Wild Embrace by Nalini Singh

shook her head. “You are the child, Tazi, a
beloved
child. If you wish for forgiveness, you must ask for it in person, as is respectful.”
    â€œShe doesn’t need forgiveness for she has committed no crime,” Stefan said into the quiet, her grandmother having spoken in English.
    Rolling her eyes, Teta Aya looked from one to the other. “Foolish children. It may be truth that you committed no crime, Tazi, but you broke your father’s heart.” The words hurt Tazia’s own heart. “Whether he was right to feel thus is irrelevant; whether he is being a stubborn goat who is wrong in his thinking is irrelevant. Do you understand?”
    Tazia stared at her grandmother’s wise and elegant face, nodded slowly. “He can’t set aside his pride, so I must set aside mine.” WhenStefan stirred, she knew he didn’t understand. “My father is a wonderful man,” she told him, “but if he has a flaw, it is that he can’t bear to be wrong.” She touched her fingers to Stefan’s jaw. “I don’t mind bowing my head to him, Stefan. He is my father and I can forgive him this flaw.”
    Stefan nodded. “I understand now, Tazi. We are none of us perfect.” He stroked her hair. “And you are strong enough to be the one who bends.”
    â€œAh, he understands you.” Her grandmother smiled in beaming pride. “Yes, my Tazi bends, she does not break.”
    Turning, Tazia went to ask her grandmother how she could do this, how she could meet her father and apologize in a way that would let him save face with the village, when there was a noise in the doorway to the house. “Tazia?”
    Her blood a deafening rush in her ears, she turned to find her father there; her mother stood behind him, her eyes sheened wet and a trembling hand raised to her mouth. There was no time to think, no time to come up with a plan, to work it all out. Wanting to wrap her hand tight around Stefan’s but knowing that wouldn’t be acceptable, not yet, she instead clasped her hands in front of her and bowed her head.
    â€œI’ve come to ask forgiveness, Father,” she said softly, barely able to hear her own words through the pained hope that was the hard beat of her pulse. “And your blessing on my marriage.”
    A gasp from her mother, silence from her father for so long that she began to worry . . . but then she saw his slippered feet in front of her, felt his hand on her hair. “So now you think to marry a man I do not know.”
    Tears in her throat, she swallowed. “That’s why I’ve come home, Father. So you could meet him.”
    â€œWhy should I listen to a daughter who takes so long to come home?”
    That was when Tazia knew she’d been forgiven, because that was how her conversations with her father had always gone when she’d done something wrong. And her answer was the same as it had ever been. “Because I am your spark who does not always do what she should.”
    Enclosing her in his arms, her father squeezed her so tight that she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t care, and when her mother tugged her away to clasp her close, both of them crying, she forgot the world . . . but never Stefan. Wiping away her tears, she went to introduce him to her father but her mother squeezed her hand in a silent warning, a reminder that the man who came to ask for her hand would be judged on his own strengths and merits.
    â€œSo,” her father said to Stefan, “you wish to marry my daughter.”
    â€œYes. I am Stefan Berg.” Stefan bowed his head enough for respect, but not enough that it would be seen as obsequious. “I would walk proudly with her, but to do so would put her at risk, so I ask you to give her to me in secret—I promise you I will guard her honor with my life, for I have no life without Tazia.”
    Her father’s eyes were unreadable.