‘What are you doing here, Johara?’ Arif asked. He glanced back at his colleagues. ‘She is to marry His Highness Azim next week.’
‘That’s what I wanted to talk about,’ Johara said, trying to gather the tattered remnants of her courage. ‘About the marriage...’
‘What is it?’ Arif grabbed her elbow and steered her to a private alcove. ‘You are humiliating me in public,’ he snapped, his eyes narrowed to dark slits, everything in him radiating icy disapproval. Johara shrank back, shocked. He’d never looked at her like this back in France, even when she’d dared to risk his displeasure.
‘Azim is...very cold.’
‘Cold?’ Arif looked nonplussed.
‘He seems almost cruel,’ Johara whispered, losing courage by the second. ‘I...I don’t want to marry him. I can’t!’
Arif stared at her, his lips thinned, the skin around them white. ‘Clearly I have spoiled you,’ he stated in a hard voice. ‘For you to be speaking this way to me now.’
‘Father, please—’
‘You have been petted and indulged your whole life,’ Arif cut her off. ‘And I have asked only one thing of you, something that is a great honour and privilege. And now you tell me to humiliate myself and my family, risk my career and livelihood, because you find him a little cold?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I will do my best to pretend this conversation has not happened.’
‘But, Father, if you love me...’ Johara began, her voice shaking. ‘Then surely you wouldn’t...’
‘Nothing about this has to do with love,’ Arif stated. ‘It has to do with duty and honour. Never forget that, Johara. Love is a facile emotion for fools and weaklings. Your mother is a testament to that.’ Without waiting for her reply he stalked off, leaving her reeling.
Love is a facile emotion. She could hardly believe he’d dismissed her concerns, her feelings so easily. And worse, seemed to have none of his own. Like a naïve child she’d believed her father loved her. Now she knew the terrible truth that he didn’t, and never had.
Baubles, presents, a careless pat or smile—these things cost her father nothing. They’d been sops to appease her, not expressions of his love. It was so obvious now, so awful. For when his ambition was at stake, Johara’s happiness was a sacrifice he didn’t even have to think about making.
Her father had arranged her flight back to Provence that afternoon, so she could pack her things and collect her mother before returning for the wedding. Naima Behwar rarely left her bed, much less the villa in Provence, and Arif didn’t want the trouble of having to coax her out of either. Amazing, really, how Johara could now see how self-serving he was. Kindness only came when it was free. Why hadn’t she considered his father’s treatment of her mother—his indifference and impatience—as a true reflection of his character, rather than the presents and smiles he carelessly tossed her way? Why had she been so stupid and shallow?
All during the flight to Nice her mind had raced in hopeless circles, trying to find a way out. A way forward. She was by nature an optimist, but her innate cheerfulness had taken a critical hit. She’d barely been able to summon a smile for the chauffeur, Thomas, who’d met her at the airport; he had been in the family’s employ for two decades, and had once taught her to ride a bicycle. His wife Lucille had worked as their cook and first showed Johara how to distil oil from plants, the beginning of her interest in natural medicine. She’d miss them both, and the quiet, simple contentment of the life she’d had, the life she realised now she’d taken for granted.
Then, while Thomas had been getting the car, Johara had made a split-second decision, acting on desperate impulse, something she never did. She’d run.
Her mind had been a blur of panic as she’d walked away from where Thomas had told her to wait, towards the shuttle bus that went to the train station in Nice Ville. Within an hour she’d been on a train to Paris, amazed that she’d actually done it. She’d run away. She’d freed herself.
And now that she’d booked into a shabby, anonymous-looking hotel on a side alley in the Latin Quarter, she wondered what on earth she was going to do next. She had her freedom, but she knew she was ill-equipped to deal with it. Taking the train and navigating the crowded streets of Paris by herself had already felt overwhelming, more than she’d ever dealt with before. How was she going to survive, get a job, make a life for herself?
And, she wondered with a shiver that this time she couldn’t suppress, how was she going to keep from being found? She shuddered to think of both her father and her husband-to-be’s reactions when they learned she’d run. Perhaps they already knew. Thomas, their driver, had probably already sounded the alarm.
Outside a church bell began to toll and a flock of sparrows rose in a dark flurry. Laughter from the streets below floated up, and all the sounds and sights, the sheer normalcy of them, lightened Johara’s spirits a little.
She could do this. She would do this. How hard could it be, to find some menial job that would keep a roof over her head and food on the table? Her needs were small and although she didn’t have much life experience she knew she was smart as well as a quick learner. Surely any life, no matter how small, was better than being forced into a marriage she didn’t want. Taking a deep breath, she turned from the window and went to get ready to look for a job.
Fifteen minutes later she was easing her way along the crowded streets of the Latin Quarter, clutching her bag to her chest as people moved past her in an indifferent stream. She hadn’t realised how noisy and crowded the city was. Her few experiences of Paris had been from behind the tinted windows of a limousine, and then she’d been ushered into one boutique or another with her mother, everything exclusive and private. And even those trips had been a long time ago—her mother had not roused herself to go to Paris, or anywhere, in years.
Spotting a sign for a small café, Johara decided to take the necessary plunge. She ducked into the tiny restaurant and stammered a question to the hassled-looking manager by the kitchen door, asking if he was hiring.
‘Do you have any waitressing experience?’ he asked, his voice full of scepticism as he eyed her up and down.
‘No, but—’
‘Sorry, no.’
Dejectedly she turned away. She repeated the same cringing experience in the next four cafés. All of the managers had looked at her with either doubt or disbelief when she’d asked for work, and Johara wondered how they could tell she was inexperienced. Was it the way she dressed? Spoke? Or was her naiveté that obvious, like a beacon above her head?
Her feet ached and her stomach rumbled—she hadn’t eaten since she’d been on the plane hours ago. Worse than either of those afflictions was the plunging sense of despair that she wasn’t going to be able to make it in the real world. And what would she do then? Slink back to Azim with her tail tucked firmly between her legs, her head lowered in guilty remorse, and accept a cold, loveless marriage with a man she didn’t like or even know?
No. She would rather pound every street in Paris looking for work than submit to a man as cold and cruel as Azim al Bahjat.
‘Salut, chérie,’ a man’s low, purring voice carried over the sounds of the crowd, and Johara turned, startled to realise he was talking to her.
‘Salut,’ she said cautiously. The man’s smile was wide as he lounged in the doorway of the shabbiest café Johara had ever seen, just a few tiny, dirty tables on a floor of cracked tiles.
‘Are you looking for work?’ He made a moue of sympathy. ‘Finding it difficult?’
‘A bit,’ Johara admitted. ‘Why?’ She nodded to the café. ‘Are you hiring?’
The man’s smile