by Marian Tee
“And God forbid that happens, right?” Harper asked sarcastically.
“Rayyan would have considered it a personal failure if his parents were made to appear neglectful.”
“Which they actually were,” Harper grumbled. “Right?”
“I’m only telling you this so you can understand…”
“Not to bother asking him if he’s fine,” Harper finished for her husband.
“Because aside from making him clamp up even more, it will also make your liege and lord---”
“Ha!”
“Jealous and possessive---”
Harper gasped as her husband suddenly lifted her up from his side. “With the way you’re spending too much time worrying about another man---”
A moment later, he had lowered her onto him, and she let out another gasp as she found herself suddenly impaled on Khalil’s throbbing manhood.
“K-Khalil…”
Her head fell back, and she couldn’t help squeezing her eyes shut as he pulled her down until he was all the way in, the swollen head of his cock knocking against the wall of her womb.
“Nem.” Yes. And clasping her hips, he began to move her up and down, grating out, “My name is the only one you should think of.”
“It is---” Another gasp as she started to bounce on his cock, and her body began to tighten in the most delicious way.
“Let other women worry about Rayyan, I’m sure he has more than enough of them.”
Harper could no longer answer, a cry spilling out of her as the king caught her nipple in his mouth, sucking hard as her inner muscles closed around his cock.
In another part of the palace, Rayyan let out a sneeze, feeling like someone had suddenly walked on his grave. Either he was coming down with a rare cold, he thought absently, or there was a person out there holding a grudge against him.
His phone vibrated then, alerting him to a new message, and his lips tightened when he saw the sender’s name.
Cecile: I know you said not to do anything rash, but it’s been six months.
Cecile: And nothing’s changed.
Cecile: I just thought you should know.
Rayyan deleted the messages as soon as he read them. It was strange, how after all these years of wishing he could hear from Cecile, he was unable to say a single word in return, now that she was finally speaking to him again.
Half a year had passed since Cecile wept in his arms, speaking of how much she still loved him, and while the memory never failed to turn his world upside down and remind him of their bittersweet past, a part of him remained distant and untouched – because it belonged to someone else.
That part of him was just as concerned about the passage of time, but for a far different reason.
Six months, as Cecile had said.
Half a year since Cecile walked back into his life, and Hyacinth had walked out of his.
Just six damn months, and yet a shattering amount of changes seemed to have taken place in that short span of time. Hyacinth had celebrated her eighteenth birthday, and she had made Gadi return his gift unopened. She had also graduated from high school and moved out of the palace to board in one of the university’s dormitories.
For all intents and purposes, Hyacinth looked as if she had already gotten settled in her new life. He had Aisha enroll in the same university she was in, and the undercover agent was nothing if not thorough with her periodic reports.
Ms. Kahveci is doing very well academically, and she appears to have found herself a small but loyal circle of friends.
Ms. Kahveci has not asked me anything about Your Highness.
Ms. Kahveci recently joined the university’s media club and has been seen several times in the company of its editor in chief, Marwan Bseiso.
Was it a simple lack of closure that made him constantly think of her? Or had she managed to steal one of the broken pieces of his heart and made it her own? May Allah help him, but for her sake, he fucking hoped he would never succumb to the urge of finding out why.
Because if he did…
If she ever fucking came back…
Even knowing that she was better off without him, if he saw that she still wanted him back, he would never let her go.
Chapter Fourteen
The spirit of Christmas swept over the palace with a flurry of parties hosted by the royal family, and with it was the promise that Hyacinth just might come home as well. Rayyan, however, forced himself to shove the thought out of his mind every time it tried to entertain the possibility, and he also made sure to avoid bumping into Anisah. As shameful as it was to admit, he didn’t quite trust himself not to ask Anisah about her sister’s plans if he ended up spending more than a few minutes in the other girl’s company.
But on the eve of Christmas, what he dared not let himself even think of happened anyway, with his staff giving themselves away as they greeted his arrival at work with furtive glances and nervous smiles. He called Gadi to his office, and he only had to stare at his assistant for a few seconds before the younger man completely broke down.
“She’s back,” Gadi blurted out. “Hyacinth, I mean. She’s here for---”
“There’s no need to explain.” Rayyan was privately relieved to hear his voice steady and expressionless. “You may go.”
Gadi struggled with his confusion and disappointment at his employer’s lackluster response. “Nem, alshaykh.” Yes, sheikh.
Rayyan watched the younger man leave his office with drooped shoulders. Although he knew for a fact that Hyacinth had done her best to make everyone believe that her “infatuation” for the sheikh had died a natural death and that she was moving forward with her new life at university, he also knew that everyone hadn’t bought a word she said.
Apparently, the general consensus was that Hyacinth had been unable to forgive him for being seen taking his ex-mistress to dinner, and he had let them go on thinking so.
It was better they thought him an incurable philanderer than find out the truth, which was that no matter how fucking hard he wished it could be any other way…
He already belonged to someone else.
So just stop goddamn thinking about her.
But this turned out to be easier said than done.
One long-serving tradition in the finance department was for the sheikh to hand out New Year bonuses on the 26th of December, and when the sheikh strode into his office that day, he was only slightly taken aback by the overly festive atmosphere that greeted him.
Everyone was grinning like fools, and despite Rayyan’s frown, his staff appeared strangely immune, making him wonder if perhaps Gadi had taken advantage of his appalling lack of focus in recent times. Maybe a memorandum about a higher bonus percentage than usual and the sheikh had unknowingly signed his approval for it?
But as he drew nearer to his private office and his employees started to part like the fucking Nile River, his heart began to thud against his chest like a schoolboy having his first eyeful of the MILF living next door.
Don’t even goddamn think about it.
You don’t even fucking have the right to consider such a thing.
Don’t you fucking for one second –
And yet…
There she was.
Ah.
His steps crashed to a full stop, the pounding of his heart so damn loud he was just waiting for someone at the office to complain about the noise.
Jamila.
It meant ‘beautiful’ in Rami, and that was exactly what she was.
Every perfect inch of her was beautiful, and he couldn’t comprehend how he had remained fucking ignorant of this fact until now.
Maybe it was the painful length of her absence, the haunting emptiness she left ever since she walked out of his life – maybe it was just fate deciding it was time he stopped being blind, but it was like seeing her with new eyes.
Long dark tresses that he wanted to comb with his fingers, the gentle, elegant sculpture of her cheeks, the swan-like length of her neck,
the sun-kissed skin, the pure, innocent fragrance of her ripe, slender figure –
Most of all, gazing at her reminded him of the night his lips had branded her his, and Rayyan had to drag breath into his lungs in an attempt to control the suddenly rampant urges of his body.
She was presently surrounded by staff, all of them visibly excited by her return and seemingly in competition with each other as to who could relay the most convincing story about how much the sheikh had helplessly pined away at her absence.
Salah swears on his grave that not once has the sheikh ever come into contact with Ms. Black since you left.
Rayyan stiffened. The way they were going, they’d have Hyacinth convinced her leaving him had made him impotent.
We see him with this faraway look on his face all the time…
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Did a man gazing outside his window have to automatically mean he was thinking of a woman? Why couldn’t it just be that – and he had something to look at outside his window?
And he never asks us about you. Ever. Doesn’t that say something?
Sure it fucking did. It meant he was a private person. That was all it was –
We really think he’s in love –
Rayyan coughed, and the circle around Hyacinth instantly broke apart. He watched her eyes widen with shock at seeing him standing there. How long have you been standing there?
His lip curled. Long enough to know I need to fire most of my staff for slander.
Her lips twitched, and then her dark eyes sparkled with mischief. But were they really lying? Her lips curved in a smile as sly as it was alluring. Or were you truly pining for me?
His heart slammed against his chest. God. It was almost like fucking magic, the way the days they had been apart ceasing to matter, and everything was suddenly back the way it was – the way it was meant to be.
Because this time, he was done lying, done forcing himself to do what was right, done trying to figure things out.
This time, it was just about what he wanted.
And for better or for worse – he wanted Hyacinth.
University life was nothing and everything Hyacinth expected it to be. On one hand, she was disappointed to realize that most talks about the freedoms of adulthood were just that – talk. Within the walls of her new home, she still found herself pretending – smiling because it was easier that way, swallowing the words she wanted to say because it was what was expected of her, and most of all, she had to pretend she was absolutely fine.
But she was not – at all.
Every night was a struggle, to the point that she would find herself crying at her sheer inability to fall asleep without seeing the sheikh taking another woman in his arms.
Fuck you, Rayyan Al-Atassi. FUCK YOU. She screamed the words at her pillow – the only thing she could do to lessen the heavy, crushing weight of her pain. She hated him. God, how she hated him, and she hoped she would always keep hating him because that was the only way to keep herself from remembering that there was something else she felt for him.
The only bright thing in her new life was her unofficial work at the media club. When she had first applied as a writer, its editor-in-chief Marwan Bseiso – a fourth-year student majoring in journalism – had rejected her outright, saying that he had no need for palace mouthpieces masquerading as bright-eyed freshmen with patriotic dreams.
Normally, she would have let such remarks fly with a shrug, but since it was on that same day she had received a call from Mrs. B. and had to fake ignorance about the other woman’s incestuous relationship with her cousin, Hyacinth had just…snapped.
She had flown into a rage, ended up saying a thousand things that she would’ve normally kept to herself, and when her anger had died, she had stood there, shaken and appalled by her loss of control –
Marwan had simply said, “It seems like I’ve misjudged you.”
Apparently, Marwan was a huge fan of Fuck Being Politically Correct, and now that he knew she was the one behind it, he was more than happy to have her be part of his team. Consequently, it was having Marwan as her pseudo mentor that made Hyacinth gradually realize what she wanted to be.
The only thing left was to find the courage to seize her dream with her own two hands.
Which was why she was here, Hyacinth thought to herself, waiting for the sheikh like the lovesick idiot that she tried so hard to pretend she wasn’t.
She tried to take all the stories the sheikh’s staff was eagerly sharing with a grain of salt, but it was hard, since they were saying exactly what she needed to hear. Did he really miss her? Did he? Did he?
And then…he was just there.
Oh my God, how long had he been standing there?
A second later, she saw his lip curl, and she could’ve sworn she literally heard his voice in her mind, answering her unspoken question. Long enough to know I need to fire most of my staff for slander.
It had her lips twitching, and she could only look at him, so, so damn happy she had to distract herself with a bit of banter lest she ended up crying. But were they really lying? She let her lips curve in a taunting smile. Or were you truly pining for me?
After, Hyacinth waited for the sheikh to smirk or at least smile back at the question, but his gorgeous face remained impassive, his blue eyes blazing.
It took more than a moment for her to realize that was it already.
His answer –
He had pined for her.
And she could no longer stop herself, her feet moving all on its fucking own, and then she was running and sobbing –
The sheikh’s arms closed around her just as she started crying in his arms, and the painful silence of her sobs had everyone looking away to hide their own tears.
Rayyan swept her up, and uncaring of what doing so would mean in the eyes of his employees, he carried her into his office and kicked the door shut. He felt her body began to shake at the strength of her endless sobs, and torment twisted inside of him.
He forced himself to lower her even when his instincts warned him against giving her the slightest chance to run away.
He slowly made her look at him, his own hands shaking as he cupped her face. “Hyacinth---” A thousand possibilities ran through his mind in a mere second; he just wanted to be fucking sure that his next words wouldn’t hurt her.
But in the end, they were all useless.
She pulled away from his hold. “Tell me about her.”
Because it appeared she had only come back to do it all on her own.
Rayyan whitened. “Why the fuck---”
“Because I need to hear all the reasons why---” Her eyes shone brighter and brighter with every word. So damn bright, it hurt to look at them. “You can’t love me. Yet.”
In all the years he lived, and with all the things he had seen –
“Please, Rayyan?”
It was only now that he realized how despair alone could make eyes bright like diamonds.
“Alright.” He strove to keep his voice steady, knowing that to let her hear anything else in his words would only make her hurt more, and when she took his hand to lead him to the couch, he let her.
Even when it seemed like she was hell bent on tearing her own heart out, he had to goddamn let her. Any attempt to keep her from hurting would have been nothing but a lie, and goddammit, he had hurt her enough.
She made him take one end of the couch while she took the other, turning to him with eyes that still shone too brightly and lips that seemed to be just a whisper away from quivering. He watched her tuck her knees under her chin, and she appeared to him like a scared little girl who knew she was about to hear a bedtime story on boogeymen – and that the scariest of them all just happened to be the man sitting next to her.
Hyacinth worked her facial muscles hard to come up with a smile. “So…” She forced herself to keep her gaze on the sheikh. “How did you end up falling for your cousin?”
His lips twisted into a humorless smile. “You don’t pu
ll your punches, do you?”
“Not with you, no, and stop changing the subject.”
“I wasn’t, and to answer your question, we first met when we were seventeen---”
“Shit.”
Rayyan was bemused at the interruption, considering he had barely started. “What?”
“Are you saying I’m up against your first love?”
“Yes.” The sheikh’s voice was mild, his expression neutral – not even the smallest clue existed for Hyacinth to realize that he had come to understand that this whole goddamn Q&A, this whole parody of a late-night talk show, was for his sake.
“Great,” Hyacinth muttered.
Because she didn’t want him to feel guilty for not being able to love her –
“So not only am I up against an Arabian Barbie---”
Because childish or not, she wanted to pretend she had some pride left and make it seem like she could talk about the woman he loved without breaking down.
“You’re also saying you haven’t gotten over her even after all these years?”
And because he owed it to her to pretend that things were going exactly as she planned, he managed to look into her eyes as he murmured under his breath, “That’s right.” And diamonds turned into stars as he forced himself to say, “Thirteen years and counting, in fact.” He saw her smile start to wobble, and it took everything in him to look away and pretend he saw nothing. Her pride was all she had left, and he would fucking make sure she kept it, even if it meant having to act like a bastard to the only girl who was able to remind him how it was to smile again.
After a while, he heard her clear her throat, and he would’ve smiled if he had the right to.
Good girl.
That was the Hyacinth he knew – and would never deserve.