by Olivia Gates
Harres narrowed his eyes. “I can order my special forces to take you someplace where you can stew in your poisonous brew until the ceremony is over.”
“You think they’d obey you and not their crown prince? I’m almost tempted to let you see where their loyalties lie.”
“I’ll say it’s on grounds of insanity. You’ve paved those, so it won’t be hard to convince them to cart you away.”
“But-but…mo-om!” Amjad did a spectacular impression of a sullen boy and it only made Johara think she’d never been in the presence of someone more dangerous. Or more…lonely. “I’m the only fun one around. What would this party be without me?”
Harres shook his head, intense fondness mixing with exasperation and even regret. “I swear, sometimes I feel you’re the youngest, not the oldest.”
Amjad’s provocation rose another notch. “But you remain stuck in the middle either way, bro.”
“You said you’d defer to my opinion. I should have known you would only if it coincided with yours.” Harres turned to Johara with long-suffering apology in his eyes. “I told Amjad that his theories of you being behind the jewel conspiracy and creating a scandal to force Shaheen to marry you cancel each other out. If the conspiracy bore fruit, Shaheen wouldn’t be prince. Why sabotage the status Amjad thinks you’re marrying him for?”
Amjad raised his hand in another impression of an overeager student in class. “I know that one!” Johara turned reluctant eyes to him. The man was electrically charismatic even when he insulted her with every breath. He met her eyes, and still talked about her as if she wasn’t there. “It’s a win-win situation for her. If the conspiracy works, she gets paid off big-time, Shaheen loses the title but retains his wealth and power as a businessman and sheikh, and she retains her chokehold on him in every way. Then, once she has all power in her hands, she negotiates the return of the jewels, at whatever price, through a third party, and has it all.”
Harres gave a hearty snort. “Sheesh, Amjad. You actually live with that thing you call a brain inside your head?”
“You envy me because you live with nothing inside yours? That must be how our head of homeland security and secret service got to be so trusting. I almost feel compelled to report this to the council. I bet they’d expel you from your post and toss you out on your ear if they got a whiff of you being such an oblivious romantic.”
Shaheen grinned at him. “Crown prince or not, Amjad, we outnumber you. How about we throw you out on your ear?”
Amjad swept his brothers a bedeviling smile, so secure in his power that he couldn’t be goaded into posturing. “Chill, boys. Haven’t you ever heard of the esteemed position of devil’s advocate?”
“You mean devil’s assistant.” Harres tsked. “Now of all times. You’re sick, Amjad.”
“I’ll live. But really, when better? Afterward, I’ll have to forever hold my aggression. And with Shaheen thinking with body parts that don’t include his brain, you were my last hope of someone seeing beyond the star-crossed drama unfolding here.”
At that moment the king called Shaheen and Harres away, leaving Amjad alone with Johara.
She waited until they were out of earshot. Then she pounced.
She grabbed Amjad’s forearm, dug her fingers into it with all her strength. She heard his surprise in the sharpness of his indrawn breath, saw it in the pupils that jerked to full expansion, engulfing the uncanny emerald of his eyes.
“Listen, Amjad,” she hissed. “I’m not in any condition to listen to more of your delightful theories about my cunning and long-term treachery. I’ve loved Shaheen since the moment I laid eyes on him, even before he saved my life. I thought living with my hopeless love was the worst thing that I’d ever feel. Then I came back into his life and realized he’s loved me as long and as fiercely, and my pain became agony. I feel like I’ve fallen into a nightmare, getting my impossible dream of having Shaheen, but in this terrible way. All I have to look forward to is a few months with him, if that, then a life without him, when he’ll love and need me and our baby as much as we do him, but be forced to live without us.
“So thank your demons that you’ve never loved like this and evidently can’t love anyone. You’ll never suffer the agonies and ecstasies of our soul-deep connection, or the despair I’m anticipating when I have to leave him. And I’m not letting you add to his troubles. So, to quote Shaheen, from now on, Amjad, shut up!”
She fell silent, glaring up at him, trembling with the emotions tearing through her, and thought if stupefaction took human form, it would be Amjad now.
When he remained silent, she let out the air in her lungs on a choppy exhalation. “Now take your mind off of me and concentrate those formidable powers of yours on the most important thing. The jewels.”
He shook his head, as if to wake up from a trance. Then he finally drawled, “It has always paid for me to think the worst and make amends later if need be. So I will do anything I can to atone for my attitude when—and if—I become convinced you are innocent.” He bent closer, as if to give her a mind and psyche scan. “So just answer me this, Johara—if you and your father are innocent, why didn’t you recognize the fakes?”
“I know why.” Johara jerked around at Shaheen’s declaration. He and Harres reached her and Amjad’s side again. “Berj has been sliding into depression, and his inability to focus on his job—and therefore his failure to notice the fakes—is the reason he’s retiring. Johara hasn’t been near the jewels since she left Zohayd twelve years ago.”
Amjad pursed his lips as he considered those rationalizations. “I still need to interrogate Berj.”
Shaheen exhaled. “The one thing saving you from a right hook to that implacable jaw of yours is that I don’t want to put a swollen hand in Johara’s during the marriage ceremony.”
“I can be your witness with swollen knuckles.” Harres’s feral eyes flashed on a mixture of sheer deviltry and pure danger.
Amjad whistled in mock admiration. “My, aren’t you two full of fine male aggression. Down boys. I’m going to question him as a legitimate party in the investigation, not as a suspect.”
Johara intercepted any reaction from Shaheen or Harres, stuck her face in Amjad’s. “You can interrogate me all you like, but don’t you dare go near my father.”
“We need him to examine the fakes,” Amjad persisted.
Johara shook her head emphatically. “I’ll do that.”
“Are you qualified?” She glared at him. He raised his hands in concession. “So you are. Fine. What’s your plan?”
“I’ll analyze the craftsmanship and come up with a list of possible forgers. There is a limited number of artists in the world capable of producing such almost undetectable duplicates. I’ve studied each extensively and can distinguish their signature styles.”
After Shaheen and Harres agreed that this was the best plan, Amjad stepped closer, curved his arm at her. She blinked up at him. What was this confounding man up to now?
“What are you up to now?” Shaheen echoed her suspicion.
Amjad eyes crinkled at him on what seemed to be an actual smile. “Johara needs to choose the jewels she’ll wear for your wedding. And since you, as her groom, are forbidden to see her from now till then—” Amjad looked at her “—I’m petitioning that she bestow the honor of escorting her to the vaults on me.”
After a long moment of stunned silence, Harres guffawed. “Wonders will never cease.”
Shaheen seemed to wrestle with indecision before he nodded to her to accept Amjad’s offer. He still put a protective hand on top of the one she hooked in Amjad’s arm, giving his brother a hard glare. “If you say one more word to upset her…”
“Don’t worry, Shaheen.” Amjad winked at her. “When I called Johara a lioness, I didn’t know the half of it. She can evidently defend herself, and you, against a whole army.”
“I heard you wore black for your wedding.”
Aliyah laughed at Johara’s comment, turned from s
orting through the outfits that had been brought in for Johara to pick from. “My choice of the color of mourning and power in Judar was my way of showing Kamal what I thought of being forced into marriage. His, uh, very favorable reaction was an early sign that we are made for each other.” Aliyah stopped, alarmed. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of copying me!”
“Oh, no. I just hope you don’t expect me to wear white.” Johara ran palms down her still flat belly. “It would feel funny when everyone knows we’re getting married because I’m pregnant.”
“You’re getting married because you’re in love.” That was Laylah, already dressed in the outfit she’d attend the ceremony in, a two-piece dream of gleaming satin and ethereal chiffon in gradations of emerald and turquoise, heavily worked in sequins, beads and pearls. “Don’t let the circumstances fool you.”
Johara conveyed her gratitude with a look. Laylah and Aliyah had been with her all morning, defusing her agitation at the upcoming events. Not that she’d ever visualized her and Shaheen’s wedding, since she’d never thought there would be one, but she’d barely slept all night, dreading the stilted, subdued ceremony that would see them married.
Now it was only two hours away. And she still couldn’t bring herself to pick a dress. She shook her head at yet another suggestion of Aliyah’s.
Aliyah sighed as she put the outfit back on the packed rack. “You’re right. None of these are…you.”
“Maybe you should attend the ceremony wearing only your jewels.” Laylah winked at her. “Who needs clothes when she’s adorned in the priceless pieces of the Pride of Zohayd?”
Aliyah exchanged a glance with Johara. Laylah hadn’t been told.
Before more could be said, a knock rapped on the door of Johara’s suite, where she’d insisted on remaining until after the ceremony.
Aliyah rushed to answer the door.
After a moment, she swung around with eyes and smile practically tap-dancing in excitement. “Close your eyes, Johara!”
“What…?” Johara said dazedly, eyes widening instead.
Laylah rushed behind the couch Johara was sitting on and placed her hands over her eyes.
“They’re closed,” she called out to Aliyah.
After moments of hearing the giggles of the two women, Aliyah chirped “Ta-da!” and Laylah removed her hands.
Johara blinked. Then she gaped. And gaped.
Held high in Aliyah’s hand was the most incredible outfit she’d ever seen in her life. And in her line of work, she’d seen the best that human creativity and craftsmanship could offer.
“Now that’s you,” Aliyah announced proudly. “Courtesy of the man who knows you best and values you most, your smitten groom. It has a note attached, too.”
That ended Johara’s paralysis. She zoomed up and pounced on the truly invaluable part of this gift, the thoughtfulness behind it. Her hands trembled and her eyes surged with tears as she saw Shaheen’s elegant, powerful print, almost heard him whisper the words into her ear, against her cheek, her lips, each inch of her.
Lan ustatee abaddan ann oteeki ma yoofi jamalek huqqun, fahal turdeen an ta’khothi nafsi kollaha awadan, ya joharet hayati?
I can never give you what will do your beauty justice, so will you accept taking all of me instead, jewel of my life?
She was useless for an indeterminate time afterward as Aliyah and Laylah surrounded her, sharing her agitated delight.
Then Laylah finally pulled back. “If you don’t want to attend your wedding in only jewels, you better hop into that miracle.”
And miracle was right. One of every gradation of gold and brown that reflected her coloring down to the last hair, amalgamated from finest silk, georgette, chiffon, lace and tulle, flowing into a three-piece outfit that she molded into as if it had been sculpted for her, on her.
Aliyah and Laylah commented that that was the doing of another miracle. A man who knew every inch of his woman, and who could translate that intimate knowledge into such a precise fit.
Burning with embarrassment and joy, Johara rushed to the full-length mirror to inspect herself, unable to even guess how Shaheen had managed to get this outfit, and on such short notice, too.
She’d worn incredible dresses since she’d turned sixteen, but this one wasn’t only her, this was the best her she could be.
The top was corsetlike, accentuating the nip of her waist and the lushness of her breasts, with tiny sleeves and a deep décolleté that showcased the clarity of her complexion and the wonder of each piece of jewelry she wore on her neck and arms.
The jacquard lehenga skirt was gathered to one side, hugging her hips in upward sweeps before falling in tight pleats to the floor. The embroidery and cutwork was on a level she’d never seen before, in sequins, silk thread, pearls and gemstones, all Zohaydan traditional motifs built around the first letter of both her name and Shaheen’s in Arabic, boggling her mind more, since it proved this had been made in the past twenty-four hours specifically for her. The finishing touch was a flowing silk and chiffon dupatta with the same motifs scalloping its edge and that hung from the middle of her head, secured there with a tiara that would have been worth a queen’s ransom had it been authentic.
She stood there as the picture was completed, her pleasure at the beauty of it all dipping then dissipating.
All this for such a sterile ceremony.
“It’s time, Johara.”
She shook off her dejection, rushed to precede Laylah and Aliyah out of the room. No matter what this was, as she’d told Amjad, it was far more than she’d ever dreamed of.
She was marrying Shaheen. She was having his baby.
Those were the true miracles.
Ten
Johara’s tiny procession started to pick up followers as soon as they stepped out of the corridor leading from her quarters.
Each time she looked behind her, more women had joined the queue, and soon there were a few dozen of them, smiling from ear to ear and giggling in her wake.
Each group of four was dressed in the same outfit, with the colors of each group’s attire a variation in deeper shades of the same cream and beige colors. By the time she looked back before they reached the main palace floor, the formation of the queue and the gradation in colors from lightest right behind her to the deepest at the end of it left her in no doubt.
They were her bridal procession.
She heard Laylah groaning. “Oh, man. I feel like a peacock!”
Aliyah looked down at her dress of deep reds and oranges. “And I feel like a fire breathing dragon. Someone should have told us what the color scheme was going to be.”
“By someone,” Laylah put in, in case Johara missed it, which in her condition, she had, “we mean your groom, who’s going to pay big-time for deciding your bridal procession outfits based on the dress he picked for you, and leaving us in the dark. Or I should say, in Technicolor.”
“Years from now,” Aliyah groaned, “your children are going to look at your wedding album and ask you why their aunties were perched on your sides looking like parrots.”
“You’re actually the splash of color bringing all this to life.” They both gave her yeah, sure, looks and she insisted, “I could never carry off those colors, and Shaheen knew it. But your brand of vivid beauty should never be subjected to anything less fiery and vital. And that is my professional opinion. I would never pick anything but bold, vibrant colors for either of you. And I can’t wait to design you some outfits that only you can do justice!”
“I always thought I’d like you if I got to know you. I was wrong.” Laylah hugged her exuberantly. “I’m going to love you.”
Aliyah hugged her on the other side. “I already do. It’s enough to feel how much you love Shaheen.”
Johara met Aliyah’s eyes and realized that was why Aliyah had decided she was innocent of stealing the jewels. As a woman in love herself, Aliyah had recognized that Johara would rather die than cause Shaheen heartache or harm.
Fe
eling her tears welling, she distracted herself by focusing on her surroundings. She wasn’t going to Shaheen with red eyes and streaked makeup.
Soon, the splendor she was rushing through occupied her focus for real—the palace she’d considered home, where she’d lived for most of her childhood, the best part of her life.
It was growing up here that had fanned the flames of the artistic tendencies she’d inherited from her parents. Moving from the plain practicality of New Jersey to this wonderland of embellishments and exoticness and grandeur blended from Persian, Ottoman and Mughal influences had fired her imagination from her first day here.
The palace had taken thousands of artisans and craftsmen three decades to finish in the mid-seventeenth century, and it had always felt to her as if the accumulation of history resonated in its halls, inhabited it walls. As much as the ancient bloodlines with all their trials and triumphs coursed through Shaheen’s and his family’s veins and stamped their bearing and characters, each inch of this place had been maintained as a testament to Zohayd’s greatness and the prosperity of its ruling house.
But all that would be for nothing if the jewels were not found. If she couldn’t figure out who’d forged them…
“We’re here!”
“Here” was before the doors to the ceremony hall where the bridal parade had been held for Shaheen. Though it had been agony to be there that night, she’d still felt the wonder of being there again.
As a child she hadn’t been allowed to attend royal functions held there. But when all was quiet, Shaheen had taken her there as frequently as she wished, to stay as long as she wanted, having the place all to herself to draw each corner of it, each inlay detail, each pierce work, each calligraphy panel.
The octagonal hall had always felt as if all the greatness, purpose and philosophy of the palace’s design converged there. It was the palace hub, gracefully enclosed by its central marble one-hundred-foot wide and high dome, its walls spread with intricate, geometric shapes, its eight soaring arches defining its space at ground level, each crowned by a second arch midway up the wall with the upper arches forming balconies. It was from those that she’d learned her best lessons of drawing perspective.