“But my dad just gave her something and told her it would be fine. It wasn’t fine. Darius hurt her. No broken bones but…it took her weeks to recover. She never came out of that dark period and a month later, I walked in and found her dead on the floor with the marker in her hand. I don’t think she was trying to kill herself. She was too good of a writer to have done something like that without leaving a long note. I think she just wanted the pain to stop and she overdosed. Either way, that’s why I hate Darius Ross’s fucking guts. And that’s the story I couldn’t tell you when you asked me about it back in Jahwar.”
Zahir is silent and then, “Are you sure you do not want me to end him, habibti? My guards took him home yesterday. It would be an easy thing to find him and finish what I started yesterday.”
Unexpected laughter bubbles in my chest at his question. I turn to him, cupping his face, and running a thumb over his dark beard. “No, Z, this isn’t about revenge. Or hate. I know how lonely growing up with…” I drop my hand from his face to indicate the wall, “…all of this can feel. And that’s why I wanted to show you this room. To let you know you weren’t alone. Your mom had her wall…and so did mine.”
Zahir nods and appears to understand my reasoning, but then gives a fierce shake of his head as if he can’t force himself to accept it. “I wish you would let me kill this man,” he admits quietly. “If only because he is something I can easily put an end to. There is no way to avenge my own mother’s death, and in many ways that makes me that much keener to avenge the death of yours.”
I think I get what he’s trying to say. But I decide to take a cue from his book. Not interrupting and waiting for the real finish before I offer him any words.
I’m rewarded for my restraint when he continues. “My mother was the only daughter of a very powerful business man both in Jahwar and also in his home country of India. The marriage was arranged, but my father once told me that when he saw her, he knew she would be his, even if she did not share his Arab blood. She, much like your own mother, could be charming and fun. But her dark periods…”
He pauses, and I can see from the look in his eyes that he, like me, would be haunted forever by what he saw. “By the time I was three, it had become obvious that she would only get worse, not better. My father did what any ruler in his position would do. He locked her away, far from the public eye, and took a second wife. Asir’s mother, a perfect princess from the royal Ardu Alzuhuwr family with no Indian blood. But he visited my mother every day when he was not away on business, and when she wasn’t too far gone into one of her ‘spells,’ he often took me along. My mother made a very big deal, as you would say, of my visits and she became very clever within her restraints. We flew kites with fans, and when I was a very little boy, she would turn her room into an obstacle course for my bike. Sometimes we would surf together, even though we only had a couch to use as our ocean—I still have very good balance to this day. And of course, we often listened to her records.”
With a bittersweet pang, I return to the memory of what I saw in his mother’s room. The kites…the planks…the surfboard…the little bike—they’d all been bought for her son’s enjoyment.
And as if echoing my thoughts, Zahir says, “She suffered greatly from her mental illness but I loved her very much. And while I was living abroad, I came up with a plan. I knew my father could never abide the public embarrassment of having his first wife committed to an institution. But when he died, and his throne became mine, I vowed to free her from that room and seek professional help for her. I would do whatever it took to bring her back into the light, and that was how I managed the guilt of living my life while she withered away in that prison.”
Zahir’s breath hitches. “But as it turns out, she also had a plan for when my father died. And it did not involve staying alive much longer than he. Some of the writing you saw on her wall was the last story she wrote. About the wife of a Hindu king who loved her husband deeply and chose to throw herself on his funeral pyre rather than live without him. Although her Indian family has been Muslim for many generations, my mother poured herself into this particular story. And when she finished it, she opened a window and jumped out.”
Now his story is done. I take his hand and let out a long breath before saying, “So…your mom was a writer, too?”
A reluctant smile flits across his lips. “Some poetry, but mostly short stories, only a few of which made any sense.”
I chuff again, my small laugh soft and ironic. “We have soooo much in common.”
Zahir laughs, too, and we look for a while longer at my mom’s wall.
“Those two days when I left you after you asked me to stay the night? It was not meant as a punishment. I received, well, I suppose you could call it an offer from Buck Calhoun Jr., the Texas steel magnate who refused to do business with me when I met with him at Holt and Sylvie’s wedding. He, like your sister, believed my reasons for marrying you were based purely on sex. He proposed a trade. He’d sign a deal to finish my mall project and complete the increasingly necessary renovations on our oil lines, if I would fly you to Texas for one night with him and his wife.”
“Jolene,” I supply, remembering the Texan and our strange conversation at the airport. “She’s a big fan.”
Zahir’s eyebrows raise in wry bemusement. “Yes, as I discovered. However…” The amusement fades from his expression. “I declined the offer. Everything is riding on me proving myself during this first year as king. Finishing the Kingdom Mall and updating the oil lines would convince my people that I’m a worthy successor to my father. But I did not accept his offer. I could not even consider sharing you with another, woman or man. Even for a night. So you see, though I can only have you for six months, I am incapable of doing to you what your father did to your mother and the twins’ mother. You must understand I did not stay away because of what you asked me, I stayed away to see if I could do it at all. Forty-eight hours is as far as I got, and in truth, I would have found an excuse to bring you with me to Asia. It was just a matter of spinning it to myself.”
He looks stricken, and I shake my head because, “Do you think I want to be with someone who would pass me around like that? I’m still not clear what happened in Jahwar, but I do have enough basic psychology skills to realize something in me responds to something in you.”
Zahir shakes his head. “Even when I tried to get a hold of myself, I could not be like Asir for you—”
I cut him off. “Asir? He’s what I thought I would like when I was young and wanted everything to be the opposite of how I grew up. But you—you make me feel safe and protected. You take away the out of control feeling I’ve been carrying around all my life. And for reasons that may only belong to me, I like that you keep me only for you. That you cover me up and don’t want other men to touch me. It’s fucked up—and I would never recommend a relationship like that for most women or the twins, but for us…”
I peep up at him while making myself vulnerable to a man for the very first time. “It works. We get each other, and I may not know what a healthy relationship looks like, but when I said no the first time we met, I was saying no to doing that with Asir, not with you. He didn’t have my consent, but you…you do.”
He looks down at me, his eyes so full of emotion, it makes him look like a completely different person, and then he lets out a long, shuddering breath. “My father raised me to be the king of a desert land, and I lived in fear of nothing for a very long time. But this scares me, habibti. This marriage…how quickly it has become an obsession. Especially when I know my extended family and my kingdom will not allow me to have you for more than the allotted six months and remain king...”
I nod in understanding, recalling Asir’s visit and his explanation to me of the thin ice that kept him from returning my feelings, even though he’d like to remain friends.
“I get it,” I say quietly. “Your people would never accept me.”
He shakes his head sadly. “Unfortunately, America
n teenagers are not the only ones with a narrow world view. In truth, I have thought long and hard about keeping you beyond the six months as a consort. But after what Darius Ross told me about your past, I realized I could never ask you to share me with another, even if only for political reasons.”
I nod my head in agreement, secretly glad he took that option off the table. Because I could maybe tolerate it at first. But after a while, I know being in an even partially open relationship, like my parents were, would eat away at me. “So, we’re married for now,” I summarize, looking away. “And only for now.”
He touches my cheek, turning me to face him so I can see the tender look in his eyes as he says, “Now is all we have, but now is where we are. I wish to enjoy it. As long as I have with you, I would like to be with you. Not as an agreement on paper, but as a true husband and wife, at least until our time must come to an end. Tell me, habibti, would you like that, too?”
I look up at him, my eyes shining with my answer. This is crazy, and it comes with an expiration date, but Zahir is right. Now is all we have…now is where we are…
“Yeah…” I whisper. “Yeah, I’d like that, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Now, as it turns out, is pretty damn great.
I change my mind about preserving my mother’s room. And over the course of a week of after-school meetings with Johnny, Sasha and I decide the wall between the master suite and my mother’s room will be torn down to make a music library where the twins can listen to music and study. Because as it turns out, they’ll be going to college after all.
Sasha had only expressed mild interest in community college as a fallback before I disappeared for my six-month marriage sentence. Kasha refused to consider it at all. Hugs and Cuddles had already agreed to extend her hours upon graduation, why go to college when she already knew music was what she wanted to do with her life? I also suspect seeing me struggle to finish my law degree and raise them while also working as Amber’s legal secretary soured them on higher education.
But after no more than three conversations over dinner in Zahir’s suite, the twins change their plans. They decide their temporary brother-in-law is right. If they’re serious about music or any career in the arts, they need a solid business and marketing background to ensure financial success.
It’s too late to apply to any of the colleges with a strong business and marketing program, but surprise-surprise…the girls’ overly indulgent brother-in-law shows up to dinner with acceptance letters from Manhattan University only a couple of days after they announce their change of heart. Now the girls can go to one of the top universities in the country...providing, of course, that they earn a certain score on their SATs. Every day after school, the twins join me in our suite where they study with an SAT tutor Zahir’s secretary found for them, and I half-heartedly study for my bar exam.
“You should refocus your efforts while you’re here,” Zahir says to me over lunch in his room one afternoon. “I do not watch television as a habit, but I did catch one or two episodes of your show. You wrote a few of the songs Asir produced, did you not?”
“I mean, yeah, I used to write during my hip-hip princess phase, but not anymore. And did you seriously watch the show?” I ask, because it’s a straight-up struggle to conjure a mental image of him watching TV, much less watching my old over-the-top reality show.
“Yes,” he answers with a somewhat distasteful twist of his mouth. “The episode where you and Asir produced a song for charity was the only episode I enjoyed.”
Wow…burn, but then he finishes with, “Perhaps, you should try writing again if only to help the twins with their upcoming demo. We’re only here until Ramadan, so it would only mean taking a couple of weeks off from your studies.”
The following day, I tentatively switch priorities—just for the remaining two weeks that we’re here. I open a new notebook and begin jotting down a few of the lyrics I’ve been keeping trapped behind a wall of resolve ever since my father died. But the sputter of lyrics soon becomes a fount. And as it turns out, two hours of SAT practice is an amazing warm-up focus exercise for the twins.
We fall into an easy routine. I write in the mornings, and then study while the twins receive coaching for their SATs. After the tutor leaves, we pull out Sasha’s keyboard and let the music flow until it’s time to join Zahir for dinner.
Life feels good again. In fact, it feels better than good. The change of location, the inspiring views outside our windows, the clarification of goals, and time like we’ve never had together with the twins’ busy performance schedule and my work and studies. Before my two weeks is up, and by the time the house is completed in June, the girls and I have two songs prepared and ready to go for the at-home recording studio.
“Iyanla Vanzant called and said she wants her job back,” Sasha says to Zahir over our nightly dinner ritual.
“Because you are up in here fixing everybody’s life,” Kasha finishes.
Of course, Zahir doesn’t get it. But the twins fall out laughing at their own joke. And though I try to hold back, I can’t contain it when Kasha adds, “Pew! Pew! Pew!”
The three of us laugh until we have tears in our eyes. And then even harder when Sasha pulls it together long enough to intone, “But he didn’t shoot him.”
Zahir continues to eat his New York strip steak and shakes his head as if he suspects it will take him longer than two weeks to figure the three of us out. And maybe that’s why he announces during our next dinner that he won’t be returning to Jahwar for Ramadan as previously planned.
“Isn’t that kind of a bad look for, like, the king not to show up for Ramadan?” Sasha asks.
“It is not the best look, no,” he answers, throwing Sasha a bemused half-smile. “But it is not necessarily the worst thing ever. I have many cousins and other family members to serve in my stead and of course, I will observe Ramadan here. Besides, not much business is done during this time of year in Jahwar. That means my efforts will be more productive in the States.”
Zahir reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. I squeeze back, even though I sense part of his reason for not going back home during Ramadan has something to do with him not having a Muslim wife. At least for now.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Would it have been easier for you if I’d converted when we got married? Like, temporarily?” I ask while we’re getting undressed that night.
No more games these days. Ever since the morning we agreed that now was where we are, we have been sleeping in the same bed.
He grumble-laughs and says, “That is not the way my religion works, and though I am obviously not the most traditional Muslim, I would not want you to convert unless you sincerely wished to take Allah in your heart.” He regards me after he’s done taking off the last of his clothes. “Tell me, Prin. Do you truly wish to become religious now as an antidote to your upbringing?”
I consider his question and decide I do not. Between the Jahwar restrictions on women and the reportedly judgmental Christianity of my grandmother and the twin-rejecting Orthodox Judaism of their mother’s family, I can’t see me embracing any organized religion for myself. But… “It feels like I’m making everything harder for you. First the kiss, and then skipping the trip to Asia, and now you won’t be going home for Ramadan.”
“I was raised to be the king of a nation with many riches and many enemies. Life was never meant to be easy for me, and besides…”
He comes around the bed and turns me toward the room’s standing cheval mirror so he can watch as he peels off today’s sweater dress before going to work on my bra. “You make me happy, habibti. And happy feels better than easy,” he says, freeing my breasts. “Did you change your hair?”
“Yeah, much like you’re changing the subject,” I answer dryly, but my head soon falls back, and I let out a little sigh as I watch him massage my breasts.
“We should enjoy ourselves now before Ramadan starts in two days,” he tells me, lazily
playing with my pussy as he says, “I will not be able to eat, drink, or do this during daylight hours. And I have become used to reveling in you before breakfast. For this reason, I will most certainly be grumpy and while the hunger is manageable, it is not advisable for me to over exert myself during this time.”
“Mmm, now is where we are…” I say, leaning into the lips speaking into my neck as my hips move against his hand below.
“Now is where we are,” he confirms, nuzzling the side of my face with his beard.
“Maybe I’ll tie you down for once,” I tease. “Take advantage of you at night when you’re weak with hunger.”
His hand stills inside my panties and his body tightens. A lot has happened since we had that Cal-Mart talk in my mother’s room. And while we’ve been having good sex every night, it’s been very vanilla. As if we are giving the psychological wounds we ripped open some time to heal.
But tonight, I am feeling healed. And if the way his dick suddenly rises against my back is any indicator, he is, too.
“Hmm…” I say, circling my hips in the mirror since his fingers are no longer moving. “Yeah, I think I’ll dominate you for the next month. Wake you in the middle of the night and sit on your face and make you lick me until I—”
I cut off when his hand suddenly pulls out of my underwear and fists in my new Remy hair.
That night he punishes me for my audacious suggestion. He binds me with two of his ties to the bed posts and then holds down my legs as he forces me to take his tongue. I fight him like I always do. For some reason, I think I’ll be stronger in America, maybe even be able to buck him off. But his raw power wins out, like it always does.
He holds me down with his biceps barely straining and introduces a new kind of torture with his expert tongue. But just as I am so close to coming, he stops. “Say you’ll be good and follow my commands for the rest of our trip. Even in America you belong to me.”
Ruthless Tycoons: The Complete Series (Ruthless Billionaires Book 3) Page 40
