LITMIR.BIZ

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highness to anyone? Well, considering he’s a mommy’s—and daddy’s—boy with loads of unearned wealth and power, the similarities are plenty. If this arouses your royal fury, it sure isn’t worse than practically calling me a liar, a fraud and an all-round whore.”

      Farooq was lost for words for the first time. Ever.

      Not because he found none to answer her insults with. What struck him mute was Carmen’s allegation that he was the only man, besides the husband she’d married too early, she’d been intimate with. In effect, her only lover. The claim had flowed from her with the impetus of a statement of fact, had lodged into him with the force of an ax in the gut. Of the truth.

      Could he believe it? She’d been Tareq’s mole, but not his plaything? She hadn’t been anybody else’s? Her abandon in his arms had been just for him, as his had been just for her? Discounting the ex-husband she spoke of now without continuing emotional attachment, with disdain even, he’d been, no matter the reason, her first, and as she vowed, her last passionate involvement?

      Everything in him insisted that was the truth. That she’d told him many truths today.

      But she’d done so only up to a point. He could feel her hiding things. Major things. Her deal with Tareq, no doubt. And fool that he was, he didn’t want to corner her into a confession.

      He didn’t want to hear it. Not anymore.

      With each moment near her, he believed more and more that it hadn’t been as sinister as he’d believed on her side, that she hadn’t realized the scope of the damage she’d been sent to do. That maybe Tareq had even convinced her she’d be serving a greater good by toppling him from the succession.

      If this was true, maybe Tareq had caught her at her lowest ebb, and she’d made an out-of-character decision. But once she’d succumbed to their affinity, to the pleasure they’d shared, seen him for what he was and Tareq’s lies for what they were, she’d forgotten her mission. But she’d gotten pregnant and Tareq had changed the rules, and she’d panicked, feared retribution from all sides, feared for Mennah for real, had fled, hidden …

      Or maybe he was looking for ways out for her because he was falling under her spell again.

      And he was. Instead of the cold loathing he’d believed would be his only reaction to her, he was mesmerized by everything about her, reveling in her company, unable to get enough of her wit, her outspokenness and contentiousness and defiance, all so in contrast with the vulnerability she strove to hide. Then came her physical effect. She’d had him hard and aching within minutes of seeing her again. It was all he could do now not to drag her to the floor and just have her. Just take her again. And again.

      He would have her. Would take her. Just not now.

      He’d wait. For their wedding night.

      As for the truth, whatever it was, there was nothing to be gained by ripping open festering wounds. It wasn’t as if he needed to have this resolved. It was all pointless now that he’d won. Now that the throne of Judar was safe from falling into Tareq’s hands. Now that she’d fallen into his. For as long as he deemed to hold her there.

      And now he could turn to her taunt.

      She dared imply he and her ex had unearned wealth and power in common? Was that how she viewed him? When she must know of the global enterprises he’d built from the ground up, multiplying his kingdom’s wealth? After she’d seen for herself a six-week sample of his life as peacemaker and relief-bringer?

      No. She’d meant it as the worst insult she could think of.

      But even if she’d qualified it as retaliation, he’d make her pay for it. Make her beg. For the chance to atone. For the end of torment. For the pleasure he knew, just knew, beyond doubt, only he had ever brought her, could ever bring her.

      His equilibrium regained, his mind ordered and made up once more, he challenged her, “So you take exception to my … assumptions. What others could I have when I know nothing about you beyond what your actions led me to believe?”

      She seemed to shrink in her seat. “There isn’t much to know. I was born to Ella and Aaron McArthur, a megawealthy businessman and his ex-P.A. second wife. Their marriage fell apart and I lived with my mother and her assortment of … strange men, until she died, then moved in with my father and his fourth wife till the day I turned eighteen. On acquiring my first boyfriend, whom I eventually married, a year later, my father, who hadn’t checked to see if I was still alive since I moved out, popped back in my life all eagerness and blessings. Turned out the marriage was part of a coveted merger. When it turned out I wasn’t the asset they all thought I would be, both the marriage and the merger were dissolved and my father moved to Japan with his fifth wife. When I was twenty-five, my mother’s estate became mine—her accumulated alimony and divorce settlement from my father, plus what she got from her ‘sponsors.’ It was a bundle, the fortune you intimated I got from a ‘sponsor’ of my own. I bought the apartment, put the rest for Mennah in a trust fund, since I earn enough to support us both in comfort. See, I overestimated the complexity of my life. That’s one page, triple-spaced.”

      Farooq stared at her, thoughts rearranging, long-entrenched ones being forced out, new questions rushing at him.

      She’d been born then had been married into money. But she’d implied her father hadn’t supported her after she’d moved out, that her ex-husband had divorced her without compensation. Was that why she’d accepted Tareq’s mission? Had she gotten so used to the good life her mother and her “sponsors” followed by her father and her ex’s wealthy family had provided that she couldn’t bear to wait months till she claimed her inheritance?

      That no longer felt like enough of a motive. Or a motive at all. Not with her disinterest in anything material while she’d been with him replaying in his mind, another manifestation that had the conviction, the texture of truth.

      So it hadn’t been about money after all? Had it been maybe a reckless lashing out after all the major relationships in her life had failed or ended, throwing herself into something dangerous, maybe even self-destructive? She could have easily been throwing herself into an abyss when she’d thrown herself in his arms. She’d had no way of knowing he’d turn out to be a civilized or even sane human being, let alone the lavish lover he’d been with her. He could have been a monster who lived to collect slaves, or to abuse beauties and maim them before snuffing out their lives.

      Suddenly he was incensed. Far more so than he’d ever been. At her for endangering herself that way. Whether her goal had been financial gain or temporary rebellion or oblivion.

      His rage deflated as fast as it had mushroomed.

      No. She might have been groping for the catharsis of a wild fling with a sheikh prince, or the fantasy of playing Mata Hari or securing a quick fortune or all combined. But she hadn’t risked herself. She had known she’d be safe with him, would be cared for and catered to, pleasured and pampered. She’d known it, felt his nature and intentions with the first look into his eyes.

      As he’d thought he’d felt her nature and intentions with the first look into hers?

      But if what he’d seen was all she owned, and he could now find out the truth about her inheritance, if she still had to work, where had the money Tareq had said she’d cheated him for gone? Or had Tareq cheated her out of their agreed upon price?

      Ya Ullah, was this how men went insane, revolving in unending loops of suspicion?

      Kaffa. Enough. It didn’t matter anymore, how it had been.

      Suheeh? Really? If he told himself that enough times, would it register so he could finally let it go?

      Another question blasted through, proving that letting go didn’t seem possible. But then, it was a paramount question.

      How had his people not found out all she’d just told him?

      Before the question fully formed, the answer detonated in his mind. Tareq. His

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