arsenic.
His wife had been killing him. Slowly. Almost untraceably.
She almost had. He’d barely gasped his conviction to his brothers before he’d descended into a coma. Finally knowing what to treat him for, the doctors had been able to drag him out of it. Their treatments had made him wish they hadn’t.
Now there stood his father, asking for what his attempted murderess’s family couldn’t ask themselves. His forgiveness.
His gaze blurred back to the crowd.
To one side, segregated, supplicant, stood Salmah. Beside her was her lover. Her accomplice.
Their eyes, beneath the dread and shame, were eloquent. With hope. No. More. With certainty. That he’d forgive. As he’d forgiven so many unforgivable things before.
If he forgave, rescinded his right to mete out punishment, the law would decide it, mitigating it. Enforcing his right meant he could demand satisfaction in any way he deemed sufficient, from not only those who’d perpetrated the crime, but also anyone who had the misfortune to be of their blood.
His gaze steadied on Salmah. Now that he wasn’t blinding himself to what disturbed him, her act of trembling repentance was as superficial as that of her budding love had been. She considered him a weak fool to be manipulated, then dispatched. She was sorry only that she hadn’t succeeded.
A shard of clarity traversed his being. She had.
He was dead, inside.
He closed his eyes, accepting the feeling, welcoming it.
“Amjad?”
The anxiety in his father’s voice made him open them.
Amjad imagined what raged inside his father at the sight of him. His brothers had had to help him into his clothes, had wheeled him in here. He’d seen the horror of his condition twisting every face in his path. The emaciated remains of the man he’d been before six months of accumulated poison had ravaged him in flesh and spirit.
But his father had to advocate peace even when he writhed for vengeance for his firstborn. His brothers seethed to avenge him, too, but had to abide by his verdict.
He pushed the deadweight of his body up on shaking arms, fought the weakness pulling at him, demanding his defeat. He gestured feebly, aborting his family’s dash to help him. They stood back, his father looking as if he’d already lost a son; Harres, Shaheen, Haidar and Jalal, a brother.
They still might.
But if he survived, he’d never again give compassion dominion over his decisions, never blind himself to disturbing truths.
He’d never think the best again.
He dredged reserves of power into his poisoned nerves, straightened on wasting legs, faced the crowd.
“I will not forgive.”
His gravelly whisper was met with stunned silence.
Everyone had expected him to play the chivalrous prince who’d waive his rights for everyone’s benefit.
Salmah burst into tears. Her mother swooned. Her father begged his mercy in his righteousness.
Irony trembled on Amjad’s lips as he ignored their theatrics, turned his gaze to those whose power plays he’d almost died for. They weren’t here to show him support and regret, but to make sure their interests would be served, their convenience undisturbed.
He swept his hand in a wide arc, his forefinger pointing at all of them. “I will never forgive any of you. I will never forget. What you all did, what you all are. You’d better pray I don’t survive this. If I do, I’ll live to make you pay. And don’t bother trying to get rid of me. You had your chance and you blew it. No one’s ever getting another one.”
One
Eight years later
Maram Aal Waaked was finally getting her chance at the Mad Prince.
At least, Amjad Aal Shalaan was known that way to the world.
To her, he was the best thing since chocolate fudge.
He’d been tantalizing her with his dark, rich lusciousness for four years now and leaving her starving for more. But this time she had him cornered.
Yeah, right. Cornered among dozens of nosy male royals in the open desert. The man who was so slippery, he could pull a Houdini in a heavily guarded one-exit room.
He had once, during closed negotiations she’d attended representing her emirate. When others had begun to rant, he’d given that worthy-of-sonnets smirk of his, said, “Bored now.” Then he’d disappeared. Poof.
Her friends called her crazy for even thinking about him.
Sure, they said, he was a phenomenal male who made women within a one-mile radius swoon. But he also made them cringe, because he was a madman who would pulverize any woman in his power.
She said if he were, he would have collected women to abuse. Not letting anyone get close to him proved that he was actually merciful and sane.
They dismissed the reasons for his paranoia, said he should have gotten over his past already. She thought that no one could come back from something so terrible except through something equally wonderful. Or at least through someone who appreciated his ruthlessness, cared nothing for his wealth and power and saw the wounded soul, the noble, heroic man underneath.
She lived for the chance to prove she was that someone.
But before she could achieve such ambitious aspirations, she had to make him stay put long enough to have a real conversation.
Apart from one epic incident, he’d spared her nothing but a few acerbic-wit-filled moments before leaving her to deliver her volleys to his departing back.
But she was going to soothe that magnificent beast if it was the last thing she did. All the pleasures she’d experience when she could finally … pet him were worth any battle scars.
The first skirmish was about to begin.
Her GPS said she was minutes from the battleground, a five-mile solid-earth flat track among the dunes. Amjad’s location of choice for the region’s royal horse race. Zohayd hosted the race annually on the last day of fall. This year, due to unchangeable commitments, Amjad had brought the date forward.
Everyone had been horrified at his proposal to hold the race midsummer. In response, Amjad had sent taunting letters, something only he could get away with, considering the recipients were hard-hitting royals with egos to complement their lofty status.
She’d seen his letter to her father, could hear his lazy, lethal voice in her head as she’d read his elegant, forceful handwriting.
Was her father afraid of roughing it in the sun, outside his rarefied cocoon of luxury? Was the big, tough man afraid of some sweat, when he wasn’t even racing?
He must have tailored his missives to each recipient’s idiosyncrasies. Her father was too wary physically, too fastidious about his neatness. Not that anyone knew this. Her father recognized these characteristics as a potential source of ridicule, projected the opposite. But Amjad Aal Shalaan was infallible in deciphering people. That was just one among the endless weapons that made him unstoppable in the worlds of highest-level finance and politics.
Needless to say, everyone had succumbed to his wishes. He’d specified three o’clock for arrival.
It was noon. She’d just called her father to tell him she’d arrived. He’d exclaimed his anxiety that she’d gone alone, had left behind the entourage he’d tried to saddle her with. She’d told him they could catch up, that she had no problem going back with them. But she was getting some one-on-one time with Amjad first, before the desert became a forest of people for him to fade among.
She