SEDUCING HIS PRINCESS (15 page)

Twelve

“C
an you believe six months have passed so
fast?”

Jala felt the smile beginning to sink its claws into her flesh
as she handed Sette to Ala’a, Kamal and Aliyah’s five-year-old son. It gave her
something to do so she wouldn’t answer Aliyah’s exclamation.

For what could she say? That there was nothing else she’d
thought about every minute of these six months. That the days were passing so
horribly
fast? And now that the six months were
up, she felt as if her very life was, too?

Aliyah threw herself beside Jala on the couch, grinning at her
son’s retreating back as he rushed to his sister in the other room with the last
piece in his treasure, the tolerant Sette, having now collected all four
cats.

“I thought once I got the kids four cats, too, they’d stop
demanding to visit you to see yours every week, but no...your foursome are their
first loves.”

“One more thing to thank the cats for, then, making me see you
all much more frequently than I would have without them.”

Aliyah laughed. “We all thought we loved cats, but you and
Mohab put us to shame. Last time I saw Mohab he said you’ll adopt dozens more as
soon as you settle your schedules and make the citadel your base, because cats
hate traveling.”

Every word fell on her like a blow so that she almost gasped in
relief when Aliyah’s phone rang.

Thankful for the respite, she contemplated her sister-in-law.
Aliyah was her very antithesis, glowing with health and happiness, her world
built on the unshakable foundation of Kamal’s love and of her certain future
with him. While she... She’d been counting down the days she had left with Mohab
and was withering inside. She’d taken to putting on makeup to prevent outward
signs from showing.

Watching Aliyah melt with love as she talked to Kamal, she
couldn’t be happier for them, but at the same time, it made her own despondence
deepen until it suffocated her.

With a last intimate whisper, Aliyah ended the call. “Kamal
sends hugs and kisses. But insisted I tell you that your husband conned
him.”

Alarm burst inside her chest.

Aliyah went on. “He says Mohab said he doesn’t know the first
thing about dealing with the executive realities of running a kingdom,
especially one that is growing and changing as much and as fast as Jareer. He
now believes Mohab’s protestations were just total pretense so he’d get him
involved—not because he needs his help, but to get on his good side, so he’d
help him have you, and now continues to rely on his input for your sake,
too.”

“I don’t believe this is true....”

Aliyah waved her hand, her smile widening. “Kamal said you’d
think that, but he knows a man who’d do anything for his woman when he sees one.
And take it from me, that ‘twin’ of yours has...extensive experience and insight
in that arena.”

Any other woman would have considered this everything worth
living for. Knowing the man she loved with all her being felt the same. But
having someone corroborate the depth of Mohab’s involvement, which she’d been
becoming more certain of with each passing minute, only sank her deeper into
despair.

“Kamal would have respected the hell out of Mohab for achieving
what no one believed could be done around here, let alone in this time frame.
But the fact that he has you at the top of his priorities makes Kamal feel
progressively more smug that he pegged Mohab right from the first meeting, when
he came proposing peace between our kingdoms...and offering it all as your
mahr.
”

Time did keep proving that she and Kamal were identical. For it
had substantiated that she’d pegged Mohab right, too, from that first second
she’d laid eyes on him. That he was everything she would ever want in a man,
everything she could—and did—love, respect and admire. And that everything that
happened to make her believe otherwise had been just tragic mistakes and
misunderstandings.

Contrary to what she’d tried to convince herself of in the
years of alienation, that Mohab was unfeeling by necessity, he actually turned
off his feelings on demand only in his work. In his personal life, with her,
she’d never known anyone who was more in touch with his emotions and so generous
with demonstrating them. And it had been killing her to realize how she’d
misjudged him, what she’d done to him. What she’d have to do still.

Time had also proved she was a superlative actress. Not even
Mohab, Kamal and now Aliyah, the people who loved her most, suspected there was
a thing wrong with her.

Demonstrating her obliviousness, Aliyah went on, “I think
you’re making one hell of a queen, too. It’s like you’re made to rule this
specific place beside your man, your every skill and quality just what it needs.
I’m so impressed by the originality of your social and educational projects and
the effects they’re already having. I need you to teach me how to translate that
to Judar.”

And she could take no more. “Please, Aliyah, stop.”

The pain in her voice had her sister-in-law sitting up in
alarm. “What’s wrong, Jala?”

Everything,
she wanted to
scream.

Up until Aliyah’s visit today, she’d been escaping making a
decision, thinking she could go on for a while more, maybe another month, maybe
another six.

But after what Aliyah had told her earlier, so offhandedly,
believing it would be nothing to concern her, she’d been feeling her world had
already ended.

She swallowed past the burning coal that used to be her larynx.
“I want to tell you something, Aliyah. And I need you to make Kamal understand
that it is in no way Mohab’s fault....”

* * *

“How are my darlings today?”

Mohab walked into their bedroom, taking off the band that held
his hair in that severe ponytail, his smile flooding the soothingly lit
chamber.

By the time he reached the bed where Jala was sitting with the
four cats arranged all around her, he’d stripped off his jacket and shirt. Then
he threw himself down beside her, grinning, spreading himself for his cats to
climb all over him, stroking and kissing them. After a purring storm interlude,
he turned his focus to her.

Before she succumbed and attacked him in her desperation for
his feel and passion, he preempted her, dragged her down to him, surging up to
take her lips as she tumbled across him.

Knowing, now that the kissing had started, neither Mohab nor
Jala would want them around, the cats jumped off the bed and prowled out to the
quarters’ farthest sitting room.

“Habibati, wahashteeni...”
Mohab
groaned into her lips as he swept her around and bore down on her.

I missed you, too, my love
almost
burst onto her lips. But as she’d done for the past six months, she swallowed
back the endearments and the confessions until they’d scarred her forever with
the intensity of their need for release, with the necessity of withholding
them.

Mohab had them both naked in seconds, and she groped for him,
opened herself for his possession as he cupped her buttocks and thrust inside
her. This fever was a continuation of last night’s conflagration, no need for
buildup, just an instantaneous and ferocious plunge into delirium. He was soon
pounding inside her, his force and momentum building along with her cries of
abandon until it all exploded into a blaze of intensity. She remained conscious
this time as he collapsed on top of her, his weight completing the magic and
delivering the final injury.

When she couldn’t take it anymore, she fidgeted beneath him. He
rose off her, separating their bodies. For the last time. As she had to make
it.

She took the plunge. “The six months are up tomorrow.”

A slow smile spread on his heartbreakingly beautiful face. “So
they are. How about extending for another six months?” He plucked her lips.
“Then another?” Another pull, harder, deeper. “And so on and on?” His teeth sank
into her trembling flesh, sending shards of pleasure and heartache splintering
through her. Then he pulled back, grinning. “These constant extensions might be
a great idea to renew the novelty and keep the fire raging...
if
we needed help in those departments. Which we
don’t. None what...so...ever.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“So you’re going for the permanent version straight away. I
approve.”

“I am actually reinforcing the terms of our marriage. I agreed
to six months, then it’s over. As it is.”

He stilled, the smile faltering on his lips, draining from his
eyes. “What do you mean?”

And she smashed her own heart. “I mean I want a divorce.”

* * *

The sense of suffocating déjà vu closed in on Mohab.

This couldn’t be happening again. Not this time. This time he
was certain of what she felt for him. Of what they had.

Numb, he sat up. “Joke about anything but that, Jala.” When she
made no response as she, too, sat up, he tried to find a sign of mischief in her
eyes. There was none. “You can’t be serious!”

“I am.
Ermi alai yameen al
talaag.
”

The oath of divorce.
She was asking
him to “throw” it at her, ending their marriage.

Ya Ullah...
she wasn’t joking.

A bewildered groan escaped him. “Why? Why are you doing this?
Again?”

“I’m only doing what we agreed on.”

“But you can’t want the same thing you did six months ago. Just
last night, just
now.... Ya Ullah...
you’ve never
been more incendiary in my arms.”

“You know I could never resist my desire for you. But I have to
now. It has to end.”

“It wasn’t only desire. You
love
me.”

“I never said I did.”

He opened his mouth to roar a contradiction, then it hit him.
Skewered him right through the heart. She’d
never
said it. He’d only assumed she did. From her actions and desire.

He couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t. “Even if you don’t feel for me
what I feel for you, if you want me that much, why leave me?” She only averted
her eyes, and the expanding shock shredded his insides. “And if you’d already
decided to leave me all along, what was last night and just now all about? Were
you giving me one last ride before you walked away?”

She rose from the bed, so slowly, as if she was afraid she’d
come apart if she moved any faster. “Let’s not make this any worse than it has
to be, Mohab.”

Again.
Just as she’d said almost
seven years ago when she was leaving him the first time.

Paralyzed, he watched her reach for the dress he’d yanked off
her half an hour ago. When she’d been his. She put it on now, no longer his, had
said she’d never really been.

Then she was walking away.

At the door she turned. “I’ll go to Judar until you conclude
the procedures. Please, don’t make any further personal contact. Goodbye,
Mohab.”

* * *

“Did you put her up to this?

Najeeb rose as Mohab burst into his office, placed both palms
flat on his desk, his pose confrontational. “I assume you’re talking about
Jala.”

“It won’t take much to snap the last tethers of my sanity,
Najeeb. Then I won’t be responsible for what I do.”

“King of Jareer or not, you’re on my turf. Even if you weren’t,
you don’t threaten me and walk away in one piece.”

“I’m not threatening you, I’m promising you. If you’re the
reason why Jala left me...”

Najeeb straightened, a vicious smile of satisfaction spreading
on his face. “So she finally did. Good for her. She should have never been with
you in the first place.”

“I swear, Najeeb...” Mohab’s apoplectic surge drained. “You
mean you had no idea she did, or
would?
”

“Do you have such a low opinion of the woman you married, you
think someone can put her up to anything, let alone something like this?”

“
No.
But...” Anger deserted him,
leaving him enervated with desperation and confusion, and he sank onto the
nearest armchair and dropped his head in his hands, darkness closing in on him.
“I don’t know. I can’t think anymore. I can’t find a reason why she left me and
I was groping for anything, even if it was insane or impossible. I just want to
understand, so I can do something about it.” He raised his eyes to Najeeb, who
came to stand over him, his gaze pitiless. “I have to stop her, Najeeb. I can’t
live without her.”

“
Ya Ullah,
if I didn’t know better,
I would have believed you without question, would have run out right now and
tried everything I could to bring her back to you. But I
know,
Mohab. So stop your act right now. Now that Jala will no
longer be your wife, it releases me from my promise to her.”

“What promise?”

“Not to be your enemy. But now I will be, Mohab. I knew you
were manipulating her when you announced your engagement out of the blue, but I
couldn’t object since I realized she was making a decision knowing full well
that you were. Then it seemed as if your marriage was real, and happy, and I no
longer knew what to think.” He narrowed his eyes to dangerous slits. “But if she
left you, then you must have dealt her another unspeakable injury. And for that
alone, Mohab, no matter what it takes, I will destroy you.”

“
B’Ellahi...
what are you talking
about?”

“About how you set her up in the past. She made me promise
never to confront you, wanted the ugly page turned and forgotten. I honored her
request till this moment.”

Mohab shook his head. “I know you found out and told her, and
that was one of the reasons she left me then. She told me everything the very
first night I saw her again. It’s why I thought it might have been something you
said to her that made her end it this time, too.” He exhaled roughly.
“This...and the dread that never went away—that I did come between you in the
past, that your feelings for each other went beyond friendship....”