by Snihur, Erin
What is wrong with me? Amina wonders, He’s just a man. One who had undoubtedly fooled her into thinking there was something between them, but still. One who had given her a passionate first time and taken her virginity. There were plenty of other men in Kulaz and the surrounding countries befitting her station. Maybe one of them would give her a passionate first time?
But you want Maarku, a voice inwardly hisses at her.
Shaking those thoughts into the back of her mind, Amina straightens in her chair and shrugs, “Why should I care? He is a guest and is entitled to leave when he wishes. Besides, Abrar has been complaining the Prince has overstayed his welcome in Kulaz. Kill two birds with one stone as they say in America.”
Her own heart twinges at her words as she speaks them and Amina inhales deeply to keep herself from crying. Waving her maid away, Amina waits until she departs the room to turn in her seat to face Alexander.
“Is his fiancé going with him?” She asks, though on the inside Amina wonders if she even wants to know the answer.
On the return trip from the hot springs, Amina had looked for the Prince and his fiancé, Lisette, but they were nowhere to be seen. And then, her wonderings had been pulled away by her guests. Sahl, who had insisted on taking Maarku’s place at her side in her own personal vehicle, hadn’t stopped nattering on about how he would like to sit in on a council meeting and take her to see many of the entertainment currently being held in the capital. Amina had only been able to nod and force a smile on her face. Her mind was consumed with Maarku. And what he was doing with Lisette.
Alexander shakes his head slightly, his expression masked, “My reports indicate that Ms. Harpier was escorted to the capitals’ airport where she was placed on a flight and sent back to Paris.”
Silence hangs in the air and Amina tilts her head. Expecting him to continue, Amina asks, “Anything else?”
As if trying to hold back a smile, Alexander shrugs slightly and crosses his arms over his broad chest, “It would seem that Ms. Harpier did not leave Kulaz willingly and was cursing the Prince to hell throughout the entire process before being released to the flight crew.”
Cursing him? Cursing her own fiancé?
Standing, Amina begins to pace in front of her bed, aware of Alexander’s steady gaze on her. The swish of her night gown beneath her silk robe was the only sound being made. Beginning to fiddle with the tie around the end of her braided hair, Amina finally stopped her pacing.
“Which hotel is he staying at?” Amina asks, though she can probably guess. A man like Maarku doesn’t stay in a dive motel or bed and breakfast.
“The only one befitting his station and security measures,” Alexander explains and at Amina’s tapping foot, smiles reassuringly, “The Midas.”
Nodding, Amina marches over to the desk she keeps in her own chambers. Though she doesn’t use it as often as the desk in her private study, Amina had been able to keep certain things hidden in the small wooden box on exquisitely carved legs.
Pulling open the top drawer, Amina pulls out her brown hijab and brown overdress. The same outfit she had worn over her expensive clothing in the market the day she’d met Maarku. Beneath the brown fabric, shines the green and gold fabric they’d fought over. Biting her bottom lip, Amina gently lifts the fabric from the drawer and caresses the top.
Looking over her shoulder, Amina softly orders, “Get me into the Midas. Quietly.”
20
Maarku is sober. Of that he is certain. Drunk on depression instead of alcohol. Before him on the hotel living rooms, fancy gold and glass coffee table sits a row of bottles and an empty glass. Each bottle can bring him into the sweet oblivion his depression craved, but none of them would give him what he truly wanted.
Amina. Period. In anyway she’d let him have her.
“Our flight leaves around noon tomorrow,” Haseem grumbles as he enters the living room from his separate chambers on the other side of the hotel suite.
Since arriving in Kulaz, Maarku had barely spent any time in their hotel suite. Not since his accident. Testing his ankle, Maarku noted the pain was only slightly dull and he knew it would only get stronger from here on out.
“Did you hear me?” Haseem asks, now standing in front of Maarku as he continues to stare blankly at the bottles on the coffee table.
Groaning, Haseem curses before asking, “Are you drunk? Khalid told you not to indulge.”
Shrugging, Maarku finally murmurs softly, “Is there not anything I can do to earn his forgiveness for the past?”
Not waiting for Haseem to answer, Maarku stands, feeling the rage over his past come to the full front of his mind. Clenching his hands into fists, Maarku begins to pace in front of the expansive windows overlooking the capital city of Kulaz.
“What more can I do? I’ve left our family alone for him! I’ve given up my life for him! And then, when he calls me back home, I expect to be welcomed back into the family, but no, once again, I am forced to abide by his rules. Ask his wife for forgiveness? Done. Give up drinking and women? Done. Fly to Kulaz and play nice with a newly crowned Sheikha in the hopes of gaining an alliance with said country and Sheikha? Impossible!”
“We don’t have to leave tomorrow. There is still time. Perhaps if you explain to Amina about Lisette, you can patch things up. Maybe bed the Queen and get a treaty signed. Then you can leave, it’s what you do best.” Haseem cautiously approaches and without thinking, Maarku swings back his fist and let’s it loose. When his fist makes contact with Haseem’s jaw, both men are shocked.
“Never talk about Amina that way,” Maarku growls through clenched teeth as he holds his aching hand to his chest.
Crying out over the pain pulsating in his fist, Maarku backs up and leans against the glass windows as Haseem curses and clutches his now bruising face. Maarku half expects the man to snarl, hiss and attack him, but instead, Haseem’s whole body shakes with laughter.
“Took you long enough!” Haseem’s muffled shout sounds from beneath where his hand covers his nose.
“What?” Maarku struggles to ask.
“I said, it took you long enough,” Haseem says, loudly enunciating his words before continuing, “I’ve been at your throat since Khalid came up with this mission. Admit it. You have feelings for Amina.”
Rage renewed and bubbling inside him as Haseem continues to ramble about how he could tell Maarku cared for Amina, Maarku finally snaps.
“Fine! I have feelings for her! I might even love her! Are you happy now?” Maarku shouts before his body begins to tire and he collapses fully against the glass windows and slides down until he rests completely on the floor.
Resigned, Maarku leans his head back against the glass with an audible thunk before sighing, “It doesn’t matter. She thinks Lisette and I are engaged.”
Pulling his hand from his face, Haseem begins to pace, jittery with obvious adrenaline, “You have to do something. Or else he’s going to win!”
“What?” Maarku asks and before Haseem can answer a soft knock sounds at the front door of the chamber.
Both men wait and listen. Their rooms were the only one of the floors and no one other than Haseem, Maarku and his security detail that remained on the outskirts of his surroundings had access to this floor.
The soft knock sounds again. Rising to his feet, Maarku moves in the direction of the door. Haseem’s hand on his chest stops Maarku in his tracks. Shaking his head slightly, Haseem marches towards the door and Maarku watches as the man swiftly pulls a small gun that had been tucked into the back of his belt. Maarku hadn’t even realized the stoic man was armed so readily in the safety of their private suites.
The click of the safety going off as Haseem stops before the door and peeks through the peephole, has Maarku on edge. Moving away from the windows and towards the kitchen area that still allowed him a view of Haseem’s back, Maarku cursed himself for not bringing his own weapon. Khalid would never have allowed it. This was supposed to be a peaceful mission after all.
Though now, Haseem’s words flit through Maarku’s mind. He mentioned a ‘he’ was going to win. Who was Haseem talking about?
Haseem’s curse and the inevitable click of his gun’s safety being turned back on have Maarku relaxing slightly as the guard opens the door and growls to their guest “What?”
“I have a message for the Prince from Sheikha Amina,” the voice of Amina’s guard, Alexander, Maarku thought his name was, drifts through to his ears. Tensing, Maarku watches as Haseem takes a step back, allowing the doorway to drift open to reveal Amina’s bodyguard.
Stepping into the bodyguard’s view, Maarku eyes the tall man skeptically. Alexander’s large form blocks the doorway of the suit and Maarku almost finds the situation comical, if he were not already worried about what Amina had to say to him, as he asks, “What is the message?”
Tension flows off Amina’s guard in waves as one of his eyebrows raises, as if he is assessing Maarku before he backs up, out of the doorway and steps aside to reveal the small, brown cloaked figure hidden behind his frame.
Amina’s steel, grey eyes stare back at him as they shift between Maarku and Haseem. Her tan face blushes over their stares. Much to his displeasure, her hijab hides her dark hair from Maarku’s gaze.
Stammering, Maarku attempts to mask his confusion and bows slightly. Haseem follows suit, though Amina raises a hand to stop them.
“That’s not necessary. At least not while I’m wearing this,” Amina mentions as she fingers the hijab on her head and then the brown cloaked dress that covers her, no doubt brightly colored clothes beneath.
Stepping forward and ignoring the way Haseem seems to send him a warning look at the same time her guard steps closer to Amina in a protective gesture, Maarku stops in the doorway and glances around at the empty hallway.
“How did you get here?” Maarku asks and the before he can think about what he is saying, he immediately hisses, “Did anyone see you?”
“Why? Are you more worried about what the front desk clerk will think or perhaps your fiancé?” Amina snaps back, her cool mask slipping as her grey eyes reveal her anger over that afternoon’s latest debacle.
Sighing, Maarku runs his hands through his hair before shooting her a pleading look, “Can we discuss this in private?”
Amina seems to stare at him for a moment before finally nodding and in that moment a look seems to pass between her and Alexander before the guard nods and takes a step back.
“I’ll wait here,” Alexander murmurs softly as he pointedly glares at Haseem.
Haseem seems to take the hint, even more so when Maarku motions for him to leave the suite as well before sighing, “Fine. I guess we shall both wait outside.”
When Haseem’s bulky frame squeezes out of the suite, Amina then enters, marching past him with a determination he’d seen many times over the last week and a half he’d been in Kulaz. Closing the doors slowly, Maarku only faintly makes out a strange look from Haseem as he mouths the words, ‘don’t screw up’.
Firmly shutting the door in their guards faces, Maarku turns to find Amina now standing in the suites living room, staring down at the lineup of alcohol he had been mulling over.
“Are you having some sort of contest to see how fast you can finish a bottle?” Amina asks softly, not bothering to turn to him as she gracefully bends down to pick up a square bottle of scotch.
Maarku is only barely listening as he watches her bend over and when he does realize he’s been staring, he quickly plucks the bottle from Amina’s hands, not wanting the vision of her to be sullied by his liquid crutches.
“We were just having a debate, actually,” Maarku mutters and begins grabbing the many bottles into his arms and marches over to the liquor cabinet where he stuffs them all back inside.
“About which one you should drink first?” Amina asks teasingly, though her tone is mocking, it still stings when she asks.
Not turning back to her, Maarku stares at the bottles now firmly settled in the case and sighs, “No. About why I don’t need them to make myself feel something.”
Silence surrounds them and Maarku can feel Amina’s gaze on his back as if she were staring holes right into his back. Clenching and unclenching his bruised fist, Maarku turns suddenly and sucks in a deep breath, intent on telling Amina everything. As he breathes in, the familiar scent of vanilla fills his senses and he instantly grows hard at the scent of Amina. She would always be his weakness.
“I’m not engaged to Lisette,” he begins and then laughs in a self-deprecating sort of way, “In fact, in order for us to have ever been engaged, she would have had to have said yes when I asked her.”
“She refused you?” Amina whispers in shock and Maarku understands her confusion. Who would ever say no to a Prince?
“In order for you to know everything, Amina, I need to start at the beginning,” Maarku murmurs and takes a step forward, his intent to get closer to her clear.
“Having you here, learning all of my dark secrets and embarrassing moments of a past that I might never truly escape from, is not something I envisioned when I thought of us being alone for the first time since we met,” Maarku murmurs.
“What did you envision?” Amina purrs, her voice breathless as Maarku moves closer and closer and her cheeks flush brightly at his presence.
Hand reaching out of its own accord, Maarku caresses her soft cheek and somewhere, deep within him, a primal lust grows as Amina’s eyelids flutter closed at his touch and she leans into his palm.
This is wrong. You’re going to ruin her, a voice screams in Maarku’s mind.
“Something that could ruin your image. That, I can never allow to happen. I will not have you be ruined because I was a selfish bastard,” Maarku croons softly as he makes to pull his hand from her cheek.
Stormy eyes opening, Amina reaches up and grasps his hand by the wrist, holding him in place. Head tilting slightly, Amina’s gaze remains on his as her lips brush against the pulse of his wrist. Freezing in place, all Maarku can do is stare as she whispers the one sentence that could ruin them both or inevitably start them on a journey of pure bliss.
“I can be selfish too,” Amina whispers against his wrist and before he can stop her, presses a firmer kiss to his pulse with her soft, pink lips.
21
Amina wasn’t sure where her bravado had originated from. When they’d first arrived to the hotel, Alexander had used his connections to discreetly swipe a key from the front desk. Amina had been so nervous she had made him stop the elevator at least twice so she could get her breathing down pat before arriving on Maarku’s floor.
Then, Alexander had demanded letting him handle things when it came to announcing her presence and Amina had been grateful. Those moments hidden behind Alexander’s expansive frame was enough time for her to compose her face. Until he’d stepped aside and Amina laid eyes on the man that had gotten her to open up and break her heart that afternoon.
When she had first entered his suite and taken in the opulence, Amina had been shocked. But when her eyes landed on the row of liquor bottles neatly lined up on the living room coffee table with a single glass sitting in front of them, Amina knew something was very wrong. Perhaps she hadn’t known Maarku at all? Perhaps he was an alcoholic? Or worse. Perhaps his fiancé was here unlike what Alexanders reports claimed and they were in the midst of celebrating his triumph over a simple Sheikha?
These thoughts had run rampant through her mind as she mocked him about the bottles. Watching him stuff them back into the liquor cabinet had been soothing. Though his words gave Amina pause. He needed the liquor to feel? To feel what? Anger? Pain? Love? That last question had hurt more than the discovery of his engagement that afternoon. Was Maarku even capable of feeling something for her as she felt for him?
Her worries over his engagement evaporated the moment he told her the truth about Lisette and the pain that she had wrought over him. Amina had wanted to jump for joy, until Maarku claimed he couldn’t be selfish and didn’t wish t
o ruin her image.
His words had lifted her heart. He was worried about her image. Not his own. He was feeling something for her. So, with her bravado lifting and her heart swelling, Amina made the first move. Like she had the night of the masquerade.
She’d clutched his hand to her cheek and kissed the spot above his racing pulse. His skin was warm and Amina had blushed in the realization that she’d just kissed a man without prompting. How wanton she had become in Maarku’s presence.
Inwardly, she promised herself, even if it is only for one night, let me be free to explore that which I can never have. Love.
As her lips brush against his pulse, the corners of Amina’s mouth lift slightly as she whispers, “Have I stunned you?”
“You have taken my breath away, jamal,” Maarku’s voice answers back, sounding strained, as if he is holding himself back. Amina’s insides warm as he calls her beauty, like he first did in the market. Shuddering as his body moves closer, warming hers, but not yet touching, except for his hand caressing her cheek, Amina’s moan that she tries to keep locked up escapes as a self-indulgent purr.
“I have to tell you the truth, Amina,” Maarku whispers.
Eyes fluttering in disappointment as he pulls his hand away, Amina sighs and opens them fully to watch as he motions to the large couch behind them.
“I can’t do what you ask until you know the entire story, jamal, it wouldn’t be right,” Maarku explains, his voice tight and controlled as she gracefully takes a seat on the edge of the couch.
Watching as Maarku remains standing and begins to pace in front of the large TV and fireplace, Amina’s nerves prickle with anxiety. What could he possibly have to say now? Perhaps that he isn’t engaged, but has five wives, instead of one faux fiancé? Amina knew there were still some Arabian families that practiced this way, but she’d never experienced it herself. Nor wished to.