She’d been right. Bram had spent most of their vacation talking about his many girlfriends. “What a waste,” she’d said to him. “To spend all this time on so many women you don’t care about. Imagine if you could spend all that emotion on someone you really did care about.”

She’d been a good friend to him. Tried to get him to stop whiling away his life when he could do so much with it. This was how he repaid her? By playing an ugly prank on her?

“Shoban?” Her father snapped his fingers in her face. “I hope this is all just shock and excitement. I’m having a hard time understanding you.”

“There’s nothing to understand. I don’t want to marry Bram.”

Her father threw a look around the room, then marched to the door and locked it.

“Have you lost your mind?” he said in a voice so soft it rumbled in his chest. “Do you realize who the Rajes are?”

“I don’t care. I can’t do it.”

“What is that supposed to mean? You put on a damn bridal sari and you walk around a fire and say vows. It isn’t rocket science.”

“I’m in love with someone else. And I will only marry him.”

The slap landed across her cheek, fire exploded across her skin, numbing one half of her face, replacing every thought in her head with disbelief.

“If you were in love with someone else, you shouldn’t have cavorted with Bram for the past year. I did not raise a whore.”

That stung harder than the slap. “Bram and I are . . . we’re . . . friends. I never gave him cause to believe anything more. I swear. I’ve only ever been in love with Omar.”

Her father grabbed her arm and dragged her closer until his face was inches from hers. She wouldn’t have believed the force of his grip, but the slap was still stinging her cheek.

Something in his eyes told her that he knew exactly who Omar was after all.

“Omar? Is that Aijaz’s son?” He shook her by the arm. “You let that . . . that son of a servant touch you?”

I let him touch my soul, she wanted to tell her father, but the inside of her ear was in agony; it felt wet. She wondered if it was bleeding.

He pushed her into a chair and stood over her. His always neatly slicked-down silver hair had come askew, giving his rage a wildness.

“Since when has this been going on?”

Since forever, she wanted to say. Since the world was a twinkle in God’s eye. That’s what Omar always said: I’ve loved you since the universe was a twinkle in Allah’s eye.

“That shameless, ungrateful son of a bitch.”