand with this?” Faruq asked in a deadly quiet voice.

Zahir’s father had taught him to negotiate, to manipulate and to retaliate. The man hated being on the receiving end of circumstances and manipulations out of his control.

Cemal’s expression turned even stonier than it had been as he’d voiced his accusation of Zahir’s neglect over his duty. No, he hadn’t labeled it as such, but each man in this room knew who was responsible for the ten-year-long “understanding.”

“On the contrary,” Cemal said, his voice just as cold as Zahir’s father’s had been. “This is my daughter making sure nothing can force her into honoring a contract she believes would sow nothing but unhappiness for her future.”

“That is ridiculous, my brother,” King Malik said, laying his own stress on the family claim along with a conciliatory hand on Cemal’s shoulder. “The girl is in love with Zahir and always has been. It’s as easy to read every time she is near him as the most basic of primary books.”

Zahir grimaced. “A woman in love does not break off an engage—” At Cemal’s narrowed eyes, Zahir amended his words to, “a contractual promise for future marriage.”

“She does if she believes her love will never be returned.”

Zahir wasn’t going there. “She is no starry-eyed teenager to expect flowers and poetry from a marriage such as ours.”

“I think you are missing the point here,” Cemal said. “There isn’t going to be any marriage.”

“And this pleases you?” Zahir accused, stunned by the possibility. He was no man’s idea of a poor son-in-law choice.

“Not at all, but I know my daughter well enough to know that once she sets a course of action, she sticks to it.”

Zahir didn’t disagree. Cemal and Lou-Belia had wanted Angele to attend finishing school in Paris rather than university in the States. Angele had gotten her degree from Cornell. Neither had approved her decision to get her own apartment, but Angele had lived on her own since her sophomore year at university.

Zahir had never given much thought to what he considered Angele’s minor rebellions, particularly when he had approved her choices both times. He had not wanted her to marry him without having had a chance to live at least something of a normal life.

Now, he thought he’d been a fool to encourage the blatant independence. Had he spent more time getting to know her, he would have realized what such choices might wrought.

“We can put out our own press release saying hers was a hoax, perpetrated by our enemies,” King Malik suggested.

Cemal shook his head. “She threatened to do a live interview if we did that.”

So, Cemal had tried to dissuade his daughter from her intended path.

And all Zahir could concentrate on was the truth that such persuasion should not have been necessary after the previous night. Those hours out of time fed Zahir’s anger and an unfamiliar tightness in his chest.

“So, we have no choice,” Faruq said with a worried glance at his son.

Zahir was no object of pity or concern and never would be. “There is always a choice. We will release our own statement.”

“And what will it say?” King Malik asked, hope gleaming in eyes reflecting a lifetime of power and even less tolerance for not getting his own way as Zahir’s father.

“That I recognize waiting so long to announce our formal engagement was a mistake. I will woo my bride-to-be. The country can expect announcement of my formal betrothal by the end of the year.”

If hearts and flowers were what she wanted, then they were what he would give his errant bride-to-be.

His father’s bark of laughter was tinged with no less disbelief than Angele’s actions had sparked. King Malik and Cemal merely stared at Zahir as if he’d taken leave of his senses.

“You doubt my ability to woo one innocent woman after witnessing my skills at negotiations with world leaders?” he demanded.

Cemal coughed. “A woman is not a world power.”

“No, but one day your daughter will be married to one.” Zahir bowed his leave-taking to his father and King Malik, inclining his head to Cemal. “If you will excuse me, I have a campaign to plan.”

If fury drove him more than desire, that was his own business.

His father frowned, but said, “If you are sure this is the course of action you want to take, I will have the press release with your apology and intentions drawn up and disseminated.”

“Do you have another suggestion?”

“You could let her go.”

“I cannot. In waiting too long to finalize our engagement, I failed Angele. I will not do so again through inaction.” Besides, they had already had their wedding night.

There would damn well be a wedding. “Good luck,” Cemal said, sounding like he meant it.

King Malik nodded. “My staff and family are at your disposal. I will have my wife create a dossier most likely to help you in your cause.” King Malik turned to Cemal. “She will draw upon Lou-Belia’s knowledge of her daughter as well.”

Cemal nodded. “Good. Her mother knows Angele better than anyone else.”

“Thank you.” Not that Zahir doubted his ability to convince Angele to marry him.

However he would take what help was offered. After all, he had been certain that after the previous night she would never have gone through with this farce of denying him to begin with.

He understood his intended’s motivations a thousandfold better several hours later. He’d finally returned to his rooms only to find a thick envelope with his name on it and stamped with a red Private prominently in several places.

The letter was somewhat illuminating, but coupled with the pictures, Zahir realized he was damn lucky Angele had handled breaking the contract the way she had. Acknowledging that did nothing to improve his black mood.

The fury he’d felt at her defection was nothing compared to the incendiary rage he experienced knowing she had been subjected to blackmail.

Looking through the pictures, he had no doubts about who had taken them and used them for monetary gain, either. There could only be one person. Only Zahir had thought Elsa too smart to risk something like this. She stood to lose far more than she could ever hope to gain.

Regardless of who the culprit was, though, Angele should have brought the problem directly to him. Instead she had paid the money.

They were not close, but she had to have known that he would deal with the problem.

The fact Angele had paid money to keep his name out of the tabloids boggled his mind. It simply was not the way things were done. She had to have known he would have safeguards in place in just such an event.

She certainly expected him to be able to take care of it now, or so her letter suggested.

Nevertheless, her loyal, if foolish, actions were further indication that she was indeed in love with him. Or believed herself to be. He gave very little credence to love and all it entailed, but her feelings for him should make his wooing a simple matter.

A little voice amidst all his anger reminded him that he’d thought his seduction and lovemaking would have prevented her leaving in the first place. His father wanted to know why not just let her go?

It was simple really. Zahir didn’t lose. Ever.

Equally as important, Zahir accepted that he owed his future bride a courtship. He was furious with her, but his own inaction in regard to their betrothal and ill-advised relationship with Elsa had driven Angele to her recent actions.

Zahir had failed in his duty to her and that was worse than losing. That was a blow to his integrity he simply would not accept.

First, he had to handle Elsa and her threats. She must be made to understand that Angele was and forever would be off-limits.

Then Zahir would go after his reluctant bride.

Sitting at her desk at the magazine, Angele read the article her mother had sent her the link for. Confusion slowly morphed to sheer, unadulterated anger. That arrogant idiot.

Even after seeing the pictures she’d been sent, Zahir thought he could convince her to go through with the wedding contract. Did he have no idea how hopeless that belief should be?