Extraits

Si quelques instants plus tôt, elle l'avait troublé, puis étonné, cette fois Zahir se sentit plongé dans une véritable stupeur. A quoi jouait-elle, bon sang? Il essaya de trouver un sens à la proposition de celle qui, pendant de si longues années, s'était toujours montrée si docile, si prude.

Dès qu'elle sentit qu'il l'observait, elle lui jeta un coup d'oeil, puis se détourna aussitôt et se concentra sur le couple qui échangeait ses voeux. Zahir ne fut pas surpris par sa réaction; pas après les mois qui avaient précédé cette cérémonie.

Angela avait en effet refusé de se joindre aux amies de la mariée et de s'impliquer directement dans l'organisation des festivités, attitude qui avait choqué leurs deux familles. Elle avait résisté fermement à toute tentative de rapprochement, qu'elle vint de la mère du marié ou de la future mariée elle-même.

Zahir avait compris la cause de cette détermination farouche: Angela désirait qu'il officialise leurs fiançailles. Visiblement, elle en avait assez d'attendre ses propres noces.

** Extrait offert par Lucy Monroe **

Heart heavy with guilt at his envy, Zahir listened to his youngest brother speak his wedding vows.

Amir's voice came close to breaking as he promised, not just simple fidelity, but also love to his bride. Grace's eyes glistened, but her smile grew as she gazed at her groom with rapt fascination. Her own voice trembled as she returned the promise of love.

Love.

Both his brothers had found it with women not altogether suitable. But as neither were heir to the throne, their choices were hardly world-shattering. It was not the same for him.

His choice of bride had been set by an agreement between Zohra and Jawhar a decade past. His gaze skimmed the guests nearest the bridal party, gliding past his beaming father, king of their small Middle Eastern country, and his teary-eyed mother, to the woman he would one day wed. Though they shared no blood relation, Angele bin Cemal was treated as a favored niece by his uncle, the King of Jawhar.

Their eyes met, but she broke the gaze immediately, firmly fixing her gaze on the couple saying their vows.

He felt the dismissal, but was not surprised by it. Not after the past months preparing for the royal wedding.

Shocking everyone, the woman both royal families acknowledged would one day be hiswife had refused to be a member of the bridal party or to participate in any meaningful way in the wedding. Citing her lack of close relationship to either the bride or the groom as her excuse, Angele had stood firm against every attempt by his mother and even Grace to include her.

Zahir had taken her uncustomary intransigence for what it was: a demand that he formalize an engagement between the two of them. Clearly she was done waiting patiently for her own nuptials. And, after the events of the past month, he realized the time had come to do his duty.

Besides, her father had kept his part of the bargain; he'd long since cleaned up his behavior so that he no longer courted tabloid attention.

After Zahir's mother had told him how devastated Angele was by her father's string of infidelities and the fact she had not spoken to the man in more than a year, Zahir had decided the time had come to do something about it. He wasn't close to his future bride, but Cemal would one day be a member of his family and Zahir wasn't about to stand by while the older man embarrassed them with his lack of discretion.

So, Zahir had laid down the law to Cemal. He'd told the older man that he would not marry a woman whose father's tabloid fame rivaled that of a European rock star.

Cemal had believed him. He'd patched things up with his wife and had not been featured in a scandal rag for almost five years, proving he took his daughter's future more seriously than his own marriage vows. Zahir kept the grimace such thoughts brought from his face.

He would never be that man—loveless marriage, or not.

He suspected that, unlike her mother, Angele would never tolerate it. Her surprising streak of stubbornness gave him hope for the years ahead. He did not want to tie his life to a doormat.

Regardless of how intriguing Zahir found this new side of Angele, his patience grew thinner by the minute as the wedding festivities marched forward. She took her stubbornness to a new, inexplicable level. She repeatedly declined to be in any of the formal wedding photos.

Come, my little princess, I believe your point has been made. King Malik of Jawhar patted Angele's shoulder, his words showing he had put the same interpretation on her actions as Zahir had done. Do not be the camel that tries to drink with its tail.

Angele smiled at her honorary uncle, though the expression did not reach her too serious eyes, and shook her head. The formal shots are for family, not friends.

Stunned, and a little impressed, Zahir frowned. He had never heard her deny the king before.

You are nearly family. And would be soon enough, Zahir implied, knowing she was intelligent enough to get his meaning.

She simply shook her head again and turned as if to go.

He reached out to grab her arm and then yanked his hand back, realizing what he'd almost done. They were not formally betrothed and to touch her so familiarly in this setting would be highly improper. As future king of Zohra, Zahir never acted without propriety.

At least in a public setting.

His behind-the-scenes impropriety was over as well, and he still felt a fool for pining after what he could not have.

A life of love and happiness, as his brothers were building for themselves, was not to be for him.

King Malik laughed. You begin to see the child as a woman with her own will, do you not?

Zahir could not deny it. He had never seen Angele dressed with such an evident intent to entice, either. It had worked. He found her quite alluring. Used to barely noticing her at all, he'd been shocked by the low burn of arousal he'd felt when she had arrived. With new highlights shining in her dark brown hair, she wore it swept up to show off the slender column of her neck and the creamy, delicate slope of her shoulders.

The soft peach color of her couture dress was the only thing demure about it. Clinging to her slight curves, it fell inches short of her knees. While she did not share her mother's supermodel stature, in the dress and matching heels that added at least four inches to her height, Angele's legs looked every bit as long as the Brazilian beauty's today. And twice as sexy.

Add to that the fact that her stubborn refusal to participate in the wedding as a member-to-be of the family had intrigued him from her first refusal three months ago, and it was a lethal combination to his recently restrained libido.

Reminding him that his future wife had not been raised in the secluded environment inhabited by the women in the royal palace of Jawhar, she had continued to stand by her first denial. He'd been more than a little stunned to realize he liked it.

While his marriage would not be the love-match his brother had made, it would not be as much of a dry connection of two overly similar lives as he had always anticipated, either.

Frankly love could go hang, as far as he was concerned. This newfound passion and interest was all that he required, or wanted.

Wasn't the wedding beautiful?

A bittersweet smile curving her lips, Angela looked up at her mother. It was, but the love between Amir and Grace made it even more so.

It reminds me of your father and my wedding. Lou-Belia sighed with a fond reminiscence that Angele found difficult to understand. We were so much in love.

I do not think Amir is like my father.

Lou-Belia frowned. You know Cemal has settled down.

Angele did know. She still floundered in her feelings for a man who spent the better part of two decades flaunting his marriage vows, only to become the model of propriety in the face of his only child's betrayal-fueled rage and disapproval.

She was thrilled for her mother that the older couple's marriage seemed to be working again. The two spent a great deal more time together now, going so far as to live in the same domicile even. Her father was quite affectionate toward her mother these days, too.

But it hurt something deep inside Angele that her father had not stopped his behavior until she had confronted him, and then refused to have anything to do with him for more than a year. What did that say of the strength of his love for his wife?

He'd pleaded with her mother to fix the breach between them and in the process, Cemal and Lou-Belia had found each other again.

So, the past does not exist? she asked helplessly.

We let it go for the sake of the future. Lou-Belia's world-famous smile was soft but tinged with chiding. It has been five years, menina Little girl. Angele hadn't been her mother's little girl for a long time, no matter what Lou-Belia, or Zahir for that matter, believed.

Still, she gave her mother a tight hug. You are a kind and forgiving woman. I love you.

But I don't want to be you, she thought to herself.

With that truth burning in her mind, she went looking for the man who would one day be king.

Some minutes later, Angele slid around the partially opened door to Zahir's office. He had disappeared from the wedding feast and she'd known she would find him here.

Shirking your duty, Prince Zahir? Her arms crossed over the sweetheart neckline of her short-short designer original. Tsk, tsk, tsk. What would your father say?

The room was very much like Zahir: masculine, rich and imposing. And yet there was something in the artwork and the old world furnishings that reflected more, something special—an appreciation for beauty that she knew few were aware of.

But while Zahir didn't pay her any particular attention, she had watched him closely and probably knew more about the real man than most. She still wondered at her ignorance of the secret revealed short months ago.

She'd decided it was willful blindness on her part, but that had not made her feel any better. Only mind-numbingly stupid.

** Extrait offert par Lucy Monroe **

1.

Le cœur lourd de culpabilité et d’envie, Zahir écouta son plus jeune frère prononcer ses vœux de mariage.

Lorsqu’il promit fidélité et amour à sa fiancée, Amir eut la voix qui se brisa presque. Les yeux brillants, Grace regarda en souriant son futur époux ; quand elle prononça ses vœux à son tour, elle trembla.

Ses deux frères avaient trouvé l’amour avec des roturières ; mais comme ni l’un ni l’autre n’était appelé à monter sur le trône, leur choix ne portait pas à conséquence. Tandis que lui…

Il promena son regard sur les invités. Son père souriait aux anges ; les yeux de sa mère étaient emplis de larmes. Il vit ensuite la femme qu’il épouserait un jour – ce choix avait été fait dix ans plus tôt, par un accord passé entre les deux royaumes de Zohra et Jawhar.

Même si elle n’était pas parente par le sang avec le roi de Jawhar, également oncle de Zahir, Angela Cemal était néanmoins considérée par le souverain comme sa nièce chérie.

Dès qu’elle sentit qu’il l’observait, elle lui jeta un coup d’œil, puis se détourna aussitôt et se concentra sur le couple qui échangeait ses vœux. Zahir ne fut pas surpris par sa réaction ; pas après les mois qui avaient précédé cette cérémonie.

Angela avait en effet refusé de se joindre aux amies de la mariée et de s’impliquer directement dans l’organisation des festivités, attitude qui avait choqué leurs deux familles. Elle avait résisté fermement à toute tentative de rapprochement, qu’elle vînt de la mère du marié ou de la future mariée elle-même.

** Extrait offert par Lucy Monroe **

Prologue

— L’amour peut-il s’éteindre ? avait demandé un jour Angela à sa mère.

C’était quatre ans auparavant ; elle venait d’avoir dix-neuf ans, et de découvrir que son père, qu’elle vénérait comme un héros, était un mari infidèle.

A l’époque, naïve, elle était tellement convaincue de l’intégrité de son père que, tout d’abord, elle avait cru à un canular. Elle avait supposé que les coupures de journaux à scandale fourrées dans sa boîte aux lettres d’étudiante étaient des faux.

Par la suite, une fois rendue à l’évidence, Angela n’avait jamais su qui l’avait détestée au point de chercher à détruire ses illusions et à lui briser le cœur.

L’amour peut-il s’éteindre ?

Sa mère l’avait regardée en silence pendant plusieurs secondes. Pour une fois, ses yeux brun foncé avaient trahi ses vraies émotions.

— S’il pouvait s’éteindre, ce serait parfois une grande bénédiction ; mais certains êtres sont voués à aimer sans réserve, et jusqu’à la fin de leurs jours.

Une vive souffrance se lisait dans son regard.

— Pourquoi restes-tu avec lui ?

— Ce n’est pas vraiment le cas, ma chérie. Nous menons deux vies complètement séparées.

Une autre réalité s’était alors brutalement fait jour chez Angela. Sa mère et elle s’étaient installées aux Etats-Unis pour lui permettre de poursuivre ses études et de grandir dans un relatif anonymat ; car dans le royaume de Jawhar, la fille du frère adoptif du roi Malik et d’un ancien top model brésilien suscitait en permanence la curiosité. Les Américains ayant déjà leur lot de scandales et de stars, pourquoi les paparazzi iraient-ils fouiner parmi une communauté fortunée venant d’un petit pays du Moyen-Orient comme Jawhar ?

D’une certaine façon, sa mère avait effectivement protégé Angela. De la vérité. Mais elle s’était également protégée elle-même, en s’évitant une réputation de femme bafouée. Angela avait ainsi compris pourquoi leurs voyages au Brésil et à Jawhar étaient si brefs et si peu fréquents, alors qu’elle aurait souhaité passer de plus longs séjours dans ses deux familles. Et pourquoi les visites de son père étaient tout aussi brèves – mais néanmoins plus fréquentes.

— Pourquoi ne divorces-tu pas ?

— Je l’aime.

— Mais il…

— Cemal est mon mari, avait répliqué Lou-Belia en se redressant de tout son mètre quatre-vingts. Je n’attirerai pas la honte sur ma famille, ni sur la sienne, par un divorce.

Etant donné que le père d’Angela était considéré de facto comme faisant partie de la famille royale de Jawhar, cet argument pesait son poids. Néanmoins, Angela s’était juré ce jour-là de ne jamais suivre l’exemple de sa mère. Elle ne se laisserait pas enfermer dans un mariage par devoir, ni ne deviendrait esclave d’un amour non partagé, qui causait plus de chagrin que de joie.

Pourtant, même si rien n’avait été annoncé officiellement, Angela était promise depuis l’âge de treize ans au cheikh Zahir Faruq al-Zohra, prince héritier du trône de Zohra. A ses yeux, Zahir avait toujours été l’homme le plus respectable du Moyen-Orient.

Jusqu’à aujourd’hui…

***

Encore une heure plus tôt, Angela aurait mis sa main à couper que Zahir ne ferait jamais l’objet d’un scandale dans les tabloïds. Non seulement le prince héritier était bien trop conscient de ses devoirs envers sa famille et son rang, mais il était beaucoup trop intègre pour être surpris en flagrant délit avec une femme.

Et pourtant…

Angela se mordit la lèvre et posa de nouveau les yeux sur le cliché. On y voyait Zahir avec une femme blonde à la poitrine généreuse devant un chalet. Elsa Bosch, l’actrice allemande. Angela laissa échapper un rire étranglé. « Actrice » était un bien grand mot…

Une impression de déjà-vu l’envahit, ramenant à la surface des souvenirs et des émotions extrêmement vivaces : quatre ans auparavant, elle avait déjà reçu des photos qui avaient fait basculer son univers. Les mêmes frissons glacés lui parcoururent le dos. La réalité lui assénait de nouveau un choc. Cette fois, elle n’entendait pas en arrière-plan les voix des autres étudiants qui bavardaient dans la salle commune de son bâtiment, sur le campus. Seul le bruit de sa propre respiration troublait le silence de son bureau.

La gorge sèche, Angela repoussa la première photo d’une main tremblante.

La suivante montrait Zahir embrassant Elsa Bosch, qui portait pour tout vêtement un minuscule Bikini. Ils étaient allongés au bord d’une piscine, devant une maison de style méditerranéen. Impossible d’identifier l’endroit : ce cliché aurait pu être pris presque n’importe où – Grèce, Italie, et pourquoi pas Amérique du Sud.

Cependant, Angela identifia très bien la passion qui vibrait entre les deux personnes dont les lèvres étaient soudées. Et cette vision ramena un souvenir qu’elle aurait préféré oublier.

Depuis ses premiers émois sensuels, Angela avait été amoureuse de Zahir. Se moquant complètement de ce que les autres pouvaient en penser, elle avait compris que ce qu’elle ressentait était sérieux. Ensuite, ses sentiments envers lui n’avaient fait que gagner en intensité. Pourtant, malgré l’accord passé entre leurs deux familles, Zahir avait gardé ses distances avec elle. Angela avait toujours pensé qu’il la trouvait trop jeune à l’époque.

L’année de ses dix-huit ans, un dîner officiel leur donna l’occasion de s’afficher ensemble pour la première fois. Angela avait estimé le moment idéal pour leur premier baiser. Aussi l’avait-elle entraîné dans la cour, avec toute l’audace dont une jeune femme est capable lorsqu’elle est timide et n’a pas hérité de la beauté sublime de sa mère.

Emplie d’une excitation folle, elle avait vrillé son regard sur celui de Zahir. Dans la lumière du jour finissant, ses yeux gris avaient alors pris une teinte sombre, presque noire. Après avoir posé les mains sur ses bras, elle avait senti la fermeté de ses muscles et la chaleur qui émanait de son corps puissant, même à travers son smoking. Puis elle avait rejeté la tête en arrière et fermé les yeux avant de murmurer :

— Embrasse-moi.

Absolument certaine que l’homme qui serait un jour son mari allait s’exécuter, elle avait attendu en frissonnant d’anticipation. Jusqu’à ce qu’elle sente de douces lèvres lui effleurer le front.

— Zahir ? avait-elle chuchoté en rouvrant brusquement les yeux.

— Le moment n’est pas encore venu, ya habibti, avait-il répondu en l’écartant doucement de lui. Tu es encore une enfant.

Mortifiée, Angela n’avait pu que secouer la tête en refoulant ses larmes.

Zahir avait alors souri avant de lui caresser la joue.

— Allons, ya habibti, un peu de patience.

Lorsqu’il l’avait emmenée retrouver les autres invités, elle s’était consolée en songeant à la promesse implicite contenue dans ses paroles. D’autre part, il l’avait appelée ya habibti. « Ma chérie ». A deux reprises.

Contemplant de nouveau la photo de Zahir en train d’embrasser sa maîtresse, Angela éclata d’un rire dur. A vingt-trois ans, elle attendait encore qu’il se rende compte qu’elle n’était plus une enfant… Si elle n’avait pas vu ces images, ces preuves flagrantes, aurait-elle compris un jour que ce moment n’adviendrait jamais ?

Poussant un profond soupir, elle se concentra une fois de plus sur les photos et les étala devant elle sur son bureau. Il fallait qu’elle se force à regarder la réalité en face : aux yeux de Zahir, Elsa Bosch n’était pas une enfant, elle. Cette créature superbe possédait incontestablement tout ce qu’un homme désirait trouver chez une maîtresse : beauté, volupté, expérience. Angela ne possédait aucun de ces atouts.

***

Leur engagement n’avait jamais été annoncé de façon officielle, et Zahir l’avait toujours traitée en cousine éloignée – jamais en maîtresse ni en future épouse. De son côté, Angela avait laissé son amour pour Zahir se développer et, peu à peu, leur union future avait engendré chez elle toutes sortes de fantasmes de plus en plus déconnectés de la réalité.

Patiemment, elle avait attendu. Dix ans. Dix années sans sortir avec aucun garçon, parce qu’elle s’était considérée engagée avec Zahir. Bien sûr, elle avait eu des amis à l’université, mais elle n’avait permis à aucun de la considérer autrement que comme une camarade. Et elle avait supposé que Zahir se comportait pareillement, se consacrant à sa famille, à ses responsabilités et à ses amis sans se lier à aucune autre femme.

Comme elle avait été naïve ! Même si, à la différence de son père, Zahir avait été discret dans sa liaison avec Elsa Bosch, cette liaison existait bien. Les photos qu’elle venait de recevoir le prouvaient.

Angela se sentit soudain complètement vide, comme si toutes ses émotions avaient été englouties dans une sorte de néant.

L’expéditeur demandait de l’argent en échange de son silence. Si elle ne payait pas, les photos seraient proposées à toute la presse people, précisait le maître chanteur dans un bref message accompagnant son envoi.

La révélation d’une liaison de Zahir avec une actrice ayant joué dans un film porno – Angela avait appris ce détail en faisant une recherche sur internet – suffirait à causer un scandale dévastateur dans les familles royales de Jawhar et de Zohra. Même si Elsa Bosch ne s’exposait pas aux médias autant qu’on aurait pu s’y attendre, elle n’était certes pas la compagne idéale pour l’héritier d’un royaume.

Et pourtant, Elsa était clairement celle qu’il avait choisie.

Ces photos montraient beaucoup de peau, mais encore plus de passion. Et de bonheur. Celui de Zahir. Angela ne l’avait jamais vu sourire ainsi. Même quand il ne souriait pas, il avait un air détendu qu’il n’avait jamais eu avec elle.

Une femme comme sa mère pouvait rester mariée à son époux volage par amour ; mais l’amour pouvait aussi donner à une femme d’une tout autre espèce le courage de rendre sa liberté à l’homme qu’elle aimait.

Devant ces clichés, Angela comprit au plus profond de son cœur qu’elle ne laisserait jamais Zahir enchaîné à elle à cause d’un contrat établi par leurs familles. Pour ceux qui l’avaient rédigé, il n’avait pas été un seul instant question d’amour.

Or, celui qu’elle éprouvait pour Zahir exigeait qu’elle lui rende sa liberté.

** Extrait offert par Lucy Monroe **

Heart heavy with guilt at his envy, Zahir listened to his youngest brother speak his wedding vows.

Amir's voice came close to breaking as he promised, not just simple fidelity, but also love to his bride. Grace's eyes glistened, but her smile grew as she gazed at her groom with rapt fascination. Her own voice trembled as she returned the promise of love.

Love.

Both his brothers had found it with women not altogether suitable. But as neither were heir to the throne, their choices were hardly world-shattering. It was not the same for him.

His choice of bride had been set by an agreement between Zohra and Jawhar a decade past. His gaze skimmed the guests nearest the bridal party, gliding past his beaming father, king of their small Middle Eastern country, and his teary-eyed mother, to the woman he would one day wed. Though they shared no blood relation, Angele bin Cemal was treated as a favored niece by his uncle, the King of Jawhar.

Their eyes met, but she broke the gaze immediately, firmly fixing her gaze on the couple saying their vows.

He felt the dismissal, but was not surprised by it. Not after the past months preparing for the royal wedding.

Shocking everyone, the woman both royal families acknowledged would one day be hiswife had refused to be a member of the bridal party or to participate in any meaningful way in the wedding. Citing her lack of close relationship to either the bride or the groom as her excuse, Angele had stood firm against every attempt by his mother and even Grace to include her.

Zahir had taken her uncustomary intransigence for what it was: a demand that he formalize an engagement between the two of them. Clearly she was done waiting patiently for her own nuptials. And, after the events of the past month, he realized the time had come to do his duty.

Besides, her father had kept his part of the bargain; he'd long since cleaned up his behavior so that he no longer courted tabloid attention.

After Zahir's mother had told him how devastated Angele was by her father's string of infidelities and the fact she had not spoken to the man in more than a year, Zahir had decided the time had come to do something about it. He wasn't close to his future bride, but Cemal would one day be a member of his family and Zahir wasn't about to stand by while the older man embarrassed them with his lack of discretion.

So, Zahir had laid down the law to Cemal. He'd told the older man that he would not marry a woman whose father's tabloid fame rivaled that of a European rock star.

Cemal had believed him. He'd patched things up with his wife and had not been featured in a scandal rag for almost five years, proving he took his daughter's future more seriously than his own marriage vows. Zahir kept the grimace such thoughts brought from his face.

He would never be that man—loveless marriage, or not.

He suspected that, unlike her mother, Angele would never tolerate it. Her surprising streak of stubbornness gave him hope for the years ahead. He did not want to tie his life to a doormat.

Regardless of how intriguing Zahir found this new side of Angele, his patience grew thinner by the minute as the wedding festivities marched forward. She took her stubbornness to a new, inexplicable level. She repeatedly declined to be in any of the formal wedding photos.

Come, my little princess, I believe your point has been made. King Malik of Jawhar patted Angele's shoulder, his words showing he had put the same interpretation on her actions as Zahir had done. Do not be the camel that tries to drink with its tail.

Angele smiled at her honorary uncle, though the expression did not reach her too serious eyes, and shook her head. The formal shots are for family, not friends.

Stunned, and a little impressed, Zahir frowned. He had never heard her deny the king before.

You are nearly family. And would be soon enough, Zahir implied, knowing she was intelligent enough to get his meaning.

She simply shook her head again and turned as if to go.

He reached out to grab her arm and then yanked his hand back, realizing what he'd almost done. They were not formally betrothed and to touch her so familiarly in this setting would be highly improper. As future king of Zohra, Zahir never acted without propriety.

At least in a public setting.

His behind-the-scenes impropriety was over as well, and he still felt a fool for pining after what he could not have.

A life of love and happiness, as his brothers were building for themselves, was not to be for him.

King Malik laughed. You begin to see the child as a woman with her own will, do you not?

Zahir could not deny it. He had never seen Angele dressed with such an evident intent to entice, either. It had worked. He found her quite alluring. Used to barely noticing her at all, he'd been shocked by the low burn of arousal he'd felt when she had arrived. With new highlights shining in her dark brown hair, she wore it swept up to show off the slender column of her neck and the creamy, delicate slope of her shoulders.

The soft peach color of her couture dress was the only thing demure about it. Clinging to her slight curves, it fell inches short of her knees. While she did not share her mother's supermodel stature, in the dress and matching heels that added at least four inches to her height, Angele's legs looked every bit as long as the Brazilian beauty's today. And twice as sexy.

Add to that the fact that her stubborn refusal to participate in the wedding as a member-to-be of the family had intrigued him from her first refusal three months ago, and it was a lethal combination to his recently restrained libido.

Reminding him that his future wife had not been raised in the secluded environment inhabited by the women in the royal palace of Jawhar, she had continued to stand by her first denial. He'd been more than a little stunned to realize he liked it.

While his marriage would not be the love-match his brother had made, it would not be as much of a dry connection of two overly similar lives as he had always anticipated, either.

Frankly love could go hang, as far as he was concerned. This newfound passion and interest was all that he required, or wanted.

Wasn't the wedding beautiful?

A bittersweet smile curving her lips, Angela looked up at her mother. It was, but the love between Amir and Grace made it even more so.

It reminds me of your father and my wedding. Lou-Belia sighed with a fond reminiscence that Angele found difficult to understand. We were so much in love.

I do not think Amir is like my father.

Lou-Belia frowned. You know Cemal has settled down.

Angele did know. She still floundered in her feelings for a man who spent the better part of two decades flaunting his marriage vows, only to become the model of propriety in the face of his only child's betrayal-fueled rage and disapproval.

She was thrilled for her mother that the older couple's marriage seemed to be working again. The two spent a great deal more time together now, going so far as to live in the same domicile even. Her father was quite affectionate toward her mother these days, too.

But it hurt something deep inside Angele that her father had not stopped his behavior until she had confronted him, and then refused to have anything to do with him for more than a year. What did that say of the strength of his love for his wife?

He'd pleaded with her mother to fix the breach between them and in the process, Cemal and Lou-Belia had found each other again.

So, the past does not exist? she asked helplessly.

We let it go for the sake of the future. Lou-Belia's world-famous smile was soft but tinged with chiding. It has been five years, menina Little girl. Angele hadn't been her mother's little girl for a long time, no matter what Lou-Belia, or Zahir for that matter, believed.

Still, she gave her mother a tight hug. You are a kind and forgiving woman. I love you.

But I don't want to be you, she thought to herself.

With that truth burning in her mind, she went looking for the man who would one day be king.

Some minutes later, Angele slid around the partially opened door to Zahir's office. He had disappeared from the wedding feast and she'd known she would find him here.

Shirking your duty, Prince Zahir? Her arms crossed over the sweetheart neckline of her short-short designer original. Tsk, tsk, tsk. What would your father say?

The room was very much like Zahir: masculine, rich and imposing. And yet there was something in the artwork and the old world furnishings that reflected more, something special—an appreciation for beauty that she knew few were aware of.

But while Zahir didn't pay her any particular attention, she had watched him closely and probably knew more about the real man than most. She still wondered at her ignorance of the secret revealed short months ago.

She'd decided it was willful blindness on her part, but that had not made her feel any better. Only mind-numbingly stupid.