by Dani Collins
“Well done, Hannah. Well done.”
CHAPTER FIVE
HANNAH HAD DELIVERED early and even though it had been the most intense experience of her life, she and her baby were pronounced well two days later and sent back to her wing.
She then had a brief appearance where she presented the baby to the King so her son could be officially recognized. She’d been photographed looking wan and squishy, but she was too caught up in being a new mother to care what people were saying about her.
Officially her son was named for his father with a string of references to his family, the King, and the fact he was considered a miracle. Privately, Hannah called him Qaswar, which meant “lion,” because he roared so loudly when he was hungry.
He always settled the minute she took him, which made her feel like the most powerful person in the world, but he slept as hard as he cried, and with his army of devoted nannies to change and bathe him, Hannah was able to get her rest. He also had a standing appointment to visit the Queen for thirty minutes every day, which Hannah began filling with gentle yoga.
She hadn’t realized what a wet rag she’d become in those final weeks of pregnancy until, two weeks postpartum, she began to feel like her old self. Her energy returned along with her determination to steer her own destiny.
Everything had gone off-script with the discovery of her baby’s father. This wasn’t Syracuse. Her son was a future king and she was married. Although, who could tell? She hadn’t seen her husband since the day she’d presented her baby to his parents. That stung, but she refused to let it get her down. This was her life now.
This was her only life. Two years ago, she had decided not to wait around for a man to “make” her happy. Akin might have barged into her delivery room like some kind of frantic new father ready to lay down his life for hers, but that had been out of concern for his nephew. She refused to read into it.
In fact, this scorned yearning that kept dancing in her periphery was exactly why she had chosen to have a baby by herself! She didn’t want to spend her life looking at herself through a man’s eyes, thinking, If only I could lose ten pounds... Well, it was forty now, if she wanted to be catwalk class. She already knew the futility of molding herself to a man’s tastes. She would wind up shoring up his ego at the expense of her own sense of self-worth. She had done that her graduate year, when she had learned not to mention her grades because they outshone those of the man she was dating.
Her job was to love her son and herself. This might not be the life she had imagined, but she would not only own it, she would rock it.
To that end, she went through the things that had arrived from her apartment. She kept a few special items that added a personal touch to her living quarters and gave the rest to Nura to use herself or disperse among the rest of the staff. Nura acted as though it was Christmas, but that was still a few days away.
In fact, when Hannah unearthed the tiny tree she’d used in her apartment, she set it on her coffee table. It was only a foot tall, but it was sparkly and delighted her.
For the first time in years, she had a loved one to shower with gifts. Not that Qaswar needed a single thing—including Christmas. Baaqi was a Muslim country and her son would be raised with that faith, but thanks to his father’s modern attitudes, Baaqi was broadminded toward other religions. Hannah only observed Christmas as a tradition anyway, not for holy reasons, but this was her baby’s first one. She wanted to celebrate it.
One detailed list to her assistant later, everything she needed arrived forthwith, but wrapping it all had to wait. She had an appointment.
Hannah was finally out of maternity clothes and tied on a pale blue wrap dress with a nursing bra beneath. Wow, she noted as she stood in front of the mirror. Between the padding in the bra and the swell of milk, she had a chest that could get her hired in a booty bar.
Meanwhile, not only had she delivered a small monster of nine pounds, her body had stopped retaining the Persian Gulf. Her breasts were the part of her that stuck out most, not her waistline. She had a waistline.
Welcome back, she greeted it with a twirl, tempted to put on a pair of heels and see what that did for her figure, but who wanted to walk in those torture devices?
She did indulge herself by opening her private safe and having a rummage through it.
To mark Qaswar’s birth, the Queen had presented Hannah with an opulent necklace. Its platinum setting was lined with round and baguette diamonds. The front was a remarkable fall of three strings with nearly two dozen massive sparklers interspersed with smaller diamonds. It was meant to be passed along to Qaswar’s wife on the birth of his first child, she understood that, but she was still in awe that she possessed such a thing.
She didn’t know when she would wear something that ostentatious, but she tried on her wedding ring. It fit! Pleased, she took out the other necklace she’d received to mark her son’s birth. It had arrived with less fanfare and, compared to the behemoth from the Queen, this pear-shaped aquamarine pendant surrounded in diamonds was positively modest, but she had fallen in love with it the moment she saw it. Maybe it was the note that had endeared it to her.
With my deepest respect, Akin.
Respect, not regard, she had noted.
Oh, hush, she chastised herself as she asked Nura to fasten the necklace.
She returned to the lounge, where Qaswar was in the buggy that the nannies used to bring him from the nursery. Two hovered nervously, one armed with a diaper bag. Nura was giving Hannah an “Are you sure?” look as she helped her into an abaya and arranged a scarf to lightly cover her head. Nura would stay behind, but Hannah’s assistant was pressing a brave smile across her face as she shrugged into her own abaya.
Hannah ignored their misgivings and said, “Hold the door, please.” She thrust her chin into the air and sailed through it. Four men waited beyond the foyer doors of her apartment. Two accompanied her son to his grandmother’s each day; two were her own bodyguards.
Everyone fell into step behind her.
Hannah was reasonably sure she knew where she was going. She’d come back this way in a wheelchair after her stint in the private room where she’d delivered. The halls had been lined with smiling staff the whole way, all of them quietly and tearfully waving as they caught a glimpse of their future ruler.
Today, Hannah earned startled looks as she strolled along, taking a moment here or there to study a sculpture or painting. This place was a museum, loaded with stunning pieces. The floor tiles were art in themselves.
Each time she paused, her gaggle of ducklings would shuffle to a stop and wait patiently, then fall into step behind her for another few feet until she stopped again.
When she reached the main gallery, she couldn’t help standing amid the rays of sunlight shot with rainbows as it poured through the colored dome.
“Isn’t this beautiful?” she said with delight.
An elevator pinged nearby and she glanced over to see Akin stride out with his own entourage. Despite her stern pep talks, her heart leaped at the sight of him.
It was deeply unfair that he was so effortlessly gorgeous. His beard was scrupulously trimmed, his white kaffiyeh falling casually to flutter against his broad shoulders and frame his sculpted face. He wore a black robe with gold trim and an air of impatience as the sight of her stopped him in his tracks.
Those eyes! Nearly everyone she met here had dark brown eyes, but Akin’s were like polished ebony framed in long, thick lashes. On anyone else, they would be pretty, but he wielded his gaze like a weapon, cutting his glance down to her toes and back up, sweeping across the people around her, then clashing back into her blinking stare.
“What are you doing here?”
“Good morning.” She refused to let her good mood falter in the face of what she sensed was intense disapproval. “I’m going to the dentist.”
“The dentist will
come to you.” His stern gaze flicked to her assistant, who cleared her throat, then to her guards. She heard what he was asking. Had no one thought to tell her that? “And the baby has no teeth.”
“Yes, I know that,” she said breezily. “But we felt like a walk.”
“Did we.” Akin’s gaze stubbornly pulled hers, seeming to steal her breath as he did.
“Yes.” She refused to ask him if that was okay. Stop apologizing for existing was definitely part of her happy-life plan, but it took all her mettle to stand there and clench her molars against the old habit. “Would you like to see him? I’m sure you’ll notice he’s grown since you last saw him.” Akin had said he didn’t covet the crown, but his lack of interest in her and Qaswar suggested otherwise.
“Since yesterday?” he asked dryly. He moved to peer down at the boy.
“You saw him yesterday? When?” she demanded.
“When he was with my mother. I see him every day when he’s with her.”
“I didn’t know that.” She could hear the accusation in her tone and his brows lifted in a subtle warning.
“Did you need to?”
“Are you hiding it?”
“No.”
“Do you hold him?”
“Why?”
“Why should you hold him?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Because she wanted to see that, didn’t she?
His cheek ticked. “I’m needed elsewhere. We’ll talk about this another time.”
The word “this” was barely inflected, but it left a deeply ominous dread inside her.
He turned away and she told herself, Don’t say it, but it came out anyway.
“Have a nice day at work, dear!”
His shoulder blades flexed as though her words had struck like a stone between them. He walked away.
Akin had spent too many years cleaning up after his brother’s impulses to be charmed by capriciousness on anyone’s part.
After the day of Qaswar’s birth, when he’d suffered a roller coaster of uncertainty as he awaited the birth, and then had his heart briefly ripped from his chest when he feared the unthinkable had happened, he had been forcing his world back onto an even keel.
It had only taken the act of stepping out of an elevator and finding Hannah strolling the palace like it was Central Park to feel as though the rug had been pulled out from under him again. He couldn’t countenance it.
He wouldn’t dress her down in public, but he intended to impress on her that he expected her to make his job of raising a competent king easier, not harder. He couldn’t concentrate on human rights legislation when half his mind was taken up by wondering where she would take the baby next.
He stalked the shortest distance between their living quarters, the passageway between their bedrooms. Something about using it made it a clandestine act. He didn’t know why. Her rooms had been set aside for his wife when he had arrived at adulthood and was given this wing. Hannah was his wife. There was nothing sexual about walking over to speak to her.
Except, despite his best efforts, he continued to have sexual thoughts about her. He blamed her doctor. In those moments after he had seen his nephew for the first time, Akin’s mind had been stacked with thoughts of what needed to be done, like informing his parents and ordering public announcements. He’d still been reeling from the heart-punch of seeing Hannah holding that tiny baby. He’d been vaguely annoyed with himself that he hadn’t been with her the whole time.
The doctor had drawn him aside and said something about realizing Akin was newly married and under many pressures, but Hannah couldn’t meet the expectations of her new role until she had recovered.
It had taken a moment for the doctor’s meaning to penetrate. When it hit, Akin had brushed the whole thing aside. He had told Hannah their marriage would be platonic, and he had meant it.
At the time.
Then she had watched him on the night of their marriage, and he’d been fighting to concentrate ever since. He regularly imagined coming outside to find her naked in the pool. The fantasy always ended with him seducing her among the ferns and orchids.
It was annoying to be so distracted, and then, bam! There she was, right in front of him, dressed modestly like one of his countrywomen, but where the hell had her breasts come from? Mail order? They were spectacular. It had taken everything in him not to stare like an adolescent encountering his first underwear ad.
His loins twitched in remembrance. He should have showered before he came here, but no sense turning away now. He was at her door.
There was no bell. This passage was for their use only. The doors on either end were only decorative privacy screens of vented slats that allowed airflow and light into the windowless space.
He started to rap his knuckle, but that felt foolish. She was his wife. He might be second in line for the throne, but he was the height of authority in this wing.
He walked in and startled the maid who was plumping a pillow on the bed.
She squeaked with surprise and bobbed a quick bow, nervously directing him to the dining room, where he could hear Elvis Presley crooning about a blue Christmas.
When he arrived, he found Hannah swaying her hips, the scarf and dark abaya gone. Her short hair was smoothed to the side and clipped with pins decorated with ceramic roses. She wore a blue dress that turned her skin the color of cream. It was long-sleeved and belted closed, leaving a generous view of her chest above the crossed-over edges that formed the neckline. The fabric was a light knit that hugged her voluptuous figure adoringly.
Lust punched him in the groin. His wife was actually very, tremendously, hot.
She dropped her voice to croon a low “But I’ll—Oh, hello.” She jolted with surprise, then blushed and laughed at herself. “You caught me playing Santa.”
There were a dozen gift boxes on the table. She was using ribbons to secure the lids and attaching name tags. Off to the side were cartons of unwrapped boxes of chocolates, books and colorful scarves.
“Are you sending things back to New York?”
“They’re for my staff. And Qaswar’s. He has thirty people dedicated to his care! I make thirty-one.” She chuckled. “I’m counting the team who delivered him, of course. And I added my dentist to our list today. He said I could have my braces off early if I promise to be diligent with my retainer.”
“We don’t celebrate Christmas.”
“I know. These are just tokens of appreciation that I’m choosing to distribute on the twenty-fifth of December. I’ve invited people to stop by for coffee and cookies if their time allows. Would you like to spend the day with us?”
“Us?”
“Qaswar and me.” She leaned over the table, gathering bits of ribbon and scraps of paper.
The pendant he’d given her fell forward, drawing his gaze to those magnificent breasts. He indulged himself with an unadulterated eyeful, mouth going dry.
She glanced up and he realized she was waiting for an answer to a question he had forgotten.
She self-consciously straightened and adjusted the pendant. “I don’t think I’ve thanked you in person for this. It’s lovely and completely unnecessary, but thank you.”
The color of the stone had reminded him of the oasis, the one place he was able to completely relax. He hadn’t visited in nearly two years and usually went alone. For some reason, he had imagined sharing it with Hannah when he’d picked that out.
He didn’t tell her that, only dismissing her words with “It was nothing.”
The sweet light in her eyes dimmed and she dropped her touch from the pendant.
“Well, it’s nice to be thought of,” she murmured and gathered a stack of gifts with determination. She brought them to him. “Will you carry these for me, please?”
She picked up another stack and led him into the lounge.
She set her lot on the coffee table and began fussing with them.
He left the ones he’d brought where she could reach them and moved to take in the framed black-and-white photos of New York that hung on the walls. There were a couple of photos of her as a child with an older woman—her grandmother, he presumed—and a terrible painting of a tropical waterfall. It had an HM signature, so he imagined it was something she’d painted herself. There was a colorful throw over the back of the sofa and an antique lamp with an elephant base and bronze fringe on the shade that was an absolute eyesore.
“This wasn’t here when you moved in.” It couldn’t have been.
“It was Grammy’s. When I look at it, I see her reading next to it.”
A book with a bare-chested man sat beneath the lamp, a tasseled bookmark sticking out of it.
“Is this her book? I would have thought a librarian would read something more literary or academic.”
“Everyone thinks that. I thought it. For years, I made myself read the most depressing tomes out of peer pressure. It was like eating overcooked brussels sprouts because I’d been told they would put hair on my chest.”
“Do you want hair on your chest?”
“No. Which is exactly what I’m saying. It was a dumb thing to do, so I put ‘Read what I want to read’ on my happiness list and you know what? I’m happier. Go figure.”
“You have a happiness list?” She was piling up bemusement in him the way she was stacking wrapped gifts on the table.
“It’s a work in progress. ‘Try a new hairstyle’ didn’t land where I’d hoped.” She pointed at the little pins crisscrossed to keep wisps off her face. “But I’m happy I tried. In that way it’s a win. I also decided to only wear clothes that are comfortable, then I got pregnant and nothing felt comfortable, but I’m coming back to making that happen. I wanted a baby and got one. That has also deviated from plan.” She sent him a look over her glasses that could only be called a “librarian scold,” but it was such a good-natured one he rather liked it on her.