LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘I HAVE GOOD NEWS, HABIBTI.’

      Johara Behwar gazed in surprise at her father striding towards her. She was standing in the garden of the family villa in Provence, the dusty-sweet smell of lavender scenting the air, the sun shining benevolently down on a world on the cusp of summer. Her father’s visits to their villa in France were precious and rare, and he’d only been there last week. To see him again was indeed unexpected. ‘Good news—’ She almost said again but then she thought better of it. Her father had not viewed the end of her engagement last week in the same shining light that she had.

      ‘Yes, I think you will be very pleased,’ Arif continued. ‘And I, of course, am pleased when you are pleased.’ He walked towards her, a smile creasing his weathered face, his hands outstretched. Johara smiled back, caught up in his cheerful mood.

      ‘I’m pleased simply to see you, Father. That alone is a treat.’

      ‘You are so kind, habibti. And in return here is a treat for you.’ He took a small velvet pouch from his breast pocket and handed it to Johara.

      She drew a diamond pendant from within the blue velvet, the jewels winking in the bright sunlight. ‘It’s lovely. Thank you, Father.’ Obediently, because she knew her father expected it, she clasped it around her neck, the heart shape encrusted with diamonds nestling in the hollow of her throat. It was indeed lovely, but, considering how quiet her life was, she had little need or place to wear it. Still, she appreciated the thought he’d given.

      ‘What is this good news?’ she asked as Arif took hold of her hands.

      ‘I have renegotiated your marriage.’ Arif squeezed her hands as his smile widened, triumph glinting in his eyes. Johara stared at her father, confusion making her mind spin even as sudden dread seeped like acid into her stomach. The diamond pendant felt cold against her skin. This was not the good news he’d said it was. This wasn’t good news at all.

      ‘Renegotiated?’ she repeated faintly. Her hands felt icy encased in her father’s. ‘But you told me barely a week ago that Malik—I mean His Highness—had ended our engagement.’ She’d had six days first for that news to sink in—and then to revel in the glorious freedom she’d never thought to possess. The marriage she’d been trying not to think about and dreading at the same time would no longer happen. She’d felt as if the shackles she hadn’t realised she’d been wearing had suddenly fallen off, leaving her feeling light, as if she could fly. She was free—free to do as she liked, and in a heady moment she’d let herself think about an independent future, maybe even going to university. The whole world had beckoned, shining and wide open for the first time in her life.

      And now... ‘How can it be renegotiated? You told me that His Highness was...was infertile.’ It seemed indelicate to mention such a thing, but her father had not spared her the details last week, when he’d flown to France to inform her that Malik al Bahjat, heir to the Sultanate of Alazar, had called off their wedding. He’d been furious on her behalf, storming and stomping around, and he had ignored Johara’s stammering attempts to placate him and explain that she really didn’t mind not getting married to Malik, or, in fact, not getting married at all. She hadn’t quite dared to tell her father that she preferred it. After a lifetime of being reminded where her duty lay that seemed a step too far, even as she’d told herself her father surely only wanted her happiness.

      ‘Yes, yes,’ Arif said now with a touch of impatience. ‘But Malik is no longer the heir, and we thank heaven that you did not marry him before this happened. That would have been a disaster.’

      Johara agreed, but she doubted it was for the same reason as her father. A week of freedom had made her realise how unwelcome an arranged marriage was. Malik was a virtual stranger and a life bound in duty had lost any lustre it might have possessed. But she knew her father would not agree. So what was going on? If not Malik, then...?

      Arif dropped her hands to rub his own together in obvious satisfaction. ‘It has all worked out so well for us, Jojo,’ he said, using the childhood nickname she hadn’t heard in years. ‘For you.’

      An instant and instinctive disagreement was on the tip of her tongue, but Johara swallowed it down. She never disagreed with her father. She hated to see the smile fade from her father’s face, the shadows of disappointment enter his eyes.

      Invoking her father’s displeasure always felt like the sun disappearing behind a cloud, a sudden chill entering the air and her heart. Her mother’s love had long since gone, and taking away her father’s attention was a further blow she knew she could not withstand. ‘Tell me what has happened, please,’ she said instead, trying to inject a note of interest in her voice that she was far from feeling.

      ‘Azim has returned!’ Arif spoke with a joy Johara didn’t understand. The name was familiar, and yet...

      ‘Azim...?’

      ‘The true heir of Alazar. He has returned from the dead, or so we all thought him.’ Arif shook his head in happy disbelief. ‘Truly it is a miracle.’

      ‘Azim.’ Of course, Azim al Bahjat, Malik’s older brother. Stupidly she had not made the association. Azim had been kidnapped twenty years ago, when Johara had only been two. There never had been a ransom note delivered or a body found, and so Azim had remained missing, presumed dead, for two decades. Malik had become the heir, had been the only heir in Johara’s mind. Until now.

      ‘Azim,’ she said again, the name sounding strange on her tongue. ‘What...what happened? How has he returned?’

      ‘He had amnesia, apparently, after the kidnapping. He’s been living in Italy for twenty years, not knowing who he was. But then he saw a mention of Alazar on the news and it all came flooding back. He has returned to claim his throne.’

      ‘But...’ A realisation was growing in her mind like a sandstorm kicking up in the desert, obliterating rational thought just as the sand blotted out the sky. Surely her father wouldn’t...to a complete stranger... ‘But what does that have to do with me?’ She was afraid she knew the answer.

      Arif’s smile hardened at the edges. Johara knew that look. She quailed at that look.

      ‘Surely you have guessed, Jojo,’ he said, his voice jovial yet with a warning hint of underlying iron. ‘Azim is to be your husband.’

      Johara’s stomach swooped. ‘But...but I have never even met him,’ she protested, her voice faltering.

      ‘He is the heir.’ Arif spoke as if it were obvious. ‘Since birth you have been pledged to the heir to the Sultanate. In fact you were meant for Azim before you were betrothed to Malik.’

      Shock rippled through her in icy waves. Meant for Azim. ‘I didn’t know that. No one ever said.’

      Arif shrugged. ‘Why would you know it? He disappeared when you were but a child. But now he has returned, and he shall claim you as his bride.’

      It would have seemed romantic in a story or film, the kind of sweeping, fairy-tale gesture, a knight riding on his white steed, to make a girlish heart flutter. Johara’s heart felt as if it were made of lead, weighing her down. She didn’t want to be claimed, and certainly not by this stranger. Not when she’d had the whole world open to her moments ago, when she’d felt free for the first time in her life, able to make her own choices, live her own life.

      ‘This seems rather sudden,’ she said, trying not to sound quite as horrified as she felt, because she knew that would displease her father. ‘My engagement to Malik al Bahjat only ended a week ago. Perhaps

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