Jalal exhaled. “And you still gave it to her.”
Haidar echoed his resignation. “It might seem unacceptable to you, and you must think it unbelievable I’d have this inexplicable soft and blind spot, but I do love her. I don’t think I can stop.”
Jalal drove his hands into his hair, wiped them down his face. “I can’t stop, either. After all she’s done, all she’s cost us, I was right there with you, pleading for exile instead of imprisonment. B’Ellahi, I even call her regularly and drop by when I can.”
* * *
That was a surprise to Haidar. “She didn’t tell me. Still plotting, I see.”
But then he was resigned that she always would be, lived wondering what her next strike would be.
“So…aren’t you going to ask me about the other parts of her plans that I seemed involved in? What made you assume I was party to them?” He rubbed his jaw, only now registering the pain. “Ya Ullah, how I wanted to break your jaw when you intimated that.”
“I thought she gave you what must have seemed like unrelated tasks that you couldn’t have realized were cogs in the machine of her plan. Except after the fact.” Contrition finally appeared in Jalal’s eyes. “But I wanted you to tell me that.”
“I didn’t want to tell you anything. I wanted to smash your face in.” Haidar smiled as all the remembered pain seeped away. “And you need to get to know me from scratch, like Roxanne needed to, if you don’t realize why I didn’t share details of my involvement with you or with anyone else. I had suspicion trained on me by the sheer evidence of my existence, by being the one she’d orchestrated all this for. I wasn’t about to add my own sonly indiscretions to make a better case against myself. When you discovered them, like the relentless wolf that you are, and faced me, I was so…angry at myself, at you, I refused to defend myself. If you didn’t know me enough to know your accusations were ludicrous, I decided I didn’t want to know you at all. Of course I regretted it the moment I walked away. And of course I didn’t know how to walk back into your life. I thought you would come to me, as you always did. You didn’t.”
“I wanted to,” Jalal groaned. “Every single second of the past two years. I didn’t know how to, either…”
Suddenly Jalal dragged Haidar into a rough hug.
* * *
Roxanne’s tears flowed as Haidar stiffened, then groaned and sagged in his twin’s hold. Then he hugged him back.
The poignancy of the moment drowned her, her heart battering her insides in delight as she felt the two men who mattered most to her begin to re-form their damaged bond. The man she was born to love, and the brother she’d longed to have, becoming what they should have always been, each other’s sanctuary, and hers.
She watched them for as long as she could bear. Then she pounced on them, hugged them both with all her strength, pouring the tears of her relief, love and thankfulness on both their chests.
They at once took her in, at last acknowledging and delighting in the other’s love, for one another, and for her.
It was Jalal who pulled back first, smirking at Haidar. “This doesn’t mean I’m letting you become king.”
Haidar’s fist landed in a playful shove against his chin. “And this doesn’t mean I don’t owe you a broken jaw.”
Jalal’s gaze narrowed on him ponderously. “You have changed. You would have never joked about using your fists.”
“I have changed.” Haidar hugged her off the ground, gazing at her adoringly. “You’re looking at the fuel of my metamorphosis.”
Jalal cleared his throat, a bedeviling, knowing look directed at both of them. “And this is my cue to leave you two doves to coo to each other and go see if Rashid has already taken over while we indulged in our biannual twinly showdown.”
Haidar gave him a considering look. “Maybe we should let him.”
Jalal only gaped at him.
Then he directed a stern look at Roxanne. “Whatever softener you’re using on him, ease up.”
Giving them both a grinning salute, he walked out.
Roxanne hugged Haidar harder, buried smiles and tears into his expansive chest. “Forgive me.”
A tender finger below her chin raised her face to his. “As long as you do me.” She burst out laughing. He threw his head back and joined her. “That, too. Regularly.”
She nestled deeper into his embrace. “And always. Along with everything else.”
He squeezed her tight, a tremor passing through his great body at yet another, and this time last, averted heartache. “I’m holding you to that.”
She nodded against his heart. “For as long as we both shall live. And beyond.”
Epilogue
“Azmahar is and will always be a major part of who I am, and its people are my people. I will always be at its service, will do anything to mend the damage my closest kin have done to it.”
Applause spread like thunder in the Qobba ballroom.
Roxanne’s heart expanded until she felt it would burst with pride. Haidar had asked her to arrange this event with all the representatives of Azmahar’s tribal councils. After his opening words, there was no doubt. They loved him. Believed in him.
The ruler of her heart and life was born to be king.
He was going on. “I am here today to make two announcements. The first is that I have asked for Al Sayedah Roxanne Gleeson’s hand in marriage, and she has honored me by accepting. Our wedding will be held at her earliest convenience and readiness.”
Roxanne’s jaw dropped. B-but they’d agreed not…
“And with the pledge of my service and support to Azmahar unchangeable for as long as I live, I make the second announcement. I am withdrawing my candidacy for the throne.”
Before anyone could react, before her heart found its next beat, he was stepping down from the podium, walking toward her.
The moment he reached her, she smacked him.
Murmurs interspersed with laughter buzzed through the ballroom.
“I had to out us.” He caught her hand, pressed it to his lips, then to his heart. “I couldn’t take having no one cleaning the kitchen after our Cherie-inspired culinary adventures any longer.”
She smacked him with her other hand. “Don’t even try to joke! When did you reach that monumental decision, and how dare you spring it on me like this?”
“I knew we’d have this argument, and I wanted to have it only once. My mind is made up, ya naar galbi, fire of my heart.”
“Without telling me?” she seethed. “What about your vow that you’d tell me everything.”
“It’s right here, where it will always be. But this is not about me. This is for Azmahar’s best.”
“It’s for Azmahar to choose its best, and if it chooses you, you’re damn well becoming king whether you like it or not!”
“And do you, without emotions and hormones, think I’m as qualified as Jalal or Rashid for the job, now of all times?”
“Qualified and more, for any throne in the world.”
“That’s habibati talking.” His smile was all indulgence as he led her out of the ballroom.
“No, it isn’t,” she persisted, temperature rising another notch. “Personally, you’re everything a king should be, and more.”
“But there’s more to me than what I am personally. You of all people know how my background—read, my mother—could mess things up. I don’t believe I’m the one who can induce the best climate in the kingdom. Not in the top chair. I can do a lot of good from the sidelines, though. As I intend to, with you by my side as my princess. And consultant. I already told Jalal he shouldn’t expect your exclusive services in that area.”
She opened her mouth to protest and he closed it for her with a kiss. “I thought I would redeem myself by taking the throne and fixing what my mother and her family had destroyed. But I realized I was playing into her hands. The hands I can feel all over my candidacy. She wants me to become king, would do anything to achieve her objective. I believe she’s still doing it. Stepping down is the only way to spoil her plans. To outrun her shadow. That will be my true redemption.”
After collecting her jaw off the floor, Roxanne rasped, “I don’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m on her side on this one. That throne you do deserve, and would be perfect for.”
Haidar’s smile was unperturbed, his determination unwavering. “And you think she’d stop after I’m king? From experience, she’d have more in store, and not anything for the general good. She’s my mother, and I’ll always be her son, will always serve her and take care of her, but I’m not giving her the chance to use me, or steer my life, our lives, anymore. It’s as simple as that.”
She stopped, realized they were in that corridor at the very spot where he’d once driven her to ecstasy, clung to him. “Haidar, it’s not—”
“Can you possibly be that simple?”
Roxanne lurched at hearing the dark drawl, at feeling the presence that made all her hairs stand on end. She felt Haidar stiffen before he turned away. To face Rashid.
Haidar cocked his head at him, his lips twitching. “I’m beginning to think you have a teleportation device, Rashid. Though your materialization is welcome this time. If only to serve as a cue to move on to better topics.” He looked back at her, eyes filling with intimacy and indulgence. “Like talking wedding and honeymoon plans.”