“Clever. You know what I mean. Can’t it be something…moral?”
“Material things can be quantified. And they last.”
“If you think so,” she scoffed, “then I feel sorry for you.”
“Says the woman who married for ‘moral’ considerations only to find out how lasting those were. And what would the ‘something moral’ you want to ask of me be? Love?”
The word, his ridicule as he threw it at her, skewered her. “We agreed that doesn’t exist. Or if it does, it doesn’t matter.”
“Then what do you want?”
She took a deep breath, asked for something as impossible.
“A clean slate.”
Eight
In a life that had exposed him to betrayals, danger and conspiracies of world-shaking scope, few things ever took Farooq by complete surprise, by storm. If fact, only three things had.
They all involved Carmen.
The way he’d felt when he laid eyes on her. Her telling him she’d had enough of him and walking out. And now, her request.
A clean slate.
She was asking him to surrender his anger, to deny his memory, to erase his knowledge of her crimes. She wanted to start fresh. What for? A way back into his good opinion and goodwill? Into his emotions? Another shot at his faith? Everything she’d once made him lavish on her, and she’d squandered?
The worst part was how she understood him. How she always said or did the perfect thing at the perfect time to have the desired effect on him. His first reaction to her request had been to snatch her in his arms, singe her skin off with the violence of relief, the liberation of capitulation. He still wanted to let his new insight into her ordeals and her exponential effect on him wipe his memory, soothe away the lacerations, drive him to hand her power over him again. He fought the temptation with all he had.
She wasn’t here because this was a shiny new beginning and it was her choice to start over, but because he’d given her none. If it had been up to her, no matter her reasons, he would have never found her and Mennah, and Judar would be heading for destruction.
He must never forget that.
But she was flushed with the agitation of hope, while the dread of the little girl who’d grown accustomed to being turned down clouded the heavens of her eyes, made the red-rose petals of her lips tremble, and his convictions evaporated as they formed.
And that was why he couldn’t relent.
She’d been destructive as his mistress. As his wife, the mother of his daughter, she’d be devastating. If he let her.
He braced against the pain as he ended this hope for something he wanted as much as she seemed to…more. “Since temporal control to change the past isn’t one of my powers, a clean slate is probably the one thing I can’t grant you.”
It was a good thing he’d given himself that pep talk. Otherwise he would have relented upon seeing her flame dim.
Which was what she probably wanted him to see.
Which he did see. That this was no act. That she was scared of her new life, wanted to make peace, wanted a chance. A second chance. And he’d just denied her that.
He bit back a retraction, a promise of all the chances she wanted, if only she’d promise never to lie to him again. Which proved her spell was turning into compulsion. She’d promise anything he wanted. Words were easy.
Or they were supposed to be. The ones with which he fought the thrill her seeming lack of avarice provoked had to be forced to his lips kicking and screaming.
“Since you won’t name your mahr, I’ll use my discretion. And you’ll accept it. I’m not having this debate again.”
Her flame went out.
Unable to bear the dejection coming off her in waves, he looked out of the window, pretended to ignore her again.
Tomorrow night he’d give her his undivided attention.
Approaching Farooq’s palace was like one of those scenes in movies where the heroine nears a boundary that, once crossed, would plunge her into a fairy tale. Or a nightmare.
She was about to cross into one wrapped in the other.
Not that she cared right now. She’d asked for the impossible. He’d pointed that fact out. And she felt…gored.
She knew why she had. Asked. Why she did. Feel this way. Because he made her hope there was a chance it wasn’t impossible. A chance to start over, be more than a stray lost in a world she had no place in, clutching a tattered shield of wisecracks and the inconsequence of her dignity.
“Is all this yours?”
The question surprised her. She hadn’t intended to ask it.
His eyes turned back to her. “I have my own home, but even if I haven’t been living here for the past three years to deal with all that my uncle can’t deal with now, we would have come here first anyway. The royal palace is where all royals marry.”
This kept getting better. “You mean this is the royal palace? And we’ll live with the king? And his family?”
His expression filled with mockery. “I assure you your in-laws will not be a source of intrusion. The palatial complex stands on over one hundred hectares, with a three-mile stretch of beach, and its connected annexes boast three hundred twenty rooms and ninety-five suites. And that’s not counting the central building housing the royal quarters and halls for royal functions. It will be like living in a hotel compound where you only see other residents with a previous appointment.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t imagine living in the place he’d described, let alone having any role, any say in it. The moment she tried to fine-tune a picture of herself as the crown princess, or the queen overseeing it all, her mind screeched at the enormity of projections, groped for anything to wrench her focus away.
The sights unfolding before her came to the rescue.
Draped in the illumination of a breathtaking sunset, jutting from a peninsula hugged by crystalline waters, the palace crouched like the starship of some giant alien race among many satellites, nestled between expanses of lush landscaped gardens and pristine white beaches, a construction conjured by the highest order of magic, the collaboration of a thousand genies in the era when impossibilities were everyday occurrences, and transported intact through time. She found herself saying all that out loud.
He gave an amused nod. “The forces creating this place were those of hundreds of masters of their trades, from designers to builders to painters to engineers from around the world, who combined faithfulness to Judar’s legacy of design and architecture with luxury and state-of-the-art technology. Who needs genies when the magic of imagination and skill can create this?”