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Tough. He was entirely responsible for both she was sure. And yet, she heard herself saying, “I’m sorry.”
Though why he should think Zahir would have told her about the discussion was beyond her. Before this wedding feast, the time she and Zahir had spent together alone could be measured in minutes, not hours.
It was her father’s turn to sigh. “Zahir informed me that he would not marry a woman whose father made headlines in the scandal rags on a regular basis.”
She had no problem believing that. Zahir’s near rabid protection of the family name and reputation of the royal house was well-known.
“So, you turned faithful…” She paused, swallowing down bile. She’d thought he’d done it to save their relationship and that had hurt enough, as she’d so wanted him to do it for her mother’s sake. To learn he’d done it to earn a more entrenched place in the royal house just made her sick. “Or at least circumspect, in order to make sure your daughter married into the Royal House of Zohra.”
“Faithful,” her father bit out. “I realized my actions were doing all harm and no good. Certainly they never had the effect I had hoped.”
“You hoped sleeping around would have some kind of positive impact?” she asked with patent disbelief.
“Your mother refused to get pregnant again. I accused her of becoming pregnant with you only to trap me into marriage to begin with.” A long drawn-out pause followed. “She never denied it.”
“Was this before, or after you had your first affair?” What was she asking? Her brain and mouth were connected without a filter in there somewhere.
“It does not m
atter.”
“I’m sure it did to Mom.”
“She would not even try to give me a son.”
“I am sorry to have been such a disappointment to you.” And she’d never even known she had been.
“That is not what I meant.”
Strangely she believed him. Her father hadn’t ever done anything to make her feel like he had wished she’d been a boy. “I thought you didn’t care if you had an heir since you aren’t actual royalty.”
“You know our people, though you were not raised full-time among them.”
And in the culture of his homeland, to have no son to leave his name and worldly possessions was a great tragedy.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, feeling her father’s pain across the distance between them.
She understood the dynamics of her parents’ marriage a little better, but she still had no desire to emulate it. “Mom loves you. She always has.”
“I know that now.” For the first time since their initial greeting, her father’s voice held a measure of contentment. “I say again, Zahir is not me. He will not make my mistakes.”
Memories of the photos she had left in Zahir’s room rose to taunt Angele as she pulled her rolling case to the private plane security checkpoint. Even so, she did not reveal to her father that Zahir was no lily-white duty-bound sheikh, no matter what everyone else believed.
“I can’t marry him, Father.”
“You must.”
“No.”
“These are just prewedding jitters.”
“We aren’t even officially engaged.” Sheesh. “This is me being smart enough to avoid a future that holds no appeal for me.”
“It’s a future you are imagining, not the one that will be.”
“Have you always loved Mom?” she asked instead of answering.
The answer was immediate and without doubt.
