He turned then and strode back across the courtyard without as much as a glance over his shoulder to see if she might follow.And Aaliyah had the same internal battle all over again. She could turn on her heel now that he’d walked off. She could run back out that door and then charge down the side of the mountain. She assumed that Hannah still waited there, but whether she did or didn’t, there was no way to know how she might react to anything Aaliyah might do. She might not allow Aaliyah back in the vehicle. She might order her to turn around and head right back up to the Hermitage until she’d accomplished whatever it was the older woman imagined Aaliyah could accomplish here.There was no safe space. Not here on this island, plunked down in the middle of an uncaring ocean. Maybe not anywhere. The only safe space Aaliyah had known since she’d run out of that house in Cambridge was back in Tahoe, there in the little house tucked away in the woods that she shared with her aunt and her
Something in her had died on that landing as surely as if one of the guards had struck her down. She had never been the same, even in those strange months she’d moved through her old life like a ghost, unaware that there was a new life inside of her.As if the dawning of that hideous understanding of what she and Omar Farouq really were to each other—no matter how deeply she had loved him—really had killed her where she stood.“So you mean to tell me that it was pettiness, nothing more.” His voice was a black ribbon of sound, and it hurt to hear. “The wounded feelings of a jilted lover. This, you felt, was sufficient reason to hide from me the existence of a son for five years.”Aaliyah felt small and ashamed—but then, nothing she had ever felt about this man was petty. Her hands curled into fists, but she made herself carry on.“I didn’t know I was pregnant until I was in the third trimester,” she told him quietly, choosing every word with care. “Maybe I didn’t want to know.” Or mayb
“I live in a tiny town near Lake Tahoe,” she told him, keeping her tone even. Calm. “If you don’t know it, Lake Tahoe is a very large and beautiful lake on the border between California and Nevada in the Sierra Nevadas, notable for its ski resorts, its rustic charm, and its stunning scenery. There are quite a lot of tourists and resorts on the lake, in all seasons. I actually live a bit further out, in the hills.”Where life was much more affordable. Most of her neighbors worked on the lake the way she did but, like her, preferred a little space between themselves and the relentless influx of visitors requiring service.Omar Farouq did not question her further on the demographics of Lake Tahoe. He turned back to face her and seemed to be content to do nothing but study her while the silence grew. A muscle clenched and unclenched in his jaw, as if somewhere beneath the surface, that temper she could still scent in the air between them was getting the best of him.Aaliyah couldn’t imagi
He ignored that outburst. “If you follow this hall to the far end, you will find the kitchen. Feel free to help yourself to anything that appeals to you. If you wish to rest—and I suggest you do—there are many chambers to choose from.” The words he used sounded almost welcoming, but his tone reminded her of bullets one after the next, and none of them anything but deadly. “Pick any you like.”Omar Farouq stepped away from her then, but it seemed as if it took him a little too long to drop her hand. Or maybe it only seemed that way to her because she could feel too much or because she wanted him to feel something, anything.And then, when he did finally drop her hand, she could still feel it, and that was incalculably worse.“You have had five years to make all the decisions you liked,” he said quietly. Too quietly, when his eyes blazed the way they did. When she still felt like a tattered bit of target practice, and worse, like the lover he’d discarded years ago—but as if it had just
But it wasn’t until she saw him wave that languid hand of his that she understood what he was doing. He was reverting back to type. Becoming that easy playboy of a prince she’d met long ago.The Prince his people expected, perhaps.She watched, strange suspicions gripping her, as he was welcomed home in a series of deep curtsies and informal bows. A rippling wave of them as he walked from the helicopter across the grand forecourt, and not the way he’d moved around the Hermitage last night.This version of Omar Farouq...sauntered. Aaliyah followed at a distance, aware that it was likely no coincidence that she was quickly flanked by a selection of royal guards as she moved, but she didn’t mind that. Maybe she should have, but she was too busy watching Omar Farouq as he put on his show.By the time they made it inside, she understood that he was striking a note somewhere between that grim, gruff man from the Hermitage and the lazy, pleasure-seeking wastrel he’d been when she’d so foolis
Up on his dais, Omar Farouq was surrounded by a great many men and women dressed in fine dresses and many black suits, all of them holding folders or clipboards and frowning self-importantly. She found herself holding her breath as she studied him, as if looking for clues. Maybe she was. Maybe she thought that if she could find that long-ago lover in the King who stood above her now, all of this would make sense. Or even that man from last night, harsh and accusatory, yet somehow more accessible than the King he was now.Because even dressed in robes and a crown, this Omar Farouq was smiling. He seemed almost approachable, when he should have seemed anything but. It was the same thing she’d noticed earlier. As if he was somehow bridging the gap between the versions of him she’d already met.But thinking about that made her feel dizzy again, so she twisted in her seat and looked out once more to where the back wall seemed to dissolve into all that glass, creating a kind of optical illu
OMAR FAROUQ THOUGHT he was keeping himself together masterfully, if he said so himself. And he was King now. What he said was as good as law.Yet he had underestimated how hard it would be to come back to the palace.Where his parents were not and never would be again.And he had been unprepared for how difficult it would be to see his own flesh and blood, his son, and not react. Not even approach him, there in that crowd, because it would draw too much attention to the child and it wasn’t time yet. Not yet.Not until he’d come to a better place with...all of it.He had even underestimated his own reaction to claiming Aaliyah as his future queen, something that sat uneasily on him even now. It had not felt like the chess move he’d thought it would. It had not felt tactical. It had been significantly more tactile, in fact.Omar Farouq had taken her hand, there at the foot of the stairs that led up to the dais, and it was as if the years had melted away. As if he was still that fool who
“You’re not even listening to me, are you?” Aaliyah was demanding then, her hands on her hips and a distracting high color on her cheeks. “How dare you drag my son into this mess? In front of all those people and cameras? In this palace that isn’t fit for children in the first place!”“I was raised in this palace,” he said very mildly. “Though I’m guessing you won’t think that much of a draw.”He turned away from the view, leaning back on the rail so he could look at her instead. And also so he could practice that indolence that had once been such a part of him, because it no longer felt like second nature.That impossible prettiness of Aaliyah’s seemed to infuse everything, even the dusk settling around her shoulders like a shawl.That deep gold thread inside him pulled tight.That longing in him was something more like a roar—“Hear me,” she bit out, and whatever he might have been about to do disappeared, lost somewhere in the way she held her hands on her hips, her censorious gray