And she still hadn’t managed to take a deep breath.
The palace itself was worse. Or a wonder, anyway, and Shona hardly knew how to take it in. Her urge was to turn around and leave—to get the hell away before she could like it too much or want to stay, because she knew better than that—but escape wasn’t on offer.
She was a foster kid, she kept telling herself, holding tight to Miles’s hand as they walked inside the gleaming white palace that was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, graceful and immense at once. She’d been abandoned when she was six days old, literally left outside a bar like a bag of trash. She had no business in a royal palace.
She kept expecting someone to notice.
Everywhere she looked there was marble and gold, and then more marble and gold. Though there had been desert in all directions outside, the palace was filled with green things, bright flowers and water everywhere. It was bright and yet cool, despite the heat just beyond its walls. Glorious fountains flowed into pools and cascaded into gardens, heedless of the rolling dunes outside. The floors looked clean enough to eat off, unlike the battered streets of the French Quarter back home.
And worse, every person she passed bowed their head to her. Even wearing that same old uniform from her job back in the restaurant on the other side of the planet, they bowed.
She couldn’t help thinking that once they realized what a mistake Malak was making, they’d hate her for that most of all. They’d call her an imposter—and they’d be right.
But no one seemed to share her concerns.
“This is completely unnecessary,” she’d said to the woman who’d waited for her upon their arrival and introduced herself as Shona’s very own servant. And it was possible she’d sounded a little...shrill. “I don’t need servants of any kind and you certainly don’t need to bow like that when you talk to me.”
“You are queen—”
“I most certainly am not. I’m not queen. I’m not going to be queen.”
If the servant, whose name was Yadira, was taken back by Shona’s vehemence, she’d given no sign. She looked as if she could be Shona’s age, or a little older, and there was something about the robes she wore that made her every movement seem extrafeminine—or maybe it was just that Shona had slept in her black T-shirt and red skirt and was now shuffling around a palace dressed like a French Quarter waitress. It was getting to her.
Or, possibly, it was everything else that had happened since Malak had walked back into her life.
“You are the mother of the crown prince of Khalia,” Yadira had said quietly, her dark eyes touching Shona’s, then lowering. “How else should you be treated?”
Shona had been too overtired then—or that was what she told herself—to argue. And she certainly couldn’t explain the chaos inside of her.
She’d expected them to take Miles from her like every dramatic movie she’d ever watched. She’d steeled herself for a screaming battle, but it hadn’t happened. Yadira had delivered them to a suite of rooms that rambled over what seemed to be an entire wing of the palace, and was bigger than all the places Shona had ever lived...put together. Yadira had showed them around, pointing out a series of living areas, a private pool, balconies everywhere, dens and bedrooms and her own stocked kitchen should she feel compelled to make herself a snack...or, say, a twelve-course meal. She showed Shona what she called “your bedchamber,” which was actually another set of rooms inside the suite—a private sitting room, a bathroom that was larger than her house back in New Orleans and that sported a tub that could fit several people and enjoyed a view over a rambling, walled garden, as well as a door she didn’t even open that Yadira told her led to her dressing rooms. Plural.
But the only room Shona cared about was the one that led directly from her bedroom into what Yadira called the nursery. It was a bedroom for Miles as well as his own bathroom and playroom, and in yet another sitting room, a set of nannies who all exclaimed over him as if he was the center of the universe.
That Shona might have agreed only made it worse.
“He doesn’t need any nannies,” Shona had told Yadira fiercely, ignoring the fact that Miles, always a joyful boy and completely at ease wherever he went, seemed perfectly happy with all the attention.
“Of course not, mistress,” Yadira had replied mildly. Even deferentially. “They are only here to aid you. And only so much as you wish.”
“I don’t wish.”
Yadira had nodded as if this was perfectly acceptable and, even more, as if it made sense.
“Are you certain you do not wish to refresh yourself after your long journey?” She’d waved a hand toward the nannies, who were sitting on the floor with Miles and making him laugh. “We are all strangers to you, I understand. But you do not need to trust us. What you can trust is that the king would not permit a single hair on his son’s head to be harmed in any way. And that his reaction to such an outrage would be swift and terrible.”
And that, Shona had believed. Or maybe she’d just been too damn tired. Or any of the other maddening and overwhelming things that swirled around inside of her and nearly made her doubt her own name, standing in the middle of the kind of luxury that made her very uneasy indeed.
As if she would...break it. All of it. Or worse, it would somehow break her. Ruin her. Make her soft and dreamy and easily knocked down.
And what would happen to her—and her child—if she couldn’t get back up?
“Miles,” she’d called. “Do you want to come with me while I clean up?”
But Miles had new toys and a father who was a king and more, a group of new friends who found him delightful.
“No,” he told her, without even looking her way. “I’m playing.”
And that was how Shona had found herself alone in that endless, rambling bathroom, also done up in marble and golds and shot through with deep blue tiles. And maybe she was already getting soft—or maybe it was just the long flight—but she didn’t have it in her to deny herself that tub, with the jets and the steps and the window over the beautiful jewel of a garden with the desert looming out there in the distance. And when she was done, she helped herself to the array of cosmetics and products that lined the acres of sink. She spent some time on her hair. She tried to hide the sleeplessness and the worry, until she asked herself who, exactly, she was trying to hide that from.
And when she walked back out into what she couldn’t quite believe was supposed to be her bedroom when it could house half a city, she found her waitress uniform was gone. And in its place, spread out over the vast sea of a bed, were the kinds of clothes that made her feel something a lot more worrisome than simply hollow.
None of this is real, she told herself, her heart slamming into her ribs as she looked at the sorts of dresses girls like her didn’t bother dreaming about, because they were so out of reach.
Or even if it was real, she understood it had to be temporary. Or the kind of test some foster parents liked to set up. Like the one family she’d been with who had made strict rules about mealtimes and then had put out fresh, fragrant doughnuts in the kitchen to see who would fall into the trap.
Shona had never been fooled by such things.
If something looked too good to be true, it was probably put there specifically to hurt her. She’d learned that a long time ago.
Dressed in nothing but a towel and her own uneasiness, Shona walked over to the dressing-room door, which led into what she supposed was meant to be a closet—though it bore no resemblance to any closet she’d ever seen. It was a large room with seating in the middle, as if previous occupants had grown tired in the midst of dressing themselves in endless finery and had required breaks. And instead of wearing the absurdly fancy dress that had been laid out for her as if she was some kind of fairy princess, she dug around until she found something more reasonable. None of her own clothes were anywhere to be found, but she came up with a pair of trousers that fit her perfectly and felt good when she pulled them on, and a kin
d of tunic in a shade of blue she was forced to admit made her skin seemed to shine from within. Everything fit her and, worryingly, she felt comfortable in these clothes that didn’t belong to her.
She was certain she hadn’t mistaken the way Yadira had sighed when she’d caught sight of her after she’d eventually found her way back into Miles’s playroom—where he hadn’t seemed to notice she was gone.
But she hadn’t changed. And that was how she’d been dressed when she was taken into the private dining room of the king of Khalia for the first time.
Who looked even less like the man she had met on a bar stool five years previously. He’d changed out of that suit he’d been wearing into something that she couldn’t possibly have named, white and flowing, but which seemed to suit him. It made him seem...more. More dangerous. More demanding. More impossibly beautiful without having to waste a single smile.
He was so clearly and obviously a king that it made her stomach somersault around inside her.
“What on earth are you wearing?” Malak had asked her, in an idle sort of way she didn’t believe at all.
He’d been lounging there on a pile of brightly colored pillows in front of a low table laden with trays of food, but she couldn’t really take all that in. Much less the balcony behind him that offered sweeping views all over the city that looked so alien to someone born and bred in the bayou. Instead, she found herself focusing on the laughter she was sure she could see in that dark green gaze of his, glittering at her.
It made her feel things she didn’t want to acknowledge. She’d told herself she didn’t feel anything but anger. “I want my own clothes.”
“You can’t have them,” Malak had replied in that same idle way. As if it wasn’t even a question. “I am sure they served you well in whatever existence it was you carved out in that dreadful place, but you are in Khalia now. None of those clothes are appropriate for the role you must assume here.”
She’d straightened her spine as if she planned to fight him with her hands. As more than a little of her wanted to do, right here and now. Her fingers twitched. “I haven’t agreed to marry you, Malak. I haven’t even agreed to eat with you. I don’t know why you think you can just ignore the things you don’t want to hear.”
His mouth curved a little at that, but he didn’t argue.
Which, in retrospect, Shona found even more alarming.
“You are the mother of the crown prince of Khalia,” he’d said, and she didn’t really care for the exaggerated patience in his voice. Much less the echo of what Yadira had said to her—telling her exactly what the party line was here in this fanciful place and more, where it had come from. “Regardless of how you feel about that role, it, too, comes with certain expectations.”
Shona had sniffed. “Your expectations sound like your problem, not mine.”
“And yet I think you will find that my expectations are very often treated as law,” he’d said in that same mild way that it had occurred to her belatedly was misdirection. Because nothing about him was mild, especially as he lounged there before her, looking lazy again when she knew it was a lie. And if she paid closer attention, she could hear the steel beneath it. “Whether you like it or not, Khalia is an absolute monarchy.”
But Shona had never been one to back down in the face of defeat, certain or otherwise. “I’m not entirely certain that your laws pertain to me. Is there an American embassy? I’d like to talk to them about any number of things. Such as how you got me into the country in the first place, since neither Miles nor I have passports.”
He’d smiled as if she delighted him, and Shona hated the part of her that pulsed at that, as if that was what she’d wanted all along. “You are mistaken. Both you and Miles have passports. I ordered their issue myself.”
“How could you order—?”
But she cut herself off. Because it had taken her a moment, but she understood. He wasn’t talking about American passports.
“Congratulations,” Malak murmured, those dark green eyes of his gleaming. “You and my son are Khalian citizens.”
She’d breathed in, then out, and she’d still felt unsteady. “Your congratulations are a lot like getting sucker punched. In case you wondered.”
“How strange. Most women liken the faintest shred of my attention to a gift from the heavens. Perhaps there is something the matter with you.”
“I can think of a great many things that are the matter with me,” Shona had said tightly. “Every one of them another reason I can’t possibly stay here.”
But Malak had only shrugged, as if the subject was closed and he’d grown bored with the discussion.
The security detail hadn’t given her the message she got then. The private jet, the palace—all of that had registered, certainly, but it hadn’t truly penetrated. Even the clothes he wore that so clearly marked him as who he’d claimed to be. Because this was the moment it really hit Shona that this man—the one-night stand she’d been sure she would forget eventually, despite her son’s dark green eyes—was really and truly a king. And not a king in the tabloid sense, all silly highbrow scandals and the dedication of war memorials. But an old-school king of dungeons and orders from on high. The kind of king who could demand anything and whole populations would leap to do his bidding.
A real king, in other words.
The truth of it shuddered through her, bringing heat and what she assured herself was dismay.
“You’re welcome to leave at any time,” King Malak told her in that same tone that reminded her he was well and truly finished discussing the matter, in case she’d had any doubt. “I will instruct the guards to escort you to the royal airfield and fly you back the moment you wish to go, with my compliments. But Miles stays.”
So Shona had stayed, too, of course. It wasn’t as if there was any other option.
And because she stayed, she was forced into a role she had never wanted. Not that anyone had asked her what her feelings on the subject might have been.
Every morning, Yadira woke her and they engaged in the same routine. Yadira would lay out clothes befitting the queen that Shona was not and Shona would ignore them, marching over to her dressing room and rifling through it until she found something—anything—that approximated the jeans and T-shirt she would have worn if she could. That meant a great many tunics and trousers, but it was better than the alternative. Yadira would then pretend she did not disapprove of this while serving Shona and Miles their breakfast near one of the fountains in their expansive suite.
If she squinted, it wasn’t terribly different from the mornings she’d shared with Miles back home. The two of them had often eaten breakfast together, then set about their days. But instead of rushing through a breakfast that was often no more than cold coffee she didn’t have time to microwave, then racing off to the cleaning job that she’d taken during the hours that Miles was in preschool to help make ends meet, she was able to enjoy a meal and strong coffee. Miles did as he pleased as well, spending his days playing with his nannies, and learning from them, too, as Shona had been informed when she’d claimed he needed more structure.
“He is getting personal attention from his nannies, all of whom are highly trained in child development,” Malak had informed her in that high, holy-king voice of his when she’d complained to him at one of those meals she refused to eat. “It is the same education I received at his age and yes, there is a great deal of playing as well. Do you have actual concerns about his development, Shona? Or is it that you dislike losing control?”
She had dared not answer that the way she longed to do.
And besides, she had her own horrors to fill her days. Shona was forced into what Yadira called comportment classes.
“I don’t need classes,” she’d told Malak, coldly and with fury.
“Whether you do or not, you must take them if you wish to stay here,” he’d replied. She still refused to eat with him. She stood there in the center of his dining room, pillows everywhere, candles flick
ering, and the balcony doors open to let the night in. She declined all offers—and demands—to sit. And she thought her stubbornness was getting to him. She could see it in that glittering heat in his gaze. She interpreted it as a victory. “Or you can fly back to New Orleans tomorrow. Your call.”
“Do you ever get tired of making threats?”
He’d smiled. “I am the king, Shona. I do not make threats. My wishes are commands and my preferences law.”
Which meant Shona suffered through the stupid classes, such as they were. A week into it, she couldn’t tell which of them hated the experience more—her or her advisors, who openly despaired of her.
“You must at least try,” they would tell her.
“I don’t want to try,” she would reply.
And then she would smile the way she’d learned to smile at the tourists in the French Quarter to get better tips, until she could see the tempers they were all too well-trained to lose in her presence.
The things she refused to try grew all the time. She refused to learn which fork to use at a table. She refused to learn how to wear the scarves and robes they laid out before her, because she refused to blend in with the people here. She refused to pay any attention to the tiny details that comprised the sort of diplomacy queens were expected to wield, because she refused to become that queen. She was uninterested in learning how to walk appropriately. How to stand fetchingly. How to address heads of state, or not, depending on local customs.
She might have had to take the classes. Or sit through them, anyway. But that didn’t mean she needed to distinguish herself as any kind of honor student. She’d taken a similar approach in all the high schools she’d found herself in as she’d bounced around from one home to the next in her last few years in the system.
Because one thing she knew well was that it was much, much worse to try hard for things that other people could take away on a whim. It was better not to try, not to want, not to break her own heart.
“You will embarrass the king,” her teachers warned her, in tones of ever-deepening concern.
Sheikh’s Secret Love-Child Page 5
