The endearment, my soul, speared her with its sarcasm. Its impossibility. The rest of his wickedness had a counteractive effect, tickling her. And she couldn’t help it.
She made a face at him, stuck out her tongue. “Show off.”
He threw his head back on a surprised guffaw, his face blazing with enjoyment, turning his beauty from breathtaking to heartbreaking. She found herself smiling back at him in yet another demonstration of unabashed idiocy.
And it was as if they were back to those magical times a year and a half ago, when everything between them had been rich in rapport—to use two more R words—when they just had to say anything and the other would understand, appreciate, the desire to please as strong as the desire to pleasure or be pleasured, the smiles flowing uncensored, unfettered.
But like any illusion, the moment of communion passed. The warmth kindling his face evaporated, the mirth drained to be replaced by the coldness that had turned him into the stranger she’d left a lifetime ago.
He finally drawled, “So you claim you’re not playing games. What’s this about being nauseous then? Are you going to go on a hunger strike in protest of my alleged crimes against you?”
“I am nauseous. If you were flying into the unknown to a strange land where you knew no one, wouldn’t you be?”
His chin rose. “You know me. That’s all you’ll need.”
She shook her head at the irony. “Do I know you, Farooq? In the biblical sense, you mean? Oops, wrong faith here.”
He leveled his gaze on her, his eyes glinting with danger and a resurgence of reluctant humor. “You’d be surprised how alike all faiths are. And besides knowing me, thoroughly, in that sense, you know every other thing that counts.”
“Really? So being the crown prince of Judar now is one of the things that don’t count? I just discovered that—by accident.”
His eyes narrowed. “And the discovery disappoints you?”
She sagged further in her seat. “It staggers me. Staggers me more, to be accurate. You’re not just a prince, you’re the prince. And to think I was going to pieces contemplating what being the wife of a Middle Eastern prince entailed. Now I’m scared witless at what is expected of the crown prince’s wife. If I’m woefully unsuited for the first position, I’m disastrous for the second.”
He looked away, presenting her with the magnificence of his slashed profile. He was silent for a long moment, looking lost in thought.
Then without looking back at her, he drawled in a distant, distracted tone, “You speak Arabic. It was why you were chosen. I never thought to ask if you did. You never spoke it, but when I thought of it later, I realized you understood when my men did, when I reverted to using it in extremes of passion.”
She blinked. What was this jump in logic? And she was “chosen”? For what? But what had her heart shriveling was his indifference as he mentioned his reversion to Arabic during their intimacies. That had always sent her spiraling into mindlessness, knowing it was what had heralded his loss of control, his plunge with her into the depths of ecstasy.
When he didn’t add anything more, continued staring at nothing, she had to say something. “I do speak Arabic. If you mean that’s why I was chosen to organize your conference, it was what made me stand out, made me land such a huge opportunity. Though I’m better in the formal dialect than your colloquial Judarian—”
He cut across her aimless rambling. “You read and write it?”
Her heart dropped a beat at the sub-zero inflection in his voice. “Y-yes. Better than I speak it, actually. Pronunciation has always been a bit tricky. I’m okay I guess, but I could be better—”
He again cut her off. “Besides Arabic, you speak, read and write French, Italian, Spanish, German and Chinese?”
He’d finally read the file his security/intelligence machine must have compiled on her, had he?
She exhaled. “Yes, if not all with the same proficiency…”
“And apart from being an events planner, of which conferences of international scale were but one type of event you handle, you’ve worked as an interpreter, a hostess and a facilitator in the range of diplomatic functions and every other sort of multinational event. You’ve set up a cyberconsultancy service organizing such events, networking providers, coordinating themes, putting every detail together from the ground up from the comfort of your home.”
Still unable to understand where this was leading she answered, “Yes, but how is that—”
He again aborted her query, still staring into space. “The wife of the crown prince of Judar has to be beside him in formal and informal meetings with dignitaries from around the globe. She must be acutely aware of the cultural protocols of every nation and faith, be versed in the art of etiquette and dialogue with everyone from servants to magnates, from emissaries to heads of states. She has to have an appreciation for all forms of art, an understanding of global historical landmarks, be up-to-date about contemporary world state and technologies. Mastery of seven languages which include Arabic would turn such a wife into an unprecedented find.”
He looked at her then, held her stunned gaze, his giving nothing of his thoughts away. Then he drawled, “If I’d tailored a woman for the position of my wife, I wouldn’t have come up with one more suited for it than you.”
Six
Something frantic flapped inside Carmen’s chest.
It felt too much like hope.
She pressed her palm over it, trying to stem its painful surge. Not that she knew from experience, but she’d heard that where it blossomed, hope defied logic, sprouted with a life of its own, blasted through barriers of caution and self-preservation.
It seemed to be doing so now. It kept saying, if he believed her experience and skills would be of use to him, maybe her life in Judar wouldn’t be a prison of duty outside her role as Mennah’s mother, and she’d find purpose and function there, in his life. And maybe—just maybe—one day they’d forge some sort of relationship, and their marriage wouldn’t remain the lie he intended to propagate for Mennah’s legitimacy and birthright…
“Now you heard what you’re fishing for, what more reasons will you give for being ‘staggered’ that I’m now the crown prince?”
His disparagement hit her with the force of a landslide, smothering the chain reaction of optimism.
So he didn’t believe she could be valuable to him in his new position? He’d been leading her on only to slap her down?