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PROLOGUE
“I know you think you loved her once.” Zahir’s expression carried a hint of frustration. “But it’s time to move on and forget.”
Syed stared out at the old city without seeing the ancient buildings that were fringed by desert sands. Stars glistened in the night sky and the breeze off the ancient dunes was cold; a coldness that seeped into Syed’s heart. “I have tried.”
Zahir spoke without apology. “Try harder.”
“If I told you to forget about Violet, would you?”
Zahir’s expression flashed with a strong emotion. “It’s completely different. She is my wife.”
“And if Sarah became my wife?
“God, Syed. No. It would kill father! He is close to death, and news of it would surely be the end for him.”
Syed compressed his lips, his eyes hard in his handsome face. “I can’t explain in words how I felt for her; how I feel for her…”
“She is not suitable.” Zahir spoke the words quietly but there was a steely determination in them that Syed knew he ought to heed.
“Oh?” Syed demanded. “And why not?”
“Our country’s emerged from a long and bitter war. We are at peace with Falina, and though you’ve eschewed your marriage to Charlotte, your bride needs to be of a similar standing. Our people won’t accept anyone else. We have talked about this already.”
“Five years ago we talked about it,” Syed was adamant. “And yes, more recently, when I was engaged to another woman. To the princess of a country we want a good relationship with.” He sucked in a deep breath, but his temper would not be contained. “My engagement is over. I’m a free man now.”
“Yes, free… but not to marry Sarah Smith. Never to marry her.”
Syed made a sound of muted anger. “Why not? What’s wrong with her?”
“You ask this question seriously?”
“You haven’t even met her,” Syed snapped.
“I have, however, seen the dossier on her. A waitress in an American bar? Who grew up in a trailer park? She is, quite literally, trailer trash. Can you really expect our Kingdom to accept her as your bride?”
Syed wrapped his fingers around the railing of the balcony until his knuckles glowed white. “She is so much more than that. The dossier makes her sound common. And she’s not. Zahir, she is the most spectacular woman I’ve ever known.” A woman he’d discarded as though she were no better than filth on his shoe. A woman whose virginity he’d taken, whose love he’d accepted; a woman he’d lied to every time they’d made love.
Regret and shame darkened his voice. “She is a brilliant artist; a photographer who can capture emotion and mood with a single picture. She is kindness and compassion; grace and beauty. Zahir, she is more worthy of royal life than I am.”
Zahir’s lips curled in an amused smile. “And it does not hurt, I suppose, that she has just the kind of figure you go crazy for?”
“It was never just about sex,” Syed said simply. Sarah had brought him back to life again when grief had nearly split his soul asunder.
“Perhaps not.” Zahir turned to face him, propping his hands on his hips. When he spoke, his voice was gravelled by urgency. “But it is all it can ever be again. Go. Sleep with her, if that is what you need to get her out of your mind once and for all. But when you come back to Kalastan, I do not want to hear this woman’s name again. Sarah Smith is not welcome in our kingdom. Understood?”
CHAPTER ONE
The town was just as he recalled.
Small, old-fashioned and faintly smelling of pine needles. His eyes lifted past the flat rooves of the main street towards the forest beyond.
Strange that the trees had not grown much despite the passage of five years.
A frown pulled at Syed’s face, like a branch being dragged down by too many persimmons.
The trees hadn’t grown but that didn’t mean other things hadn’t changed.
Five years.
Had it really been so long since he’d held Sarah Smith in his arms?
Out of nowhere, his body stirred with the memory of that pleasure. Her soft flesh, her generous curves.
She may not still live in the little house with the green door, of course.
