“Anger makes you thirsty? But this will only dehydrate you more. Also a sugar rush combined with adrenaline isn’t advisable.”
So. He’d given up the fiercely tender facade and was trying on the bedeviling one. She said nothing.
“That degree of self-control is admirable. I wonder—would it hold if I kissed you?” At her continued silence, he slipped an arm around her waist. “Shall we find out?”
Staring ahead, she said, “Being funny doesn’t suit you.”
“Talk to me, and I’ll spare you my failed attempts at humor.”
She flicked him a condescending glance. “You need your high-ranking guests to think we’re having a great time? Afraid they’d realize your bride is sitting here under duress?”
“I care nothing about what anyone thinks. Test my claim.”
“You’re counting that I won’t, so I won’t upset my family.”
His response got drowned out by the first part of the night’s entertainment, an ingeniously choreographed and composed medley of beloved folk songs and dances.
As the guests were swept up in the energy of the performance, he pulled her closer. “Those songs are all for you.”
She slid him a cool glance. “Thanks.”
Tenderness filled his eyes again, poignancy, too. “Even if you say it’s not real, I’m now your husband...”
“Only for a while, until the baby is born, max.”
The indulgence in his eyes flooded her. “That’s seven months from now. Remember what once happened in seven hours?”
“When I was a needy, self-deceiving twit? In vivid detail. What do you think the odds are of my falling for your manipulations again?”
“Beating impossible odds is what I do. I’ve triumphed over death many times. I’m going to conquer your aversion, even if it takes the rest of my life.”
“It will take the rest of your life. Plus an hour.”
His arm tightened around her. “Take the pound of flesh I owe you, ya habibati. Take as many pounds as you wish. Do it here and now.” The feel of him against her, his consecutive blows of passion, entreaty and tenderness were chipping away at her control. “I dare you.”
She pulled away as a storm of applause greeted the end of the performance, then rose to her feet.
Everyone turned to look at her as she came to stand at the edge of the kooshah. “Now to another time-honored tradition that no celebration in our region is complete without. Poetry.”
A buzz rose. Her family consulted with each other if that was an arranged number.
“An ode to my new and loving groom,” she started, perfect acoustics carrying her voice to the farthest corners of the ballroom.
“Howah kat’tamaseeh, yathreffod’dam’a enda muddgh fareesatuhu
Fahtaresu menhu i’tha arradto’l najjata
La ya’ghorannakom jamala mohayahu
Fama ajmal’l nomoor lakn korbuha ho’wal mammata.”
(Like crocodiles he sheds tears when he gnaws his prey
So beware of him if you want to stay alive
Don’t be fooled by the beauty of his visage
For how beautiful are tigers you’d never survive.)
Her quatrain was greeted by a shockwave of silence.
Suddenly a whistle pierced the hush, followed by a single pair of lazily clapping hands.
“Thank you, cousin. I was about to provoke an international incident to avoid watching another folklore number.”
That was Amjad. Of course.
She couldn’t pay him or anyone else attention. Rashid had gotten up to his feet, was approaching her like that stealthy predator she’d just likened him to.
He came to tower over her, his eyes the embodiment of adoration as he raised his voice. “An ode to the barren past when I could only look at my incomparable bride from afar:
Amorro ala’d dyari, dyari Laylah
Oqubbelo tha’l jeddara waa tha’l jeddari
Wama hobbo’l dyari shagafna qulbi,
Walaken hobbo man sakanna’d dyari.”
(I pass by those dwellings, those of Laylah.
And I kiss these walls and those walls
It’s not love of the place that has taken my heart
But of the One who dwelled in these halls.)
Silence again blanketed the vastness, raging inside her.
Instead of a defense, or an offense, he’d hit her with a quatrain from Qays Ibn Al Mulawah’s poetry, the ancient poet renowned as Majnun Laylah, or Laylah’s Madman.
And he’d used Qays’s verses to claim he’d only loved and valued this palace and Zohayd’s for her being in them.
Wow. Who would have thought he’d have poetry in his arsenal. But then as an ultimate tactician, he must have an infinite range of weapons. Seemed even now she hadn’t realized the scope of his talent for subterfuge.
Before she could think of another unmasking verse, he went down before her on his knees. A collective gasp spread like wildfire around the ballroom. Everything inside her malfunctioned.
Looking exactly like the man she’d thought loved her with all his heart, he took her hands to his lips then, in a now ragged voice, recited the verses.
She gaped down at him long after he’d finished.
In lyrical Arabic, even more moving and exquisite than the famous verses, he’d said:
The bounty that you have given me, strip it not away
The generosity you have shown me, tear it not away
My ugly acts that you came to know, forgive them
I seek intercession from you with you
And I seek sanctuary in you from you
I come to you craving your beneficence
So act toward me with the mercy of which you are worthy
For I am not worthy of your vengeance.
She tried to breathe, failed yet again.
Had—had he just composed that on the spot?
He had insta-poetry among his powers of enthrallment?
“Aaand since nothing in this suddenly entertaining and memorable evening will top that, I suggest we eat.”
Amjad again. And naturally, he had everyone following his lead, clapping a rising wave of approval at the unique verbal duel they’d witnessed between bride and groom.
Laylah tore her gaze from Rashid, still kneeling before her, bolted down the steps, and completed the evening’s fireworks by running out of her own wedding.
She wanted to keep on running until she left everything behind, starting with her heart.
* * *
Running after Laylah had been out of the question. He’d already pushed too soon and had only driven her away further.
He’d followed her out of the ballroom, but not to pursue her. He left it to Haidar and Jalal to say whatever they pleased to the guests. He cared nothing about the guests continuing a wedding without the bride and groom when it seemed he was destined to continue his life without Laylah.