The group’s spokesman cut in. “He’s a fledgling in the world of finance and politics compared to you.”
“A fledgling who flew out of the nest a fully grown vulture of the first order, and who might tear me apart if I turn my back on him like…I don’t know, like I’m doing now while I pursue this quest? And then there is Jalal, who is the more—”
The man interrupted again. “Jalal is too Zohaydan. You are the perfect combination we need, if you’ll only take this more seriously.”
“Like Rashid, you mean?” He huffed. “But aren’t you claiming this is all about what’s best for Azmahar? If he proves the better—”
“He isn’t,” another man insisted. “And neither is Jalal. But Rashid is forming alliances beyond his supporters. And Jalal has the kingdom’s top politico-economic expert as his consultant.”
Everything hit Pause inside Haidar.
There was only one person that could describe. Roxanne.
It was impossible. “You are misinformed about Jalal. Which makes me wonder about all the information you’ve been feeding me.”
“We have proof,” a third man said. “Photos of Jalal with Roxanne Gleeson for the past month, phone recordings—”
His heat shot up. “You’re monitoring her phone?”
The man shook his head. “His. This is a major fight, and we will do anything to stop our adversary from gaining unfair advantage. And with her on his side, he certainly has that over you and Rashid. Not that we regret breaching her privacy. It’s almost unethical to be supplying him with information she has come by from her job here.”
Haidar didn’t know what he said, or how the meeting came to an end. He found himself alone, paralyzed, in body and mind.
Then in the numb silence inside him, a voice rose. Serene, cajoling, knowing, explaining it all.
Roxanne was playing both of them. Until one became king. Then she’d pick him up like a ripe plum. She thought secrecy would even serve her if Rashid took the throne. She’d remain on his good side, maximize on his good opinion to win an even bigger role. While it would keep her options open with him and Jalal until she decided who would provide the most benefit to her. Probably Jalal. Putting up with a friend-turned-husband was one thing. Dealing with someone as emotionally and physically demanding as him was another. She might even dump them both and go for Rashid. And she’d get him. Not only was she irresistible in her own right, she had the insider info she needed to pull Rashid’s strings.
He pressed both palms to his ears, shutting out that maddening, mutilating voice. The voice he now recognized.
His mother’s.
That was her talking. She’d passed down to him the seeds of paranoia and mistrust and then fostered them every way she could. Listening to that voice had served him well in the cutthroat world of business. It had decimated his personal life.
He was done listening to her. He was done doubting Roxanne.
He would ask her about Jalal. And whatever she told him, it would be the truth.
End of story.
* * *
Haidar dived beneath the turquoise waters, surfaced with Roxanne wrapped around him. He squeezed her satiny flesh, ravaged her lips with smiling kisses that she reciprocated with enough ardor to turn the sea to steam. Though he’d just finished making love to her on the island, that hadn’t even begun to satisfy him.
He slid his lips to her ear, gently bit her earlobe. “Race me back to the pier?”
She giggled, nipped his chin. “I have not turned into a dolphin yet. You’d have the fish cooked by the time I catch up.”
“But you are a saherah. You can just use your magic.”
Her eyes blasted him with unadulterated appreciation. “‘Look who’s talking’ seems to comprise most of what I say to you these days.”
She did make him feel as if he possessed magic. She made him feel craved, treasured to his last cell. Just as he craved and treasured her.
He swept her into his arms, swam on his back with leisurely strokes in the still waters that had mercifully been untainted by the oil spill. She nestled into him, the largest part of his soul. His gaze swept what she called their oasis in the declining sun, luxuriated in feeling her through the silk medium of perfect-temperature water, in being with her in such a huge personal space. He had scheduled the estate caretakers to come only when she was at work.
Being here with her had long surpassed any heaven he’d ever heard about.
It would stay their secret heaven until the whole throne business was concluded. He didn’t want to beat his opponents through the mass appeal of a fairy-tale wedding and the promise of the best queen the kingdom could hope for. He wanted to either take the throne by personal merit, or not at all. He also wanted to separate them from any tinge of business and politics.
They swam to the pier in languid silence, tapping into and feeding each other’s energies and emotions in a closed circuit of harmony. Time stretched when they were together. The month since they’d found each other again felt like a year. More. He barely remembered his life before this month.
He certainly didn’t want to remember the time after he’d lost her, when the knife kept twisting harder each time his siblings found their soul mates. Aliyah had found Kamal, Shaheen had Johara, Harres had Talia, and most shocking and improbable of all, Amjad had Maram. But he’d found Roxanne again, and at last had her for real, and this time forever. It was nothing short of a miracle.
He sighed, felt enveloped in the contentment and certainty only her embrace imbued him with.
Suddenly she wriggled, broke his hold, kicked away.
She laughed as he gave pursuit. Despite her earlier joke, she was such a strong swimmer, he almost didn’t need to slow down for her to beat him to the pier. She pulled herself onto it in one agile move, stood in her flame-colored torture device of a swimsuit grinning down at him.
He took his time following her, to look his fill as she dried herself in brisk movements. Those grew languid as he neared, gathered her, cherished her every inch in caresses and kisses as she stroked him dry.
He lifted her in his arms and she clung around his neck as he walked to the house. “I was thinking of the incredible relationships my siblings have, and it made me think of Maram. I can’t wait for you to meet her. You’ll hit it off right out of the region.”
She nuzzled his neck. “You never told me about her before.”
He was realizing more and more how he’d shortchanged her. He never would again. “I adored her growing up. Still do. She’s one of those rarities in life, an anomaly who liked me more than Jalal. Turned out my mother was behind throwing us together as part of her long-term plan to put me on the throne of Ossaylan, too. But all it did was create a special bond between us. And boy, did we milk that to give Amjad a well-deserved hard time.”
“I’m not supposed to be jealous, right?”
“Never be, of anything in this world. B’Ellahi, I am yours.”
His reward for the fervent vow was a kiss that almost had him taking her right there and to hell with showering and eating.
He pulled back, knowing she needed both. “As for Maram, she was my cherished friend, like Jalal was yours. I lost almost all touch with her as she went through the ordeals of her two marriages and temporary defection to the U.S., but once we saw each other again, it was like we never stopped being friends. I hope you can have the happiness of Jalal’s friendship back, like I do Maram’s.”
He waited for her to tell him she had been seeing Jalal since he’d come back to Azmahar, that they had resumed their friendship.
She only looked away. “I would love that, too.”
Arjooki, ya habibati…please, my love, trust me, tell me.
She didn’t.
* * *
“You did what?”
Cherie’s exclamation felt like nails against Roxanne’s nerves.
She was again almost sorry she’d run to her friend with this.
But she hadn’t been able to share it with her mother. Her mother, who was deliriously happy for the first time in…ever, after she’d told her about Haidar’s proposal.
She’d told Cherie and Jalal, too, asked them to keep it a secret until the kingship issue was settled. Her mother had decided to cancel her retirement and come help her settle things faster so that the wedding could happen that much sooner.
Before any of that happened, she had to settle this mess.
She’d lied to Haidar point-blank, pretended she hadn’t seen or heard from Jalal since the original breakup.
“You call this desert god of yours and tell him the truth right now, Roxanne. The more time you let pass between your…omission to tell him you’ve been seeing his twin behind his back, and helping him against him… God! What were you thinking?”
“It didn’t happen that way!” she groaned. “I started this when Haidar was my worst enemy and Jalal my best friend. Suddenly Haidar is my fiancé and I’m helping Jalal, who’s now his rival. I’m bound to Jalal by friendship and my word of honor, and to Haidar by love and everything else. But I couldn’t tell him when he gave me the opening. It isn’t my secret to tell.”
“Famous last words.” Cherie groaned, too. “You gotta fix this, and fast. Things like this can spiral and spoil everything. And your reconciliation with Haidar is too new and emotions too high.”