Then those arms were coming around her. Feeling they’d singe her, she bolted. He let her stride ahead down the royal-red carpet that cut through the ballroom all the way to the kooshah. Intertwining gradations of red and gold chiffon veils undulated from Arabesque woodwork that embodied the gilded cage of matrimony, she guessed. He was beside her once more as she climbed a dozen crimson satin-covered steps to where they’d preside over the proceedings.
The ma’zoon, an imposing-looking cleric, was sitting in the middle of a pale gold sofa, with scrolls spread before him in triplicate. Haidar and Jalal flanked the sofa like bodyguards.
They would be al shohood, the witnesses of the marriage. She didn’t know how Rashid had gotten them to consent to this, let alone to plead his case with her, when they’d been mortal enemies till recently. But she wouldn’t put anything beyond his powers of manipulation. She’d refused her uncle’s and cousins’ offers to be her wakeel, her proxy. She wouldn’t let them take a bigger part in this sham. She’d gotten herself into this, and she’d shoulder the sticky parts to the end alone.
As soon as they reached the platform, the music stopped. Almost plopping down beside the ma’zoon, desperate to look anywhere but at Rashid, her gaze swept the ballroom, where a hundred tables were set in the luxury level only someone of Rashid’s means could attain. Around them sat a thousand of those who moved and shook the world. That was the kind of power Rashid wielded already. He probably wouldn’t wield more as king.
Then he was leaning nearer behind the ma’zoon. She preempted him. “Shall we get this over with already?”
After failing to capture her gaze, Rashid exhaled, directed the ma’zoon to proceed.
After a while, he murmured, “Habibati, give me your hand.”
Her gut wrenched. Her hand in his for the duration of the ritual was bad enough. But it was that habibati that scraped her nerves raw. Who was he still acting for?
She gave him a hand as stiff and cold as a corpse’s, and tried not to flinch as that big, calloused hand that had taught her what passion and pleasure meant enfolded it. She kept her eyes fixed as he opposed their thumbs and the ma’zoon covered their hands in a pristine white handkerchief and placed his on top, then as she droned back the marriage vows the man recited.
After Rashid had, too, the ma’zoon addressed him, “Name your mahr and mo’akh’khar al suddaag, Sheikh Rashid.”
The so-called “price of the bride,” or as revisionists called it, the “bride’s worth.” That was paid in two installments. The mahr, at signing the contract, and the mo’akh’khar, “latter portion of the agreed-upon”—or in reality a severance payment—at termination of the marriage.
“My mahr is this.” Rashid produced a box, gave it to her.
She took the scarlet velvet box, opened it.
A simple gold brooch lay against darkest red satin. Another rendering of his house’s emblem. Very precise and delicate but by no means worth much in terms of cash value.
“It was my mother’s.” Rashid’s voice numbed her with its fathomless magic. “It was my earliest memory. I was four when she told me it was my father’s first gift to her. He was only eighteen when he bought it with his first pay. I slipped into her room the night she died. I kicked and screamed, but they wouldn’t let me see her. All I could do was grab something of hers as they dragged me out of her room. It was this brooch. It is all I have left of her. It is the one possession I care about. Just as you are the one person, the one thing, I care about in this life.”
“You...bastard.”
The ma’zoon started at her viciousness.
Rashid’s eyes only gentled. “Call me anything, think me a monster, but arjooki ya roh galbi, don’t make it final. Leave the door ajar. Please, Laylah, take this.”
When she only glared at him, her blood boiling, her heart splintering, he took out the brooch, and with trembling hands, he pinned it over her heart. It felt as if he’d pierced it.
Fighting the urge to rip it off and hurl it away, she didn’t give him the satisfaction. At any emotional display, he’d only soothe her, appear as the loving, forbearing groom even more.
She glared at him as he signaled to Haidar and Jalal. “And my mo’akh’khar is this.”
Haidar handed the ma’zoon a thick dossier. He opened it, read the first page before raising stupefied eyes to Rashid.
“Do I understand this correctly, Sheikh Rashid?”
Rashid nodded. “Yes. That is all my assets.”
She gaped at him.
Then she finally asked, “What are you playing at now?”
“I never played at anything to start with, ya habibati. I am all yours, heart and soul. My assets are the least part of me.”
“And I don’t want them, like I don’t want any part of you.”
Rashid only exhaled, turned to the ma’zoon. “Document this.”
The man did as asked, and an oppressive silence descended on them all. Then he invited her and Rashid to sign the three copies, and for Haidar and Jalal to stamp them with their seals.
On leaving the kooshah, the ma’zoon shot her a puzzled, disapproving glance. Haidar and Jalal gave her an entreating one. On Rashid’s behalf. He had put them back in his pocket again.
The guests rose as one, toasted them with glasses filled with ruby-red sharbaat ward, rose-essence traditional wedding nectar.
As everyone resumed sitting, live Azmahrian music rose with their chatter, leaving bride and groom to their own conversation.
Talking with Rashid had once been all she’d wanted from life, something she’d reveled in and treasured until a few weeks ago. Now, she had nothing to say to him that wasn’t bitter. She was done with bitterness. Which meant she wouldn’t talk to him.
Suddenly she felt as if her left side had been set on fire. Rashid had slid across the sofa, almost touching her.
He met her cold glance with his soft and coaxing one. “You will have to talk to me at some point. Might as well start now.”
She ignored him, pretended to wave to her waseefat, matrons of honor. They only shooed her away, urging her to respond to Rashid.
Fuming, she reached for her sharbaat and felt she’d touched a live wire. His hand. He’d beat her to the crystal glass.
When she wouldn’t take it, he whispered, “Throw it in my face. I deserve far more for even considering my moronic plan.”
Refusing to give him the outburst he was after, she took the glass, downed it, still not looking at him.