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A little voice amidst all his anger reminded him that he’d thought his seduction and lovemaking would have prevented her leaving in the first place. His father wanted to know why not just let her go?
It was simple really. Zahir didn’t lose. Ever.
Equally as important, Zahir accepted that he owed his future bride a courtship. He was furious with her, but his own inaction in regard to their betrothal and ill-advised relationship with Elsa had driven Angele to her recent actions.
Zahir had failed in his duty to her and that was worse than losing. That was a blow to his integrity he simply would not accept.
First, he had to handle Elsa and her threats. She must be made to understand that Angele was and forever would be off-limits.
Then Zahir would go after his reluctant bride.
Sitting at her desk at the magazine, Angele read the article her mother had sent her the link for. Confusion slowly morphed to sheer, unadulterated anger.
That arrogant idiot.
Even after seeing the pictures she’d been sent, Zahir thought he could convince her to go through with the wedding contract. Did he have no idea how hopeless that belief should be?
Apparently not.
He was quoted as saying he’d been neglectful and planned to rectify that. Really? When? After all, she’d been home for two weeks and he’d not so much as called her in all that time.
Typical.
A couple of days ago, she’d received a short note, in his own handwriting. It had stated that the “picture problem” had been taken care of and that he hoped to see her soon. Like that made everything better. The excitement she’d felt at seeing the return address on the stationery, quickly followed by her disappointment there hadn’t been anything more personal in the short missive, and then the tiny curl of hope at his professed desire to see her soon had made her mad.
And disgusted with herself.
Almost as disgusted as she was with him right now.
What really had her blood pressure rising was his statement his countrymen could expect announcement of a wedding date by the end of the year.
Not merely the formal engagement, but the actual wedding date.
If she’d been reading a printed newspaper she could have thrown it down. Would have thrown it right into the garbage. As it was, all she could do was glare at her computer monitor while a growingly familiar nausea rolled over her in a clammy wave.
She was sprinting for the bathroom moments later, anger at Zahir vying for supremacy at upset at her own colossal stupidity.
Zahir arrived at the magazine’s offices late Friday afternoon, six weeks after Angele had left Zohra. He was in search of the woman he had spent far too many sleepless nights thinking about over the past weeks.
It was his guilt at putting his duty off that kept him awake. He wasn’t happy that his inaction had led to the need for this dramatic wooing.
He liked the fact his and her names had featured prominently in the media since she’d felt the need to back out of the contract even less. First, speculation on her motives and then his reaction had kept the gossips busy. Then reaction to his own press release had been flurried and florid.
Finally the long-distance wooing he’d done while preparing his offices for his absence had sparked several articles and numerous requests for interviews. He’d turned them all down—well, all but one. However, he’d allowed details of the gifts he’d showered his fiancée-to-be with to leak.
A woman deserved others to know she was appreciated and Zahir was doing his best to express that appreciation for Angele. It had taken a while, a couple of weeks in fact, for his fury at her defection to simmer down to the point he could focus on wooing rather than reading his errant bride-to-be the riot act. He was proud that none of the short notes accompanying his gifts and flowers held any sort of recriminations in them.
He’d even agreed to do an interview and photo spread for her magazine. He’d allowed the magazine’s photographer into his offices at the palace in Zohra and agreed to pictures both in his robes of state and wearing designer suits custom tailored to his tall frame for the fashion magazine’s feature article.
His every overture, including that one, had been met with a frustrating silence.
Now that his schedule was cleared, the time had come to step up his game.
Accompanied by his personal bodyguard and security detail and dressed in his best Armani and over robes of his office, Zahir carried a bouquet of yellow jasmine into Angele’s office building. The receptionist looked up, her eyes going wide as he approached the large half-moon shaped desk in the center of the large lobby.
Giving one of his practiced political smiles, he asked, “Can you direct me to Angele bin Cemal al Jawhar’s office?”
The young woman’s eyes went even wider as she scrambled for some papers she nearly knocked from her desk, without looking away from Zahir and his security men. “Um…I don’t…let me just make a call.”
