Midnight in the Harem

She’d decided it was willful blindness on her part, but that had not made her feel any better. Only mind-numbingly stupid.

She was a twenty-three-year-old virgin with no prospects and she knew she was to blame for that fact. She had clung to hopes and fairy tales that would never come true in the real world. Her parents’ marriage should have made her realize that.

Zahir looked up from some papers on his desk, his gray eyes widening a fraction at the sight of her. He quickly stood to his full, impressive six feet four inches. He wore the traditional robes and head covering of a crown sheikh over a tailored suit that made him look mouthwateringly attractive to her.

Not that he was even remotely aware of the effect he had on her. She would have to be on his radar as an actual woman for that to happen.

“Princess Angele, what are you doing here?” He had always called her Princess, though she was not one.

But her godfather, King Malik, had nicknamed her such and the nickname had stuck. She’d always thought it sweet, but now realized it was one more barrier that Zahir kept between them.

His refusal to call her simply by her first name, as any man intent on marrying a woman might do.

He looked past her, no doubt expecting some kind of chaperone. But she’d left her mother and all other potential protectors of her virtue at the feast. She pressed the door closed, the snick of the catch mechanism engaging loud in the silent room.

“Have I forgotten we were to meet?” he asked, sounding perplexed, but not wary. “Did you expect me to escort you to the table?”

“I’m perfectly capable of walking to my own table.” At her request, they had not been seated next to one other. “I know about Elsa Bosch.”

She hadn’t meant for that to be her opening salvo, but it would have to do. She’d paid the blackmailer, not once, but twice. After this weekend, Zahir’s reputation would no longer be her concern. The picture taker would have to find another cash cow.

Distaste flicked over Zahir’s features, at what she was not sure. Was he disgusted by the gossip rag that had printed a picture of him and his lover at a tête-à-tête in Paris the week before last?

Compared to the pictures Angele had seen, the two sitting at an intimate table for two was a boringly tame image. But as she’d suspected, the very fact Zahir was “friends” with the actress was cause for speculation and scandal.

Or was he disappointed in his prim and proper almost-fiancée bringing the subject up? She’d worked so hard for so many years to be the perfect image of his future queen.

Little did he know it, but that Angele was in ashes on the floor of her office back in America.

“That is not something you need concern yourself with.”

Those words shocked her, hurting her when she thought no more wounds could be made. She had expected his anger. Disdain. Frustration, maybe. But not dismissal. She’d not expected him to believe that she had nothing to say about the women he shared himself with while leaving her untouched. Unclaimed. And achingly unfulfilled.

She wasn’t ignorant. She knew that sex could and should be wonderful for a woman, but she was entirely inexperienced and she intended for that to change. Tonight.

The realization that Zahir had more in common with her father than she had ever believed almost derailed her determination but, in some strange way, it made it okay for her to make her bargain.

“The picture was rather flattering, to you both.”

He stood up, “Listen, Princess—”

“My name is Angele.”

“I am aware.”

“I prefer you use it.” If only for this one night, he would see her as a person in her own right. “I am not a princess.”

And never would be now. Nor was she the starry-eyed child who had reacted with delirious joy upon the announcement of their future marriage. The past ten years had finally brought her not only adulthood, but a definitive check with reality.

The man she had loved for too long and if her mother was to be believed, would probably love until the day she died, had no more desire to marry her than he wanted to dance naked at the next royal ball. Perhaps even less.

“Angele,” he said, as if making a great concession. “Ms. Bosch is not an issue between us.”

He was so wrong. On so many levels, but her plan did not include enumerating them, so she didn’t. “You were smiling in the picture. You looked happy.”

Certainly he had never given Angele the affection filled gaze he’d given the German actress even in that single, oh so tame, picture in the tabloid.

Zahir looked at Angele as if she had spoken something other than one of the five languages he conversed in with extreme fluency.

“I read that you broke things off with her.” Angele had gone from supremely ignorant of her fiancé's social activities to an expert on the gossip surrounding him.

“I did.”

“Because you were photographed together.”

He frowned, but gave a quick jerk of his head in acknowledgment. “Yes.”

She found that sad. For Zahir. For herself. For Elsa Bosch even. Had the woman realized she was so expendable? Then again, she might well have been the person who had extorted money for silence from Angele.

Regardless, Elsa was not the real issue here. And Angele needed to remember that, no matter how hot her retinas burned with the images of the other woman in Zahir’s arms.

She pushed away from the wall and went to look at the statuary displayed in a dark mahogany case. Her favorite was a Bedouin rider on a horse, carved from dark wood. They looked like they would race off into the desert.

But she noticed a new piece. It was another Bedouin, but this figure was only the man, in the traditional garb of the nomadic people. He looked off into the distance with an expression of longing on his features so profound her heart squeezed in her chest. “When did you get this?”

“It was a gift.” “From whom?” He did not answer.

She turned to face him. “It was Elsa, wasn’t it?” His jaw locked and she knew he would not reply. She refused to let that hurt her. “She knows you well.”

“I will not lie. Our association was measured in years, not days.” His tone had an edge to it that Angele had no hope of interpreting.

And his use of the past tense did nothing to assuage Angele’s feelings.

“Yes, I gathered.” The photos she had been sent spanned a timeline that could not have possibly been anything less. Someone who did not know and watch him so closely would not have noticed perhaps, but it had been obvious to Angele.

“The tabloids print trash. I’m surprised you read it.”

She did not react to the taunt. Nor did she answer the implied question of where her information had come from. She said the one thing that needed saying. “You don’t want to marry me.”

“I will do my duty by my father’s house.” Which was more a confirmation of his lack of desire than she was sure he meant it to be.

“You’ll make a great king one day.” He was already an accomplished politician. “But that is not a direct answer and you neglected to note, I wasn’t asking a question.”

“If this is about Ms. Bosch and our now defunct association, please remember that you and I are not officially engaged.”

“I am to take comfort in the inference you would not be unfaithful if we were?” she asked carefully.

His brows drew together and for the first time since the discussion started, she saw anger make its way to the forefront. “Naturally.”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Prin—Angele, I am not your father.”

“No, you aren’t.” And she would never give him the opportunity to prove them both wrong, either. “This isn’t about Elsa Bosch, not really.”

Ultimately it was about love. It was about loving someone enough to let them go. Only that sounded so cheesy, she’d never speak the words aloud. And it was about knowing she deserved to be loved, fully and completely, by the man she would spend the rest of her life with.

He did not look like he believed her claim and she could practically see the thoughts zinging around in his facile brain. He was trying to figure out the right words to reassure, when in fact none existed.

None that he could say anyway.

Again it was time for truth. “Your brothers have both found wonderful happiness while you have been stuck in a promise made on your behalf by two men with too much power and too little comprehension of the cost of their dynastic plans.”

“I do not consider myself stuck. I was an adult when that agreement was made.” Yes, he’d been all of twenty-four and as bound by duty as any young adult male could be. “I chose my future.”

An alpha male like Zahir would have to convince himself of that, or he could not accept the limitations imposed on him by others. It simply was not in his nature. He had the heart of a Bedouin, if also the responsibilities of a landed royal.

“You do not wish to marry me,” she repeated, refusing to be sidetracked. “And I won’t let you be forced into doing so by duty.”

Nor would she allow herself to be railroaded into a marriage with the potential to be every bit as miserable as her parents were for so many years.

His eyes narrowed, his expression turning even more grim than usual. “You are not making any sense.”

“We’ve been promised for ten years, Zahir. If you had wanted to marry me, we would already be living in wedded harmony here in your family’s palace.” They would definitely at least be formally engaged.

“It has not been the right time.”

She’d heard that argument before. And believed it. First, she’d been too young. Then, his father’s health had been precarious. The idea of announcing an engagement during such a time was not appropriate, or so Zahir had claimed. Then, Khalil had gotten engaged and stealing his spotlight during the preparations for, celebration of and immediate time after Khalil and Jade’s wedding would have been wrong. The same excuse came convenient to hand when Amir and Grace became engaged.

For ten years, five—if you only counted the years since she became an adult—they had not found the right time to announce their engagement, much less actually get married. And they never would, if it meant finding a time when Zahir wanted the nuptials to take place.

Though Crown Sheikh Zahir bin Faruq al Zohra would no doubt eventually allow duty to force him into following through on a marriage he did not desire.

Since she would be the other half of that marriage, she wasn’t going to let it happen. Realizing that had meant giving up her dreams. And that had hurt, even more than seeing the photos of Zahir kissing Elsa.

But then who was Angele kidding? Certainly not herself. Seeing the unfamiliar happiness on Zahir’s face had lacerated her heart far more than the passion. The numbness having long since given way to a devastation she would have happily avoided for the rest of her life. And her heart was still bleeding.

Better that, than a lifetime of pricks from the knife edge of the constant knowledge that she was not the woman her husband wanted to be with however. When she’d conceived her current plan, a steel band had formed around her chest, and that constriction was still there. Sometimes, she felt like it was the only thing stopping her from falling apart.

But that, too, would fade. Eventually. It had to.

How much worse would it be to live the rest of her life married to a man who did not love her and never would? Who did not even like her enough to spend any time with her not dictated by their roles and responsibilities?

To watch Zahir find joy in the arms of other women as her father had done over and over again? Angele wasn’t about to go that route.

Even after receiving the packet of pictures, funnily enough it had been the announcement of Amir’s marriage that had settled the issue for her. Amir had been meant to marry another member of a powerful sheikh’s family, but Lina had refused the match and Amir had ended up married today to the woman who held his heart instead.

As Angele had told her mother, Amir and Grace’s very real love had made the wedding ceremony beautiful.

What she had not told her mother was that she had seen the envy in Zahir’s expression when he had looked at Amir as he stood up with him. No one else had noticed, of course, but Angele had spent a lifetime watching Zahir with more attention than research scientists gave their life’s work.

Lina’s courage had given Angele the courage to come up with her plan. And Amir’s happiness today had cemented her determination to follow through with it. If there was any chance Zahir could know his brother’s happiness, he deserved to have it.

She could do no less for the man she loved with her whole heart.

And she would accept nothing less than that, either, even if it meant spending the rest of her life alone.

“Zahir, I have always found you to be honest. A man of deep integrity.” His liaison with Elsa had not changed that.

As he’d pointed out, Angele and Zahir were not actually engaged. And he had never once lied about it. She’d simply never thought to ask point-blank if he had sex with other women. However, she was no longer rock-solid in her belief he would not take mistresses after their marriage. In fact, that certainty had died a pretty painful death.

No matter what he’d said today. “I am.”

“Are you in love with me?” One of those point-blank questions she could not avoid asking. Not now.

He did not even blink, his handsome features set in an emotionless mask. “Our association is not a matter of love.”

“No, I know it isn’t, but please, this once, just answer my question with a simple yes or no.” His jaw tightened. “Please.”

“I do not see why you would ask.”

“I’m not asking you to understand, simply to answer.”

“No.”

She almost asked if his negative was a refusal to answer, but then she looked into his gray eyes and saw the smallest glimmer of pity. He knew she had feelings for him he did not return.

The pain his answer caused wasn’t mitigated by the fact she’d been expecting it. Though she really wished it had worked like that. Knowing he did not love her and hearing it from his lips were apparently in totally different realms of experience.

She managed to nod. “That is what I thought.”

“Love is not necessary in a marriage such as ours.”

“I don’t agree. I will not marry a man who has no hope of loving me.”

“I—”

“Have not found something worthy of love in my person in ten years—you are not likely to find it now.” In fact, she was so certain of that impossibility, she was ready to take desperate action.

“You are all that is admirable in a future princess and eventual queen.”

But not as a woman he could love. She left the words unsaid as he did. “You deserve the happiness your brothers have found.”

“It is not in my stars.” His tacit agreement sent another javelin of pain straight through her, but she refused to buckle under the fresh wound.

She had a plan and in the end, it would be best for both of them. “It can be.”

“I will not turn my back on my duty.” And his tone censured her for suggesting he try.

“I will.”

CHAPTER TWO

ZAHIR felt those two small words like they were blows from the strongest of sparring partners. Part of him had always expected some kind of betrayal from Elsa Bosch, though not to the extent she had gone to. He had never been able to give her what she craved: commitment for the future.

However, he had believed Angele a woman of supreme honor and understanding of her duty.

“You are not serious.” He looked closely, trying to see evidence of too much champagne, but her pupils were not dilated.

Her cheeks were flushed, but the topic of their conversation could easily account for that.

“I am.” She looked down at the Bedouin figure and reached out to touch it almost wistfully. “I will not allow you to be locked into a marriage with a woman you cannot love.”

“And you expect to be loved by your husband.” Where had she gotten her romantic notions of marriage? Certainly not from her parents.

“Yes.”

“You appear to forget the importance of duty and family obligation.”

A deep, burning anger flickered briefly in Angele’s dark eyes. “My mother’s adherence to duty is one of the primary reasons I am so determined not to follow through on this farce of a marriage.”

“There is no farce in joining the royal houses of Zohra and Jawhar.”

“I am not of the royal house of Jawhar, no matter how indulgent King Malik is toward me and my father.”

It was true. From one of the most influential families in Jawhar, Cemal had been fostered in the royal household when his parents died. He’d been raised like a brother to Malik, but they shared no blood relation. Which had actually played in favor to the agreement drawn up ten years before as Zahir and Angele had no blood common between them.

“I did not think this bothered you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“You cite it as reason for not keeping your commitment.”

“I never made a commitment. When I was thirteen I was informed that one day we would marry.”

A mere girl. He had felt compassion for her. “But you never complained. Why now?”

“I spun fairy castles in the air, dreams that took me too long to realize they had no basis in reality.”

Dreams of love. Didn’t she know? That commodity was not for such as them. “You need to consider this more carefully.”

“Zahir, I’m giving you your freedom.” Exasperation and a tinge of anger laced her tone. “Instead of trying to talk me out of it, you could simply say thank you.”

Did she really believe she was doing him a favor? He did not think so. “Our families will be shamed.”

“Oh, please. Nothing official has ever been announced.”

“Nevertheless, the expectation exists.”

“So?” She shrugged, as if really, this did not matter. “Those who have expectations will have to be disappointed.”

“Like my father. Like the man you call uncle. They will be humiliated.”

The look she gave Zahir said she did not buy his calamity scenario. “Disappointed maybe but, in that regard, not as much as they would be by a divorce.”

“Why divorce?” Though he admitted he did not know her as well as he could, he had never considered her a pessimist. “You are not making any sense.”

“Zahir, can you honestly tell me that you are not feeling even a little niggle of hope right now? That relief isn’t warring with your need to talk me out of doing what you know you want?”

Shock held him silent. Her words implied that she actually believed she was doing him some sort of favor; that somehow he would and even should thank her for threatening to break her word. He tried to think of what could have caused her to draw such a ridiculous conclusion, but despite his superior intellect he came up with nothing.

No possible reason for her outlandish ideas.

She sighed, her shoulders slumping just enough that he knew she was not as calm about this as she was pretending to be. “Your silence speaks better than your words could. I will take full responsibility for the aborted engagement with our families and the media.”

“No.” He surged up from his desk, realizing that perhaps now was not the time to intimidate with that barrier between them.

“I have only one request.”

He halted on his way around the desk. “What is it?”

“I want one night in your bed, the wedding night I will not now have.”

If she had shocked him with her threat to break their agreement, this request practically had him catatonic. What in blue blazes was she thinking?

“Why?” he ground out while trying to somehow make sense of his prim and proper princess-to-be offering him, no, demanding from him, something that should not be indulged in until after their marriage.

The next heir could not be conceived under a cloud.

“I want you to be my first.”

Well, naturally. “But you do not wish to marry me.”

Did she truly believe there was any sense, even the smallest modicum of logic in such a scenario?

“Did you want to marry Elsa Bosch?”

He’d indulged in fantasies at one time. He’d believed himself in love. More fool him. But even then he’d known it was pure fantasy to even consider such a thing. He’d soon realized that more than her career made her the wrong choice as future queen of Zohra.

Even in his most youthful exuberance of untried emotion, he had not been a fool. “It was not a consideration.”

“But you had sex with her.” The blunt words falling from Angele’s usually prim mouth added to his sense of falling down the rabbit hole.

It was time to put a stop to this conversation. “That is not something I will discuss with you.”

“I’m not asking you to—I’m simply making an observation.”

“This entire conversation is insane.”

“No, what is insane is two people prepared to marry for the sake of nothing but family obligation in the twenty-first century.”

Her American upbringing had much to answer for.

“I will one day be king. The woman who rules Zohra by my side must be a suitable match.” Angele knew this. He should not have to repeat it for her. “Love has nothing to do with the obligations you and I must uphold.”

“You say it like it’s a dirty word.”

It was his turn to shrug. In his life? That particular emotion had caused more pain than pleasure.

“Your brothers have both found love.”

“They do not have the responsibilities of the crown to uphold.” And neither man had had a particularly smooth road to true love, either.

Zahir had no desire to follow in their footsteps in that regard. He had enough of his own challenges in life to face as ultimate leader and servant to his people.

“Your father doesn’t wear a crown.”

“Don’t play semantics with me—this is too important.” He could not believe she was saying these things. “I believed you understood the importance of your obligations.”

“My greatest obligation is to myself. I know you don’t see it that way.” She quoted an Arabic proverb he often used that was strangely apt to their situation. “I’m not that person. I don’t believe countries will topple if their leaders seek personal happiness in a manner of integrity.”

“What is honorable about breaking our engagement?”

“We aren’t engaged.” “As good as.”

“Really? You truly believe that?” she asked as if his answer carried great import.

“Yes.”

Unutterable sadness came over her features and the light in her eyes dimmed. “I’m sorry.”

“You will give up this idea of backing away from our wedding?”

“No.” Her voice was laced with determination, but there was a flicker of fear in her expression.

And suddenly, he thought he understood. Things that made no sense began to fall into a picture he could comprehend. She was concerned about their compatibility in the bedroom. As well she might be.

In one respect, she was spot-on. They were not a nineteenth-century couple where the bride and groom had been expected to go to the marriage bed untouched. Or, at the very least, the bride.

She’d spent her life in the United States, surrounded by a culture that had demystified sex and frequently glorified it. He had never made improper advances because, despite his claim, they were not actually engaged.

At first, Angele had been too young, and later he’d had his liaison with Elsa. A relationship doomed from the beginning, but one that allowed him to come as close to escaping the stranglehold of his everyday responsibilities as he ever would, if only for the brief moments they’d had together.

He had foolishly allowed his emotions to get involved. So, when he’d discovered he was not her only lover, he had been hurt. And he was still angry with himself for being that vulnerable.