by Olivia Gates
Lujayn fidgeted under Aliyah’s teasing scrutiny. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t something I could share at the time. I’ve long stopped being a model, too. I entered college when I married Patrick, got a degree in economics and business management. I’m preparing a master’s degree now.”
“Wow, I can’t believe just how much we have in common!” Roxanne exclaimed. “Having you in the family is going to be even more fun than I anticipated. And you must make use of me if you ever need any help with your projects and assets. I’m a decent financial adviser, I’m told.”
“They’re not mine,” Lujayn said, then explained the situation with Patrick’s family. “I only controlled everything until we made sure they were out of the way. I’ll soon turn it over to the charities and concerns he’d specified. Any money or shares my family got was payment for our work, so I’m not the billionaire heiress everybody thinks I am. I just never refuted it since I was still wrapping things up before I came back to Azmahar.”
Roxanne looked impressed. “And that you managed to keep that from someone like me tells me everything about how good you are at what you do. I’ve heard there are many concerns vying to do business with you as Patrick’s heiress. Prepare for the restoration of some serious personal space when the news comes out.”
Roxanne’s words suddenly hit her with a realization.
She never really explained to Jalal how things stood.
But he had once made it clear he believed she possessed Patrick’s wealth. What if part of her…acceptability now was because of her assumed wealth? Princes did have far more to consider in marriage than normal men. Money and power married money and power. What if, when he realized she didn’t have either, it changed everything?
From then on, she barely knew what Aliyah or Roxanne said or what she answered. At some point they stood up, kissed her, and promising to join her wedding preparation mayhem starting tomorrow, they took their leave.
In a similar fugue, she returned to her family who tossed her around in more wedding details before they called it a night. Instead of spending the night in the palace like them, she slipped away to Jalal’s villa. Or as he insisted it now was, home.
Labeeb received her at the gates and suggested that she surprise Jalal. He had turned out to be a closet romantic. Before he disappeared, he reassured her that Adam was asleep after a bath that had left him happily exhausted and Jalal and Labeeb wet. Both grown-ups had their baby monitors on their person, but there hadn’t been a peep from Adam for the past three hours.
Inside the villa, Jalal’s favorite music, a hybrid of western, Zohaydan and Azmharian, was emanating from their family room, wrapping her in its evocative magic. Approaching in silence, she stood watching Jalal as he sat on the couch in profile. He was covered in a laptop and open files, looking totally engrossed, and more heartbreakingly beautiful than ever. Barefoot, hair tousled, black trainers riding low on his hips, and the rest of his body was exposed to her devouring.
Seeing him this way, relaxed in their home, surged in her heart with thankfulness and longing. But anxiety ruled all other emotions.
He turned suddenly, his gaze slamming into hers, delight flaring in his eyes.
After hurriedly clearing his lap, he jumped up to his feet and rushed to her, arms open. He swept her off the floor, groaned into her hair, “Habibati…” before he took her lips, submerged her in his hunger.
When he let her draw a breath, her feet almost buckled as he put her back on them.
“So how did you do it?”
She blinked.
He elaborated. “Escape your posse of wedding wardens?”
She hugged him, filled with the wonder of him in her arms. “I slipped out behind their backs, how else?”
“They intimidated me so much with their lists and color schemes I didn’t even dare ask you to do this.”
She chuckled at the incongruous image he painted, the desert warrior tiptoeing around a bunch of females in fear they’d attack him with ribbons and cake tastings.
His laughter echoed hers as gravity relinquished its hold over her, delivered her into his power. She plunged into his craving, wanting to take all she could now, before anything happened to spoil this magic, as she lived in fear it would....
* * *
The night’s breeze was blowing their bedroom’s gauzy, cream-colored curtains in a hypnotic dance when she finally resurfaced from another surrender to ecstasy in his arms. He was stroking her sweat-drenched, still-quivering body when without preamble she poured out everything about Patrick’s assets.
He kept on caressing her throughout her account.
When she fell silent, he shrugged. “And?”
She rose over him, anxious to read his expression. There was only his usual indulgence. “And I’m not an heiress.”
“Darn.” He combed his fingers through her tousled tresses, his grin devilish. “I was hoping you’d lend me a billion or two to develop a cloaking device so I can make love to you anywhere.”
“Be serious for a second here, okay?” she groaned.
His eyes sobered. “What’s to be serious about? Your involvement or lack of in Patrick’s legacy doesn’t change my pledge to fulfill it. Other than that, what does your being an heiress or not matter?” He rose on his elbows, frowning. “You still think anything but you matters to me?”
Her gaze wavered under the disappointment in his. “I—I just wondered…y’know, with you being a prince, if—if…”
She groaned again, words trailing off.
He heaved up, had her rolling to her side to watch him stride from the bed to the desk by the veranda. He picked up an MP3 player, tapped the screen and walked back with it held up to his lips.
“I, Jalal Aal Shalaan, hereby solemnly swear, on my life, on my honor, on my son—whose finger alone I value above my life—that one woman has ever and will ever be the largest part of my soul, just because she is who she is. My cherished, beloved Lujayn.”
Reaching the bed again, he held the player down to her. It replayed the pledge he’d just recorded.
“Whenever you have any worries and I’m not around, play this.” With a teary sob, she launched herself at him, raining laughter and tears all over him. “And when I am, just let me know, and I’ll take care of it for you, like this....”
And for the rest of the night, he showed her how he’d always take care of her every worry and need....
* * *
The day was here.
The day he’d tell the whole world he was Lujayn’s. The day he’d start his lifelong mission to heal all the injuries and injustice that he and his family had dealt her.
His gaze panned over his surroundings, and his lips spread. He had to give credit to Lujayn’s womenfolk. They had pulled off a miracle. He’d teased them, wondering if they did have a genie at their command. They had turned the neglected palace with its hideously ornate interiors, and especially the Qobba hall, into a most tasteful and lavish setting from an Arabian Nights fable. A setting worthy of his princess, the love of his life and the mother of his incomparable son.
His family, who had all arrived that morning, were now sitting in the huge semicircle facing the kooshah where he and Lujayn would join the ma’zoon to scribe their marriage vows in the book of matrimony. His father hadn’t looked this well and happy in…ever. His marriage to Anna Beaumont, Aliyah’s biological mother, and the love of his life, was doing him wonders. After a lifetime wasted in two marriages, first to the mother of Amjad, Harres and Shaheen, followed by the harsher blow of his and Haidar’s mother, their father deserved a break. And he’d at last gotten it. Anna seemed to be formed of pure love for her husband. His father had earned all this beauty and devotion, had done the right thing in abdicating the throne of Zohayd to Amjad. Now he could enjoy what was left of his life with the one woman his heart had chosen, and whom life and duty had deprived him of for three decades.
But though he was delighted for his father, tonight he could tell him and his
older brothers and Haidar, that they could move over and vacate the position of happiest man on earth.
A sigh of pleasure and anticipation escaped him, as Lujayn’s favorite jasmine scent filled the gigantic hall, carried on a dreamlike mist.
Adam whooped and jumped in his arms. Heart pounding, his gaze moved to where Adam’s tiny finger was excitedly pointing. Lujayn’s bridal procession had just entered the hall, preceded by Dahab.
They looked like walking jewelry with their golden dresses. Every female in Lujayn’s family had joined the ranks. Almost all in his had. His brothers’ wives were all there, Johara, Talia, Maram and Roxanne. Aliyah was walking with her daughter, who skipped beside her looking like a pixie, and actually completing the image by throwing golden dust behind her.
The only women who didn’t make it to this wedding was Laylah, one of the three precious female Aal Shalaans. And his mother.
No one even spoke of Sondoss, as if her mention would be the evil spell that would spoil everything. He couldn’t blame them. Though he visited her whenever he could, he sure wasn’t inviting her into his life now that it revolved around Lujayn and Adam. The farther she stayed from Lujayn and her family, the better.
The heavy, driving beat of the zaffah started, the region’s traditional bridal procession rhythm. After a percussive intro, with Dahab acting as cheerleader, the whole attendance started singing the most famous regional bridal song, chanting the praises of the bride, congratulating her on her dashing groom and wishing her bountiful happiness and blessed progeny.
Every nerve strained for Lujayn’s entrance as Adam’s excitement reached fever pitch and he starting yelling her name. The song was repeated twice as the bridal procession took their places, surrounding the kooshah in petallike patterns, and everyone pinned their gazes on the hall’s entrance.
The entrance remained empty. The song was repeated three times more, and it remained so. After the fifth repetition the music stopped. Murmurs rose, then spread like wildfire. Everybody was looking around, expecting some surprise. When none came, they turned their gazes to him. He stood there, frozen, unable to think. He felt nothing but Adam wriggling in his arms. He put Adam down and he ran to his grandmother. Jalal met her gaze and saw in her bewilderment that she had no idea what was going on. And that she was growing more anxious with every heartbeat.
“You wait right here. We’ll go find out what’s going on,” Harres said, who’d come back from talking to the ma’zoon.
“What could be going on?” Haidar asked, who’d been standing beside him. As his closest brothers, both would be the marriage witnesses. “She either changed her mind about the dress, or she’s keeping you waiting a bit to punish you for all the years you didn’t even think of marrying her.”
Haidar gave him a reassuring backslap and strode away.
Jalal stood there, his mind stalled. Nothing would restart it but the sight of Lujayn.
Time warped, everything grated. The air, the weight of his costume, people’s glances.
Then Haidar and Harres strode into the hall again.
Harres swerved, headed for Amjad, Shaheen and their father. Haidar walked up to him.
Jalal could only stare at Haidar as he stopped before him.
He couldn’t read his expression. Wouldn’t. Everything refused to cooperate. Wouldn’t work. His mind. His voice. His heart.
Then with his voice as dark and regretful as his expression, Haidar said, “Lujayn is gone.”
Twelve
Gone.
The word revolved in his head again and again. It made no sense. It was impossible. Untrue.
Lujayn couldn’t be gone.
Then a chain reaction started, sparked by an insupportable thought. The only way she could be gone.
She’d been taken. Kidnapped.
His mind overflowed with dread. Talons of desperation pierced his brain as his fingers sank into the one thing left in his world, his twin’s immovable support. His vision phased in and out as a voice, rabid with fear, barely recognized as his, formed no words, just her name, over and over. He couldn’t say anything else and make it real.
Haidar’s words cleaved inside his skull. “Go to pieces later, Jalal. We need to say something to this crowd, contain this catastrophe first, then we’re getting you out of here and…”
He pushed Haidar away, unable to bear any more talk and ran out of the hall, a storm of agitation exploding all around him. He heard cries, inquiries, exclamations that pummeled him with their alarm. He pushed through the hindering bodies and presences. If he ran hard enough, he might still find her, save her....
Inexorable forces pulled him back. He turned and found Haidar and Harres holding on to him. Amjad and Shaheen were running toward them.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Haidar hissed.
“I won’t even say I can imagine how you feel,” Harres said. “Because I damn well can’t. But let’s slow down for a moment....”
“Slow down?” Jalal roared. “Lujayn has been kidnapped and you want me to slow down?”
“Kidnapped?” Shaheen frowned, looking among his brothers.
Amjad came to a stop a couple feet away. “So you think the only way she’d stand you up at the ma’zoon is if she’d been kidnapped?”
Jalal rounded on him snarling, shaking off Haidar’s and Harres’s shackles.
Amjad deflected his aggression with unperturbed sarcasm. “She wasn’t kidnapped, so you can stop working on this heart attack.”
Everything inside Jalal stopped, clamped down on only three words. She wasn’t kidnapped.
Relief razed through him. “Are—are you sure?”
His brothers exchanged an uncomfortable look. Then, exhaling heavily, Haidar handed him a note.
There were only three words on it, too. In Lujayn’s handwriting.
I’m sorry. Lujayn.
He stared at the words, as if they’d multiply, as if they’d say more if he looked hard enough. The same three words remained. Explaining nothing.
“Where did you find this?” Jalal rasped.
Haidar exhaled again. “In the room where the ladies had left her, to have a moment to herself as she’d requested, before walking out to the bridal procession. She’d taken off her wedding dress and left through the balcony.”
Jalal shook his head, discounting every word, every evidence. “That’s impossible. She wouldn’t leave. Not of her own accord. A note doesn’t prove she wasn’t kidnapped. She could have been forced to write it, to—to…” Moisture that felt like acid forced its way out of his eyes, slithered down his cheeks. “Ya Ullah…Lujayn…ya Ullah…”
Harres hugged him roughly around the shoulders. “She hasn’t been kidnapped, Jalal, so stop going crazy, at least about this.”
“Guards tried to stop her,” Haidar said. “But she insisted they’d be punished if they detained her. They were so flustered by her intensity they let her go. By the time they informed Fadi and he checked the airport, she’d boarded a flight. He ordered them to stop takeoff and disembark her, but she invoked her American citizenship and they took off.”
Jalal stared at Haidar, finding no more places to hide.
She was really gone.
But it couldn’t be because she wanted to. She loved him. More than loved him. He was half of her soul as much as she was his. And the other half was Adam. She wouldn’t leave either of them. She’d die without them. Just like they would without her.
Seemed he’d said that out loud, because Amjad was answering him. “She knows without marrying her, you won’t be able to stop her family from taking Adam back to her. So she only left you.”
He rounded on Amjad. “Would you believe Maram would ever leave you?”
Amjad’s gaze lengthened at his vehemence. Then he shrugged. “Then Lujayn left but didn’t really leave. That leaves one possibility.”
Everyone turned to Amjad, all at a loss.
Amjad raised ridiculing eyebrows. “You really can’t figure it out?
What is this, a collective, selective blindness?”
Harres punched Amjad in the arm. “One more useless word, and king or not, the next punch puts you flat on your back.”
Amjad rubbed his arm, gave Harres then Shaheen a pitying glance. “Those two—” he flicked a hand at Haidar and Jalal “—I can understand, having been genetically tampered with. But what’s your excuse?” Shaheen joined Harres in a threatening step, and Amjad’s palms on both their chests held them off as he shook his head derisively, let out a disgusted huff. “Sondoss, what else?”
Jalal’s heart gave one sickeningly painful twist at hearing his mother’s name. Then it all fell into place.
It was his mother. She was the one who’d made Lujayn leave.
“We warned you she wasn’t through messing in your lives.” Amjad scowled at him and Haidar. “But you went all filial on us and exiled her in that tropical resort instead of letting me devise a dungeon worthy of her dragon-ness. Now you pay the price.”
“If you believe a dungeon would have ended her danger,” Shaheen scoffed, “then you don’t realize what Sondoss is.”
Harres nodded. “Jalal and Haidar made the right decision, if for the wrong reasons. An imprisoned Sondoss would have been far more dangerous than an exiled one. The worst she’s evidently done so far was sabotage a wedding. But had she been in prison, she would have plotted the end of the world to get out.”
Amjad smirked. “Good boys. You’re not as gullible as I sometimes fear. I’ll keep you as my heir and spare.” He quirked an eyebrow at all of them. “But it took us years to accidentally stumble on her diabolical plot. Want to bet that in due course, we’ll discover she’s put far worse in motion than spoiling a wedding? Maybe even that world’s end scenario?” He panned his gaze to Jalal. “Though from looking at you, she might have ended yours.”
