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“Nima’s staying in New York now, living in my apartment, trying to wrap her head around the thought that she will soon be a mother.” She blinked back tears. “My baby sister. When she showed up on my doorstep two days ago, I suddenly realized how much time I’d lost. Thirteen years without my family.” Her voice cracked. “No money can replace that.”
“So you got engaged to Umar Hajjar,” he said quietly. He narrowed his eyes. “Do you love him?”
With a sigh, she rubbed her neck. “When my father sent me away thirteen years ago,” she whispered, “he said not to bother coming home again. Not until I was a respectable married woman.”
Kareef set his jaw, furious as he glared at her. “So that’s why you got engaged?” he bit out. “To please your father?”
She looked up at him, hatred suddenly blazing in her eyes.
“What do you care? You washed your hands of me long ago. In a few days I’ll be married and out of your life forever.” She lifted her chin, and her eyes glittered. “So leave me alone. Go get yourself crowned. Sire.”
In all the years he’d known Jasmine, he’d never heard that bitter tone from her lips. But could he blame her? What she’d gone through would make any woman’s soul grow brittle. Her young spirit had been so happy and bright, but he’d crushed that long ago. His hands tightened as he leaned forward over the table.
“But Jasmine,” he said in a low voice, “you have to know that I—”
“Forgive me,” Umar Hajjar interrupted, his voice high and strained. They turned almost guiltily to find him standing behind them. “My children’s nanny was on the phone. There is an emergency. I must go.”
“Oh no!” Jasmine rose to her feet anxiously. “I will come with you.”
Umar held up his hand. “I must go alone.”
“What? Why? Please, Umar,” she begged. “Let me come with you. You might need my help!”
“No,” he said harshly. His eyes fell upon Kareef. “My king, I ask you to take Jasmine under your protection.”
“No! Absolutely not!” she cried, too loudly. Guests turned to look.
“Jasmine,” Umar cautioned in a low, hard voice, “do not create a scene.”
She swallowed. “I won’t,” she choked out softly. Her dark eyes glimmered, pleading with him as they turned away from the crowd. “Just don’t leave me with the king.”
“Why?” her fiancé demanded.
She licked her lips, glancing at Kareef beneath trembling lashes. “Though he is king…he is also still a man.”
“Don’t be foolish, Jasmine. He’s the king!” Umar said. “His word is unbreakable. His honor is respected across the world. He—”
“No, she is right,” Kareef interrupted. He looked down at Jasmine with glittering eyes. “Though I am king,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, “I am also still a man.”
Her long, black eyelashes swept across her pale cheeks as she visibly trembled beneath his gaze.
“And I would trust you with my life,” Umar said stoutly. “Please. You must take her, sire.”
Kareef slowly turned to his old friend. Bring Jasmine back to the royal palace? Beneath the same roof? The gleaming palace already felt like a prison with its thick walls, when Kareef hungered for the wide freedom of the desert. He couldn’t imagine being trapped in that gilded cage with the additional torture of Jasmine’s company—under his protection as he waited for her to marry another man!
“No,” he said coldly. “She cannot stay at the palace. It’s impossible.”
But even as Jasmine exhaled in relief, Umar pressed his lips together. “She cannot stay unchaperoned here until we are married. It would be improper. I have my children to consider.”
“Send her home to her family.”
“It will be far more useful if she stays at the palace, my king.”
Ah, so this was about status. Kareef’s lip twisted with scorn.
“For Jasmine’s sake,” the other man added in a low voice. “Your attention will go far to negate her old scandal. People will forget the whispers beneath the weight of your honor.”
Staring at him, Kareef frowned in sudden indecision.
Umar lowered his head. “My king, if I have ever done anything worthy of your esteem, I beg you this one favor. Place my bride formally under your protection until the day of the Qais Cup, when I will return to marry her.”
If he’d ever done anything worthy of Kareef’s esteem?
He’d helped Kareef bring prosperity to the desert. Made him the godfather of two of his four young sons. And most of all—he’d found Kareef in the desert, half-mad and dying of thirst thirteen years ago. He’d brought him home, brought him back to health. He’d saved Kareef’s life.
“Perhaps…” Kareef said grudgingly, and Umar pounced.
“Your mother is at the palace, is she not, sire? She will make a fine chaperone, if you are concerned about propriety.”
“No,” Jasmine whimpered softly. “I won’t do it.”
Umar ignored her. He kept staring at Kareef with hope—almost desperation.
If the bride had been any other woman, Kareef would have immediately agreed. But not this woman. He cursed beneath his breath. Damn it, didn’t the man see the risk?
No, of course he did not. Umar had no idea Kareef was the one who’d taken her virginity and caused her accident in the desert thirteen years ago. No one knew Kareef was the man who’d been her lover, her partner in the scandal. Jasmine had made sure of that.
She still hated him. He saw it in her eyes. But he had no choice.
Slowly, Kareef rose to his feet. His voice was loud, ringing with authority beneath the white pavilion.
“As of this moment, and until the day of her marriage, Jasmine Kouri is under my protection.”
Another buzz rose across the crowd. They stared at Jasmine with awe. Even her old father cracked an amazed smile.
If only he knew the truth, Kareef thought grimly.
Nodding in relief, Umar turned to go.
“Wait,” Jasmine cried, grabbing her fiancé’s slender wrist. “I still don’t know what’s happened! Are your children sick? Is it the baby?”
“The children are well. I cannot say more.” The older man’s eyes were narrow and tight. “I will call you if I can. Otherwise—I will see you at the race. On our wedding day.”
And he was gone. Kareef and Jasmine sat alone on the dais, with two hundred pairs of eyes upon them.
Keeping his face impassive, Kareef threw down the linen napkin across his empty plate and glanced at Jasmine’s untouched dinner and stricken, forlorn face. “Are you finished?”
“Yes,” she whispered miserably, as if she were trying not to cry.
He held out his hand. “Then let us go.”
She focused her eyes on him. “Forget it. I’ve been under my own protection for years. I do not need or want yours.”
He continued to hold out his hand. “And yet you have it.”
“I will go stay at my family’s house.”
“Your betrothed wishes otherwise.”
“He is not the boss of me.”
“Is he not?”
She tossed her head. “I will stay at a hotel.”
She was trying her best to be insolent, making it clear she did not respect him. He should have been insulted, but as he watched the tip of her pink tongue dart out to lick her lips, he couldn’t look away from the lush, sensual mouth he’d kissed long ago. It seemed like only yesterday. His lips tingled, remembering hers.
With a deep breath, he forced himself to look up. “You will find no available hotel room, anywhere on this island. All the world has come for my coronation.” He tightened his jaw. “But that is not the point.”
“And that is?”
“I gave my word to Hajjar,” he ground out. “And I keep my promises.”
“Do you?” Her eyes glinted at him sardonically. “A new skill?”
Anger flashed through him. But he held it back, dousing it with ice. He deserved the jibe. He would accept it from Jasmine as he would from no other person alive.
He would still prevail.
“Are you afraid to be near me?” he quietly taunted.
“Afraid of you?” Her voice shimmered with hatred like moonlight on water. “Why should I be?”
He held out his hand. “Then come.”
Narrowing her eyes at him in fury, she pushed her hand into his. She never could resist a dare. But the same instant he knew he’d won, he felt the electric shock of her touch. And realized he was the one who should be afraid.
He, Kareef Al’Ramiz, the prince of the desert, soon to be absolute ruler of the kingdom of Qusay, should be afraid of what he’d do when left alone with this woman he craved. This woman he could not have. His friend’s betrothed. Because Jasmine wasn’t simply a woman to him.
She was the only woman.
CHAPTER TWO
TWILIGHT was falling over the gleaming towers and spires of the royal palace overlooking the city. Built over the ruins of a Byzantine citadel, the palace had been modernized in the last century and could be seen for miles across the Mediterranean, shining like a jewel.
So strange to be back here, Jasmine thought, in the place she’d grown up when her father had been the old king’s favored counselor. Although this was the first time she’d ever been in this particular wing. The maid had left her in a shabby garret in the oldest wing of the palace, where the servants lived.
Jasmine looked out through the grimy window toward the garden. This room was smaller than the walk-in closet of her Park Avenue penthouse, but all she felt was relief to be alone.
Her knees were still weak with shock as she hefted her small rolling suitcase on the single bed. When Kareef had led her away from the white pavilion to his waiting limousine, she’d been half-terrified that he would take her straight to his bedroom in the palace. Would she have been able to resist—even hating him as she did?
The thought was still staggering. After so many years, she’d seen Kareef again. Heard his voice. Felt his touch.
The air in the room felt suddenly stifling. She punched buttons on the control panel of the air-conditioning, then gave up and tried to open the window, but the glass wouldn’t budge.
Cursing aloud, she covered her face with her hands. Why had she ever come back to the palace? Because she was obeying Umar’s orders? She’d survived on her own in New York City for thirteen years. She did not need or want Kareef’s protection!
Or did she?
Against her will, she remembered the touch of Kareef’s hand against her own and felt like she was burning up with a fever. Sweating, she yanked off the chiffon dress. She wrenched off her stockings and sandals. Standing in just her white bra and panties, she felt relief.
Until there was a hard knock and the door swung open.
“Jasmine—”
Kareef stood in the door. He sucked in his breath when he saw her in the middle of her bedroom, halfnaked.
With a stifled scream, she grabbed the chiffon dress off the floor to cover herself. “What are you doing here?”
He stared at her, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. He was no longer in white robes, but more casually dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt and black pants. He looked more devastating than ever, and his towering body was taut. “I want…I want you to join me for a late supper.”
“So call me on the phone and ask!” she cried. A servant passed by in the hallway, trying not to gawk. Frowning, Kareef stepped inside the room, closing the door behind him.
“You can’t come in here!” she said, scandalized.
“I can’t let anyone else see you like this.”
“Anyone? What about you?”
Lifting a dark eyebrow, he looked her over slowly. “I’ve seen far more of you than this.”
Her cheeks flamed red-hot—and she truly wanted to kill him! “We can’t be alone in a closed bedroom! In some parts of the country, you would be required to marry me!”
He gave a low laugh. “It’s a good thing we’re in the city, then.”
“Don’t you dare! Don’t you realize how gossip can spread?”
“My servants can be trusted.”
She shook her head fiercely. “How do you know?”
“One servant betrayed us, Jasmine. One.” His eyes glinted. “And I made him pay. Marwan—”
“I’m not going to argue with you!” she nearly shrieked, grabbing a pillow off her bed and lifting it over her head. The dress fell to the floor but she barely noticed. Modesty was inconsequential compared to the blaze of her fury. “Just get out!”
He looked at her body in the white cotton bra and panties. She felt his gaze upon her bare skin from her collarbone to the curve of her breasts, down her flat belly to her naked thighs. Her mouth went dry.
Then, slowly, he met her gaze. “You’re threatening me with a pillow, Jasmine?”
Since he was a foot taller and probably eighty pounds heavier than her, she could see why that would seem like a joke. It only made her more angry. “Do you need a handwritten request? Get out!”
“When you agree to join me for dinner.”
Staring at him, a jittery nervousness pulsed through her. The last time she’d seen Kareef, he’d been barely eighteen, the king’s eldest nephew, slender and tall and fine. She’d been the bookish eldest daughter of the king’s adviser; he’d been a wild, reckless horse racer with a vulnerable heart and joyful laugh.
But he’d changed since then. He was no longer a boy; he’d become a man. A dangerous one.
His once-friendly blue eyes were now ruthless; the formerly vibrant expression on his handsome, rugged face had become tightly controlled. His once-lanky frame had gained strength. Even the muscle of his body proclaimed him a king. He could probably pick up someone like Umar and toss him through the air like a javelin. She’d never seen any man on earth with shoulders like Kareef’s.
But the biggest change was the grim darkness she now saw beneath his gaze. She could sense the cold warrior hidden beneath his deeply tanned skin. He had only the thinnest veneer of civilization left. The danger both attracted her…and frightened her.
It doesn’t matter, she told herself desperately. In a few days she would become Umar’s wife and she would never have to see Kareef again. If she could just make it to her wedding…
“So you’ll join me?” he said coldly.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Come anyway. We have…something to discuss.”
“No,” she said desperately. “We don’t.”
He lowered a dark eyebrow. “Do I really have to say it?”
She swallowed. No. She knew exactly what he was talking about. She’d just told herself many times that it didn’t matter, that it didn’t count, that it had just been a few whispered words between kisses.
The pillow dropped from her hands. She wrapped her arms around her body, glancing toward the deepening shadows of the garden. She whispered, “It’s all in the past.”
“The past is always with us.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him take a single step toward her. “You know you cannot marry him.”
Oh my God, Kareef was going to touch her! If he did—if he reached out and took her hand—she was afraid of how her body would react. Only her anger was keeping her hands wrapped around her own waist, when some uncivilized part of her longed to stroke the dark curl of his hair, the roughness of his jawline, to touch the hard muscles and discover the man he had become…
With a harsh intake of breath, she held up her hand sharply, keeping him at a distance.
“All right!” she bit out. “I’ll join you for your fancy dinner if you’ll just leave!”
His blue eyes held hers. “It won’t be fancy. Simple and quiet.”
“Right.” She didn’t believe him for a second. She’d never seen any Al’Ramiz king dine with fewer than fifty people and ten courses of meat and fish and fruit.
“The blue room.” He looked her over, and she felt that same flush of heat as his gaze touched her naked skin. “Ten minutes.”
The blue room? Now she knew he was lying. The blue room was for entertaining heads of state! But she’d worry about that later—when she wasn’t naked and confined with him in such a small space! Unwillingly, her eyes fell on the tiny bed between them.
He followed her gaze.
Suddenly, her heart was pounding so loud she could almost hear it. Then he turned toward the door.
“See you at dinner.”
“Yes.” She could suddenly breathe again.
He paused, as his large frame filled the doorway. “It’s good to see you, Jasmine.” And he closed the door behind him.
Good to see her?
As soon as he was gone, she dug frantically through her suitcase and found nothing at all to wear. She lifted up the crumpled green chiffon dress from the floor only to discover a stain on the bodice.
Why was Kareef doing this to her? Why couldn’t they just ignore the past? Why couldn’t they just pretend it did not exist?
You know you cannot marry him.
She took a deep breath. They’d share one meal. He would speak a few careful words, and it would be done. They could both go on with their lives.
She grabbed a white sundress, fresh and pretty with a modest neckline. It wasn’t nearly fancy enough for a fifty-person banquet in the blue room with the king, but it would just have to do. She added sandals and a string of pearls. All sweet and simple, and hers. Not selected for her by Umar from a designer boutique. She brushed her long hair, and looked at herself in the mirror.
Bewildered brown eyes looked back at her. She looked young and insecure, nothing like the powerful woman she’d become in New York. Being close to Kareef made her feel vulnerable again. As if she were sixteen.
Her feet dragged as she left her room and headed toward the east wing. The hallways were oddly quiet but she passed two women as she made her way to the blue room—the Sheikha, Kareef’s mother, and her much younger companion trailing behind in her black abaya. The Sheikha saw Jasmine and her wrinkled, kindly face lifted into a vague, benevolent smile. She probably didn’t remember who Jasmine was. Jasmine bowed deeply.
When she looked up, she saw the Sheikha’s companion smiling down at her. It was Sera, her childhood friend! But the Sheikha was in a hurry. Sera had only time to whisper, “Glad you’re back,” before she had to quickly follow her employer down the hall.
A surprised smile rose on Jasmine’s face as she stared after her old friend. Sera still remembered her after all these years? A surge of happiness went through Jasmine, then she turned back to hurry down the hall. The palace seemed strangely silent, almost desolate. Had the big fancy dinner been canceled? Was she late? With a deep breath, Jasmine pushed open the double doors.
The long dining table, big enough to seat forty-eight, was lit by long-tapered candles. Only one person was seated there.
“Jasmine.” Kareef rose to his feet with a short, formal bow. He moved to the place beside his at the table, standing behind her chair. “Please.”
Shocked, she looked right and left. “Where is everyone else?”
“There is no one else.”
“Oh.”
“I told you. Simple and quiet.”
She was having dinner with Kareef…alone? Feeling like she was in a surreal dream, she walked toward the table. The candles flickered light and shadow upon the white wainscoting and pale blue walls of the cavernous room. She swallowed, then lowered herself into her chair. He pushed it forward for her. As if they were on a date.
No—she couldn’t think that way! This was the opposite of a date!
Kareef sat down in the chair beside her, then nodded regally at two servants who appeared from the shadows. She jumped as they took silver lids off trays to serve two exquisite meals of cool salad, cucumbers, exquisite fruits, bread and cheeses. They opened a bottle of sparkling water, then a bottle of expensive French wine. After serving the trays, they backed away with a bow and disappeared, closing the double doors softly behind them.
They were alone. And Jasmine felt it. She licked her lips nervously. “What is all this?”
Kareef leaned forward to pour her a glass of wine. “You didn’t eat at your engagement party. You must be hungry.” His sensual lips quirked. “I allow no one to starve while under my protection.”
She watched him, involuntarily noticing the way the candlelight cast shadows across the astonishing masculine beauty of his face.
He looked up, and his blue eyes sizzled through hers with the intensity of his gaze. “Are you?”
“Am I what?” she stammered.
“Are. You. Hungry,” he said with slow deliberation, and she found herself looking at his lips and remembering the last time he’d kissed her. So long ago. Or was it? It seemed like it was yesterday, and all the long years since had just been a dream. “Jasmine.”
With an intake of breath, she looked up. “Starving,” she whispered.
He smiled, then indicated her plate. “One of the few perks of being king,” he said. “A world-class chef at my beck and call. A far cry from what I’m used to at my home in Qais.”
She took a bite of the food and noticed it was indeed delicious, and she was indeed starving. But as she ate, she couldn’t look away from Kareef’s face.
Oh, this was dangerous. She couldn’t trust him. He’d betrayed her! Ruined her! But her body didn’t seem to care. Every time he looked at her, she trembled from within.
She set down her fork. “Kareef. I don’t want to be here with you, any more than you want me here. So if you’ll just do what must be done—”
“Later,” he interrupted. He pushed the crystal goblet full of ruby-colored wine toward her. “We have all night.”
All night. Trembling, she took a bracing gulp of wine and wiped her mouth. “But with your coronation in a few days,” she stammered, “you must have many demands on your time. I heard something about fireworks tonight, given by the city council in your honor—”
“Nothing is more important—” he refilled her wineglass “—than this.”
Why was he stretching this out? Why? What possible reason could he have?
Helplessly, she took another sip of wine. Silence fell in the shadows of flickering candlelight as they ate.
He glanced at her enormous diamond ring, heavy as a paperweight on her hand. “An expensive trinket, even for a billionaire,” he said. “Hajjar values you high.”
Embarrassed heat flooded her cheeks. “I’m not marrying him for his money, if that’s what you think!”
Something like a smile passed briefly over Kareef’s face. “No,” he said. “I know you are not.”
What was that smile hiding? Some private joke?
Once, she’d known him so well. The boy she’d loved had hidden nothing from her. But she did not know this man.
She watched him take a sip of wine. There was something sensual about watching his lips on the crystal glass, his tongue tasting the red Bordeaux. She could almost imagine those lips, that tongue, upon her body.
No! she ordered herself desperately. Stop it!
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!