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Chapter 68 Am I A Prisoner
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DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 69 She Would Never Forget
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
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 70 Omar Farouq Plans
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
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 71 Mother Of An Heir
“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
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 72 I Don't Care If You're A King
She sniffed, still glaring and, sadly, much less pink. “The very idea of ruling anything once had you collapsing in laughter on the floor. Yet here we are. Do you really want me to believe that the most reckless, careless man I’ve ever met is suddenly deeply concerned with the legitimacy of a child? Because I don’t believe it. I don’t believe you care. And I know you don’t care about me.” She lifted her gaze then and when it settled on him, it made him feel something he couldn’t understand at all. Small. When he had done nothing to earn that, save love her far too much and to his shame. “You never did. Why on earth would I shackle myself legally to that kind of misery?”She still would not put food on her plate, so he did it for her. And if busying himself with the serving was a way to avoid addressing what she’d just said to him, well.He was only a man, after all. As human as the rest.Even though she looked at him as if his serving her the island’s traditional food was a trick.“On
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 73 This Is Real Life
“This is real life.” And though her voice was quiet, he could hear the undercurrent in it that told him how deeply her feelings ran. But then, so did his. “It is Troy’s real life, Omar Farouq. This isn’t whatever game you think you’re playing with us. His life matters more than whatever dies are cast or whatever court intrigue is happening here. He has nothing to do with any of it.”“That is where you are wrong,” Omar Farouq replied, and he sounded almost regretful, there in the gathering night. Though he was not. There was nothing here to regret. Not when there was vengeance waiting in the coming night and, here between them, this same, simmering desire that had been there from the start. “You have had five years to enjoy being the sun and the moon and the whole of the stars for that little boy. That was not real life, Aaliyah. That was only ever a fantasy, and had I known sooner, it would not have lasted as long as it did. Because for all your talk of fairy tales and the things that
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 74 She Was On Fire
And later, after she’d whirled around and rushed off, he stared out at his city arrayed below him. The way he’d dreamed of doing these last two years. The dark came in at last, inky and thick, and he welcomed it.He exulted in it.For it was time to put the skills he’d taught himself at the Hermitage to good use at last. It was time to enact his vengeance.But he found he stayed there on that terrace—thinking of her mouth beneath his and the memories he wished he really had blocked from his own head—for much longer than he should have. When there was the whole of the island to reacquaint himself with under cover of night.No one would expect the King to tread in the places Omar Farouq intended to go in search of justice for his parents.And that was precisely what he was counting on.Ghosts or no ghosts.AALIYAH STAGGERED OUT into the hallway and then tried to walk along it as if everything was fine. As if she was fine when she very much doubted that she would ever be anything like fi
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 75 You're The King
The palace wedding machine lurched into gear, starting early the next morning. Squadrons of smartly dressed and impeccably cheerful staff members descended upon her in shifts, all of them insisting that everyone—by which, they meant Aaliyah needed to pitch in to get her ready for the role they’d decided she must take.But Aaliyah refused to play along.No matter how brightly her attendants told her that she needed to turn up at this time or in this place, she didn’t. Instead, she and her aunt took Troy for long walks when it was sunny, out on the rambling palace grounds, which she was sure had to be bigger than her favorite park in San Francisco. When the weather was less cooperative, they raced up and down the grand marble halls, as if the palace was no more than a playground.And in many ways, it was better than any playground they had ever been to before. The palace not only had hallways stuffed full of antiquities, but many of them also featured suits of armor and sharp weapons th
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 76 That Beast Inside Of Him
“I am,” Omar Farouq replied. And he wasn’t dressed in suspicious black today. He wore black, yes, but not the sort of black that anyone would use to scale a wall. Today, it was a dark suit with quiet touches that lent him that air of offhanded elegance. He looked darkly blond and beautiful, the way an archangel might, and Aaliyah had to restrain herself from slapping her own face at that idiocy. “I hear your name is Troy.”“I am Troy,” Troy replied, in that overtly serious way he sometimes had. He blinked. “What’s it like to be a king? Did that crown hurt your head? Do you get to play with it whenever you want?”He continued to ask questions, one blending into the next. And Aaliyah braced herself for Omar Farouq, who she couldn’t imagine in the company of the child, turning away. Looking at his own child with disdain—and she was ready for that. She would fly at him, she told herself. She would snatch Troy up, and run, and scale the wall herself. She would never let him treat her son b
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