Johara shook with relief and confusion, still unsure what this meant for all of them, what kind of losses they’d sustain so she and Shaheen could remain together.
“That’s it?” She heard her voice trembling on the question. “They want…money? Why didn’t they just ask for it in the first place?”
Shaheen put a finger below her chin, raised her face to his, his eyes adoring. “You would have ransomed me, ya joharti?”
She gave a vigorous nod. “I certainly would have. I will pay all I have now as part of this compensation.”
Shaheen hugged her closer, delighted, defusing her turmoil. “They wouldn’t have taken anything in settlement without reaching this point of crisis. The ways of tradition are too demanding, and people in our region have entered grueling and needless wars to keep a vow or save face.” He turned to his brothers. “I know they wouldn’t have agreed no matter how much they had to gain if you hadn’t stood together and scared them off. You have my and Johara’s gratitude, but now that they’ve given up the macho posturing, I’ll be the one to negotiate with them. Money, as Jalal said, and massive favors are more potent than magic.”
“And let you give up your right as the ‘middle’ child to always cause us the most trouble?” Jalal winked at him.
“It is more cost effective to give those vultures bites of each of us rather than help you rebuild your empire.” Haidar grabbed Jalal and turned back to the hall. “Now excuse us as we get to the nitty gritty on the bite sizes expected.”
Shaheen called out after them, “If I’d let those vultures pick apart said empire, I wouldn’t have needed your help. I have a standing offer from my princess to bail me out of anything.”
Johara heard their laughter until they disappeared.
Then Shaheen turned to Amjad and Harres. “Before they come back again, let’s get this out of the way. Now, I’ll take care of our so-called allies, while you root out our hidden enemies.”
Amjad patted him on the back, all condescension. “Yeah, you two run along now and leave this to the grown-ups.”
Shaheen grinned at him, then turned to exchange some last details with Harres.
Johara put her hand on Amjad’s arm. “You helped Shaheen and I stay together, at a great price to yourself. Is that your way of ‘atoning’? Of saying you’re taking back everything you said about me?”
Amjad’s eyes looked even more ruthless for their mock chagrin. “How can I possibly do that? You’re a woman, aren’t you?”
“Your mother was a woman.”
Amjad cracked a guffaw. “And you’ve just made my case.”
“What about your aunt? Your sister and cousin?”
Amjad made a simulation of being deep in thought. “There might be some anomalies in the species.”
“Any hope I fall into the same anomalous category?”
“Could be.” Amjad’s eyes grew pondering, penetrating. “I’ll reserve my final verdict. For a couple of…decades.”
“Don’t listen to this doomsayer, Johara.” Harres put his arm around her shoulder. “You’re our Johara and we all love you.”
Amjad gave him an abrasive look. “And some of us would not only die for you, they were about to delete themselves from existence for you, too.” His gaze moved to Shaheen. “Idiot.”
Shaheen threw his head back on an exhilarated laugh. “And I can’t wait for the day a woman comes along and makes you wish to delete yourself for her.”
“She already came along. And almost did the job herself.”
Johara’s heart convulsed. The sarcasm in Amjad’s voice only made her see how deep the scar went. All the way through him. She was mortified to remember how she’d accused him of being unable to love. What if this wasn’t only betrayal and anger, but mortally wounded love, too?
Then Amjad opened his mouth and snuffed any compassion. “So we’re off to see about our enemies, and you sleep lightly next to your bride. Now that you’re all hers with a cherry on top, she might kill you—with too much love.”
Harres guffawed. “One day, Amjad, a woman will make you beg her to kill you the same way. She’s out there for you.”
Amjad gave him one of those demolishing looks she was sure would disintegrate others. “Says the man who’s gone through every unattached woman in the northern hemisphere from the age of twenty-five to forty and hasn’t found ‘the one’ for him yet.”
“I’ll leave you to debate the existence of women for either of you. I’m taking the one I was born to love—” Shaheen paused for Amjad to oblige him with a snort “—to have our honeymoon, away from all snorters and conspirators.”
With one last thankful glance at them, one she shared, he swept her up in his arms.
Ecstatic, overcome, she buried her face in his neck, her heart too full to do anything but murmur her love over and over.
A long time later, entangled in the luxury of their intimacy with the sea breeze caressing their cooling bodies, Shaheen rose on his elbow beside her.
He ran his hand lovingly over her still flat belly. “You know, I’m only sorry my plan didn’t work. If they’d exiled me, I would have proved to you that you are far more precious than everything I am or have, than life itself. But I have the rest of my life to prove this to you.”
“You already did. You do, with every breath.” She caressed his beloved face, bliss running down her cheeks. “And I’ll spend my life proving to you that you are as precious to me.”
He hugged her to him. “You already did, the day you let go and trusted me to catch you. How many times have you trusted me since? With your heart, your body, your happiness, your future? And your helping us expose the conspiracy when you know whoever is plotting it will do anything to keep it hushed, putting yourself on the line with us.”
“We’re in this together, all of it, for better or for worse.” She kissed him with all the fierceness of her love, the profundity of her pledge. “Thank you, ya habibi, for saving me, for loving me, for existing and being everything to me.”
He drowned her in another kiss before he pulled back. “And I have one more thing I haven’t thanked you for yet.”
She gazed up at him, awash in love and ecstasy, waited for him to tell her one more thing that would hone the perfection.
And he did. “Thank you for never forgetting me, for seeking me out again, and giving me my life’s reason. You, and our baby.”