The silence was immense. She could hear the tiny pops and pings of the car’s engine cooling a hundred yards below and behind her. Jabr waited in the car. There, no matter who might see him, he was only a driver obeying orders. A few steps up the slope toward Amira and he might be accused as her lover.

What would it be like to be loved by a man like Jabr—loved simply and completely, for the woman she was, nothing else? Amira tried to imagine it. She couldn’t. There had never been anyone like that for her. There might have been Philippe, there would always be Philippe, but that was different.

Maybe someday there would be someone, after Tabriz …

And there it was, the real question: What would happen after Tabriz? She had no idea—only vague impressions, hardly more than daydreams. Would Philippe hide her away in some chateau in the countryside of France? Would he ship her off to Tahiti, where Karim would grow up like a little native, running naked on the beach? Or maybe he had secretly bought a finca in—where did they have fincas? Argentina.

But then there was Philippe’s idea that her disappearance must be total, that people would have to think she was dead. All the while that she was hiding, everyone she knew—everyone except Philippe and Karim—would think that something terrible had happened. She pictured Malik, her father, her aunts, even Bahia, all in mourning. How long before she could let someone know? Philippe had said a long time. How long? A year? Two?

Suddenly, it all seemed like madness, an impossibility. Yet, she had to do it. If she stayed with Ali, she would be dead—not just in people’s minds, but really and truly. She could feel it as surely as she could feel the heat of the sun climbing above the ridge. Yes, she had to do it. Unless … unless Malik could think of something.

If anyone could find a way out, a way that didn’t mean running and hiding, her brother could. The problem was that she couldn’t tell him the truth, not a word of it. He was too impetuous, as Philippe said. But what if she were to dis- guise the situation, weave a tale of some other royal wife who was in danger from a sadistic husband? She would have to be careful: if Malik even suspected that she was talking about Ali, it would be catastrophic.

Perhaps it was the vast silence of the desert, perhaps it was the hope that her idea had given her, but she felt better, calmer. In any case, there was nothing to do about any of it until Malik arrived. Meanwhile, she had a favor to do. She returned to the waiting Rolls. “My cousin Farid’s,” she told Jabr.

O