by Jane Porter
“She can’t,” Kahlil said quietly but firmly, crouching next to Ben. “And your mommy understands. She’s not upset. She knows why she needs to wear it.”
“Why?” Tears shone in Ben’s eyes, his lower lip thrust, curling with weariness and petulance.
“Because we’re in my country, and it’s a different country with different rules. We treat our women very special and we like to protect them. If your mommy wears this robe, she’ll be safe.”
“It’s magic? Like a spell?” Kahlil had caught Ben’s imagination again, and the tears dried in his eyes.
“A little like that. And she won’t wear it forever, just until we reach the palace.”
“But it’s not a nice color. It should be a pretty color. Like pink, or blue. Mommy looks pretty in pink or blue.”
“Then let’s pick her out a pretty dress when we reach the palace. We’ll look at all the beautiful dresses and you tell me which ones would be nice on your beautiful mommy.” Kahlil stood, extended a hand. “Now, let’s go see the palace.”
They were moving across the tarmac into the brightly lit building when sudden shouts drew a virtual army of soldiers from the building and the airport perimeter.
“What’s happening?” Bryn cried, turning to Kahlil.
He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he replied, swinging Benjamin into his arms.
Bryn wanted Ben, needed him with her but the soldiers were converging, carrying enormous guns that filled her with terror.
One soldier approached Kahlil, bowed deeply and murmured something in Arabic.
Kahlil nodded curtly, picked up his pace and drew Ben even closer to his chest. He cast a brief glance in Bryn’s direction but his expression revealed nothing.
They were practically running. She noted that the soldiers had formed a tight protective circle around Kahlil and herself and that a spotlight was sweeping the tarmac, casting a great white blinding light behind them.
Inside the building the door slammed shut and the soldiers moved, separating Bryn from Kahlil.
“Ben!” she cried, reaching out for him, but the soldiers stepped toward her, distancing her further from Kahlil and her child.
Her mouth tasted like sawdust and she swallowed convulsively, realizing it was fear making her throat seal close. What was happening? Where were they taking her? Where were Kahlil and Ben going?
She hadn’t realized she’d voiced the questions aloud until a crisp voice answered her in nearly flawless English, “No harm will come to you. Please be patient, Princess. All questions will be answered in due time.”
Be patient? How? Ben was gone and soldiers were relentless, never once touching her, but moving her continually forward, leading her through an unmarked door and out into the night.
A car awaited, a black luxury-style car, a Mercedes she guessed, and the back door opened. She had no choice but to climb in and the door slammed shut, the car swiftly pulling away.
“Where are we going?” she asked the driver, hands balling in her lap.
The driver briefly glanced into the rearview mirror, dark eyes flashing, but he didn’t speak, and just as swiftly his attention returned to the road.
She’d asked the question not really expecting an answer. In Zwar, men did not address strange women, especially Western women, but she’d felt compelled to assert herself, to try to make sense of the chaos at the airport.
“What happened back there?” she persisted. “Why so many soldiers?”
The driver didn’t even glance into the rearview mirror this time. He simply continued driving.
Bryn leaned against the seat, fear and indignation wrestling for the upper hand. How could Kahlil do this to her? And yet thank God he had Ben. No one would touch Ben if Kahlil held him. And Kahlil would protect him, she knew that much. He might hate her, but he already loved his son.
Massive gates opened to accept the limousine, only to shut loudly after the car passed through the compound’s high stone walls. Bryn felt relieved when they finally reached the palace. She wanted only to see Ben again. To know that he was safe.
Inside the palace, the guards silently handed her off to two robed servants, one which she recognized immediately as Rifaat, Kahlil’s personal assistant. Part butler, part secretary, Rifaat al Surakh handled Kahlil’s private affairs, business as well as personal. In the past he’d managed everything from travel arrangements to political gatherings.
Bryn felt a momentary glow, relieved to see her old friend again. “Rifaat, how are you?”
“Well, thank you, Princess,” he returned, bowing deeply. The son of a diplomat, he’d been educated in the West, attending prestigious Georgetown University in Washington D.C., before returning to Zwar and serving in the diplomatic corps like his father before him.
Bright, sophisticated, modern, Rifaat had always been her friend. “Rifaat, help me, please. The soldiers at the airport, they took my baby from me. Is he here? What happened?”
Rifaat bowed again. “I shall escort you to your rooms, Princess.”
“No, I don’t want to go to my room. I must see Kahlil. He has my son. Are they here? Have they arrived?”
The second manservant silently walked away, leaving Rifaat and Bryn alone. With the second man gone, Rifaat bowed a third time. “I am to escort you to the ladies’ quarters. Your maid is waiting for you there.”
I must see Kahlil,” she repeated firmly, squaring her shoulders. “Please, Rifaat. My son.”
His eyes flashed, his gaze briefly meeting hers, before he looked away, staring at a point just past her shoulder. He didn’t look at her again. He didn’t intend to speak.
“Rifaat, please.”
“Your room has been prepared,” he repeated woodenly, carefully keeping his gaze fixed on the marble pillar behind her. “I hope you find it satisfactory.”
She blanched, as if he’d thrown a glass of icy cold water in her face. He didn’t intend to tell her anything. Even if he knew where Kahlil was, Rifaat wouldn’t share his information with her. They might have been friends five years ago but they weren’t friends now.
Turning, Rifaat set off down the marble hall, his slippered feet noiseless on the gleaming black-and-white marble floor. She followed behind him, having no other choice. No one would deal with her here, not until Kahlil had given instructions.
At the elaborately carved entry to the east wing, the wing where the women lived, a veiled maid appeared and bowed to Bryn. Kahlil’s valet walked away without a look back.
He’d done his duty, she thought bitterly. He’d escorted her to the harem. He could get her off his hands.
She stared after him, watching the valet’s departing back. He treated her the way Kahlil had treated her—with anger, with scorn, with contempt.
She flushed faintly, the skin hot and tight across her cheekbones. Only one thing could be worse than her current situation. The return of Amin.
The young maid introduced herself as Lalia and announced that she would be the princess’ personal assistant, helping with dressing and hair and happiness.
Bryn nearly smiled at the peculiar description of services to be rendered. Dressing and hair and happiness. As if life were so easy.
But Bryn didn’t smile and Lalia shot a shy, nervous smile at her as she led Bryn into her private suite of rooms. “For you, my lady,” Lalia said, gesturing around the spacious high-ceiling bedroom. Her English was stilted, her accent heavy. “You like, my lady?”
“Lalia,” Bryn spoke gently, persuasively. “My husband, the sheikh, I must see him. He has my son, and I’m afraid.”
“No fears,” Lalia replied, rustling her hands like flower petals in a breeze. “Everything is lovely here. Just the way you like, yes?”
“My son—”
“This room, very pretty, yes?”
Lalia wouldn’t tell her anything, either. The girl wouldn’t even acknowledge Bryn’s pain.
No one would.
Slowly, numbly, Bryn wandered to the middle of t
he room, her old room, the same one she’d had three and a half years ago, and glanced at the pale peach carpet beneath her feet.
The carpet’s pattern was intricate, vines and scrolls and ornate vases, a priceless wool carpet made seven hundred years ago for a Persian queen, reputedly the most beautiful woman in the East. Kahlil had bought the carpet for her, installed it in her room. He wanted everything perfect for his bride, his future queen.
It hadn’t worked out that way.
Her gaze fell on the small, elegant carved wood chest sitting next to her bed on the night table.
Her jewelry box.
Amin. The struggle. Her last night at the palace three and a half years ago.
Her heart did a ragged double-beat, revulsion radiating from her middle to her arms and legs, making her shake. She took an involuntary step backward as if she could put space between her and memories of the past.
Slowly she crossed to the nightstand and even more slowly lifted the dark heavy lid on the box. Diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds sparkled in a sea of purple velvet.
Couldn’t be. She’d taken it all, emptying the box into her purse before fleeing the palace, dumping the glittering jewelry—bangles, chokers, drop earrings, a gold-and-diamond crusted tiara—all presents from Kahlil, into her handbag. She’d used the jewelry to buy her way out of Zwar, smuggling herself onto a charter flight to New York and then another flight, this one on a commercial liner to Dallas where Rose had picked her up from the airport.
But the jewels were all here, or perhaps they were merely replacements, a tiara for a tiara, gold bangles for gold bangles. Her chest tightened with sorrow and fresh pain.
He believed Amin but not her. He’d trusted Amin but not her.
Bryn lowered the jewelry box lid, the lid closing with a hollow little thud, much like her heart in her chest.
She sat down slowly on the edge of the bed, her hands braced on either side of her hips, her fingers outstretched on the smooth silk coverlet. She was stricken at the memory of her last night in the palace, in this room. Amin had trapped her here, his mouth had covered hers to stifle her scream. He’d tasted sour, of alcohol and old cigarettes, and he’d used his weight to pin her on the bed.
“My lady, this is your old room, yes? You like room, yes?”
Old room… Yes. Bryn shivered, blinked and forced herself to pull out of the past and focus on Lalia. It was her old room. A room that had given her nightmares for years.
Bryn stood up, crossed her arms over her chest. She felt disgust and fury that she was being trapped in this room—in this life—again. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here. You’ll have to tell his highness this room won’t do.”
Lalia opened her mouth but before she could speak, Bryn marched to the door. “Never mind, I’ll tell him myself.”
Bryn got nowhere. Guards outside the women’s quarters wouldn’t let her pass. They simply stood there, two abreast, and shook their heads. “Don’t make me scream.”
The guards didn’t even blink.
So she screamed, loudly, shockingly loudly, screaming as though she were being hurt, even murdered, and no one came.
And the soldiers didn’t move.
Only Lalia fell to Bryn’s feet weeping. “Please, Princess, please, Princess, please.”
“Lalia, stop!”
“Princess, you’ll get me in trouble. I shall be very punished for displeasing you.”
The girl was clutching Bryn’s feet, pressing her lips to Bryn’s ankle bones. “Lalia!”
But the girl continued to beg, muttering teary incoherent things in Arabic, speaking so rapidly that Bryn only picked up words and brief phrases. “Lalia, no one will punish you.”
“His lord highness will!”
“That’s not true.”
Lalia cast a fearful glance at the guards. “My lady,” she choked, pressing her wet face against Bryn’s shin, “your last girl was sent to very bad place. Please, Princess, do not have send me away, too.”
Bryn felt a rush of remorse. Was that true? Had Adjia, her first maid, been punished? “I must see his highness. I must,” she said more quietly.
“And you will. His highness will call for you. I know. I am sure. Now come, Princess, have some tea.”
Kahlil had been home only three hours and already he’d received a phone call from Amin.
He slowly hung up the receiver and stared at the photograph on his office desk, a silver-framed photo Amin had given him of the two of them. The picture had been snapped after a polo match a number of years ago. Amin had his arm slung around Kahlil’s neck and they were laughing at a joke Amin had made. They looked like the best of friends.
For a while Kahlil had thought they were best friends, or at least very good friends.
But that changed a long, long time ago—back before they were adults with duties. Responsibilities. Kahlil wondered when friendship had turned to envy. When genuine affection had transformed into manipulation.
During their twenties they had still laughed, continued to share a joke and spend an evening together, but it wasn’t without tension. And guilt. Kahlil didn’t need to be reminded that fate had treated them differently— Kahlil the crown prince. Amin, the poor relation.
And now Amin wanted to come home again, to return to Zwar for a visit. Amin had only been back once in three and a half years, and that was for an afternoon, for Kahlil’s father’s funeral. They hadn’t even talked then. Amin acted as if the funeral was merely a government formality.
So why did Amin want to return to Tiva now? Why not six months ago? Six weeks ago? Six months from now?
It couldn’t be because of Bryn, could it?
Kahlil picked up the framed photograph. He studied Amin’s boyishly handsome face, the light gray eyes, the laughing mouth.
Maybe it was time he put to rest the rumors, and the speculation. If there was something between Bryn and Amin he might as well find out now.
Kahlil returned the photo to his desk and reached for the phone again. Swiftly he punched the numbers to Amin’s apartment in Monte Carlo. Amin answered almost right away.
“I’ve thought it over,” Kahlil said coolly. “You’re right. It has been a long time since we’ve been together. Come home. Let’s catch up.”
Bryn watched the maid unpack the small overnight bag that managed to make the trip from Dallas.
Silently, industriously, Lalia tucked Bryn’s handful of lingerie and undergarments into the clothing wardrobe. But her expression changed when she pulled the dresses and pantsuit from the bottom of the bag. “These are not for Princess,” she said.
But I don’t want to be a princess, Bryn thought in exasperation from her perch on the foot of the bed. She just wanted to be Bryn, a twenty-four-year-old mother with a small but sincere circle of friends. She’d made a good life for herself in Texas; it might not have been fancy, and she might have lived off limited means, but it was her life and she wasn’t complaining.
Lalia hung up Bryn’s dresses but did so with obvious distaste. She opened up the second wardrobe door and gestured to the rainbow of color inside. Turquoise, royal-blue, violet, rose, peach, lemon-yellow, ivory, white, gold. Silks, chiffon, satin, velvets. Long gowns beaded and embroidered, jewel encrusted. “For Princess,” Lalia said, “You like?”
Incredible. How long had those dresses been hanging in the closet? How much had Kahlil invested in them while waiting for her to return?
Her jewelry box was full. The wardrobe an abundance of delicate fabrics and vibrant color. Gold slippers lined on the floor.
It was how it had been before. It was how Kahlil determined it would be again. Everything had changed but nothing was different.
Incredible. Excruciating. Bryn felt a torment of guilt, realizing how hard it must have been for Kahlil to wait for her, understanding for the first time that he had never intended their marriage to end. He’d merely given her time.
He’d wanted her back.
Lalia gently closed the wardr
obe doors and turned to face Bryn. “Everything is ready. Come, we shall draw your bath.”
Undressing in the marble bathroom, Bryn caught a glimpse of herself in the massive gilt-framed mirror. Her long hair hung lank, blue shadows dimmed the brightness of her eyes. She felt like hell and she looked it, too.
“My lady, the bath is hot, yes, see? Please, sit.” Lalia gestured to the gold sunken tub set in white marble shot with streaks of gray. The tub’s faucets were gold. The sink and fixtures were gold. Marble and gold. Real gold. Solid gold. A bathroom fit for a queen.
Fragrant steam rose from the gold tub, flower petals floated on the water’s surface.
Bryn dropped her towel, shy but resigned to the palace’s lack of privacy. The palace maids were too well trained, too fearful of displeasing to not fulfill their duties, and their duties were many. It was their job to serve, to assist, to make the princess’s life comfortable.
Suddenly Kahlil’s voice grated, shattering the quiet. “Leave us,” he said, voice echoing in the polished marble bath. “I wish to speak to my wife. Alone.”
Lalia fled the room, bowing, scraping, whimpering worshiping words that drove Bryn crazy.
Bryn’s first impulse was to leap from the tub and grab a towel, but she found herself frozen, reclining beneath the rose strewn scented water in shock. “What are you doing here? Where’s Ben?”
“Which question should I answer first?”
She felt her blood begin to boil. “Ben, please. Where is he? And what on earth happened at the airport?”
“It doesn’t concern you.”
“There isn’t any real threat, is there? I won’t have Ben subjected to unrest or instability.”
“Your imagination runs away with you again. It was a protective measure, nothing more than that.”
“I don’t like being separated from Ben and I want him back.”
He turned his face to the door. “Unfortunately you’re not getting him back.”
“Kahlil!”
“Sorry, but it’s the truth. I’m removing him from your care until I know what to do.”
