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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.
Reaching over the table, he took her hand in his own. Turning it over, he kissed her palm.
A tremor racked her body, coursing through her like an electric current, lit up by the caress of his lips against her skin.
He looked up at her. His blue eyes were endless, like the sea in the flickering light. “Because you’re my wife, Jasmine.”
Silence filled the blue room, broken by sudden booms of fireworks outside, rattling the windowpanes.
She snatched back her hand. “No, I’m not!”
“You spoke the words,” he said evenly. “So did I.”
“It wasn’t legal. There were no witnesses.”
“It doesn’t matter, not according to the laws of Qais.”
“It would never hold up in the civil courts of Qusay.”
“We are married.”
Through the high arched windows, she saw fireworks lighting the dark sky. Struggling to collect her thoughts, she shook her head. “Abandonment could be considered reason for divorce—”
He looked at her. “Your abandonment?” he said quietly. “Or mine?”
She sucked in her breath. “I was forced to leave Qusay! It was never of my free will!”
He looked at her. “I had cause to leave you as well.”
Yeah. Right. Her eyes glittered at him. “We were barely more than children. We didn’t know what we were doing.”
As the explosions continued to spiral across the night sky, booming like thunder, he leaned forward and stroked her face.
“I knew,” he said in a low voice. “And so did you.”
The tension altered, humming with a hot awareness that coiled and stretched between them.
Her cheek sizzled where he stroked her. His gaze dropped to her mouth. She felt her body tighten. Her breasts suddenly ached, her nipples taut with longing.
No!
“If we once were married,” she choked out, “speak the words to undo it now. All I care about now…is my family.”
“And what of you?” he said, cupping her face in his strong hands. “What do you want for yourself?”
She wanted him to kiss her. Wanted it with every ounce of her blood and beat of her heart.
But she wouldn’t allow this insane desire to destroy the life that was finally within reach, the family life she hungered to have. She lifted her dark lashes to look into his eyes. “I want a home.” Her voice was as quiet as the whisper of memory. “A family. I want a husband and children of my own.”
A loud crash boomed in the night sky outside them, shaking the palace.
Kareef looked down at her, his eyes suddenly dark as a midnight sea. He dropped his hands from her face. “Umar Hajjar loves his children, his horses and his money—in that order,” he said harshly. “As his wife, you will be valued a distant fourth on his list.”
“He values my connections in America. He thinks I will be the perfect wife—the perfect hostess. That is enough.”
“Not enough for him.”
“What else could he want from me?”
He looked at her.
“You’re a beautiful woman,” he said thickly. “No man could resist you.”
She stared up at him for several heartbeats, then turned away, hiding her face.
“That’s not true,” she said in a low voice. “One man has had no trouble resisting me, Kareef.” She looked up. “You.”
He grabbed her wrist on the table. His fingers tightened on her skin. “You think I don’t want you?”
His voice was dangerous. Low. She felt tension snapping between them, rippling through her body, sharp against every nerve.
Her heart beat frantically in her chest. As he leaned toward her, she breathed in his masculine scent, laced with the flavor of wine and spice. His body, in all its strength and power, was so close to hers. She yearned to lean across the table, to lose everything in one moment of sweet madness and press her mouth against his.…
Another loud boom exploded outside. It broke the spell. Made her realize she was perilously close to doing something unforgivable.
Rising to her feet, she stumbled back from the table.
“Divorce me,” she whispered. “If you’ve ever cared about me, Kareef, if I was ever more than a warm body in the night to you…divorce me tonight.”
He stared at her, his jaw tight. Then he shook his head. Tears rose to her eyes and she fought them with all her might.
“You bastard,” she choked out. “You cold-hearted bastard. I’ve known for years you had no heart, but I never thought you could…never thought you would—”
But the tears were starting to fall from her lashes. Turning before he could see them, she shoved open the double doors. They banged loudly against the walls as she fled down the hallway.
“Jasmine! Stop!”
But she didn’t obey. She just ran.
Fireworks boomed outside the tall windows as she raced past the corner where she’d first crashed into Kareef—literally—by sliding on the marble floors in her socks, playing with her sisters. When she slid too fast around the corner, he’d grasped her wrists, catching her before she could fall. His blue eyes had smiled down at her with the warmth of spring’s first sun. She’d loved him from that first day.
Now, after thirteen years of trying to forget Kareef’s existence, this one day had brought it all back, times ten. A single word from his deep voice, a single look from his handsome face, and he’d caught up Jasmine’s soul like a fish in his net.
Racing down the hall, she pushed open the first door on her left and ran down the wooden stairs into the courtyard. Cloaked in darkness, she took deep rattling gasps of the warm desert air. She stood beneath the swaying dark palm trees of the garden, beside the dark water shimmering in the silvery moonlight, and wrapped her arms over her thin cotton sundress. She could not allow herself to cry. She could not allow herself to collapse.
Because this time, if she fell, there would be no prince to catch her.
CHAPTER THREE
KAREEF nearly staggered in shock as Jasmine fled the dining room. Jasmine thought he didn’t want her? Didn’t she know her power?
When he heard the double doors bang behind her, he leapt to his feet. With an intake of breath, he pursued her. He saw her disappear through a wooden door in the hallway. The door to the royal garden, forbidden to all but the king’s family. He followed her outside.
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