Midnight in the Harem. Susanna Carr
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still beautiful Brazilian former supermodel mother had looked at Angele in silence for several seconds. Eyes the same espresso-brown as her daughter’s for once revealed her every emotion, and all of it staggering pain. “I would consider it a great blessing, but some of us are cursed to love unwisely and to do so until death.”
“But why do you stay with him?”
“I do not. We live quite separate lives.”
And another belief had been crushed under the pounding hammer of reality. They lived in the United States for the sake of Angele’s education and the chance for her to be raised in relative anonymity. They’d made the modern country their home because Americans had plenty of their own scandal, they didn’t have to go looking for it among the wealthy community from a small Middle Eastern country like Jawhar.
In a way, her mother had been protecting Angele. From the truth. But she’d also been protecting herself from the embarrassment of being the well-known wife of an undeniable philanderer. It had explained why their trips to Brazil and Jawhar were shorter and far less frequent than Angele had always wanted. It had also explained why her father’s visits were equally brief, though far more frequent.
“Why not divorce him?”
“I love him.”
“But he …”
“… is my husband.” Lou-Belia had drawn herself to her full five feet eleven inches. “I will not shame my family, or his, with a divorce.”
Considering the fact that Angele’s father was considered a de facto member of the royal family of Jawhar, that argument carried some weight. Nevertheless, Angele had vowed never to be her mother that day. She would not be trapped in a marriage by duty and a helpless love that caused more grief than joy.
She had believed she was safe making the vow. After all, while no formal announcement had been made,
Angele had been promised to Crown Sheikh Zahir bin Faruq al Zohra since she was thirteen years old. Heir to the throne of Zohra, no more honorable man existed in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter.
Or so she had believed. But that had been before today, when she’d received a packet of pictures of Zahir in the mail.
A sense of déjà vu washed over her, bringing back old feelings and memories so clear, she could still smell the spring grass clippings that had scented the air on that other fateful day a little over four years ago. The same cold chills washed up and down her spine, leaving a strange clammy flush in their wake.
If someone had asked her even one hour ago what one certainty she had, it would have been that Zahir would never be the center of a tabloid scandal. Besides being far too aware of his duty to his family and his position, Crown Sheikh Zahir simply had too much integrity to be caught in flagrante delicto with some woman.
Right. Her other hero.
Now, staring down at the topmost picture—an almost innocent image of Zahir helping a busty blonde into the passenger side of his Mercedes, Angele choked out a strangled laugh. The barely there sound a pained constriction in her dry throat, the present took full hold with a snap.
Here, there was no smell of grass clippings, just the subtle scent of citrus her boss favored for the air ventilation system. No clatter of other students greeting one another in the common room of the University Center. Just the sound of her own breathing in the near-empty office.
The metallic taste of fear in her mouth mocked Angele and her hand shook as she pushed the topmost picture aside with her fingertip.
The next photo showed Zahir kissing the same busty blonde, though this time she was wearing a tiny bikini as they lounged beside a private pool. Angele did not recognize the couple’s surroundings; the large Mediterranean-style house behind the pool could have been almost anywhere.
It was a popular architectural style for warmer climates, from Europe to South America.
She did recognize the passion between the two lip-locked people in the glossy eight-by-ten, though.
And it brought back a memory she would rather forget.
She’d been eighteen and in love with Zahir since she’d started having sexual feelings. She had not cared if others understood, or believed such a young girl was capable of the emotion. She’d known what she felt and it was not a simple crush, having grown deeper with each passing year.
She’d assumed Zahir had treated her with such restraint and kept his distance since the deal had been brokered because she was too young. But at eighteen she was formally an adult. At least by standards of the country she’d been raised in, the United States.
They were at a state dinner, their first time attending such an event as a couple. She’d thought it the perfect opportunity to share their first kiss and had brazenly cornered him in the courtyard. Or as brazenly as a rather shy woman who had not been blessed with her mother’s stellar beauty in the gene pool could be.
Filled with trepidation that could not stand against her determination, she had gazed up into eyes that had looked almost black in the dim light, though she knew they were gray. She’d grasped both his arms, her fingers curling around strong biceps that emanated heat even through his shirt and dinner jacket.
She’d tipped her head back, letting her own eyes close, and pleaded, “Kiss me.”
Certain this man who was to be her husband one day would comply, must comply, she had waited in silent anticipation for what had felt like hours before gentle lips brushed her forehead.
Her eyes had flown open. “Zahir?”
“This is not the time, ya habibti.” He had gently pushed her away. “You are still a child.”
Crushed, she had been able to do nothing but nod and try to blink back tears of mortification.
He’d shaken his head and patted her arm. “Shh, ya habibti, our time is not yet.”
As he’d escorted her back to the party, she had consoled herself with the implied promise and the fact he had called her his darling. Twice.
A harsh laugh barked out of her as the photo of him kissing that other woman blurred before her eyes. Angele was twenty-three and still waiting for him to realize she was no longer a child.
Without this photographic evidence, would she have ever realized that day was never likely to come?
Blinking away the moisture in her eyes, she focused on the pictures again, sliding one to the side and to reveal another beneath it until they were spread across her desk in undeniable evidence. This was not the first time she’d gone through the photos, but now she refused to look away, or stack them again neatly in an attempt to hide from what they represented.
Zahir did not think this woman was a child. No, Elsa Bosch was everything a man was looking for in a lover. Extravagantly beautiful, voluptuous, experienced.
Angele winced at her own assessment, knowing she was none of those things.
She was not sure Zahir’s honor was besmirched by his liaison with the German actress. Not yet. After all, their betrothal had never been formally announced and he’d treated Angele like a distant cousin, not a lover. Despite her clumsy attempt at eighteen to rectify the matter.
She’d allowed her own love and the future she’d believed they were meant to share to become the foundation for fantasies that shared no touch with reality. She’d believed that, one day, he would realize she was not the young girl the marriage contract had been negotiated around.
She’d been waiting ten years. Ten years. A decade in which she’d never dated, not even attending her high-school prom because she’d considered herself taken. She’d had male friends in college, but none that she’d allowed to see her as anything but a study-buddy.
She’d just assumed that like her, Zahir had filled