by Holly Rayner
“So,” Omar said, biting into his own cookie, “what are you going to do about her?”
“I wanted to bring her here,” Ali confessed.
“To Shunayy?”
“But I can’t do that. It’s not safe for her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Omar, you know I got a death threat. That’s why I was in Vermont in the first place. And then, right after that, Father gets attacked? You don’t think there’s a connection?”
Omar’s eyes widened. “You think Father’s attacker was targeting you?”
“I think it’s possible. And if it’s true, I can’t have Brooke anywhere near me, or she could get hurt, too. I have to stop seeing her.”
“Wow,” Omar breathed. “You really love her.”
“I’ve never felt this way about anyone, Omar.” He looked into his younger brother’s eyes. Omar had always seemed so much older and wiser than Ali, but now, for once, he was looking at Ali as if he were impressed. Omar hadn’t felt anything like this. At least, Ali didn’t think he had.
“What are you going to tell her?” Omar asked. “You have to tell her something, right?”
“I’ll write her a letter.” The thought had just occurred to him. “I’ll say…what should I say? Do you think I should tell her the truth about who I am? And that it isn’t safe for her to be near me?”
“Would that keep her away?” Omar asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Mother knows who Father is, and look at her, she’s been by his side all week. She hasn’t run from him, knowing that he’s an assassin’s target. If your girl feels the same way about you as you do about her…”
“Then the truth wouldn’t drive her away.” Omar was right. “I’ll have to come up with something else.”
Omar was watching him, sympathy written all over his face. “Will you be okay?”
“I hate lying to her.”
The number of times he’d lied to Brooke now…he’d been able to justify it to himself so far by reassuring himself that one day he would let her in on the real story. He was only delaying telling the truth. But with this final lie, designed to push her away forever, he would be ensuring that she never found out who he really was.
“It’s for the best,” Omar said. “Regular civilians aren’t prepared to be a part of this world. There are women who have been raised for this—daughters of the sheikhs of other countries—they’ll be able to face what being with someone like you means. But this girl…”
“You’re right,” Ali said. “I know. You’re right.”
Omar gave him a half smile. “Do you need anything before I go to bed?”
“You’re a good kid,” Ali said. “You know that, don’t you?”
Omar didn’t argue that he wasn’t a kid, as Ali might have done, as he might have expected a younger brother to do. He simply nodded, rinsed his teacup, and withdrew.
* * *
Ali wandered out into the palace gardens. This had been one of his favorite places as a child. Revisiting it now, after so many years away, he found that the magic of the place seemed stronger than ever. The flowers seemed always to be in bloom, and although the garden was frequented by butterflies, no unpleasant insects ever seemed to find their way in. Ali knew that the palace gardeners worked hard to maintain an equilibrium that made this place a pleasant escape for the royal family. He wished he knew how they did it.
If he had been born the son of a gardener, he thought he might have learned. He might have become an expert in which plants attracted butterflies and how to keep bees away. And he would have been able to get close to Brooke. There would have been no problem with that. It would be perfectly safe for her to be involved with a gardener’s son. There would never have been any attempts on either of their lives.
Of course, Ali thought, if he had been born the son of a gardener, he wouldn’t have been able to go to Columbia for college. He probably wouldn’t have ended up in New York at all—it was likely he would never have left Shunayy. Which meant he wouldn’t have met Brooke in the first place.
What was worse? To have met her and not be able to keep her, or never to have met her at all? It was a question he couldn’t answer. She haunted his thoughts, and he was plagued with the knowledge that he would never see her again, but did he regret having gotten to know her? Could he really go that far?
Ali made his way up to his bedroom, which was located in a high tower. He hadn’t been here since the night before he had left for Columbia, but everything looked the same. He took out a piece of paper and a pen, having decided that Brooke deserved the courtesy of a formal letter rather than an email. He sat down at his desk, which faced the window, and looked out at the night sky, trying to think what he could say to her that would explain everything to her satisfaction while still discouraging her from coming to look for him.
Dear Brooke, he began, and then tapped the end of his pen against his teeth, trying to think.
As you might already have guessed, I am not who you think I am. I am both more and less than the person you’ve gotten to know. Unfortunately, I am unable to tell you much more than that, but I want you to know as much of the truth as possible. The person you have come to know over the past several weeks is a fiction. Blaine Mustafi never existed, and if he had, I would not have been him.
He paused, thinking. If he was too apologetic, he knew, he ran the risk of her forgiving him and seeking him out to make amends. That was a chance he couldn’t take. Yet he couldn’t bear the thought of her believing he had been toying with her emotions all this time. Surely there was something he could tell her. A half-truth.
Please believe me when I say I did not relish misleading you, he wrote. It must be tempting to think it was all a cruel game. The truth is much more complicated, but it was never my intention to leave you the way I did. I do regret that part of our time together. I feel very badly about having walked away without saying goodbye, without an explanation or an apology. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way.
He was being too kind. He had to toughen this up. But it was so hard. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her any more than he imagined he already had. Ali buried his face in his hands, trying desperately to think. His parents had been right. He should never have gotten involved with Brooke. Extricating himself was impossible.
I enjoyed the time we spent together, but that time has come to an end. Do not look for me. Do not wait for me to return, because I won’t. In fact, it’s best if you just forget I was ever there. As you’ve no doubt realized, I am not good for you, and I never will be. I will be moving on and putting the past behind me. I strongly suggest you do the same.
That was cold. It made Ali’s heart ache to reread the words he’d just written. To think he’d just been in bed with Brooke a week ago, planning their future together! But Omar was right. His parents were right. This was necessary.
How to sign off? He wanted to write the word love. He wanted to sign his real name, to tell her one piece of the truth at last. But he knew he couldn’t. On the off chance she chose to try to find him after reading this letter, he had to make it as hard for her as possible. He would have to be Blaine Mustafi one more time, even though she would know as she read it that it was a fiction.
He put pen to paper one more time. Regards, Blaine.
Exhausted with the effort the letter had taken, Ali slumped backward in his chair. He would send this out with the morning post, and then there would be no turning back. Brooke would be out of his life forever.
He stood up and wandered over to his bed. A liquor cabinet stood beside it. In the old days, before Brooke, he would have poured himself a nightcap. As Blaine, he would have put on an old movie and settled on the couch with some popcorn. But neither of those options felt right anymore. Who was he, now that Blaine was dead and the old Ali had been put to rest?
He lay down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, trying not to think about what Brooke might be doing right now.
> 16
Brooke
Six Months Later
Brooke sat at her desk, shuffling through a stack of orders. The sun had long since disappeared from the sky, but she was working late into the night, trying to get caught up on all the commissions she had received over the past two months. For some reason Brooke hadn’t been able to put her finger on, the sculpting business had been booming lately. Perhaps it was because she had thrown herself into her work over the past few months, showing pieces at the farmers’ market every weekend even though it meant getting up at the crack of dawn.
Then again, much as she hated to think it, maybe Blaine’s disappearance had something to do with her sudden success. The first rush of customers had been friends of her mother and aunt, and Brooke suspected they had told everyone they knew that she had been through a breakup and could use a little extra work to take her mind off of things. She would have protested, but the truth was that the work helped. And when those first customers took home their commissions—they were all art pieces now, the word about that had spread and the orders for plates and bowls had stopped—their friends had seen them and placed orders of their own.
She glanced up and an unfinished work on a low table by the window caught her eye. It was Blaine’s piece, half-finished. Brooke had never been able to bring herself to throw it away. It felt sometimes as though Blaine had never really been here, as if the whole thing had been a dream, and the unfinished sculpture served her as a reminder that it had all been real. As frustrating as he had been, as much of a liar as he was, she was glad it had really happened. Brooke had never felt that way before, not with any man, and if it was possible with Blaine, she had to believe it could be possible with someone else. Someone who wasn’t a liar.
Not that she was going to find that with anyone here in Jasperville.
After allowing her a brief mourning period, Tana and some of Brooke’s other friends had started trying to set her up on dates. The guys they found for her were mostly from Liberty—there was no one Brooke’s age in Jasperville—and she’d enjoyed the evenings she’d spent with them up in the larger town. She so rarely had occasion to leave Jasperville at all, and it was nice to get out. One man had taken her to a rock concert, which Brooke had felt slightly too old for—the band seemed geared toward an audience about five years younger than she was—but it had been a nice time. Another man had taken her to dinner at a very nice restaurant and encouraged her to order the lobster, which Brooke had done.
She liked the dates. She even liked the men. But it was impossible to take any of them seriously. Each night when she returned home, she would change into her sculpting clothes and sit down at her workstation with the figure of Blaine and the sketch she’d drawn of him. It seemed to Brooke that if she could finish this project, she might be able to get some sort of closure. But every time, she stood up after several hours having made absolutely no progress. Without Blaine in front of her, it was impossible. She couldn’t finish the piece. So it remained incomplete, tormenting her from the corner of her living room.
“You should get rid of it,” Tana urged, visiting one night for wine and girly movies, hoping to take Brooke’s mind off things.
Brooke shook her head. But she didn’t want to explain the compulsion she felt to keep the thing—it was so silly—so after that she stored it on the top shelf of the closet in her bedroom, where guests were sure not to find it.
The farmers’ markets took place on Saturdays, so Brooke liked to take advantage of her relatively loose schedule and sleep in on Fridays. She had found it particularly difficult, though, since Blaine had left. Had he still been here, they would have seized on that time to make a trip out to the countryside or cook breakfast together. Lying in her bed doing nothing felt like such a waste now. Still, she forced herself to stay still, rolling over and willing herself back to sleep until finally the clock on her bedside table read 11:00 a.m. and Brooke felt she had slept long enough.
She got out of bed, splashed some water on her face, and padded out to the living room, tying her hair in a high knot as she went. There was nothing to do today. She wasn’t planning to see any friends or family. She might as well laze around in her pajamas all day eating potato chips. Frustrated by her own lack of motivation, Brooke forced herself to change into leggings and a sweater—they were day clothes, at least—for the trip downstairs to her mailbox.
To her surprise, it was stuffed full. Brooke reached in and pulled out a plastic mailer that had been doubled up on itself, realizing it must be the new sculpting tools she’d ordered after seeing them being demonstrated online. She wasn’t exactly sure yet what she would use them for, but she was fascinated by the shapes they could produce, especially after watching videos of what other sculptors had done. Maybe she would spend today playing with them. Experimenting.
Brooke reached into the box again to make sure there was nothing more. To her surprise, her hand closed on an envelope. A bill?
No. It was addressed by hand. And the postmark…what was that? She didn’t recognize it. The letter looked as though it had been mailed internationally, but…but it couldn’t be…
She raced back up the stairs, slammed her apartment door closed, and flopped on her couch to read.
Dear Brooke,
As you might already have guessed, I am not who you think I am. I am both more and less than the person you’ve gotten to know. Now the time has come for me to reveal what I can to you, and I want you to know as much of the truth as possible.
The person you have come to know over the past several weeks is a fiction. Blaine Mustafi never existed, and if he had, I would not have been him. My name is Sheikh Ali Suleman al-Haffar, and I am next in line to the throne of Shunayy.
Please believe me when I say I did not relish misleading you. It must be tempting to think it was all a cruel game. The truth is that my deception was required, both for my safety and your own. But it was never my intention to leave you the way I did. I do regret that part of our time together. I feel very badly about having walked away without saying goodbye, without an explanation or an apology. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way.
I owe you an explanation, Brooke, and I owe that to you in person. I beg you to forgive me for the way you were treated and allow me to make it right. I ask now that you consider making the journey to Shunayy, as we spoke of all those months ago. Let me have the opportunity to see you again, and to personally apologize for everything that happened between us. Until then, I remain faithfully yours.
With love,
Ali
Brooke stared at the letter. Was it possible this had really come from Blaine? What could have made him decide to write to her, now, after all this time? And could he really be who he was claiming to be? A prince? Or was it another elaborate lie?
She couldn’t trust him. Not yet. She couldn’t just take his word for it after everything he had lied about. Much as she wanted this story to be true, she had to protect herself this time. Brooke went to her computer and sat down.
But then she hesitated. He had given her a story, one that she could happily believe and move on. Wouldn’t it be nice to think a foreign prince had spent a few weeks in Jasperville and that she, Brooke Bailey, had fallen in love with him? Wouldn’t it be nice to let herself believe that he had only left because of complicated diplomatic reasons that had nothing to do with her—that he had, in fact, been protecting her by leaving her behind?
For a moment she was tempted. But no. She had to know the truth.
Brooke pulled up a search engine and typed in the long, unfamiliar name, checking to make sure she was spelling it right. There was no way a prince, even the prince of a small country like Shunayy, would have been able to avoid having some kind of internet presence.
Sure enough, she found him right away. Here was an article about an event thrown at the palace, some kind of party. It mentioned that the prince had a brother and a sister. Blaine had mentioned two siblings. Was that a coincidence, or had
he been trying to tell her a little piece of the truth?
She found another article. A journalist had sighted him shopping downtown and snapped a candid. Brooke squinted at it, trying to determine whether the man in the picture was Blaine, but it was a little out of focus. It might have been him, but she couldn’t be sure.
Wait. She was being stupid. Brooke clicked over to an image search.
Immediately, dozens of pictures of Blaine flooded her computer screen. Brooke gasped at the familiar eyes and perfect smile. There was no mistaking him. She clicked on one of them to be sure, and the name of the prince appeared. Ali Suleman al-Haffar.
Ali.
Not Blaine. Ali.
This explained everything, then. This was why “Blaine Mustafi” didn’t appear in any internet searches: he didn’t exist. This was why he hadn’t learned to drive—he probably had someone to do that for him. And as for why he’d entered and disappeared from her life so quickly…
Brooke clicked another link. This article described threats to the royal family. She skimmed the page, taking in details about unrest in the country and dissatisfaction with both major political parties. Apparently the climate had been growing increasingly tense for some time, leading up to—an assassination attempt?
She leaned in and read. The would-be assassin had broken into the palace earlier this year and had shot the ruling Sheikh—that must be Ali’s father—before fleeing. The shooter remained at large. The Sheikh had survived the attempt on his life, and had been released from the hospital…wait a minute…when had this happened?
She found the date. Six months ago.
That was when Blaine—Ali—had left.
He must have been given the news about his father that morning. That must be why he’d left like that.