LITMIR.BIZ

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nodded, swayed to her feet, smoothed her sky-blue skirt suit and fell in step with Aliyah as they exited through huge French windows to the enormous veranda leading to a dozen thirty-foot-wide stone steps and the wing’s garden, an explosion of flowers and rare plants.

      Anna, still bent on elaborating on the main issue eating at her, didn’t seem to notice the cavalcade drawing to a stop at the palace’s main entrance. “You’re so willing to deal with the most awkward things, with your pain, so openly, and I have the feeling you can take on the whole world and come out the winner. Yet, with all your pragmatic approach, you haven’t accepted this marriage as you claim, have you? You’re feeling…trapped.”

      Pragmatic? This lady had way too much to learn about her still. But she’d gotten one thing right at least.

      She was trapped. In a marriage without love or respect. But she should console herself it was also with a time limit. In nine months’ time, if she proved to be a fertile little chess piece, he’d do an encore of his favorite trick and cast her aside.

      Not much of a consolation when she thought of her track record. The first time he’d done that, he’d almost destroyed her. Any bets he’d succeed this time?

      Aliyah heaved a huge sigh, nodded and stood straighter as Kamal stepped out of the middle limo.

      He saw her the split second he straightened, his eyes slamming into hers across the distance.

      In the next second anger radiated off of him like a shock wave.

      Didn’t like that she was letting him see her, did he? Going against the dictates of their culture and its unreasonable demands of decorum, its servitude to and belief in the caprices of luck and its evil influences. Supposedly if the groom saw the bride in the five days before the wedding, their marriage would be blighted with inexplicable incompatibility and strife.

      She couldn’t see how theirs could be blighted with worse than what they already had—ill will, bad blood and subzero expectations.

      She held his gaze, came forward so he could take a good look at her. Disappointing you yet, ya habibi?

      His imperious face and body filled with the answer, with the unmistakable intent to stride up to her and let her hear it, along with a few more decrees no doubt, maybe even a restraining order. She only made a face at him, tossed her hair and turned to Anna.

      Anna gaped at Kamal for a moment before turning stunned eyes on Aliyah. “My. Oh, my. That was…intense.”

      “Yeah, that’s Kamal for you.”

      Anna shook her head dazedly. “I meant both of you. The vibes you generated were enough to send Judarian homeland security reaching for a nationwide red alert.”

      Aliyah let out a resigned laugh, glanced sideways at Kamal, found him still standing there, glaring at her, looking like the bronze colossus of a wrathful god.

      If only he didn’t look so…everything. And have a character to match. Except when it came to her. A shudder rattled through her.

      Anna caught her gaze, concern showing in her heavenly eyes. “This marriage isn’t just a hated duty to you, is it? You want it, yet you believe it won’t work and you’re…scared?”

      While that was a simplistic way to sum up the mess, Anna had again cottoned on to her basic turmoil. She took a last look at Kamal, saw the promise of retribution for defying him, for flaunting his precious customs, written all over him.

      Her smile was conceding and defiant at the same time as she sighed. “Witless.”

      “I like her already.”

      Kamal rounded on Shehab, glowering. Shehab only grinned at him, his enjoyment glaring, chafing.

      “A woman who isn’t intimidated by you, who can pull that face—ya Ullah, that face—on you, is all right by me. More than all right. She’s a once-in-a-lifetime find. A treasure.”

      Kamal wondered how the international community would react if, during the countdown to his joloos and wedding, he engaged his smug older brother in a knock-down, drag-out fight. Would it really matter if they both showed up at the ceremonies with broken noses, stitched lips and black eyes?

      He exhaled the surplus of aggression. He wasn’t letting Shehab bait him. Aliyah had done too good a job of it.

      She’d let him see her. And after he’d made it clear he expected not to see her until she came to him in her zaffah. He’d invoked customs when in reality he just couldn’t deal with the added turmoil of seeing her again one second before he had to.

      And he’d been right to stipulate that ban. His current condition testified to the accuracy of his projection that seeing her would mess with his coherence and control. He couldn’t afford that now when he needed them most.

      And Shehab, alf laa’nah alaih—a thousand damnations on him—was taking such joy in plucking at the last anchors holding his restraint in place, giving him a taunting, considering look. “But this isn’t her reaction to a fresh exposure to you, is it? It doesn’t feel like the outcome of one meeting. Her defiance of your incomparable powers of exasperation feels too…estab-lished. As for your reaction…b’Ellahi, it was priceless.”

      Kamal bared his teeth at Shehab before casting his gaze again where she was no longer standing. He still saw her in his mind’s eye, as if her focus on him had left a brand that still sizzled.

      He tore his gaze away, cast it to the stately spires of the innermost palace gates, which were flying the flag of Judar at halfmast in mourning for his late uncle, King Zaher.

      The weight of responsibility pressed harder on his shoulders, the best cure for his personal upheaval. He exhaled, strode toward the expansive steps, taking in the palace in an inclusive glance. He felt he was seeing it for the first time.

      The four-level soaring, sprawling stone edifice was a marriage of the cultures that formed Judar, its architecture a melting pot of their grandeur, each line, ornament and texture owing its design, method and philosophy to one culture or the other. Somehow Byzantine, Indian, Persian, Turkish and other influences conspired to form an Arabian whole, echoing a vast, rich and sometimes brutal history. The palace still owed enough to Western modernization to be a monument of today. And tomorrow.

      It reminded him of Aliyah.

      And it was his dominion now. The seat of his power. A power that combined his own global influence with that of the throne.

      He scaled the steps faster, felt Shehab keeping up with him, his taunting gaze still burning the side of his face.

      “What I regret is that I didn’t catch it all in digital memory for the viewing pleasure of the coming generations.”

      Kamal shot him a sideways look. “You do remember your warning to me, when I was taking your beloved Farah’s name in vain? You, too, have a perfect set of teeth to cherish and protect, if only to flash them like a fool at your enchantress. So shut up, Shehab.”

      “Is this a command, ya maolai?” Shehab all but wiggled his eyebrows as he called him “my liege.” Then seriousness crept into his hard, noble features. “Is Aliyah why you think love affairs are destined for heartache and humiliation? Why you’ve been like a tiger with a festering wound these past years?”

      Leave it to Shehab to fathom it all simply from watching him seethe across the distance at Aliyah. He had been like an agonized tiger since he’d cast her out of his life, his disillusionment becoming total intolerance of any human frailty. But he’d always been fair in his ruthlessness.

      He hadn’t been with her. Not two nights ago. He’d slashed at her with unforgivable things. The inferno she’d ignited inside him, physical and emotional, had obliterated control and judgment.

      And he couldn’t let that happen. The throne of Judar depended on him. The peace of the region. He had to keep Aliyah at arm’s length emotionally, would join with her physically

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