The Sultan's Daughter (Princesses Uncovered #5)

Chapter 20: Proposals

Yaz gasped, eyes widening. “You… You what?”

“I want to marry you.” Cemal repeated, frowning and putting his hands on either side of her head to keep her from looking away from him.

“I…I…”

His frown deepened. “Yaz, what’s wrong?”

She dropped her gaze to their laps, a tear trickling down her cheek, a single, sparkling strand of ice. “Cemal, why didn’t you ask me earlier?” She demanded. “I could’ve said yes with no hesitations.”

He pulled away from her, hands going into his lap. “What are you talking about?”

She bent her head, holding in a sob. “Father has unofficially engaged me to Gafar.”

“What?” Cemal snapped. “I told him before I left that I wanted you when I returned!”

Her head snapped up, tears dropping off her chin and spilling over her cheeks. “Cemal, I don’t know why he didn’t wait, but you were gone for half a year. We didn’t think you were coming back.” She closed her eyes, her lashes wet and dark against her pale skin. “I’m sorry this happened.”

“Yaz…” He wiped away her tears with a gentle brush of his thumb. “Just… Tell me one thing.” He whispered. “Answer me truthfully, and if your answer is yes, then I will not interfere at all with you and Gafar.”

Yaz nodded.

“Do you love him? Do you want to marry him?” Cemal murmured.

“I… I don’t know, Cemal.” She sobbed. “He’s so different from what he was like when you left. He’s been kind – almost like the old Gafar we knew as children. But… There’s still this small part of me that doesn’t trust him after everything he’s done. And I don’t think I ever will stop wondering when the façade will crumble. I hate it too…” She looked away. “I… I told him all that, Cemal… And he… He was so understanding. He said we’d get through it all right.”

Cemal’s hands curled into fists in his lap. “He doesn’t deserve you. And you, Yaz… You deserve better. You deserve to marry a man who will love you unconditionally. You deserve a man – not that boy – who you trust. You aren’t happy with him, are you?”

Yaz buried her face in her hands, murmuring through them. “I don’t know, Cemal. He… He stirs feelings inside me… Frightening, but good ones. But there’s still that part that hangs back and says no. I think that part of me still hates him for everything he put me through. And now that you’re back… Everything I ever felt for you is raging within me, and I’m so confused.” She bit her lip, trying to stop the tears that were sparkling in the lamplight from the lamps surrounding them.

She stared at the gold and silver oil lamps, tracing the intricate carvings of grape leaves and grape clusters that adorned many of them with her eyes to avoid looking at Cemal.

His spicy smell enveloped her as he pulled her into his embrace, bringing his lips to meet hers with soft insistence. When he pulled away after a second, she felt hollow and sad. Her cousin was someone she trusted, someone she loved. Why couldn’t she be with him instead of Gafar?

Cemal was right. Butterflies flitted about in her stomach, and a giddy joy spread through her at every little contact with Cemal. Gafar did not have anything on this man, and if she was honest with herself, she had been telling herself that she could live happily with Gafar because she couldn’t have someone else.

It wasn’t Cemal specifically that she had been thinking of, but she knew that all these months that Cemal had been gone, she’d had a deep, buried longing for him to come back to her. After the first few months, her grief had been too much to bear, and she had shoved it into a small compartment inside herself, burying it so deep that she hardly thought of him or the feelings he stirred at all in the last four months or so.