“Does he know?”
Her whole body became strangely still. “Don’t even think about it,” she ground out. “It doesn’t count. It meant nothing.”
“You know you cannot marry him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Jasmine.”
“No! I don’t care if you’re king, I won’t let you ruin my life—again!” Her eyes flashed at him. “I won’t let you ruin my family’s hopes with this wedding—”
“Your family needs the wedding?” he interrupted.
Clenching her jaw, she shook her head. “I won’t let them be crushed by my old scandal again, not when everyone’s still buzzing about my sister!”
“Which sister?”
Staring at him, she exhaled. “You haven’t heard? I thought everyone in Qusay knew.” She gave a sudden humorless laugh. “My youngest sister Nima was at boarding school in Calista. She had a one-night stand with some sailor whose name she can’t even remember. Now she’s pregnant. Pregnant at sixteen.”
The word pregnant floated between them like poisoned air.
Ripping his gaze away, Kareef glanced at her large family, now seated at a lower table. At Umar Hajjar crossing the grass near the tent. At all the guests watching the king surreptitiously beneath the white pavilion. Then he looked back at Jasmine, and it all faded away. He couldn’t see anything but the beauty of her face—the endless darkness of her eyes.
“Nima’s staying in New York now, living in my apartment, trying to wrap her head around the thought that she will soon be a mother.” She blinked back tears. “My baby sister. When she showed up on my doorstep two days ago, I suddenly realized how much time I’d lost. Thirteen years without my family.” Her voice cracked. “No money can replace that.”
“So you got engaged to Umar Hajjar,” he said quietly. He narrowed his eyes. “Do you love him?”
With a sigh, she rubbed her neck. “When my father sent me away thirteen years ago,” she whispered, “he said not to bother coming home again. Not until I was a respectable married woman.”
Kareef set his jaw, furious as he glared at her. “So that’s why you got engaged?” he bit out. “To please your father?”
She looked up at him, hatred suddenly blazing in her eyes.
“What do you care? You washed your hands of me long ago. In a few days I’ll be married and out of your life forever.” She lifted her chin, and her eyes glittered. “So leave me alone. Go get yourself crowned. Sire.”
In all the years he’d known Jasmine, he’d never heard that bitter tone from her lips. But could he blame her? What she’d gone through would make any woman’s soul grow brittle. Her young spirit had been so happy and bright, but he’d crushed that long ago. His hands tightened as he leaned forward over the table.
“But Jasmine,” he said in a low voice, “you have to know that I—”
“Forgive me,” Umar Hajjar interrupted, his voice high and strained. They turned almost guiltily to find him standing behind them. “My children’s nanny was on the phone. There is an emergency. I must go.”
“Oh no!” Jasmine rose to her feet anxiously. “I will come with you.”
Umar held up his hand. “I must go alone.”
“What? Why? Please, Umar,” she begged. “Let me come with you. You might need my help!”
“No,” he said harshly. His eyes fell upon Kareef. “My king, I ask you to take Jasmine under your protection.”
“No! Absolutely not!” she cried, too loudly. Guests turned to look.
“Jasmine,” Umar cautioned in a low, hard voice, “do not create a scene.”
She swallowed. “I won’t,” she choked out softly. Her dark eyes glimmered, pleading with him as they turned away from the crowd. “Just don’t leave me with the king.”
“Why?” her fiancé demanded.
She licked her lips, glancing at Kareef beneath trembling lashes. “Though he is king…he is also still a man.”
“Don’t be foolish, Jasmine. He’s the king!” Umar said. “His word is unbreakable. His honor is respected across the world. He—”
“No, she is right,” Kareef interrupted. He looked down at Jasmine with glittering eyes. “Though I am king,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, “I am also still a man.”
Her long, black eyelashes swept across her pale cheeks as she visibly trembled beneath his gaze.
“And I would trust you with my life,” Umar said stoutly. “Please. You must take her, sire.”
Kareef slowly turned to his old friend. Bring Jasmine back to the royal palace? Beneath the same roof? The gleaming palace already felt like a prison with its thick walls, when Kareef hungered for the wide freedom of the desert. He couldn’t imagine being trapped in that gilded cage with the additional torture of Jasmine’s company—under his protection as he waited for her to marry another man!
“No,” he said coldly. “She cannot stay at the palace. It’s impossible.”
But even as Jasmine exhaled in relief, Umar pressed his lips together. “She cannot stay unchaperoned here until we are married. It would be improper. I have my children to consider.”
“Send her home to her family.”
“It will be far more useful if she stays at the palace, my king.”
Ah, so this was about status. Kareef’s lip twisted with scorn.
“For Jasmine’s sake,” the other man added in a low voice. “Your attention will go far to negate her old scandal. People will forget the whispers beneath the weight of your honor.”
Staring at him, Kareef frowned in sudden indecision.
Umar lowered his head. “My king, if I have ever done anything worthy of your esteem, I beg you this one favor. Place my bride formally under your protection until the day of the Qais Cup, when I will return to marry her.”
If he’d ever done anything worthy of Kareef’s esteem?
He’d helped Kareef bring prosperity to the desert. Made him the godfather of two of his four young sons. And most of all—he’d found Kareef in the desert, half-mad and dying of thirst thirteen years ago. He’d brought him home, brought him back to health. He’d saved Kareef’s life.
“Perhaps…” Kareef said grudgingly, and Umar pounced.
“Your mother is at the palace, is she not, sire? She will make a fine chaperone, if you are concerned about propriety.”
“No,” Jasmine whimpered softly. “I won’t do it.”
Umar ignored her. He kept staring at Kareef with hope—almost desperation.
If the bride had been any other woman, Kareef would have immediately agreed. But not this woman. He cursed beneath his breath. Damn it, didn’t the man see the risk?
No, of course he did not. Umar had no idea Kareef was the one who’d taken her virginity and caused her accident in the desert thirteen years ago. No one knew Kareef was the man who’d been her lover, her partner in the scandal. Jasmine had made sure of that.
She still hated him. He saw it in her eyes. But he had no choice.
Slowly, Kareef rose to his feet. His voice was loud, ringing with authority