by Holly Rayner
Anita’s feet felt leaden as she walked around to the back entrance of the restaurant. This time of day, there would be no one working, and Fadi was likely at the market.
She checked her phone again: still no messages.
She’d gotten away with it. Fadi still didn’t know. And he wouldn’t, now that she had gotten back up into the apartment unnoticed. She slipped out of her clothes and lay down in bed; it was still early enough in the day that she could get away with a nap, and could pretend to Fadi, once he returned from the market, that she’d only just woken up.
But as she closed her eyes, she found sleep was elusive. Everything had felt so right the day before. But now, as she was thinking about it all, nothing made sense. Why was Fadi so against her and Hakim? Meeting Hakim’s parents had made her feel grateful that her own father wasn’t that way. He was a bit more enlightened… not so stuck in the ways of the past as they seemed to be. But if that was the case, then why was he so against her seeing Hakim?
And what would Hakim do about his parents? What could he do? Even if he wanted to be with her, which, it seemed, he did. He was a powerful man, but surely there had to be some limits to his power.
She mulled these things over in her head. There were just too many unknowns. As long as she was with Hakim, she could avoid thinking about them—he kept all her worries somewhere far away. But as soon as she was alone…
She heard the sound of the front door opening and closing downstairs. Fadi was home, earlier than she had expected. She tried to set everything aside. This was her life. And she had responsibilities. She rose, dressed, and went to go help Fadi bring in the food from the market.
ELEVEN
Hakim
Hakim was used to working at odds with his mother. He’d learned the trick to it: he had to circumvent her in what ways he could, without making it too obvious. He felt, in some ways, like a spy against his own family, but he didn’t feel like he had a choice.
His mother’s preparations for the gala were for an extravagant party. There was nothing he could do about that, but he could, at least, shift the focus a bit. He could remove, or at least alter, the advertisement that his mother wanted in the papers, just to rub it in the faces of their now out-of-business competitors. And he could make sure that he himself would be able to speak at the event to help smooth things over. As a final touch, he made sure that the write up in the paper would be done by a journalist he’d worked with before, who he knew to be an intelligent man who would understand the best way to treat the delicate matter.
And so, with that immediate problem solved, it was time for Hakim to turn his attention to another.
He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Anita that it was the first time he’d ever introduced a woman to his parents. Until the past week, he hadn’t ever met anyone that he had felt the need to. But if he had, he wouldn’t expect it to go like that.
Hakim’s mother, Zahrah, had a tendency to go a bit over the top. That was nothing new. But she was also, generally, pretty caring. Hakim wouldn’t put it past her to ignore Anita at first, when she could see from her clothes that she was what she would consider “below his station.” But the way his parents had stared and abruptly left, just after hearing that Anita was from Al-Dali…
No, there was something else there. And he had to know what it was.
He went to his parents’ suite at the Da Vinci, nodding at their personal security as he passed them.
He knocked, and heard his father mumble something from within. He entered, and found his father sitting in a chair in the living area, reading an Arabic newspaper.
“Your mother is in the bedroom. The tailor is with her.”
Getting her dress fitted for the gala, no doubt.
Hakim didn’t think his mother would mind if he came in and talked to her. Some of his best childhood memories of his mother were of talking to her while she was getting fitted for dresses. It was one of the few times she would be standing still long enough to hold a conversation, and wasn’t about to go dashing off to go do this or that, or be seen here or there.
He decided to try his father first. He sat down in the chair next to him.
“Father, I was hoping for a word.”
The old man raised his eyebrows and peered over his newspaper. “With me?” he asked. “What for?”
For much of Hakim’s early life, he had thought his father a weak man. He never said much, and had a tendency to let his wife speak for him. But as Hakim had grown older, he had started to learn more about his father. He began to see the speeches his father gave, when it was really important. His mother was the host—she was the one who communicated everything with everyone—but his father wasn’t unengaged, as Hakim had first thought; he was just content to leave everyone so busy with his wife that they never saw him coming. When Hakim had asked him, at his college graduation, why he spoke so little, his father had said only that words were precious, and that the fewer of them you gave out, the more valuable they could be.
“I wanted to know what you thought of Anita earlier,” Hakim asked him now.
For a moment, Hakim’s father paused, as though considering saying something. But then his eyes shifted back to the newspaper. “You’d better talk to your mother,” he said, not even looking at his son.
So Hakim stood, and went over to the door to his mother’s dressing room.
When he entered, he saw that he had guessed correctly: his mother was being fitted for what looked like another Givenchy dress. That was her favorite designer, and she was never one to shy away from what she wanted.
“Son. I’ve been expecting you. Please, sit.” She motioned to a chair not far from the full length mirror where she stood, the seamstress busy at work pinning her hem.
“I’d rather stand.”
Zahrah sighed. “So defensive. Always thinking you know best. That’s always been your way, hasn’t it?”
Hakim was in no mood for her games, today.
“I know you have something to say about Anita. You’re going to tell me she’s too poor, or too lowborn. If I’m to hear the woman I love insulted, I’m not going to do it sitting down.”
His mother let out a dry, mirthless laugh. “Oh, I’m not going to tell you she’s too lowborn. Certainly not that.”
This was wrong. Something was wrong about it. He’d expected that his mother would say something cutting, but it was like she knew something that he didn’t.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice sounding thin and weak to his own ears.
“She’s playing you, son.”
Now it was Hakim’s turn to laugh. “You think just because her family is poor—”
“No, I do not think this because her family is poor. I think this because I know who her family is. Or, more exactly, who they were. Can you say the same?”
He couldn’t. He shut his mouth and waited for his mother to continue, even as he was seething below the surface.
“Did you notice her ring?”
He nodded.
“Yes, of course you would have. But you were too blinded by her eyes, I’m sure, to put it all together. Her ring is a king’s ring. It belonged to her father.”
Hakim sat down heavily in the chair he had refused before.
“Yes, now you’re thinking. Now you’re remembering. Are you remembering the lost princess? The one who disappeared almost twenty years ago, during the coup in Al-Dali? Are you remembering her distinctive green eyes? Are you remembering that neither she nor her father’s ring were ever found?”
Hakim wasn’t surprised, somehow. It made sense. Of course Anita was a princess. How could she be anything less?
Still, he searched through his mind for anything Anita had said that would prove his mother right or wrong.
Zahrah waved her hand at him. “Oh, don’t bother trying to remember. After meeting her, your father and I had our team do the research. We asked your assistant where you met her, and the rest was easy. They came here eighteen years ago. She
was three years old. A little bit of a gap, sure, since the coup, but it must have taken them some time to get here. The man from the restaurant—her ‘father’—his picture shows up in an article from a few years back. Amazing what a dead ringer he is for the Al-Dalian royal family’s chef. This ‘Anita’ is the right age, she has the right look, and she’s with a man who went missing in the coup along with her and that ring she wears so proudly.”
Hakim stood. “I have to tell her.”
Again, his mother let out a mirthless laugh. “Oh, my son. One day you’re going to be king, and you’re going to have to shed this naiveté. You think she doesn’t know who she is? You think she hasn’t known from the start?”
Zahrah had been looking at her son, but she shifted her glance back to the mirror now.
“No,” she said. “No, we defeated their family. We outlasted them. Long were they our enemies. I will not allow one of them to infiltrate their way in, just to get their hands on another throne. Not through you. Not by any means.”
An anger rose up in Hakim that he had never known before. He’d been patient. He’d been dutiful. He’d done everything he could to be a good son, who would be ready when the time came to take his place in leading his people. He would not stand idle while his mother insulted him, and the woman he loved.
He had no more words to say to her. Anything he might have said would only be something to regret later. He had to speak to his father. He had to get him to reconsider.
“Ah, you’ve spoken to her,” his father said, folding up his newspaper when he saw Hakim come storming through from the bedroom.
“It isn’t true,” he said.
His father frowned. “The evidence…”
“Yes, I know about the evidence. But I also know her character, and I know she doesn’t know the truth. She’s not tricking me. It’s not a con.”
His father looked at him with a softness Hakim rarely saw in his eyes. “Yes, I don’t imagine that she is.”
Hakim was confused. “So, you’re not opposed to her?”
Slowly, sadly, his father shook his head. “No, I am still opposed. She is a princess, certainly. But she is the wrong princess. You have spent so much time away, son. You do not know our people. You do not know how much they hold on to their old values. To their old ways. If she had just been a common woman, perhaps it would have been possible. What is the western tale… Cinderella? But for you to marry the princess of a country that has been our enemy for generations…” He tutted. “No, that would be considered an alliance. And the people would not stand for that. They would never accept it.”
Whatever little hope had been holding out in Hakim’s mind began to fade. “So you agree with mother, then?”
His father tilted his head from side to side, as if deciding. “We have different reasons, but we have come to the same decision. That’s marriage. You cannot be with this girl. Not if you wish to remain Sheikh Hakim al Kamal bin Masfari, heir to the throne of Az Kajir. If you wish to become a different man—a poor man, with nothing and no one—then you may follow your heart with this woman. But if you wish to remain in your position, you do not have that luxury.”
TWELVE
Hakim got to his feet as steadily as possible. Outwardly, he thanked his father for being honest with him, but inside he was a chaotic mess of anger and confusion.
He must not let his family know. He must not seem too emotional. In his mother’s eyes, and especially in his father’s, he knew that would read as weakness. And he would need no doubt in his strength or abilities if he was going to get this to come out right.
But how could he? As the elevator reached the hotel lobby, Hakim was struck with the hopelessness of the situation.
He didn’t get into his car. It would be dangerous to drive in this state, and he knew that he needed to walk to calm down. The day outside was hot, and he sweltered in the sun. But it didn’t matter. He felt like somehow the suffering of walking in the heat would help him. At least how he felt outside would match the suffering he was feeling inside.
Slowly but surely, as he walked through the city, Hakim found himself calming down. Quite by accident, he found himself at the fountain where he and Anita had sat and eaten ice cream together only a few days ago.
There was one thing that was good about the whole mess, he thought. He would be able to tell Anita who her family really was. Whatever reasons her father had for hiding it from her, Anita deserved to know. And, now, she would.
And after he told her that, he would tell her… what?
There were two ways his life could go now. He could either forsake his kingdom, his family, and his job to be with her. Or he could leave her. There was no middle ground.
If he went with her, he wouldn’t be penniless. Not if he did it right. But he would also never be able to work again. If he was to run with any money at all, they would have to hide together. She would never be able to see her adopted father again, and they would never be able to come back to either Houston or their homelands.
And he would miss working. He’d been nurturing this business for years. He’d been twenty-two, straight out of college, when his father had handed him the reins to more and more impactful strings of the family business. Hakim now had long-term plans in place for almost every aspect of their company. And he was intent, as few people in his position would be, on developing income streams in addition to fossil fuels. He was building a future for his people.
There was no guarantee that whoever came after him would have the same focus. Neither of his younger brothers had shown the slightest bit of interest in ruling responsibly; they hadn’t shown much interest in anything other than spending money.
So his prospects would be dim, if not uncomfortable. And his company and kingdom’s futures would be uncertain.
As much as he didn’t want to, Hakim knew he had to consider the other path. The path where he told Anita who she was, but also that because of who she was, they could not be together.
He knew this path well. He knew what it would be like. It would be like his whole life had been before a few days ago, when he saw Anita for the first time.
And he had been happy. Or, at least, he’d thought that he had been happy. Now, looking back, he wasn’t so certain that he had ever really had a good idea of what happiness meant.
No, maybe he was wrong. Maybe he knew nothing of what this path would be. Because nothing would be the same after meeting Anita. He wouldn’t be able to look at it the same way. The hollow satisfaction that he’d been able to gain from being a good son, and doing what he thought he should would not be enough if it was missing the new reason that he knew that building a future was actually important.
And that was before he even considered the idea of finding another woman. Once he was king, an important part of his duty would be to produce an heir. He’d always known this, but now that he’d met Anita, the thought of it seemed obscene.
Every woman before her had been… well, they’d been different. They’d been party girls, mainly. For a while, in his early twenties, he’d been very concerned with what other people thought he should do. So he’d dated the models they had suggested, and found them to all be… lacking somehow.
But Anita… it was different with her. He’d seen it in her immediately. The way she held everything together, and remained calm under pressure. The way she’d improvised without a second thought, even when he’d been able to tell she was run ragged and busy.
He’d seen how kind she was. How genuinely interested in what he had to say and how much she was concerned about how their relationship might end up hurting her father. She was kind, smart, and capable. And brave, he might as well add, for seeing him against her father’s will.
And yet, for all these things, she somehow didn’t seem to understand how special she was. She thought about herself the same way she thought about everybody. And maybe that was what he liked about her the most. She saw the best in people.
Not to mention that she wa
s exceedingly beautiful. The green of her eyes was so unexpected in her dark olive face, and it took him aback every time he looked at her. He’d almost woken her that morning, before she woke up naturally, just so he could see her eyes.
As he thought of her, as he pictured her in his mind, Hakim knew that the choice was already made for him. There was no other option. Between a hard, anonymous life, and no real life at all, he would gladly become no one so that he could be with the woman who was everything to him.
He stood and looked around him, the late afternoon sun beginning to turn the sky golden. He had to go talk to Anita. He had to go tell her. Their lives were going to be difficult if they didn’t hurry, so he needed to move quickly.
