her to the role of Mennah’s mother when he had no more use for her.
He might even divorce her if he wished. He didn’t need her consent for that. He’d decide it, and it would be done.
But if his memories of what they’d had were anywhere near accurate, if the agony he was in at the moment was any indication, that wouldn’t happen for a long time yet.
A very long time.
Five
“Will you need anything else, ya Somow’el Ameerah?”
Carmen squinted up at the thin, dark, bird-of-prey-like man who stood above her, body language loud with deference.
He’d called her Somow’el Ameerah. Again. She couldn’t get her head around it. Wondered if she ever would.
It had been Somow’el Ameer Farooq this and Somow’el Ameer Farooq that since they’d set foot outside her building. All the way out of the country. It had taken his word—well, under a dozen words—to get her out of there. It had taken even less to make her Somow’el Ameerah. Highness of the princess. Her royal highness in Arabic. He’d waved his magic wand and made her a princess….
It had really happened. He’d stormed into her life, had uprooted her existence all over again.
He’d literally uprooted it this time. He’d snatched her from her home, from her country, from everything she knew, had soared with her to the unknown. And she had a feeling she’d never be back. Not for more than visits anyway. And since she had no one to visit anymore, she doubted she’d even be back at all …
Her lungs emptied as another breaker of anxiety slammed into her, pushing her under, the foreboding of stepping into the quicksand of Farooq’s existence pulling at her, the forces synergizing, paralyzing her under their onslaught.
Oh God, what had she let herself in for?
She was on board his jet, on her way to Judar. There was no going back, no way out, now or ever …
“Ameerati?”
The concern in that word slowed down the spiral of agitation. The man with the hawk’s face and eyes was doing it again. Probing her with solicitude, scanning her with an insight she’d bet could read her thoughts. She’d also bet he’d seen through Farooq’s declaration that he’d reclaimed his wife and child, ending the misunderstanding that had led to their separation.
She remembered him well. He’d been there from the first time she’d seen Farooq, his shadow. Hashem. Farooq had told her to ask Hashem for anything in his absence. He was the only one Farooq trusted implicitly, in allegiance and ability, discretion and judgment.
Had he trusted him with the truth? Or had the shrewd man worked it out for himself? Or was everything obvious to everyone?
What did any of that matter? Hashem would take what he thought to his grave, would reinforce his prince’s version of the truth with his last breath. No one else would dare even think but what Farooq had declared to be the truth.
“Ameerati—are you maybe suffering from air-sickness?”
Carmen winced at his gentleness. It made her realize how raw she was, how vulnerable she must seem to him. She shook her head.
His gaze was eloquent with his belief that she needed many things but couldn’t bring herself to ask for any.
“Please, don’t hesitate to ask me anything at all. Maolai Walai’el Ahd wants you to have all you need till he rejoins you.”
Smart man. Being the über P.A. that he was, he knew the best way to make her succumb to his coddling was invoking his master’s wishes, the master he’d called …
Maolai Walai’el Ahd.
Carmen started, the three words that had flowed on his tongue with such reverence erasing all she’d heard before and after them, blasting away what remained of her fugue, blaring in her mind.
Had she misheard? Was her Arabic translation center offline …?
She’d heard just fine. All her senses had been functioning to capacity since she’d set eyes on Farooq. In fact, she felt she was developing hypersensory powers. Everything was amplified, sharpened, heightening the impact of every stimulus, yanking responses from her that ranged from agitation to anguish.
Her translation center was fine, too. That was the sturdiest part in her brain. She understood what Maolai Walai’el Ahd meant all right. It was literally my lord successor of the Era. Aka, crown prince.
Farooq was the crown prince now?
But how? A year and a half ago, he’d been only second-in-line to the throne of Judar. What had happened to the first-in-line?
This information jogged another in her mind, igniting it with new relevance. The king of Judar was ill. From all reports there wasn’t much optimism regarding his return to health. And if he died …
Farooq would soon become king of Judar.
And she’d graduate from plain Ms. Carmen McArthur to somow’el Ameerah to Maolati’l Malekah in no time flat.
Malekah. Queen. Yeah, sure.
The preposterousness of the whole thing burst out of her.
Hashem’s dark eyes rounded at her outburst. Self-possessed as he was, she’d managed to shock him.
Yeah, him and her both. In fact, the cackles tearing out of her shocked her more than they could him.
“Ameerati?”
His bewilderment, the way he kept calling her “my princess,” spiked the absurdity of it all. She spluttered under an attack of hysteria, felt her sides about to burst with its merciless pressure. “I’m s-sorry, Hashem, I’m j-just—just …”
It was no use. She was unable to stem the racking laughter, to muster breath enough to form a coherent sentence.
The man stood before her, watching her with heavy eyes that seemed to fathom her to her psyche’s last spark, until she lay back in her seat, trembling with the passing of the fit as if in the aftermath of a seizure.
“God, you must think me a total flake,” she wheezed.
“I think no such thing,” he countered at once, his voice a soothing flow of empathy that jarred her.
God, she would have preferred anything to bristle at, to brace against. His kindness only knocked her support from beneath her, left her sinking. She hated it. She’d survived by counting on no one’s goodwill, by doing without support of any kind. She had to keep it that way, now more than ever. Or she’d be destroyed.
“I apologize if my surprise gave you the impression that such an unfavorable opinion crossed my mind for a second, when the exact opposite is true. I fully realize how overwhelmed you must be. Everything has happened so fast, and Maolai Walai’el Ahd is formidable—and,
