Unwilling to believe that the mixture of distrust and anguish in him had caused him to make such a terrible mistake, but knowing deep inside that he had, Tariq had ordered the car to return to Zulheina in all haste. The wild part of him that had always belonged to Mina had known. He'd picked up the phone in the back of the car for something to do, a shield against his fear that he'd lost his wife for good.
The guard had answered after one ring. "Sir?"
"Jamar, I was thinking of a gift for my wife and recalled what you said in Australia. Was Jasmine enthusiastic when her sister asked about booking tickets to New Zealand?" His hand had been clenched tight around the phone.
"I heard Jasmine al eha Sheik say that she was going to speak to you about whether you might have some free time. I believe she would enjoy the gift of a trip." There had been a smile in his tone at being asked his opinion. "I was called away before I could ask if I could be her guard on any such trip. I know I ask much but ...I did not like the feel of her sister." The guard's tone had been of someone expecting to be rebuked for the criticism, but he'd put his duty to protect above his own status. His judgment of Sarah also explained his scowling expression that day in Sydney .
"I agree, Jamar. And thank you." Tariq had been barely able to speak. His blood cold with the realization of his in calculable error, he'd returned to Zulheina.
Too late.
Far too late.
The crackle of paper made him glance down in surprise. He felt as if he was looking at a stranger's hand. A stranger who'd crushed the fragile material in his palm beyond recovery, with brutal efficiency. Uncurling those fingers that he was forced to acknowledge were his own, he pulled out the page and tried to flatten it against the dark wood of his desk. The whole time, he knew that no matter how hard he tried to smooth the wrin kles, it would never be enough.
As he would never again be able to enjoy the perfect joN of his Jasmine's love. He'd beaten and battered her heart so many times, in so many different ways, and yet she'd contin ued to love him, her feminine courage quiet and strong. But even her generous nature wouldn't forgive this most recent blow.
Tariq was prepared to accept that. He wasn't prepared to accept that he'd lost her for good. The woman his Mina had grown into had changed him forever. Her strength, her ability to lead beside him, her glorious sensuality... she was irreplace able. He couldn't bear to live without the other half of his soul, even if she hated him.
"You belong to me, Mina." Only the desert heard his voice. Only the desert sent sighs of agreement on the wings of the cool, evening wind. Only the desert understood his desolation ... and his determination.
Jasmine spent the entire voyage secluded in her cabin, es chewing attempts by the social activities' staff to draw her out.
She didn't cry. Her tears were frozen in her heart along with the rest of her emotions. She just wanted to forget.
Except Tariq wouldn't leave her alone. Each night, he came to her in her dreams, strong, virile, unwilling to accept her decision. She tossed and turned, her body covered with sweat, trying to fight him, but in the end he always won.
"You belong to me, Mina." His hands stroked her.
"No."
"Yes!" That male arrogance was apparent even in her dreams. His shoulders gleamed in the moonlight, as they'd done those nights they'd spent in the desert. The desert, where she'd learned that a warrior's pride could be a harder thing to fight than any physical enemy.
"Tariq," she whispered, reaching out a hand to touch that warm, tempting skin. Nothing met her searching hands but cold emptiness. "Tariq, no!" Invariably, she woke up with his name on her lips, a cry for him to believe her...to love her.
The liner docked at a number of Middle Eastern destinations, but she didn't depart, not wanting to take the chance that someone might recognize her. Two weeks passed in self-imposed isolation. Then the ship made an unscheduled stop on a small Greek island, due to a passenger's need to disembark because of an emergency. Exhausted by her sense of loss and lack of sleep, Jasmine slipped off the ship and never returned. It was as good a place as any, she thought without enthusiasm. And because it wasn't a scheduled stop, even if Tariq searched for her, he'd be unlikely to locate her.
She managed to find a small garret apartment after she left the ship. On the night she arrived, she curled up on the bed and couldn't make herself move again. Thoughts of Tariq haunted her night and day, building shadows under her eyes and adding to the weight loss she'd suffered on board ship. Her mind replayed that final terrible fight over and over again. trying to find another way, another avenue. There were none.
"It's over. Accept it," she told herself each day, and each day she woke with her heart heavy with need and her body aching.
A week after her arrival, she dragged herself out the door, fighting the depression. She was strong, she told herself. She'd survive. So what if half her soul was missing? She'd given that away by choice. And she couldn't bring herself to regret it. By chance, she saw a sign in a shop window seeking a seamstress. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and walked inside.
That night, as she picked up a pair of scissors to begin an alteration, her numbness suddenly broke. It was as if her body realized that by doing something beyond bare survival, she'd decided to live again. With the sudden shift came thoughts and memories and heartache.
Her first emotion was fear--fear that she'd never forget Tariq. And then suddenly, she was terrified of forgetting. He lived inside her, part of her. Paradoxically, there was peace in knowing she would never stop loving him. Despite that knowledge, she avoided newspapers and magazines, aware that if she saw Tariq with his new bride, she would surely lose the tentative control she'd regained over her emotions.
Tariq picked up the brush and squeezed out paint the color of rich cream. Add a tinge of palest rose and he would have the living hue of his Jasmine's skin. A single stroke and one graceful arm came to life. She was almost complete, this creation of paint and emotion. Painstakingly, he began to fill in the details that made Mina unique. Pure sky-blue for those big, always innocent eyes. Even after he'd taught her the ways of pleasure, a part of Mina had remained forever the innocent.
A memory of those eyes bruised with hurt when he'd done something she couldn't forgive taunted him as he painted her portrait. It didn't matter if she never forgave him. He couldn't let her go. He needed her more than she would ever need him. She made his life a gift rather than a burden. She was a piece of his soul, and if he had to, he'd search forever for her.
He told himself that she was no weak woman who would suffer in silence when he dragged her back. His Mina had spirit. She would fight him, and as long as there were words, he would fight for her.
There was a movement near the doorway. "Yes?" His con centration was immediately and utterly focused on Hiraz.
"We tracked down some passengers who saw her on board after the ship left the Middle East. They do not recall seeing her after Greece." Hiraz paused and suddenly said, "I cannot believe she has done this to you again. Let her go."
"Hold your words!" Tariq snapped. "Because you are my friend, I will forgive you that indiscretion, but you will never again speak against Mina. I am the one to blame." It would have been easy to blame Sarah, but Tariq knew it was his own fierce protection of his heart against further pain that had caused this. Sarah had merely been the catalyst.
His advisor's skepticism was obvious. "You? You treated her like a princess."
"I told her I was going to take another wife."
Hiraz froze. Sadness settled over his features, so deep it turned his brown eyes black. "I do not think even my Mumtaz would forgive me such a hurt."
"It does not matter. Jasmine is mine and I will never let her go." Tariq touched his hand to the letter that he constantly kept with him. "Prepare the aircraft. We will fly to Greece. You have a list of the stops the cruise ship made?"
Hiraz nodded. "There were only two." A brief flicker of hope glittered in his brown e
yes.
Tariq didn't feel hope. He felt certainty.
Jasmine ignored the impatient knocking for as long as she could. When it didn't stop, she put down some mending and made her way across the small garret, prepared to face off with her landlord. She'd paid up. He had no cause to hound her.
"You!" Her knees buckled when she saw the man filling the doorway. His arms reached out to catch her as she fell. Behind him, the door slammed shut. The garret seemed sud denly minuscule, the light slanting in under the eaves not bright enough to soften the intense darkness of emotion. "Let me go."
"You'll fall."
"I'm fine now." She pushed at Tariq's shoulders. To her surprise, he released her without complaint, holding her only long enough to gauge that she could stand on her own.
Stumbling backward, she wrapped her hands around her waist and stared. "You've lost weight." His face was shad owed with the beginnings of a beard, and his eyes looked dark and haunted, but it was the way his clothes hung on him that worried her. "What's happened?"
"You left me."
Jasmine hadn't expected that response. She shook her head and backed up until she hit the wall. "How did you find me?"
He didn't release her from his bleak gaze. "I went to New Zealand first."
Her heart thudded at that.
"You didn't tell me that you'd completely turned your back on your family to come to me."
Jasmine didn't answer, torn up at the thought that he'd cared enough to search for her. Perhaps, a traitorous part of her wondered, half of him was better than nothing? Immediately, she discarded that dangerous idea. No. No. No!
"You chose me. Mina." His voice was rough with the un derstanding of what she'd done. "You chose me above all others, above everyone else in the world. Did you think I would let you walk away once you'd become mine?"
"I won't come back." Seeing him with another woman would rip her to shreds.
"Mina." He reached out his hand.
"No!"
He didn't heed her, moving to trap her against the wall. The white silk of his shirt was soft under her fingertips when she tried to push him away. At the same time, she hunched her body against the exposed beams of the wall, afraid that her craving for his touch would override her vows to resist him.
"I won't share you." It took an effort to sound strong.
"Because you love me and you chose me."
She nodded, and lost the battle to stop the flow of tears. This close, she just wanted to hold him and forget her anguish in his arms. And the force of his words almost made her think that he believed in her love.
"Mina, you must come back with me. I cannot live without you, my Jasmine. I need you like the desert needs rain." Fram ing her face with his hands, Tariq used his thumbs to gently rub away her tears.
The pain in his green eyes echoed her own. She tried to shake her head but he held her in place. "I chose you, Jasmine. You are my wife. It is not a bond that can be broken." The fervor of his words made her body thrum in recognition. "I love you. I adore you."
"But you've taken..." She couldn't complete her sentence.
"I would never do such a thing," he murmured. "I was very angry with you that day, but I was also hurting. I believed that you had trampled on my heart again. It was the only weapon I possessed and I used it. Then, I did not believe that you cared enough to be heartbroken. I am so sorry, Mina."
"You weren't planning to take another wife?" She man aged to get the question past the obstruction in her throat.
"Never. You are the only one. Always you'll be the only one. In my heart and in my soul, I have known from the moment we met that you would be the only one. That is why I felt so betrayed. I would never marry another."
"Never?" she whispered, beginning to understand, to believe. Her husband had turned on her like a wounded animal that day, shattered by her apparent betrayal after they'd seemed to be reaching peace. The broken pieces inside her began to heal under the heat of the truth in his eyes. Unconsciously, her hands drifted to rest at his waist.
"I waited four years for you to grow up. I stayed faithful to the love between us. Do you think I could ever take another woman to my bed, much less into my heart?" His eyes glit tered with the power of what he was confessing.
Stunned, she didn't know what to say. She hadn't known of the depths of her panther's devotion. Her heart seemed to be crying and laughing at the same time, but all she could do was drown in the promise she saw in his eyes.
"Forgive your foolish husband, Mina. Around you, he does not always think with calm." His expression was penitent, but the way he had her trapped against the wall told her that he intended to persuade her, no matter how long it took.
Her husband might be apologizing, but he didn't know the meaning of being humble. Jasmine smiled slowly. She wouldn't have him any other way. "Only if he'll forgive me for making the wrong choice four years ago."
"I forgave you the instant you stepped foot on my land, Mina." He smiled his predator's smile. "I just needed time to salvage my pride."
"And is it salvaged? Will you doubt me again?"
"All I needed to know was that you'd choose to fight for me if you ever had to make the decision again."
So simple, and yet she hadn't been able to figure it out. She touched his hair with tentative fingers. "There is no question of choice. You come first."
"I know that now, Mina." He leaned into her gentle caress.
There was something more she had to know. "Do you think ... loving me is a weakness?"
There was no pause. "Loving you is my greatest strength. The assassins sought to blind me to that truth. With heart, I can reach those who would otherwise be lost. I have never stopped loving you." His hands moved down her body to clasp her buttocks and press her close. "Will you return with me?"
Jasmine laughed at the way he was trying to act as if he was giving her a choice, when they both knew he wasn't leav ing the room unless she was with him. "Do you promise to be a good, amenable husband from now on and follow my every command?"
He scowled. "You're taking advantage of me."
"It's not working, is it?"
"I don't know." He glanced speculatively at the tiny bed in the corner. "If that cot holds up under our weight, I'll permit you to take advantage of me." The sparkle in his eyes belied his solemn tone, but before Jasmine could accept the offer, she had to know.
"I love you. Do you believe that?"
Tariq's face was fierce with joy. "Mina!" He crushed her to him. "Your love for me is in your eyes, in your touch, in your every word. Even your farewell letter, which you wrote when you were feeling abandoned and so hurt, rings with the richness and truth of your love. I do not feel worthy of it, but I will not give you up. You are mine."
Jasmine swallowed and laid one fear to rest. There was no room for doubt in the passion of her husband's voice. "Do you believe I betrayed you?" She leaned back so she could look into his eyes.
He laid his forehead against hers as his big body curved over hers in a familiar protective stance. Vibrant male heat seeped into her bones, a deep caress that made her want to melt, but there were questions yet to be answered.
"Once I was no longer blinded by pain and anger, I realized the truth. I did not need Jamar's explanation. My heart knew you would never do such a thing to me." Tenderly, he cupped her cheek in one hand. "I am afraid I am possessive beyond reason where you are concerned, and the closeness of your homeland had me on edge. My fear of losing you turned me a little mad. I was returning to beg your forgiveness when I was told that you had disappeared."
"I didn't want to go," she confessed.
"You will promise to never leave me again. Promise," he growled, no longer gentle and compassionate, the panther ty ing his mate to him. "Fight, get angry, but do not leave!"
"I promise, but you must talk to me. Promise me that."
He smiled. "I promise you, my Jasmine, that I will talk to you. I cannot change who I am. I am possessive and you will have
to become adept at dealing with such a husband."
"As long as you let me deal with you. Don't push me away. Don't go cold and silent on me. When you do that, it's like a part of me is missing."
He pulled her to him again, the hand on her nape holding her against his chest. "Forgive me, Mina, because I cannot forgive myself for the hurt I have caused you."
"I think I could forgive you anything." Her vulnerability to him no longer terrified her, not when he loved her with all of the passion in his warrior's heart. "My only regret through everything is that we wasted four years."
He chuckled. "Not wasted, Mina. I thought I would give you five years to grow up. I was being very patient, was I not?"
She smiled and touched his cheek in a familiar caress. He turned his face into her hand, his stubble rough but enticing against her skin. "You were. And after five years?"
"You would have decided to take a trip to the desert."
"I would have?"
"Umm." He leaned down and kissed her, as if he couldn't resist. She softened, she melted, she became his. When he drew away, the masculine scent of him swirled around her, enclosing her in an embrace more intimate than the physical one. "And once there, you would have married a man who has always known that you were meant to be his."
"So I could've waited another year and saved myself the trouble?" she dared to tease.
"Perhaps I would not have lasted five years. My patience was wearing thin." His next words were uncompromising. "You were born to be mine, Mina."
The strength of his vow made her want to weep. Tariq loved her, flaws and all. The hole inside her heart closed forever. She leaned up and kissed him, a soft, loving kiss that held everything she felt.
"Does this mean I am truly forgiven?" he asked.
"Just give me your promise to talk to me if you ever feel angry or hurt, and we'll wipe the slate clean."
"I do not intend to let you out of my sight, so that is a moot point." He laughed when she pushed at his chest and raised her scowling face to his.
"You still don't trust me?"