LITMIR.BIZ

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      Even the fact that the media universally condemned Luigi and sympathized with Julia was unbearable. They speculated endlessly about his treatment of her. They published tidbits from palace staff eager to set the record straight at last. In the end they published the horrible, self-exculpating interview that Luigi, driven almost to insanity, had given. It was awful to see him expose himself so brutally, painful to read how he had turned on her.

      That interview had been the breaking point for Julia. She withdrew into herself, distancing herself from public life, and even from her family, as she slowly sank into the depression she had been keeping at bay for so long.

      It was himself Luigi hated, not her. She could see now that he had rejected his own sexuality, rejected for as long as he could, even the knowledge of it. She could understand, but understanding did not undo the cruel damage he had inflicted on her sense of herself.

      It took her a year to get through it. A long, cold year in which she had had no interest in life, no appetite. The only place she felt comfortable was alone in her private gym. She ate too little, exercised too much, lost too much weight. She had enjoyed the feeling of control over her body. It was the only part of her life over which she felt any control.

      And then one day the long black tunnel showed light, and Julia realized that there would be an end to her shapeless, colourless days. She resolved to start over, to make a life for herself more in line with what she wanted.

      But it wasn’t a light at the end of the tunnel. It was Rashid Kamal, on a collision course.

      Chapter 4

      “The course of true love not running quite smoothly?” Nadia asked Rashid over dinner that night. Brother and sister were alone in the palace in Tamir. Everyone else was at one or another function tonight, except for their brother Hassan, who was miles away in the oil fields as usual. They were sitting at a little table on the East Terrace, overlooking the gorge. In the velvety darkness the sea rushed and shushed against the rocks.

      Rashid leaned back in his chair. “Why do you say so?” he hedged. They were speaking English so that the serving staff would not understand.

      His sister smiled mockingly. “Because Nargis told me. And before you ask, Nargis looks after my wardrobe. The staff is buzzing with the news that you are being uncharacteristically rude and withdrawn today. Everyone knows you went to Montebello to talk to Julia earlier.”

      “Do they? Damn it!”

      “So there’s speculation about whether it’s because Princess Julia has accepted you, in which case you’re regretting the loss of your playboy lifestyle, or rejected you, in which case your heart is broken. Naturally everyone prefers to believe the intensely romantic version. Care to comment?”

      “Damn it to hell.”

      “I believe it’s nothing more than a bad headache,” Nadia said with a grin, “but then I’m your sister and I know it’s a rare woman who makes you snarly.”

      “She is a rare woman,” he couldn’t stop himself saying, and watched Nadia’s eyebrows go up.

      “Ah! And am I to infer from this that she has rejected your proposal?”

      He was aware of mounting irritation. “Yes, she has! I can’t figure her out!” He glared at his sister as if she were part of this mystery. “Why would she turn me down? She’s pregnant and the press have been on her like wolves! Why won’t she see that—”

      He stopped because Nadia was laughing. “Haven’t you ever before met with a woman who turned you down, Rashid?”

      “I’ve never proposed to a woman before,” he said shortly.

      “You didn’t propose to Julia, the way I hear it.”

      “What do you mean? I proposed very publicly!”

      Nadia shook her head. “There’s a difference, big brother, between asking a woman to marry you and telling the world that she’s going to marry you and then expecting her to agree.”

      He looked at her, indignant. “You’re the one who advised me to rush my fences.”

      “With Father, not with Julia! Can’t you see how arrogant it is to assume that a woman will jump at the chance to marry you? And a beautiful princess, too! Why on earth didn’t you talk to Julia first?”

      “You know what the speculation was like! What was so wrong? I realized what Julia had been going through for the past few months and wanted to put an end to it.”

      “Knight in shining armour, huh?”

      Rashid moved his shoulders, reminded of Julia’s Don’t try riding into my life on your white horse. “Look,” he said forcefully, as if somehow he were justifying himself to Julia, “if I delayed, someone was going to put words in my mouth! I didn’t want Julia reading that I was surprised to hear I’d been named the father of her child, or considering my options, or something like that. What would be worse, do you think? To get a proposal after someone has spent time considering whether he’s really the father of your child, or—”

      “Pax!” His sister lifted her hands and laughed. “This is Nadia here, not Julia, notice?”

      He subsided with a clenched jaw.

      “I couldn’t make her see it.”

      “A new experience, I take it. I think I’m going to like Julia. When I remember all the women who have cried on my shoulder trying to solve the mystery of how to reach your feelings, it does my heart good.”

      Rashid frowned. “This has nothing to do with my feelings. I’m trying to do what’s right for all concerned!”

      “Noble. Sure about that?”

      “Of course I’m sure. What do you mean?”

      “Well, there is a certain question of how she got pregnant in the first place.”

      Rashid grunted. “It was nothing but a kind of—insanity.”

      “At your age,” Nadia agreed in cheerful incredulity. “I see.”

      “And however it happened, it’s done. What I have to think about now is what I’m going to do in the future. Julia is going to issue a statement denying the engagement tomorrow, I think.” Rashid irritably waved away the waiter who was trying to pour him more coffee. “I’ve got to prevent that.”

      Nadia opened her eyes at him in mute reproach and, pointedly gracious, said to the waiter in Arabic, “Yes, thank you, Iqbal, I will have some more coffee.

      “And how are you going to do that?” she asked, when Iqbal had retreated.

      “I have to swear you to secrecy, Nadia.”

      “All right.”

      “I’ve got to get her alone. I think she’d see sense if she didn’t have that coterie of Kamal-haters around her.”

      Nadia’s eyebrows went up. “And?”

      Rashid rubbed his chin and stared out into the darkness. For a moment they listened to the sound of the waterfall.

      “I’m going to have to kidnap her.”

      It was when Lucas’s plane went missing, oddly, that Julia woke up at last. Perhaps because she suddenly saw how precious life was. And she had given away a whole year of hers.

      No one knew whether Lucas would be found alive or dead. All they had was hope. Julia had returned to the family emotionally to share that hope with her sisters and her parents, and keep it alive.

      She had learned a lot during her year of self-exile. She felt she had come a long, long distance from the repressed, self-doubting perfectionist she had become in order to cope with Luigi’s rejection.

      Mariel de Vouvray had been her friend since the two girls had attended private school in Switzerland

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