sister and pretended he was taking in the extravagance of the gown when he was far more focused on the flash of movement behind the flare of her skirt.
The veil rippled slightly and Angelique rose, her attention remaining stubbornly fixed on her creation.
His heart skyrocketed as he took in the graceful drape of her pink dress and the way she’d covered her head in an ivory scarf so she looked like she was a part of his world—
She turned her head to meet his gaze.
The mercury shooting to the top of his head stalled and plummeted.
Trella.
He didn’t know how he knew. The resemblance was remarkable and he couldn’t say that her eyes were set closer or farther apart, or that her face seemed wider or thinner. He just knew this wasn’t Angelique, even though her greenish-hazel eyes stared at him.
Given the antagonism he sensed coming off her in waves, the straight pins poking out of her mouth were unabashedly symbolic.
He knew how she felt. He was ready to spit nails himself. Where the hell was her sister?
“Angelique has done an amazing job, hasn’t she?” Hasna said. He could hear the lilt of trickery in her voice, hoping to fool him.
“I understood this to be a collaboration between the twins. Hello, Trella. It’s nice to meet you. Is your sister here?” He looked around the lounge, returning to a state of tense anticipation.
“Oh! You can’t tell this is Trella!” Hasna accused. “I can’t. I still think this is Angelique and she’s tricking me.”
Trella pinned a place on the veil that she had marked with her fingers, then removed the rest of the pins from her mouth to say lightly, “I showed you my passport.”
Hasna chuckled and Trella glanced at Kasim, smile evaporating.
“She went back to our suite.”
He couldn’t stop staring, feeling as though he was looking at a film of Angelique. She was a faithful image of her sister, but there was a sense of being removed by time or space. She made him long to be in the presence of the real thing.
“Still recovering from her flu?” he said with false lightness. “Perhaps she should have stayed home after all.”
“It was minor. She’s over it.” Trella’s glance hit Kasim with pointed disparagement.
Did she recall that he had done her a favor, hiding her night with the Prince of Elazar? An attitude of deference wouldn’t be amiss here, he told her with a hard look, but he didn’t have time to teach her some manners.
He had to get her sister on the next plane back to Paris.
* * *
Angelique was normally at her most relaxed around her family, but not today. She was wound up about being here, feeling like she was smuggling drugs, that pouch of Jamal’s was so heavy on her conscience.
Ramon was not helping. He was growing restless away from work and began badgering her to play tennis.
“I thought Henri said he would?” She was actually dying to see more of the palace. As they had come in by helicopter with Sadiq’s family, Angelique had been awestruck. And taken down a peg. What had made her think she had any place in Kasim’s life when his home sprawled in opulent glory over more area than a dozen football fields against the stunning backdrop of the Persian Gulf?
She told herself that it was the heat of the desert sun that caused her to sweat as they were taken by golf cart along a palm-lined path overlooking a water feature. It was actually anxiety. Kasim was here. Somewhere behind those columns and tall windows, beneath the domes and flags, he was carrying on with his life, perhaps already having moved on to another lover, completely unaware she had defied him and come to Zhamair after all.
She searched across the gardens, noting small gatherings in gazebos and colorful tents, trying to see if he was among any of the groups. Guilty and eager at once for a glimpse of him.
Maybe she wouldn’t see him until the wedding. She’d been trying to decide whether to contact him outright and request a meeting prior to the wedding—and probably be asked to leave—or just hope she came across him and was able to say her piece before he deported her.
Being special guests of the groom and traveling with the groom’s parents, her family was given a luxurious suite of four rooms with a stunning stained glass window set high on the exterior wall of the lounge. It poured colored light onto the white tablecloth of the dining table, where fruit, cordial, sweets and flowers had been waiting on their arrival.
“Gili!” Ramon said. “Are you listening?”
“Are you? I said you and Henri should play. I have to hem these for Hasna’s sisters.” She lifted the silk dresses she’d brought back from Hasna’s suite.
Fatina had cried when Hasna revealed that her daughters hadn’t been overlooked in the wedding preparations.
Now that Angelique had met Jamal and had an even broader understanding of the family’s painful dynamic, she was thrilled to be part of including Fatina’s children in the wedding. And, as much as it pained her, she had accepted payment from Fatina for them. Fatina had insisted, worried what the queen would say if she didn’t. Angelique had kept it very nominal, doing what she could to keep the peace.
Ramon sighed.
“You have to come with us so we can talk to any women we meet.” He spoke like he was explaining it to a child. “I don’t know how Sadiq survived these restrictions,” he muttered, resuming his pacing.
Ah. It wasn’t work he was missing so much as his extracurricular activities.
“Ask Mama to go with you,” she suggested drily.
“Siesta or I would,” he shot back. “Desperate times.”
She shook her head at him.
Henri emerged from his room. He had changed into light gray sweatpants and a white long-sleeved tunic. He made a small noise of disgust as he saw that was exactly what Ramon already wore. They didn’t try to dress alike, but it happened constantly. Even their panama hats had been purchased on two different continents, but their tastes were so in sync, they had each brought one to Zhamair.
When they set them on their heads, they did so facing each other, moving like mirror images—because that’s what they were. She and Trella were stamps, both right-handed, both wearing their hair parted on the left because that’s where their crowns were.
The boys were left and right, but were still difficult to tell apart for most people. They wore their hair in the same short, spiked cut, favored the same clothes and had such even features they easily passed for the other, not that they played that game.
Well, Ramon had tried with Cinnia a couple of times, because he was a tease, but she had always caught him. Her ability to tell both sets of twins apart from the get-go was one of the reasons Angelique had been so sure Cinnia was right for Henri.
Her brothers left and she sat down to work.
A
