Midnight in the Harem. Susanna Carr
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in the least comfortable with an image of himself as being so weak he needed such protections, the fury inside Zahir went from simmer to full boil. He was not that man. That she could not see that truth infuriated him, but like always, he kept his emotions under tight control.
“The fact she broke the engagement was enough of a sympathy vote for me,” Zahir said with cold sarcasm.
Cemal shook his head. “Not if she gave her true reason for doing so, which I’ve no doubt she did to you.”
Zahir remembered the conversation he’d had with his intended only three nights ago, words he had dismissed as nerves. “You believe she spoke to me of this?” He shook the papers in his hand, his grip so tight they wrinkled.
He wasn’t denying it, but he wasn’t admitting anything, either.
“I know my daughter. She does not take the easy way out.”
“That is why she called our engagement off with a letter,” Zahir mocked.
How had she considered it unnecessary to speak to him personally? Had she thought her illogical claims in his study that night to be sufficient final word on their future?
If she did, it only showed how very little she truly understood the man who she would one day marry.
Cemal wasn’t buying it. “She called me and I’m confident she spoke directly to you.”
“Did she?” Faruq demanded of his son.
Zahir gave a jerk of his head. Regardless of whether he accepted that conversation as definitive word on the subject, obviously Angele had seen things differently. He ignored a curiously sharp pain in the vicinity of his heart at her easy dismissal.
“And you did not feel it politic to warn me, or her uncle?” Zahir’s father demanded, his own anger blatant and no distant relation to the emotionless facade he had always demanded of Zahir.
“Adopted uncle,” Cemal stressed, once again entering the discussion. “And it’s not an engagement. Their relationship was never formalized. Not in ten years.”
“We all know the reasons behind that,” Zahir said.
“Camel dung.” Cemal made no attempt to hide his disgust. “You could have announced the formal engagement anytime, but you chose not to and my daughter got tired of waiting.”
“So, she thought to force my son’s hand with this?” Faruq asked in a deadly quiet voice.
Zahir’s father had taught him to negotiate, to manipulate and to retaliate. The man hated being on the receiving end of circumstances and manipulations out of his control.
Cemal’s expression turned even stonier than it had been as he’d voiced his accusation of Zahir’s neglect over his duty. No, he hadn’t labeled it as such, but each man in this room knew who was responsible for the ten-year-long “understanding.”
“On the contrary,” Cemal said, his voice just as cold as Zahir’s father’s had been. “This is my daughter making sure nothing can force her into honoring a contract she believes would sow nothing but unhappiness for her future.”
“That is ridiculous, my brother,” King Malik said, laying his own stress on the family claim along with a conciliatory hand on Cemal’s shoulder. “The girl is in love with Zahir and always has been. It’s as easy to read every time she is near him as the most basic of primary books.”
Zahir grimaced. “A woman in love does not break off an engage—” At Cemal’s narrowed eyes, Zahir amended his words to, “a contractual promise for future marriage.”
“She does if she believes her love will never be returned.”
Zahir wasn’t going there. “She is no starry-eyed teenager to expect flowers and poetry from a marriage such as ours.”
“I think you are missing the point here,” Cemal said. “There isn’t going to be any marriage.”
“And this pleases you?” Zahir accused, stunned by the possibility. He was no man’s idea of a poor son-in-law choice.
“Not at all, but I know my daughter well enough to know that once she sets a course of action, she sticks to it.”
Zahir didn’t disagree. Cemal and Lou-Belia had wanted Angele to attend finishing school in Paris rather than university in the States. Angele had gotten her degree from Cornell. Neither had approved her decision to get her own apartment, but Angele had lived on her own since her sophomore year at university.
Zahir had never given much thought to what he considered Angele’s minor rebellions, particularly when he had approved her choices both times. He had not wanted her to marry him without having had a chance to live at least something of a normal life.
Now, he thought he’d been a fool to encourage the blatant independence. Had he spent more time getting to know her, he would have realized what such choices might wrought.
“We can put out our own press release saying hers was a hoax, perpetrated by our enemies,” King Malik suggested.
Cemal shook his head. “She threatened to do a live interview if we did that.”
So, Cemal had tried to dissuade his daughter from her intended path.
And all Zahir could concentrate on was the truth that such persuasion should not have been necessary after the previous night. Those hours out of time fed Zahir’s anger and an unfamiliar tightness in his chest.
“So, we have no choice,” Faruq said with a worried glance at his son.
Zahir was no object of pity or concern and never would be. “There is always a choice. We will release our own statement.”
“And what will it say?” King Malik asked, hope gleaming in eyes reflecting a lifetime of power and even less tolerance for not getting his own way as Zahir’s father.
“That I recognize waiting so long to announce our formal engagement was a mistake. I will woo my bride-to-be. The country can expect announcement of my formal betrothal by the end of the year.”
If hearts and flowers were what she wanted, then they were what he would give his errant bride-to-be.
His father’s bark of laughter was tinged with no less disbelief than Angele’s actions had sparked. King Malik and Cemal merely stared at Zahir as if he’d taken leave of his senses.
“You doubt my ability to woo one innocent woman after witnessing my skills at negotiations with world leaders?” he demanded.
Cemal coughed. “A woman is not a world power.”
“No, but one day your daughter will be married to one.” Zahir bowed his leave-taking to his father and King Malik, inclining his head to Cemal. “If you will excuse me, I have a campaign to plan.”
If fury drove him more than desire, that was his own business.
His father frowned, but said, “If you are sure this is the course of action you want to take, I will have the press release with your apology and intentions drawn up and disseminated.”
“Do you have another suggestion?”
“You could let her go.”
“I cannot. In waiting too long to finalize our engagement, I failed Angele. I will not do so again through inaction.” Besides, they had already had their wedding night.
There would damn well be a wedding. “Good luck,” Cemal said, sounding like he meant it.
King Malik nodded. “My staff and family are at your disposal. I will have my wife create a dossier most likely to help you in your cause.” King Malik turned to Cemal. “She will draw upon Lou-Belia’s knowledge of her daughter as well.”
Cemal nodded. “Good. Her mother knows Angele better than anyone else.”
“Thank