Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) - Rose B. Mashal Page 0,49

weakness,” I found myself reassuring her.

“Marie, you can’t imagine what I’ve been through since that day,” she sobbed. “It’s only gone from bad to worse. I’ve been to Hell and back. Several times. I lost the little respect I had from my own family. Mazen was my everything. IS my everything. And he can barely look me in the eyes. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? He had to give up a lot for me, and now to discover that you didn’t even want it, and that he knows it? It’s breaking my heart into pieces. I could’ve never imagined that my actions would hurt the one I love the most that way.”

I swallowed.

Give up a lot, as in…his cousin?

“My father had a stroke when he found out about my pregnancy. He’s been lying in bed since then, God only knows if he’ll ever recover from it.” She wiped more tears with the side of her pointer finger.

The king was sick? How bad? What did that mean for the prince? Would he be the next king if his father died? But…his heir. He didn’t have one. What did that mean?

“If it wasn’t for Mazen, Fahd would’ve beaten me to death. I could only be thankful that Mazen was there when he started hitting me and I ended up with few strikes to the face instead of broken bones and a miscarriage–he was so mad.”

Oh, my God! Her other brother hit her? That’s horrible!

What is wrong with some brothers?

“My stepmother couldn’t hate me more, and after what happened has cost Mazen, she could only wish they did kill me instead of the trading,” she wept. “Oh, my God! I’m sorry, Marie, I didn’t mean it that way–it’s just she wanted him to marry another, it’s her sister’s daughter an-”

“It’s okay, Janna,” I interrupted her. “Don’t worry about it.”

It wasn’t like I cared who the prince would’ve married if he wouldn’t have had to marry me.

I just couldn’t understand the swell in my heart at the mention of him marrying another.

It was stupid.

I shouldn’t have felt anything.

It wasn’t right.

Wrong.

“It’s only Mazen I care about. I wish he could forgive me someday,” she sniffled. “But he said that it wouldn’t happen in this lifetime,” she said with sorrow, looking down at her hands in her lap.

“You’re so important to your brother, Janna. He told me so himself.”

She smiled sadly. “I’ve never doubted his love; I owe him my life. But for him to forgive me…I don’t think he ever will. And now with everything–I’m glad I still get to breathe the same air he’s breathing, for another one would wish me death instead of what I’d brought on him.”

Ouch!

“When Yoseph told me that you were excited about the idea of marrying my brother, I about died out of happiness. I couldn’t believe it myself. I really thought that death was what was to come for me next, and in one day, with your approval of marrying Mazen, I found hope again,” she told me. “I had that niggling feeling that it wasn’t true, that it was unbelievable for an independent, young American woman as beautiful as you to accept an arranged marriage, but I shrugged it away and told myself to just be grateful.

“I was brought to life again; I couldn’t have been any happier. But I didn’t know that it was all fake. I had absolutely no idea.

“Yoseph told me that I had to prepare everything for you myself because we wouldn’t have time to wait for you to come to the kingdom then start preparing. I bought you everything I had bought for myself and a bit more. When I liked a piece of clothing, I bought two of them, one for me and one for you. And if I could find only one of it, I’d put it in your closet instead of having it for myself. I arranged everything in our wedding with only you in my head. I wanted you to have the best of everything: it was the least I could offer you after what you were doing for me.

“I was surprised that only you and Yoseph came in the plane, and only half a day before the wedding day, but again Yoseph told me that you two were each other’s only family, and that your job and your busy lives left no time for friends or anything like that. I was upset you missed your henna night, but there was nothing I