LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

how she could have inspired something so beautiful. She was utterly in love with it.

      “I made this for my sister. I was hoping you could take it to her.”

      “Your—Oh, my God!” If she hadn’t been so enthralled with the necklace, she would have put it together sooner. Now she quickly dropped the pendant on the table and jerked to her feet, backing away from a ghost. “Oh, my God!”

      Charles shot in.

      She held up her hand.

      “I’m fine. Just a shock,” she insisted to her guard. “What is today’s word? I can’t even remember. Daffodil?” She touched her forehead. “Honestly, I’m fine. I just need a moment with…”

      She waved at Kasim’s dead brother. Her hand trembled.

      “I’m so sorry,” Jamal said with a wince. “I thought you might know.”

      “How—? No.” She had to be white as a sheet, but managed to shoo Charles out.

      He continued to watch her closely through the glass.

      “Oh, my God, Jamal,” she breathed. “How on earth would I know? Your whole family thinks you’re dead.” She held her hand to her throat where she felt her own pulse thundering like a bullet train.

      “Kasim didn’t tell you? He helped arrange it. The death certificate and name change…”

      “No he didn’t tell me!” It caused her quite a pang to admit it, but she had already processed that however much she had thought she meant to Kasim, she had actually meant a lot less.

      “Good God, why?” She moved to the settee and sank down, wilting as the shock wore off and her mind jammed with questions. “I mean, he told me that your father didn’t like that you were an artist, but—”

      “Is that what he said?” His smile was crooked and poignant. “Our father couldn’t accept that I was gay.”

      “Oh,” she breathed. More secrets with which Kasim hadn’t trusted her. She had been so open about her own family. It made her feel so callow to think of it. Where had her precious speech gone? The one from her first dinner with Kasim, when she had told him she was reticent out of respect for her siblings. But had he entrusted her with Jamal’s story? No.

      “You couldn’t just…live in exile? Here?” she asked.

      “My lover was already here and beaten to within an inch of his life for…leading me into that life.”

      “No! Oh, dear God. Your father couldn’t have arranged that?”

      “People in his government. There are those in Zhamair who are still very prejudiced. They said they were protecting the reputation of the crown, but my father did nothing to prevent or punish them.” Deep emotion gripped him for a moment and he struggled to regain his composure, swallowing audibly before continuing. “Either way, I couldn’t risk Bernard’s life again. I feared for my own. Merely leaving wouldn’t have been enough. I was afraid to even see Kasim again, in case it made things difficult for him, or exposed us.”

      He propped his elbows on his thighs, back bowed with the weight of the world, expression weary. He rubbed his hands over his face, then looked at her over his clasped fingers.

      “My mother’s life is not easy. The queen is very resentful of her. If my mother had had a gay son living flagrantly abroad…” He shook his head. “No. It was terribly cruel to tell her I was dead, but if the queen picks on her now, my father stands up for her out of respect for her grief.”

      “I can’t imagine,” she murmured, appalled anew at the ugly aggression Kasim had grown up in. “I’m so sorry, Jamal.”

      “Why?” he said, looking and sounding so much like Kasim, her throat tightened. “You had nothing to do with it.”

      “I wish I could do something, I guess.” She realized immediately that she had backed herself into a corner.

      His smile was sharp and amused. “Thank you. I would like that.”

      She shook her head. “You’re so much like him it’s unnerving. But I can’t take that to Hasna and tell her it’s from you. You think I was shocked!”

      “No,” he agreed. “She can’t know I’m alive, but Kasim could tell her it was in my old collection and that he had been saving it for her wedding day. It would mean a lot to me for her to wear this. I know she would.”

      “We’re not, um… Kasim and I aren’t seeing each other anymore.” The press hadn’t quite caught on, so she wasn’t surprised he didn’t know. The words still abraded her throat. “I’m not going to Zhamair.”

      “Ah. I didn’t realize.” His expression fell. “I’m sorry. From the photos I saw, you both looked quite…” He didn’t finish, only looked at the necklace, crestfallen.

      She looked at it, too.

      With. He wanted to be with his sister in the only way he could.

      She couldn’t tell this to Trella or one of her brothers. It was Kasim’s secret. Jamal’s life.

      I am a sucker, she thought. Trella would have a far better sense of self-protection. Kasim didn’t even want her there. She would be an embarrassment. He might even throw her out.

      But Jamal looked so disconsolate. And Hasna missed her brother so much. It would mean the world to her to have this…

      She closed her eyes, defeated. “I’ll go. I’ll go to Zhamair and give this to Kasim.”

       CHAPTER NINE

      THERE HAD BEEN many times over the years that Kasim wondered how his father could be such a pitiless, dictatorial bastard. These days, he understood the liberation in such an attitude as he adopted the same demeanor, contemptuous of those around him for being ruled by their emotions. What did the desires of others’ egos and libidos and hearts matter when his own had to be ignored? Everyone made sacrifices.

      Don’t think of her.

      Were it not for his sister marrying in two days, he would ride into the desert and take some much needed time to regroup. Instead, he was part of a ceaseless revolving door of relatives and dignitaries. One branch of the royal family had no sooner arrived and joined him and his parents for coffee, when a foreign dignitary was in the next room awaiting a chance to express felicitations.

      This morning the parade had begun with an ambush. The king had introduced him to the father of the woman he thought would make a fine queen someday—when she grew up. Did his father seriously expect him to marry a child of barely eighteen?

      To his prospective father-in-law’s credit, a concern for the age difference was expressed. Kasim smoothly stated he could wait until she completed her degree if that was preferred. It would serve the kingdom better if the future queen was well educated.

      The king had correctly interpreted it as an effort to put things off and took him to task the minute they were alone.

      “Did you give me your word or not?”

      “I cleared the field for her, didn’t I?” Kasim replied in a similar snarl. A glance over the guest list a few days ago had shown that Angelique had sent her regrets. “Surely we can get one wedding over with before we host the next?”

      Sadiq’s family were announced, cutting short the clash. Kasim sat down with Sadiq and their fathers to sign off on the marriage contracts, then they joined the queen and Sadiq’s mother.

      “Hasna isn’t here?” Sadiq said, morose as he glanced around the room.

      “The gown has arrived,” the queen said with a nettled look toward the king. “Fatina has been pestering to see it. Such a nuisance when

Скачать книгу