“You—race against me?” He laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Are you scared?” she taunted in reply.
His face grew serious. He rose to his feet. Standing naked in front of her, beneath the shadows of the loggia, he cupped her face in his hands.
“You don’t have to do this, Jasmine.” His tender blue gaze, endless as the desert sky, whispered through her soul. “You don’t have anything to prove.”
“I know.” In his arms, beneath the deep intensity of his glance, she could feel her heart break with yearning to be his wife. Not just today, but forever. With a sharp intake of breath, she forced herself to pull away. “Race you to the stables!”
She hurried to their bedroom and ransacked the bottom of her suitcase. I’ll just enjoy this last day, she vowed to herself. I’ll emblazon it forever on my heart. Throwing on underwear beneath a long white cotton dress of eyelet lace, she quickly ran a brush through her long dark hair and ran out of the house.
A few minutes later, when Kareef appeared at the stables dressed in black pants and a white shirt, she’d already climbed into the saddle. When Kareef saw the horse she’d chosen, he stopped in his tracks.
“Not that one.”
“She’s the one I want,” Jasmine replied steadily.
Kareef glowered down at the wizened old horse master with skin like tanned leather who’d assisted her into the saddle.
“Bara’ah is the one she chose, sire,” the Qusani said with a shrug, his raspy voice tinged with the ancient dialect of Qais. “Give your lady the freedom of your house, you said. Obey her every whim, you said.”
Caught by his own command, Kareef scowled at them both.
Jasmine beamed back at him. She was determined to show them both how much she’d changed over the last thirteen years. She was strong. Independent. She didn’t need him to protect her as she once had, and she would prove that. To both of them.
Kareef stepped toward her, looking up. “Not this mare, Jasmine. Bara’ah is full of tricks. You saw how she escaped her paddock—she caused the car accident.”
“She didn’t do it on purpose.” She patted the horse’s neck sympathetically. “She was just tired of being trapped behind walls.”
“Jasmine—”
“You’re already losing the race,” she said, and lightly kicked the black mare’s sides. The horse sprung forward, flying out of the stable, leaving Kareef cursing behind her.
He caught up with her five minutes later across the flatlands, when she slowed the mare down to a controlled trot.
“You do know how to ride,” he said grudgingly. “Where did you learn?”
She gave him a sweet smile. “New York.”
She’d taken lessons in Westchester County, spending her free time riding in Central Park. She’d learned to ride English style, Western style, even Qusani bareback. She’d hoped it would stop her nightmares, stop her from dreams where she hit the ground and woke up with the taste of blood in her mouth.
It hadn’t. But at least she had learned a new skill. It gave her great pleasure now to ride beside Kareef as his equal, with confidence and skill. Especially in this beautiful place.
Qais was so stark and savage, she thought, looking around her. Some might have found the vast open landscape bleak, but she felt freedom. She no longer felt hemmed in by skyscrapers that blocked her vision, that blocked the sun.
Here, in every direction, Jasmine could see a horizon. She felt free.
“Come on,” she said playfully, turning her reins in a new direction. She had no idea where she was going, but she loved not knowing. “On the mark…get set…go!”
She took off at a gallop into the desert, and Kareef pursued her.
Jasmine was ahead of him for about three seconds before his stallion whooshed past her. She followed, clinging to Bara’ah’s back with every ounce of her determination. But Kareef had been a horse racer since childhood, and he was on a bigger, faster horse; her ten years of practice could not compete with his glorious fearless speed.
Whirling around, he pulled in front of her with a grin. “I win.”
“Yes,” she sighed. “You win.”
“And so I take my prize.” Drawing his horse beside hers, he leaned over and kissed her in the saddle. It was a hard, demanding kiss that left her aching for more.
When he pulled away, she stared at him in shock.
Here in the desert, the sun burned away all lies. As she stared at his beautiful, strong, arrogant face, everything suddenly became clear.
She loved him.
She always had, and she always would.
Jasmine gripped the pommel of her saddle, blinking, staggered by the realization.
Smiling, Kareef reached out to stroke her cheek.
“You kiss like you ride. Like a wanton,” he murmured appreciatively. He looked down at her intently. “Jasmine,” he said in a low voice, “you have to know that I…”
Then his eyes suddenly focused on something in the distance behind her. His hand dropped from her cheek. He sat back stiffly in his saddle.
“What is it?” she whispered, staring at him.
Clenching his jaw, he nodded to a spot behind her. “The house where you will live. Hajjar’s house.”
She twisted in the saddle and gasped. Far on the horizon, she saw an enormous monstrosity of a mansion, a red stone castle with red flags flying from the turrets. She blinked at it in horror.
“He’s not there,” he said quietly behind her. “They’re not at home.”
“So where are they?” she whispered. “Where did they go?”
Kareef exhaled, hissing through his teeth. She heard him shift in the saddle. “Don’t like the look of those clouds,” he said. “See them?”
Desert sandstorms were the subject of scary tales told to Qusani children, so Jasmine looked sharply at the horizon. The sky had indeed darkened to a deep gray-brown; but she could barely look past Umar’s hideous red castle to see the clouds. Comparing the hideous red edifice to Kareef’s simple home in the oasis, she wanted to weep. But she wouldn’t let Kareef see her cry. Couldn’t!
“Jasmine, we should go back,” Kareef said quietly behind her. “Then we need to talk.”
She whirled back in the saddle. She saw his hand already reaching in his pocket. She sucked in her breath. In another moment, he’d pull out the emerald necklace. He only needed to hand it to her and speak three words to separate them forever.
Irony. The same hour she’d realized she loved him, he would divorce her.
She would marry Umar and be his trophy wife, caged in this monstrous red castle and other sprawling mansions just like it in luxurious locations around the world.
She would have respectability. She would have a family.
But at the price of her soul.
Kareef’s eyes narrowed as he again stared past her toward the horizon. “We must hurry. Come now.”
With a low whistle, he whirled his horse around and tore into a gallop, clearly expecting her to follow.
She watched him for one instant.
“No,” she whispered. “I won’t.”
She turned her reins in the opposite