by Holly Rayner
Zelda chuckled, shaking her head as she recalled the instructor’s frustration that they kept stepping on each other’s feet. “Maybe this time I can manage not to try and lead,” she countered, taking a wobbly step towards him. She steadied herself once more, and Zayed closed the distance between them, approaching her confidently.
“Ready to give it a try?”
Zelda considered it for a moment; she wasn’t going to become any steadier on her feet merely standing there. She nodded, and Zayed tapped a command on his phone, calling up the song they’d agreed to use: “Come Away with Me” by Norah Jones.
As the slow, jazzy music came up, followed by the lead singer’s honey voice, Zayed deftly placed his hands on her waist, and Zelda reached up—not quite as far as she’d had to before—and draped her arms around his shoulders, crossing her wrists at the back of his neck.
They began moving together, faltering slightly as they tried not only to match the rhythm of the song but also each other’s speed, but then fell into the beat as one.
Zelda forced herself to relax, and found that following Zayed’s movements was easier than it had been before; she didn’t feel like he was quite so much of a stranger anymore. She hummed the melody to herself idly, leaning in a little closer; Zayed tensed and Zelda shot him a quick, amused look.
“We’re not going to look like lovers if we’re leaving room for Jesus,” she quipped.
Zayed briefly stared at her in confusion before recognizing the reference, and Zelda felt his hands shift to the small of her back, drawing her body nearer.
Zelda nearly forgot all about the pain in her feet and the awkwardness of trying to stay upright in the shoes as she and Zayed practiced the dance, but then she realized that neither of them were speaking, and self-consciousness rose up in her. “It’s got to be a little strange for you, marrying someone you barely know,” she said, raising her voice just loud enough for him to hear it above the music.
“Stranger for you, I would think,” Zayed murmured. “I’ve been adjusting to the idea of marrying a stranger for weeks—months, even. You’ve barely had a week to get used to the idea.”
Zelda half-shrugged, letting her cheek rest against Zayed’s shoulder. “It’s a little weird,” she admitted. “When Hadya told me you were away on business for most of the day, I took the liberty of exploring the house a bit.”
She hadn’t realized that there’d been an undercurrent of guilt in her mind at what she’d done; the Sheikh had told her that she had the run of the palatial house, but there was still something about the pictures she’d looked at, the information she’d gleaned—without quite understanding it—that gave her pause.
“This is the first time you’ve seen the whole house?” he asked, and Zelda nodded. “I should have given you a more extensive tour the first night you were here.”
“It was nice, actually, discovering it on my own terms,” Zelda told him. “I did...see some pictures that I’m curious about.”
“Oh?”
The song started up again, and Zayed’s hands tightened on Zelda’s back as she faltered just slightly, trying to find the groove again.
“I think they were your parents,” Zelda said. “They looked like they could be. But they were all shrouded or covered, the pictures of them.”
Zayed nodded. “I probably should have the shrouds and mourning cloths removed,” he admitted. “Normally they’re only there for a year, by tradition.”
“Has it been a long time, since they—” Zelda faltered, not wanting to say the words.
“They passed away a few years ago,” Zayed said, his voice full of melancholy. “They died in an accident, en route from Dubai.”
Zelda felt him shake his head and pulled back slightly to meet his gaze. For the first time since she had met the Sheikh, Zelda saw real, painful emotion on his face.
“I almost decided to sell off the company,” he continued. “I just...couldn’t see a way forward, without my father to guide me and laugh at my mistakes, or my mother to tell me all of his mistakes to make me feel better.” Zayed smiled faintly, and Zelda realized that the other smiles she’d seen were nothing; they were ghosts compared to the real expression.
“In the pictures, you looked like...like you were really happy, really close with them,” Zelda said softly.
“I was,” Zayed agreed. “An only child, a little spoiled, too, maybe, but I never doubted for a moment that my parents loved me and would do anything for me.”
The Sheikh sighed, and Zelda’s thoughts turned almost unwillingly to her mother and father, and the fact that she’d been out of touch since the yacht had left Miami. She’d walked out of their lives in the middle of the fight, and neither of them even knew if she was safe.
I should have contacted them before now, she thought grimly. Zayed would surely have done whatever it took to give her that.
Zelda had barely noticed it, but night had fallen as they practiced their dance. She looked around, realizing that while their feet were bathed by warm light from lamps around the perimeter of the patio, the only overhead light came from the moon, rising up over the trees that lined the garden.
“You look absolutely beautiful tonight,” Zayed murmured, slowing his swaying movements to a near stop.
Zelda started slightly, turning her face to look at him. Her heart beat faster in her chest as he met her gaze, his bright eyes darker in the dim, silvery light of the moon. For an instant, she saw him start to move closer to her, to lean in, his lips parting just slightly.
“Oh wow, my feet are killing me,” Zelda said suddenly, letting her hands fall from his shoulders. “I think an hour of practice is enough, don’t you? I really think we’re nearly there.” She stepped back abruptly, and Zayed let his hands fall from her body.
Zelda carefully stepped out of the perilously high heels and gave the Sheikh an apologetic smile. It was one thing, in her mind, to engage in a sham marriage; it was another thing—and far more dangerous—to let anything like romance, even something as minor as a kiss in the moonlight, complicate the situation—no matter how right it had felt in that moment.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, before the party,” she said quickly, gathering up her shoes in her hand.
She fled from the garden, stepping quickly back into the house, her feelings so jumbled that she wanted nothing more than to attempt to run as fast as she could to get away from them.
Chapter 10
Zelda wondered just how many women in the world could expect to have their wedding dress made by a major designer, within little more than a week from the start of the commission.
The morning after she’d fled the garden to keep herself from kissing Zayed, Zelda found herself once more in the work room of his designer friend, being attended to by no fewer than four employees, all of them wielding pins, fabric pieces, and other implements she couldn’t even identify.
Tahirah Abadi, the designer, presided over them all, directing the process. Zelda felt like an incredibly glamorous doll, or a piece of clay being molded by fabric and thread into something more divine than she was.
“I wish you could come in after having your hair done,” Tahirah said, shaking her head slightly as one of her employees turned Zelda a half-step around to adjust something on the long, flowing gown. “I’d love to see how this will look in the final stages.”
“I haven’t actually figured out how I’m going to have my hair done,” Zelda admitted.
The stylist she was working with had given her mock-ups of herself with three different hairstyles, all of them modeled after traditional wedding updos for Murindhi women. There was makeup to consider as well, which the stylist had described as a fusion of traditional Murindhi and Western-style makeup: heavy eyeliner and a pink lip.
Altogether, Zelda reasoned that the wedding would be just enough in keeping with tradition not to raise too many eyebrows, while not being so foreign that she looked like a joke participating in it. Tahirah’s sketches of the wedding gown sh
owed an ivory-colored cascade of fabric punctuated by purple and red flowers along the hem, extending into a small train. It was going to be utterly beautiful, Zelda knew.
“I’ll get a chance to see it on the day, at least,” Tahirah said with an unconcerned shrug.
Of course, with such a short time between design and debut, the designer and her staff were almost certainly going to be putting the final touches on the gown the day of. Zelda glanced down at her hand; the plan was for Zayed to ceremoniously put the engagement ring on her finger at the party that evening, as part of the festivities, but she had tried it on before coming to Tahirah’s studio. Like everything else in her new life, it seemed, the ring was absolutely breathtaking: rose gold and platinum, wrapped around diamonds and rubies.
“Should I be able to breathe in this?” Zelda glanced at Tahirah as one of her team tightened fabric at her waist.
The designer murmured something and the pressure on Zelda’s ribs slacked slightly. “You’re going to look stunning,” Tahirah said, stepping back to admire her. “Look at yourself.”
Zelda turned slightly and looked in the full-length mirror. Even with her hair simply pulled back into a bun, she looked gorgeous; more beautiful than she had ever looked in her life.
“Your mother must be so proud of you, catching a guy like Zayed,” Tahirah said.
The words hit Zelda like a lead weight. Almost involuntarily, everything her mother had ever told her on the subject of weddings and marriage flooded her mind.
“Just remember: the money you don’t spend on your wedding can go to your honeymoon.”
“All I care about for you is that you are happy with the man you marry—and that he’s not a deadbeat.”
“I’d rather you be the wife of a man working two jobs who loved you deeply than married to a rich man who gives you everything you want except his love.”
Zelda’s stomach churned inside of her as her thoughts turned to the wedding that was only a week away. She knew, like waking up from a dream, that the marriage she’d agreed to forge with Zayed was wrong. It wasn’t what she wanted. Even if it was a sham marriage—maybe especially because it was a sham—she didn’t want to get married without her parents even knowing. She didn’t want to have a sham marriage, even if she had agreed to it, and even if it was in her best interest.
Zelda got through the rest of the fitting on automatic, smiling and replying to comments from Tahirah, accepting tea from the designer’s assistant, and gossiping about the preparations, about her ring, and about the party that evening. Afterwards, she numbly got into the limousine that Zayed had put aside for her use, and all the way back to the palace, she thought about the party to come and the wedding she would have in a week’s time. She thought about the ring that Zayed had had made for her, and the advice her mother had given her, and the priceless dress. The thoughts swirled around in her head, and she had barely realized that she’d arrived at the mansion when the driver coughed.
Zelda climbed out of the limo, making sure to remember the bags from the last-minute purchases she’d made on Zayed’s credit card for accessories to her gown for the engagement party. Murmuring a hasty “thank you” to her driver, she stepped into the house, walking towards her quarters.
She stowed her purchases next to the couture gown and sat down in the bathroom, staring at the floor. In theory, she had just enough time to take a bath and scrub herself head to toe before the stylists arrived to do her hair and makeup for the party.
She licked her lips and tapped her foot idly on the floor. “The real question,” she said to herself, listening to her voice echoing off of the walls, “is whether I can bring myself to go through with this.” The engagement party wasn’t the wedding; she could go to it, and then…
“And then what? It’s not going to get any better if I ditch him after he’s publicly declared us engaged,” Zelda said, thinking out loud. “No. No, it would be better…”
She shook her head again. There wasn’t a good option in front of her. If she ran away now, Zayed would have to explain why the bride-to-be was absent from her own engagement party. If she tried to get away afterwards, he would have to explain why the engagement had fallen apart so quickly. No matter when she left, it would humiliate him. But she knew that she couldn’t stay; her cold feet and the memory of her mother’s warm advice had already overcome her cool, self-serving logic.
Zelda stood and began moving around the room, finding her backpack buried deep in the huge closet and scanning the room for everything she’d had in it when she arrived. She told herself that it was at least slightly less terrible for her to only take what was hers; that there was some kind of moral high ground in not taking anything Zayed had bought her in the time she’d been in his home.
As she gathered up her few meager possession, she heard the muted noises of the preparations going on outside; they would be putting up decorations, setting up the food and beverage tables, finishing everything off right up until the party started. She sighed quietly, thinking of Tarek, Zayed’s overworked personal assistant; the man was determined to move heaven and earth to make his boss’s idea a reality.
She went through her mental checklist of what she should have, and changed out of the outfit she’d worn to visit the designers and jewelers in the city that day. She pulled on one of the outfits she’d had with her when she stowed away, and looked at herself in the mirror. She didn’t look like the future wife of a billionaire sheikh anymore. She looked like Zelda Barnes-Scott, the young woman who’d sneaked onto a yacht on little more than a whim.
Zelda took a deep breath, hefted her backpack onto her shoulders, and made for the door. She pressed her lips together, trying to decide how to go about her escape, and looked around as she followed the corridor, listening for the different activities going on around her.
From the sound of the voices she heard downstairs, Zelda thought that some of the guests had started to arrive. She carefully continued through the palace, avoiding the paths to the garden where the engagement party was supposed to take place. It would have been a lot easier if you’d come to this epiphany a few hours ago. Or yesterday, she chided herself.
Zelda narrowly avoided one of the servants rushing to put something in place out in the east garden and waited a few moments, thinking. If she didn’t get out right now, the stylists would arrive to finish her preparations, and they’d discover her gone.
She found a door leading out to an abandoned area on the property, and slipped through it. She knew she couldn’t leave through the gate, not with the security guards who knew her already standing there, with people coming and going. It would be immediately obvious that she was trying to flee.
Well, I’ve climbed trees before, Zelda thought, looking up into the branches of one of the trees that hugged the wall wrapped around the property. She smiled wryly to herself, briefly remembering summers spent tucked away in old banyan trees, reading books. If she could climb the slippery-barked banyans in her neighborhood and manage to avoid the ants, Zelda reasoned, she could just as well climb the cedar tree in front of her.
Zelda looked around once again to make sure no one had wandered into the part of the property she’d come to; finding no one, she shifted the backpack on her shoulders and surveyed the tree. She picked out likely hand-holds and took a quick breath before reaching for her first branch.
The spicy-smelling bark crackled under her hands, but Zelda had climbed slippier trees in her childhood; she got a good grip and hauled herself up, trying not to groan as she swung her feet around to get fully into the branch. She climbed and climbed, looking around and pausing if she thought she heard someone, finally reaching the point where the tree became taller than the wall it stood against.
Carefully, Zelda shimmied around to the other side of the trunk. Sweat had already begun to accumulate on her brow, on the small of her back, under her breasts; but the day was beginning to cool off, and Zelda told herself that it would be easy once she got to the other side of
the wall. She told herself that it couldn’t be that difficult to get back into the city—even if she’d never taken the trip by foot, there had to be a way to get there.
She stepped along gingerly, holding herself balanced with her hands on the branch directly above her. It was a long drop, but she had no other way down.
Taking a deep breath, Zelda let her hands fall, and then carefully crouched down, her heart in her throat. She grabbed and carefully dropped her legs over the branch until she hung from the shaking, groaning wood.
“One, two, three!” Zelda murmured, her voice just above a whisper.
And then she let go.
Chapter 11
Zelda hit the ground unsteadily, and for a moment she was certain that she had sprained her ankle—far from an auspicious start to her getaway—but as she put a little weight on it, the joint held.
She stood slowly, taking stock of herself: she thought she might have a bruise or two, and her hands were sticky from cedar resin, but she would live. She settled her backpack on her shoulders and began walking, trying to remember which way the car had come from when it brought her back to the house from the city.
Zelda walked the perimeter of the compound before heading in what she thought was the direction of the city. Outside of the sprawling property, the landscape was much drier. Her feet crunched and whispered through the sand, and the wind picked up, rifling at her hair and clothes.
She could feel grit in the air as it hit her face, and suddenly realized that she hadn’t thought of one very important thing that she would need in making her journey through the semi-desert territory between Zayed’s home and the city: water.
“It’ll be okay,” she told herself. “I’ll be a little dusty and parched when I get to the city, but I have some cash. I can get something to drink once I get there.”
She was grateful that Zayed had allowed her to cash her paycheck in the local currency; he’d been amused at her interest in it, pointing out that she could have however much money she wanted at any given time as his wife.