by Holly Rayner
Well, you don’t like it here.
Be quiet, he told himself firmly. That wasn’t even true. He did like it here. Mahmoud loved the palace. It had been his boyhood home, after all, and it was the most beautiful, luxurious place he’d ever seen.
Then why isn’t it enough?
Mahmoud shook his head, frustrated, as if that would dislodge the voice, and stepped back in from the balcony.
His sleeping quarters were sparse and modern. He had moved into this wing of the palace after his father had passed, a fact he found macabre in the extreme, but he’d had no choice. Generations of rulers had lived in this room. It was tradition, and it certainly wasn’t optional. He couldn’t very well announce to the public that he’d decided to fly in the face of history by being the first sheikh ever to take up residence in the Blue Room, his childhood sleeping quarters. Even if he did like it better.
Besides, this room was nice enough. It was big and round, hung with paintings that had been chosen by sheikhs of the past. Mahmoud would have the opportunity to choose a painting too, but so far his updates to the room had consisted of having it wired for cable and installing Wi-Fi. He’d also put in a refrigerator, although he was starting to regret that choice. It hummed all night and kept him up. He’d only done it, if he was honest, because he knew his father would’ve hated it. It was a way of making the room uniquely his.
His valet was in the room, quietly going about the business of drawing a bath and brewing tea. More traditions left over from his father. These were routines Mahmoud had not yet had the heart to call off, despite the fact that he didn’t care for an evening bath or tea. He wondered at the fact that he had been so quick to distance himself from his father with the installation of that impractical refrigerator yet hadn’t cancelled his father’s nightly bath yet. It was strange business, mourning a parent.
He was too young to be doing that, too, he thought.
It probably didn’t help that this particular valet was ancient, probably eighty years old, and had served in the palace since before Mahmoud was born. As a child, not knowing his name, Mahmoud had secretly thought of him as “Weird Beard,” and that habit was hard to shake now. This man had been going through the same routines longer than Mahmoud had been alive, and he was honestly afraid of what might happen if he asked for something different. It was awkward even to be in here. Though Weird Beard avoided Mahmoud’s eyes, keeping his head down as he should, Mahmoud couldn’t help but feel scrutinized and rejected. He felt sure the old man was thinking, He doesn’t belong here. He is not prepared. His father was a good sheikh. He doesn’t know what it means to be a leader.
The worst part was he couldn’t even find it in him to disagree.
The valet finished the evening’s work and withdrew quietly. Unlike with Keziah, Mahmoud did not feel the urge to break into his silence. He would be perfectly happy if the man never spoke to him at all.
He went into the bathroom and released the drain, letting the bathwater out, and poured the tea into the sink. Then he went to his refrigerator, took out a bottle of whiskey, and poured a small glass. That’s more like it.
The agenda for the next day sat on his desk beside his computer. He picked it up.
Meetings all day, as usual. Morning with the military advisory, lunch with a foreign head of state, afternoon with his legislative board, and dinner with several CEOs from the tech summit looking for loans to take their companies to the next level. Mahmoud was tired of all of it. The life of a sheikh was lonely, he was coming to realize. It was all work.
And Ellie was here.
He pressed the button on his phone that connected him to his assistant’s desk. The desk was required by law to be manned twenty-four hours, so it was no surprise when a perky voice answered. “Yes, Your Highness?”
“I’d like to clear my schedule tomorrow,” Mahmoud said. “Can it be done?”
“Of course, Your Highness.”
“Wonderful. Thank you.”
“Pleasant evening, sir.”
Mahmoud disconnected, feeling better already. Now he was free to spend tomorrow as he liked.
What would Ellie want to do?
Chapter 13
Mahmoud
“I’d really love to see the rest of the palace,” she said when they met the following morning.
“Really?” Mahmoud was taken aback. He’d stayed up last night coming up with ideas for where to take her. “You don’t want to see the art museum, or the national library, or go to the opera?”
“I mean, I’d like to see that stuff too,” she said. “But we have museums and libraries and operas back home. We don’t have any palaces. I’ve never seen one.”
“It’s just a big house, really,” Mahmoud said.
“I’ve seen plenty of big houses, and this is not just a big house. And there’s so much history! How many sheikhs have lived here?”
“Al Fahad is a fairly young country,” Mahmoud said. “Only my father, his father, his father, and his father.”
“And now you.”
“And now me.”
“Show me around. I want to see the place.” She paused. “Am I allowed to see it?”
“Why wouldn’t you be?”
“I don’t know. Back home, there are parts of the White House you can’t go into as a tourist.”
“You can go there as a personal guest of your president though, can’t you?”
“I wouldn’t know. Have you ever been to the White House?”
Mahmoud laughed. “No. Most of my foreign dealings are with heads of state in this part of the world. But there’s always a possibility. This is the entrance hall, by the way,” he said, changing topic as if it were nothing.
“It’s so tall,” Ellie said, her voice filled with awe.
“Yes, it’s meant to be intimidating. In years past, the Sheikh would sit in a throne at the head of the hall, right there, and see civilians who cared to address him. The hall is a rather ostentatious display of power. It was my grandfather who put a stop to the practice of taking meetings in here, and it never happened during my lifetime. I grew up thinking of this place as kind of an extension of the outdoors, not really inside the palace. It does feel like outside, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. It’s so airy.”
“I used to play here sometimes when I was young.”
“It’s hard to imagine you playing.”
“If you can believe it, I built a pair of roller skates and tried to skate here.”
“I…actually cannot believe that.”
He laughed, remembering. “It didn’t go well. They broke on my second lap around the hall. My father was furious. But later he brought me soup in my room and told me he and my aunt had once gotten in trouble for running around in the entrance hall as children.”
“That’s really cool,” Ellie said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s like the place overcame its legacy,” she said. “I mean, think about it. The entrance hall was built to be imposing and scary, right? But your grandfather didn’t approve of that, so he put a stop to it, and ever since then it’s been making children feel at home and free to play around.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
Suddenly, Mahmoud’s years as a child in this palace telescoped, and he saw them in the context of all the children and families and sheikhs who had ever lived here. How had his childhood been different from his great-grandfather’s? How different might his own children’s lives be?
Another thing I’m far too young for.
Alarmed by his own thoughts, he attempted to navigate back to more solid ground. “Were you able to reach your employers last night?”
“Yeah. I told them you were thinking about investing and had asked me to stay behind to pitch the opportunity to you. I bought some time. I gotta tell you, though, things are probably still going to be pretty ugly when I get back home. I doubt we found any investors at all at the conference.”
“You
don’t think so?”
“You saw my team member. He’s an offensive jerk. Nobody would willingly sign up to do business with him.”
“But if the product is good, that shouldn’t matter, should it?”
“Ha. I wish that’s how the world worked. No, when you’re not the Sheikh, charming people is an important part of getting things done.”
“What does that mean?”
“Please. You see how your staff is with you.”
“How are they?”
“Obsequious. They’re so concerned with propriety, it never even becomes relevant for them whether you’re a decent guy or not. You could be the absolute worst and they’d still respect you and do whatever you told them to because you have so much power. That girl from last night? Keziah? She won’t even act natural around me, and I’m nobody!”
Mahmoud stared at her. “You know, no one’s ever spoken to me like that.”
“That’s kind of my point.”
“You’re not scared of me,” he said.
Ellie hesitated. He could see the emotions crossing her face. For a moment, there was a flicker of fear, the idea that perhaps she’d done something wrong. A part of him wanted to reassure her, but a bigger part of him wanted to see what conclusion she would reach on her own. He waited.
“No,” Ellie said finally, meeting his gaze. “I guess I’m not scared of you.”
Mahmoud smiled. It was a start.
Chapter 14
Ellie
“This is the royal library,” Mahmoud said.
Ellie stared in awe. Like many rooms in the palace, the library was a round space. Its circumference wasn’t that big—smaller than the bedroom she’d been given—but it stretched up vertically for what seemed like forever. She thought of the palace as she’d seen it from the outside and realized they must now be inside one of the massive turrets.
“How many books are here?” she asked, craning her neck to try and see the apex.
“About three million.”
“Three million?”
“According to the records.”
“How do you even go about choosing three million books?”
“Oh, I don’t. Many have been here for a century or more. The newer ones we get from a services that curates all the must-reads from the top publishers.”
“And then what, you have to climb ladders to put them away?”
“No, no. We have library minders. Those ladders aren’t for me to climb.” He laughed, as if she’d said something ridiculous. “Imagine if I fell off. The country would suddenly be without a leader.”
“But it’s fine for your…what did you call them?”
“Library minders.”
“It’s fine for them to risk their lives by climbing a mile up these rickety ladders?”
Mahmoud frowned. “I’d like to object to several points. First of all, our ladders are very well crafted. You’re welcome to ascend a few rungs and see for yourself, although I’d prefer you not to climb too high for your own safety.”
“So they aren’t safe?”
“Secondly, the library is certainly not a mile high. And third, I am far from the only head of state to have people in his employ whose responsibility it is to take on more dangerous tasks. I believe even your president has bodyguards, does he not? And a safe house to retreat to in case of nuclear war?”
Ellie’s face was hot. He was right. She didn’t know why she was being so judgmental.
Maybe the opulence of the palace was starting to overwhelm her. The Sheikh had already shown her a number of lavish meeting rooms, a gym, and even a fitting room full of tailors and seamstresses. Before Ellie had been able to protest, they had had her up on a stool and were measuring her for clothes. “You’ve only got business attire, I imagine,” Mahmoud had said as he watched her measurements be taken. “And all your clothes are very American.”
“Of course they are. I’m from America.”
“Well, you might feel the urge to blend in while you’re here.”
Ellie wasn’t sure that was true, but it would be fun to go home with some Al Fahadi clothes as a souvenir of her trip and her time with the Sheikh. She had gone along with the measuring and thanked the head tailor as they’d left. But now, seeing an entirely new aspect of the palace and hearing about these library minders, she was beginning to wonder exactly how many servants Mahmoud had. Were they really all necessary to running a country?
“What do you do if you want a book?” she asked.
He led her over to a computer. “Which book would you like?”
Ellie hesitated, and then typed in the title of a novel that had been her favorite in high school. She didn’t expect to find it—it was a very American story, and not at all classic literature, about a California girl who falls in love with a surfer. To her surprise, however, the title appeared on the screen with a picture of the cover and a series of numbers and letters that seemed to suggest the book’s location.
“Now you click on it,” Mahmoud said, reaching around her to guide the mouse. His hand rested on hers for a moment. “And see where it asks for a note? Type in there that it’s you who wants it, and that you’d like it delivered to the primary guest suite.”
“It’ll come to my room?”
“There are millions of books in here. They can’t go get it while you wait. Unless it’s urgent, of course.”
“What would be urgent? You asking for it?” She could have bitten her tongue. Why was she being so rude to someone who could probably have her thrown in jail with a raise of his eyebrow?
To her relief, he smiled. “I can get things urgently, yes. I don’t do it unless I really need them. For example, last month I wanted a history book to consult on a matter of state. That was urgent. If it’s just pleasure reading, I’m willing to wait.”
“I’m surprised you had the book I wanted.”
“Really? In a collection of three million?”
“It’s not a very good book,” she admitted.
“But I know that one,” he said. “When it came up on the screen, I recognized the author’s name.”
“You did?”
“I read her books when I was living in America.”
“But…” Ellie bit her lip. “But they’re silly books. Romances. Not intellectual at all.”
“I don’t think romance is silly,” Mahmoud said.
“You don’t?”
“Things don’t have to be intellectual to be worthwhile, do they?” And to her surprise, he stepped ever so slightly closer to her. Was he implying something?
It had been so long…
No.
What was she thinking? This man was the Sheikh of Al Fahad, for God’s sake, not a cute boy at a party. Besides, he was the very same guy who had abandoned her all those years ago. The unease that had come from that experience had been pricking at her for years, making her reluctant to date or open up to people.
She was a different person now. She was Business Ellie. She was serious and hard and invulnerable to laughing eyes, soft touches, the warm spicy scent of him… No. Ellie was worthwhile because she was intellectual. Romance was silly. Mahmoud was wrong.
She was sure of it.
Chapter 15
Ellie
By the time the tour of the palace was over, the sun hung low in the sky. Ellie couldn’t believe it had taken all day to explore the place. True, it had been a meandering sort of tour, with several stops for food and tea, but still. She thought of her apartment back in San Francisco. It would have taken her less than five minutes to show someone around.
Keziah appeared in the entrance hall as she and Mahmoud were coming back up the main staircase, having explored the outside grounds. She positioned herself expectantly by a pillar and waited.
Mahmoud turned to Ellie and took her hands. “This has been a lovely day,” he said, kissing one hand, then the other. Ellie wondered if this was a local custom, like the way Europeans kissed each other on both cheeks. If it was, no one had
prepared her for it. She hadn’t encountered it at the convention. His lips are soft, she thought, and then shook the idea away.
“Is the day over?” Ellie asked.
“I’m afraid my presence is required in a dinner meeting. Your dinner will be sent to your rooms.”
“Your Highness…”
“Mahmoud.”
“We need to discuss when I’m going home.”
“Must we? Right now?”
“Well…” She hesitated. He looked so plaintive, and she knew he was anxious to get to his meeting. Besides, it wasn’t like he could put her on a plane tonight. “We can talk about it in the morning, I suppose.”
He stroked her cheek. “Are you in such a hurry to leave?”
Ellie stepped back, startled. What was he doing?
“I’m sorry.” He dropped his hand. “Have I offended you?”
“I… No. No, of course not.” But the truth was, she wasn’t sure.
What made him think he could take all the liberties he had with her, disrupt her life like this? It was probably the same entitlement that had led to his blowing her off back at Stanford, she thought, suddenly simmering. Look at the way his servants treated him. He had seemed kind today, and down-to-earth, telling stories about his childhood in the palace and helping her find a book they had both loved, but she had to remember who she was dealing with. She had to keep her wits about her.
Back in her quarters, she found several parcels stacked on the bed. Feeling a little like it was Christmas, she untied them and found unfamiliar but beautiful articles of clothing. Were these really all made today? The embroidery was exquisite, and the colors sang. She stood in front of her full length mirror, trying things on, fully enjoying herself.
A knock came at the door. Ellie turned away from the mirror. “Come in!”
A servant entered, wheeling a cart with a covered plate. “Your dinner, miss.”