Chapter 34 - Falling

Saphira

"I thought of falling in love, as something wrong and something unsteady." Benjamin said as he was scrutinizing my face, to see what my reaction was to his new found theory. "Maybe falling in love, isn't so bad after all." Benjamin smirked.

"I had it all wrong. Love is not necessarily only a decision." Benjamin seemed lost in thought for a moment. What would he be thinking about? I bit my lip. I wasn't sure where he was going with this.

"You have nothing to be nervous about." He said chuckling. "Let me explain." He said as he brushed his hand along my face.

"I have reconsidered my theory, and now I have a new one." I looked at him dubious. He tried to hold back his smile now. He wasn't fooling me though. "You can find true love… by falling in love…" He said as he placed his hand on my heart.. "But I now believe, true love is about falling in love with the same person, over and over again."

"In the sense of falling in love once and then sticking by it… And making the decision to love. Always. And build the solid foundation of friendship together." I don't know why… but there were tears rolling down my cheeks. "Don't cry now, Ma Belle Evangeline." He said as he whipped away my tears with his fingers.

"What I meant to say was…" I seemed like he was trying to think of the right words. "I have fallen in love with you." He said while frowning. "No, that doesn't cut it." He said while shaking his head sideways. Then he wrapped both his hands around my face. "I love you, always" He vowed as he kissed my nose.

"Saphira, There are some things I haven't reconsidered. For instance, I do still believe in the tradition of the, err.. Wedding night." I looked at him confused again.

"Well…" He said without finishing his sentence. "This." He said while touching my nose with his and then leaned in. I closed my eyes in response. "Is a very BAD idea." He said while abruptly putting space between us.

I bit my lip… "Why is that?" I asked a bit confused. Didn't he want to kiss me as bad as I wanted him to? "I'm just a guy, you know." He said while looking at me meaningfully.

I still looked confused, I really didn't grasp what he was trying to tell me. "If… we cross that line… Well, it would be really hard for me to practice… Err… Self-control." Now, I got his point. "Oh." I gasped. "So you behave now, alright." He said chuckling again.

Benjamin

It had been a terrible week. I had flown up and down from Malibu to Boston, from Boston to Saudi, and back to Malibu again. I sighed heavily, as I was about to board my plane to campus again. Well Jasmine was probably right about the size of my ecological footprint. I shook my head in frustration.

Why had she acted like that last week? She had been utterly cruel to me when I had talked to her on the phone. I flew all around the world, just because Raina made me worry about her, just to be scolded like that.

"Your highness, at the time we met, I hadn't known who you were. If I would of known then, I would never consolidated with you." Jazz had stated when Raina had called her and handed me the phone.

"It is your right as a man to be with- and have all the woman you want. I want to let you know that I will send back the laptop to the palace and I no longer wish to have any contact with you." She had said. I remembered her voice break on every word of the sentence.

I had disagreed with her and I had tried so hard to persuade her into listing to me. It was no use, she was so stubborn at times.

"Your highness, can I get you something to drink?" The darkhaired flight attendant asked. "Cognac please." I shrugged, not looking up at her. She brought me a crystal glass of liquor and I started slowly spinning my glass again.

I shouldn't think about Jasmine anymore. Today, seeing how much it had affected Saph that I wasn't fully invested in her, did something inside of me. I should let Jasmine go and love Saphira as fiercely as I could.

Unlike Jazz, she was so eager to me with me. Her whole body seemed to yearn for me. Yes, of course that was lust. But was that a bad thing? I thought not.

Still, it did feel a little like a cheated on Saphira, not that I was planning to lust on another woman's body, but more in the way that I didn't give her all of me. She just knew me as Benjamin. She did not know I was Benjamin Al-Raji Saud, prince of Saudi Arabia.

When I talked about marriage with her, I had never spoken about all that marriage to me would entail. Would she be up to that? Would she be up to marriage at all?

She was young, was she too young? I sighed heavily and closed my eyes. I tried to repress the image of those cat-like green eyes, and tried to concentrate as hard as I could on the deep blue set of eyes of my Evangeline. She was my star in the darkness, my warmth in the cold night.

Jasmine

I had been crying for days now. I had been so mean to the one who was most dear to me. I missed Benjamin with every viper in my being. "Jasmine, it is you, it had always been you." He had shouted in frustration through the phone. I had told him in was all in his head. That there had been nothing between us and he had to stop contaminating my good name.

No, I was not the type of woman who wanted to be married to any man. He wasn't a acceptation. But if I should be married to any man at all, it would have been him.

He was my best friend in the whole entire world and I had crushed him. I could feel I did. What if he had called my house again, and Saeed picked up the phone? What if Saeed would find the laptop and all the mails Benjamin and I had send to each other of these lasts months?

He would kill me. He was a cruel and violent man. It was better this way. I could not make Benjamin happy. Raina had asked for me to come to the palace, she had pleaded to the sultan. It was a lost cause.

Each night Saeed creeped into my room. I hadn't slept since he and my oldest siter had arrived. My body hurt and I was so tired. Still I lived and I breathed. Although I sometimes felt like I barely did.. I felt like I was falling in to a deep pit and would never be able to get out.