It revealed his cares, his pain, the marks, the age, the world had left on him.
“Attar needs hope. A future filled with endless possibilities. With me, they will not get that. Death follows me, Chloe James. I will not bring that on my people, but on their enemies.”
He turned and walked back out of the room, and Chloe just watched, tension releasing from her slowly with each step he took away from her, until she was left feeling like wrung-out jelly. She hadn’t been conscious of just how tense she’d been until it had started to ease.
She let out a breath and clenched her hands into fists, trying to stop her fingers from shaking. His words echoed in her head, so dark, so certain.
She shook her head, focusing her mind back on Aden. There was too much going on for her to adopt Sayid’s issues, as well. And anyway, she imagined he would say he didn’t have any. She wandered back into her room, sitting down at the laptop that had already been set up at a corner desk for her. She could at least do some course work, study for her tests. She pushed the on button and waited for it to boot up, scanning the room, the view of the gardens from the double doors.
Today, everything had changed. Again.
“Sheikh Sayid,” Sayid’s advisor, Malik, walked into the dining room, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him. It was not the person he’d been expecting. He’d been expecting Chloe, spitting hellfire and brimstone about him taking over her schedule and demanding she have dinner with him. He was not so lucky. “We need to discuss the matter of the press conference that is planned for tomorrow.”
“What is there to discuss?” Sayid asked, annoyance coursing through him. He didn’t want to talk about the press conference. Didn’t want to do anything but eat dinner and treat himself to a punishing workout. Something that would numb him and leave him utterly exhausted. After a day locked inside of an office, trapped behind a desk, he felt it was deserved. Necessary.
It was like prison. Even if it was a more comfortable cell. It was also too opulent, too busy. He longed for the simplicity of a desert tent, or at the very least, the whitewashed walls of the seaside palace he had spent time in as a child.
His aide kept on avoiding his eyes. “You know that the people are… they are restless.”
“They do not like me,” Sayid said. “That is the crux of the issue.”
“You are not… personable.”
Sayid laughed, the sound void of humor, his body void of humor. “Am I not?”
“It has been said, Sheikh.”
“Not by you, certainly,” he said, eyeing the man who had served Rashid so faithfully.
He did meet his eyes this time. “Certainly not.”
“It is of no consequence. I am not the permanent ruler of this country. Soon enough, my nephew shall take over and I will go back to my more palatable position outside of the public eye.”
“In sixteen years. That is a reality you cannot ignore.”
It was the truth. It wasn’t like submitting to physical torture. As a ruler he had to lay open pieces of himself, show personality. Be nice. At least when his hands were bound, when he was being whipped, burned, he could shut down the pain, allow it to rest on his skin like armor, recede inside of himself and simply endure. Survive.
But that was not what was required of a ruler. And he knew nothing else.
“Are you questioning my competence?” he asked.
“Not in the least, Sheikh.”
“Be sure you do not. You are dismissed.”
Malik nodded and turned away from him, walking out the door. Panic, momentary but intense, shivered over Sayid’s skin. He would have to face a people who distrusted him tomorrow, would have to find words to speak to them. Words of comfort. Diplomacy.
It simply wasn’t what Sayid had been trained for. And trained was precisely the word that should be used. From the time he’d gone into Kalid’s care, he’d been conditioned to see life in a certain way.
And at sixteen, it had been cemented. He had been broken, remade. A man who could, physically, endure all.
But he was no diplomat, no compassionate ruler.
All of the civility, the grace and manners, had been bred into Rashid. Sayid had gotten none of it. Sayid was a weapon, a living, breathing weapon. It was all he knew. It was all he’d ever done.
Control was necessary. A drop in control could lead to unspeakable horror. A girl forced into marriage, her child torn from her body against her will. Soldiers captured and killed. Tortured.
His weakness had caused those unspeakable horrors. Cracks in his armor leading others to ruin.
Leading, ruling, would require him to deal with people. Not simply enemies and soldiers. It would require the kind of openness, caring that would create a breach he couldn’t afford. One he could already feel deep within his soul. A soul he had not been aware of until recently.
“I don’t appreciate you… scheduling my evening without talking to me.”
Later than expected, Chloe walked in, her curves encased in a simple black dress. There was nothing particularly sexy about the dress. Nothing modern or interesting in the cut. But the way it flowed over her curves, molded to her breasts, made it spectacular.
She looked very much like a woman who had only just given birth, her figure plumped, exaggerated, and yet he found he liked the look.
“I would apologize, but I’m not at all sorry. Have a seat.” Breathing felt easier than it had a moment ago. He could only attribute it to Malik’s exit.
She walked in slowly, blue eyes narrowed, glittering. “If you wanted to have dinner with me, all you had to do was tell me earlier.”
“I don’t want to have dinner with you, I need to discuss something with you,” he said. “I thought it might be convenient to do it over dinner.”
She blinked. “Oh. Well.” She sat in a chair farther down the table and across from his.
“Come closer.”
She scooted one chair over.
“Across from me,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and stood, making her way down the table and taking the seat opposite him. “What exactly do we need to discuss?”
“We need to make sure there is paperwork that backs up our story. I would like to put you on payroll.”
“I don’t want money from you.”
“Because you already got money?” He didn’t bother to soften the words.
“I… that’s…”
“Don’t pretend you don’t need it, you do. You admitted it was part of the reason you agreed to carry Aden in the first place.”
“Yes.
