by Olivia Gates
* * *
The rest of the night, followed by next day, were spent in a blur of lovemaking.
By evening, they reluctantly considered the rest of the world, called her family back to the villa and announced their news.
They’d agreed on a story. They met after Patrick died, sought solace in each other, got married. But she thought she’d made a mistake, insisted on a divorce. He’d been trying to get her back ever since. He’d told her it wasn’t far from the truth.
Her family’s reaction was one of dazed delight. And they were even more stunned, along with Lujayn, when Jalal announced they’d get married a week from now. He’d assured them it would be enough time to prepare a wedding worthy of Lujayn.
Carried on the wave of collective happiness and enthusiasm, Lujayn spent the next day at the royal palace where Jalal had decided to have the wedding. He gave her and her family, foremost Dahab, free rein to set the place up for a legendary wedding. Lujayn didn’t want any of that, but he insisted he wanted to give her this, and to please humor him.
Spiraling deeper than ever in love with him, she accepted this as another of his efforts to make up for the years they’d lost, and the unintentional pain and alienation he’d inflicted on her. Though she didn’t need any tributes or any amends, she knew he needed to make them. She’d always give him everything he needed.
She’d just left her family and Adam in the Qobba hall, literally the Dome, the name coming from its residing under the palace’s central, hundred-foot mosaic one. She had to find Jalal, get his opinion about the seating plan for his personal friends.
Entering the antechamber to the royal office on the first floor, she heard a voice that wasn’t his.
If voices could have colors, that one would be pitch-black.
“…already behaving as if you own the place.”
She heard Jalal exhale. “And it’s great to see you again, too, Rashid.”
That had to be Rashid Aal Munsoori, the third candidate for the throne. She knew he was a distant maternal relative of Jalal’s, and a once-best friend. She had no idea how things stood between them now, especially with being rivals for the throne.
From what she’d heard so far, it didn’t sound like they were on particularly friendly terms. At least, from Rashid’s side. He was more or less accusing Jalal of usurping the palace as his own.
But Jalal wasn’t abusing his power, had paid a major sum to the kingdom’s treasury to use the palace for their wedding. She’d said they could have rented the Taj Mahal for a month for that amount. He’d countered they could have used the royal palace of Zohayd for free, which was better than both places. In fact, King Amjad, his oldest brother, had snarked his head off, telling him to skip along and have a rehearsal wedding in his motherland to please his in-laws, then come have an actual one in his fatherland, in a palace really worthy of his wife and heir.
But Jalal considered he was hitting two birds with one stone having their wedding here. Giving her a wedding in her motherland, reinforcing her family’s status and pumping money into the kingdom without it looking like a charitable donation.
She chewed her lip as she debated if she should wait until Rashid left, or leave and return when he had.
Her intimate flesh quivered at contemplating the long walk to and from the Qobba hall. Though the soreness she’d begged Jalal to inflict on her was delicious, it did make walking straight quite a feat. She didn’t want to give everyone too clear an indication how they’d spent the time since their reunion. Now that Azmahar would feature heavily in their future, she had to get used to observing the land’s conservative tendencies.
Deciding to wait, she picked one of the Arabic books in the mini-library in the antechamber. Might as well brush up on her Arabic reading skills as she waited.
She started reading then everything inside her froze as something Rashid was saying made her listen.
“…after Haidar thwarted your plans to use Roxanne to gain the upper hand in the campaign, you think giving the fairy-tale-addicted Azmaharians a sob story about restored honor, estranged spouses and a secret male heir will sway them in your favor?”
Her heart choked on its beats waiting for Jalal’s answer. He would hit Rashid’s venom back with as much conviction.
But he didn’t. He didn’t answer at all.
She couldn’t even fathom his reaction from the quality of his silence. How was he looking at Rashid? Ridiculing? Exasperated?
Rashid was talking again. “Go ahead, shackle yourself with a woman and a child you don’t want in your desperate bid for the throne. It will be a fitting punishment for you to be literally left holding the baby with not as much as a cabinet seat to collapse in defeat on.”
She was shaking from head to toe when Jalal finally talked.
“Haidar told me how you had changed. I thought he was exaggerating. Turns out he’s been his usual reticent self and left out the juicy parts. What happened to you, Rashid?”
A long, nerve-racking silence followed.
Then in a voice as still as the grave, Rashid said, “Didn’t you just say your distorted mirror image told you?”
“He only told me the end result, not the process. We know nothing about you beyond the time when you joined the army and kept drifting farther and farther away until you disappeared on us totally. And then—” she could almost see Jalal’s frustrated gesture in the beat of silence “—this came back in your stead.”
“This is the real me.” Rashid’s voice remained expressionless, and more hair-raising for it. “The only me you’ll ever see again. So if either of you deficient hybrids thinks you have a prayer against me, spare yourself the indignity. You in particular are so pathetic I decided to show you the mercy of advising you not to sacrifice your freedom at the altar of the kingly ambitions that you are destined to never fulfill.”
Lujayn stood rooted as Rashid’s voice approached and as he opened the ajar office door. He saw her immediately, stopped.
He stared back at her, a force of darkness in male form.
And that scar…
She would have lurched if she wasn’t frozen, inside and out.
Then he exhaled. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, Sheikha Lujayn. At least now you can make an informed decision.”
He bowed deferentially as he passed her even as Jalal’s shouted curse penetrated her numbness.
Jalal charged into the antechamber, aggravation blazing at Rashid’s receding back, morphing into anxiety as his eyes fell on her.
Before he could say anything, she whispered, “Is this why you want us, Jalal?”
His face twisted as if she’d stabbed him. “You still think that badly of me, Lujayn? You mistrust me that deeply?”
She swallowed, shook her head. She trusted him, but…
He took her shoulders in trembling hands. “Rashid was just messing with me, like he’s been messing with Haidar since he’s come back to Azmahar. Beside whatever has turned him against us personally, he considers us interlopers, more Zohaydan than Azmaharians. He’s employing psychological warfare to get us out of the way. But you must know everything you heard him say has no basis in fact. I want you, and Adam, for one reason only. Because I can’t live without you. Tell me you believe me, ya habibati!”
She threw herself at him, clung as if she’d escaped certain death. “I do, oh, God, Jalal, I do.”
He groaned against her cheek, her lips. “I can’t bear it if you have any doubts, ya’yooni. I’ll withdraw my candidacy.”
“No!” She pulled away so he could read her urgency, conviction in her eyes. “Don’t even think it! I just love you so much, am so happy, it’s making me jittery and unable to believe my luck.”
He pulled her once again into his embrace, agitation draining, indulgence flooding back. “It isn’t luck, it’s the least you deserve. And whether I become king or not doesn’t matter. I only want to love you and Adam and live to make you happier still.”
As she lost herself in his k
iss, his safety and promise, something still told her there was no way life would let her have all that and not eventually interfere....
Eleven
The tables’ accents and the color of bridesmaids’ dresses had just been decided. Dahabi. As the “golden” girl, Dahab herself had decreed the color was a no-brainer.
What remained was everything else. The flower arrangements, the grounds’ ornaments and lighting, the hall decorations, the catering menu. The kooshah—where Lujayn and Jalal would preside over the festivities—was a matter of particular contention. And Lujayn didn’t even want to think what would happen when she had to give a final word on her dress. Not to mention accessories. Everyone had an opinion, and of course, it was the right one.
She’d been stunned when her mother had come passionately to life the moment Jalal had set the wedding date, becoming a whirlwind of organizing and decision-making. More stunning was her aunt’s all-out enthusiasm. She’d been recovering from her mastectomy at breathtaking speed, especially after knowing she wouldn’t need chemo or radiation. But Lujayn bet her mother’s and aunt’s soaring spirits had most to do with their restored social status, and Jalal treating them like queens. They almost grew wings every time he walked in, kissing their hands and calling them hamati and hamati el tanyah—my mother-in-law and second mother-in-law.
But he’d done way more. He’d turned the palace into a workshop for them. He had tailors, jewelers, chefs, florists and workmen from just about every trade at their beck and call to put together every detail of the wedding. Her womenfolk were getting more delirious by the second, feeling like they’d fallen into a wonderland where they’d fulfill every feminine fantasy. Dahab had told him he’d firmly earned the title of genie.
After the first day, when she’d realized the scope of the details, Lujayn had thought they’d have to postpone the wedding. Jalal wouldn’t hear of it. His rationalization? If they gave her womenfolk a year, they’d still come up with more details. Though she agreed, she couldn’t get around the slowing down that working in shifts caused so someone would always be with Adam. Jalal, always ready with a solution, had whisked Adam away till the wedding.
She’d smothered him in kisses. Not because he’d taken Adam off her hands, but because of the eagerness with which he had. She’d also pinched his luscious butt for maneuvering her into giving him this opening to have Adam all to himself. He’d pinched hers right back, telling her to get to work, triumphantly informing Adam that, as men, their part in that legendary wedding would consist of jumping into their costumes and showing up.
He’d been bringing Adam to visit twice a day. Adam considered the preparations a huge game park and Jalal let him play among them to his heart’s content, watching him like a hawk all the while. During their last visit hours ago, her family had wanted to drag her to more dress fittings, had shooed Jalal away so he wouldn’t accidentally see the dress they might decide on.
She’d insisted on seeing him and Adam out, silently begging him to support her decision. She’d needed a breather from the single-mindedness of her bridesmaid-zillas. When they’d protested they’d only checked off six items from a list of fourteen today, couldn’t afford a break, he’d come to her rescue, asserting he needed a kiss, one not for her family’s eyes.
Cheeks blazing and eyes gleaming, they’d let her escape.
Not that he’d let her escape him. After he’d given Adam to Labeeb, he’d dragged her into one of the palace’s secret rooms, taken her, hard and fast and almost blew her mind.
She’d gone back to her family in a stupor and had gone along with anything anyone had said ever since. Hence all that gold that would turn the Qobba hall into a replica of Midas’s vault.
But then Qusr Al Majd—literally Palace of Glory—would give said vault, and all tourist-attraction palaces in the world a run for their money. It might not be as majestic as Zohayd’s royal palace, but it was surely striking, and like Haidar had said, felt like some elaborate beast from a Dungeons & Dragons fantasy.
Haidar had come yesterday to meet his twin’s “best-kept secret” and thank her for proving his “wolf” theory about Jalal right. Jalal had teased his twin back saying one of the things he thanked her for was making him beat Haidar to something—having a “cub” first. Haidar had volleyed that he’d beat him again. Roxanne was pregnant with another set of Aal Shalaan twins!
She’d liked Haidar on sight, was so grateful that he and Jalal had patched up their lifelong differences. She knew she’d grow to love him and, if possible, that had intensified her happiness.
She now sat ensconced on a window seat in the meeting-room-turned-workshop, her outline still blurred from Jalal’s lovemaking, dreamily watching Azmahar’s autumn sun setting, and its velvety, star-studded night taking over.
“So this was why you’ve been avoiding me!”
Lujayn started, burning in instant embarrassment. Aliyah!
She jumped down from the seat, turned to the woman who’d once been her lifeline, her heart quivering with delight to see her again. And she almost gasped.
Aliyah had always been beautiful, but now…now she was glorious. What fairy-tale queens should look like.
As tall as Lujayn but slimmer—at least now she was full of “lethal curves” as Jalal insisted—Aliyah had the bearing of a woman who’d long borne the weight of position and power. Having two children had only deepened her tranquility, and having the certainty of a great man’s love had crystallized her femininity.
Aliyah had another gorgeous woman with her who looked as if her body and spirit had been spun from fire. Roxanne Gleeson, now known as Haidar’s wife, Princess Roxanne Aal Shalaan—a woman she’d once thought had been one of Jalal’s lovers.
He’d explained away the misconception that had long torn at her, telling her that Roxanne had actually been like the sister he’d longed to have in his all-male family. According to Jalal, Aliyah had been revealed to be his sister in time to get married and hoarded by that possessive jackass of a husband.
When she’d giggled that Aliyah sure didn’t agree with his opinion of King Kamal of Judar, he’d harrumphed. Kamal, and he, were confirmed jackasses. They’d just lucked into having phenomenal women love them. Just like Haidar had with Roxanne. Thankfully, after long years of estrangement, Roxanne had become his sister at last, Haidar’s wife and an Aal Shalaan princess.
Before Lujayn could do more than kiss the two women, her womenfolk came swarming. Queen Aliyah of Judar was one of the two big-deal queens in the region, the other being Queen Maram of Zohayd, King Amjad’s wife and Lujayn’s almost sister-in-law. Roxanne had also made a big splash in Azmahar on two fronts, first as the kingdom’s foremost politico-financial analyst, and now as Haidar’s wife.
Soon, the two women joined their dress-choosing ritual with utmost enthusiasm. For the next couple hours, Lujayn felt like a doll, being put into and pulled out of dresses that she then had to model, walk, sit, run, dance and climb stairs in, with the ladies scribbling down comments and ratings for each, then discussing pros and cons spiritedly.
Aliyah finally insisted Lujayn try on a dress, to everyone’s surprise. It was fashioned from an incredible amalgam of tulle, taffeta and lace, worked in breathtaking arabesque patterns of sequins, mirrors, pearls and silk thread. A strapless, hugging bodice would accentuate Lujayn’s breasts and waist and a skirt lush in layers, yet not flaring, would showcase her curves. In short, perfect.
But their unanimous objection to it? It was gray.
Aliyah laughingly reminded them they were talking to the woman who’d rocked the region wearing black for her wedding. And then it wasn’t gray. It was silvered dawn and deepening twilight and every shade in between. And it looked as if it was spun from the threads of Lujayn’s own unique colors.
They all deferred to Aliyah’s opinion, not as queen, but as the world-renowned artist among them.
Lujayn still felt their skepticism, until the moment they saw it on her. And they all shouted simulta
neously, “That’s it!”
It was only then that Aliyah revealed that her vision for the whole scene was now complete. With the bridesmaids and matrons of honor all golden, with her coloring and dress, Lujayn would stand out like a black-and-white silver-screen moon goddess.
Another hour passed before Lujayn was finally allowed to take off the dress, after picking a tarhah—a veil—for it. Aliyah and Roxanne both promised to bring her just the pieces to go with that outfit from the royal jewels of Judar and Zohayd.
Leaving her family boggling over that prospect, Aliyah and Roxanne spirited Lujayn away for a much-needed break.
In the blessed silence and isolation of a sitting room at the farthest end of the palace, she finally grinned at them. “Thanks for the rescue, ladies. It’s a good thing weddings are a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I don’t think I’d survive that again.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t need to.” Roxanne beamed, looking the image of glowing health in her early second trimester. “You’re marrying an Aal Shalaan. Those are for-life catches.”
“And Aal Masoods,” Aliyah piped in.
Lujayn’s smile widened, remembering Jalal’s jackass comment concerning Aliyah’s Aal Masood husband. No way was she telling Aliyah and have her kick Jalal’s luscious behind for it.
Roxanne sighed. “We’re all Aal Shalaan princesses now, whether by birth or marriage. And let me tell you, Lujayn, from, uh…intensive experience, there’s nothing better.”
Lujayn nodded vigorously, still tingling from her own recent “intensive experience” with her Aal Shalaan prince.
“Did you notice how my own messed-up origins make me related to everyone in some way or another?” Aliyah asked.
Lujayn grinned. “Yep, you’re the only one who grew up a Morgan, turned out to be an Aal Shalaan and then became an Aal Masood, too.”
“While I once felt it was a mess I’d never survive, it proved to be the best blessing possible.” Aliyah winked at Lujayn. “Finding out you’re not who you thought you were is turning out fantastic for you, too, isn’t it? Not to mention catching the heart of one of those forever guys.” Aliyah’s dark eyes sparked gold, reflecting the sun streaks in her mahogany hair. “And though you kept everyone in the dark, I can’t believe you had me fooled. You missed your vocation as an actress, lady.”
