by Leslie North
“Hi,” she called across the empty space between them in front of the luxurious house. Two columns decorated the entrance, and they provided a perfect frame for Yaseen’s gorgeous body as he came down to meet her.
“Hello,” he said, a formal edge to his voice. He took her hand in his and brushed a kiss to her knuckles. Kara’s cheeks heated. They’d been married a week, but he still seemed so far away. The SUV pulled away behind her, a second close on its bumper. The second car would be packed and ready for their trip to the town of Mennah, in the Raihani countryside. “How are you feeling? Up to the travel?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m up to it. I can’t wait to visit the site again.”
Yaseen helped her back into the blessed air conditioning of the second SUV. “Don’t you feel like you’ve seen it all already? You’ve been poring over blueprints for weeks.”
“Blueprints don’t tell you the whole story of a place,” Kara said. “Imagination can only take you so far. And I want to talk to the people.” She put her seatbelt on and rubbed her hands together. Community Connections had had its big break as an NGO with this partnership—one with the royal family. The plan? A youth outreach and sports center in Mennah. “We’re going to be able to make so many connections with the community.” Her laugh sounded tinny, even to herself. “I know that’s the name of the game, but it’s true.”
Yaseen gave her a sidelong look that heated something inside her. “And have you run the numbers on profitability?” He studied her from across the backseat of the SUV. Behind that academic look, Kara swore she saw a flare of desire. But no matter what he felt, Yaseen said nothing about it. “There’s little point in investing in a complex like this if it won’t turn a profit for the crown.”
They rolled through the capital city. Yaseen had chosen a home in the most affluent district outside the palace. Kara’s ride to the Community Connections office took thirty minutes in the morning. The ride to the helipad used by the royal family only took ten. Kara was still considering the best answer to Yaseen’s question as they boarded the helicopter, followed by their security detail and one of Yaseen’s aides. Mennah was within driving distance of the capital, but because of her condition, they were avoiding the bumpy roads and hours in the SUV. Kara put on a luxe headset attached to the helicopter’s communication system. They lifted into the air, the rotor beating above them, but the smooth glide of the earphones shut out the noise.
“Look down.” Yaseen’s voice came over the headphones, low and sultry, and made her blush. But Kara simply looked at the landscape below.
“Oh, wow. Wow.” The cityscape petered out, the glinting buildings giving way to a patchwork of agricultural sectors that grew verdant and green. A wide swath of desert appeared like a river of bronze paint, and then the foothills. The narrow road carved a path through. “That’s the road?” She gave Yaseen a thankful smile over her shoulder. “You had the right idea, taking a helicopter.”
“Of course I did,” he said, amusement shading his voice. They followed a ridge of hills until Kara’s eyes caught on a burst of green, this one far smaller than the one encircling the capital city. This, way out here, in a green valley, was Mennah. The helicopter descended, the town coming into view. There was so much space. It was the perfect place to focus their efforts. Mennah was too far from the bustle of the capital city to benefit from its economic activity, so the results would be easy to observe and document. They could try so many things.
“I’m so excited,” she said, and clapped her hands. “This could be the best project Community Connections has ever worked on. It will be the best project.”
“We’ll see,” said Yaseen.
“You will see.” Kara kept her eyes on the landscape below for as long as she could. The ground rose up to meet them, and the pilot set them down gently on a helipad. Two black SUVs, twins of the ones they’d left behind in the capital city, waited on the access road. “You could just admit it, you know.” Her heartbeat fluttered fast at the thought of joking with him—needling him, even. “It’s going to be great.”
Yaseen gave a cool shrug. “I want to look at the numbers before I make any judgments.”
She sniffed, frustration ramping up to a low boil. For all their politeness, it still irritated her that Yaseen couldn’t just be positive. About this one thing.
No point in trying to get water from a dry well or an enthusiastic endorsement of the project from Yaseen now. He’d change his mind once he saw how magnificent it would be for the community. They climbed into the back of one of the cars, their staff into the second.
“I didn’t look on the trip itinerary,” she said into the cool rush of the air conditioning. “Where are we staying?”
A smile that struck her as genuine flashed across Yaseen’s usually stoic face. “There is one hotel here, and a hostel, but we’ll be staying in a villa owned by the crown.” His gaze went far away, then snapped back to hers. “It was a favorite of my great-aunt Zein. She loved Mennah, even though it’s not much of a tourist destination.” He chuckled, the sound rich and deep. “She probably loved it because it’s seldom visited. The villa has been kept in excellent condition in honor of her. The entire family...” Yaseen cleared his throat. “It’s important to all of us to maintain it.” He hesitated, and Kara watched the questions flit through his eyes. “Is there anything like that from your family?”
He knew about her parents by now. In the rush after she’d found out she was pregnant, he had wanted to know if they should be flown in from the States. But her father had passed away so long ago she couldn’t remember him. She’d lost her mother in college. There was no one else.
“A small property in northern Michigan,” she answered. “A cottage on a little lake. Nothing like a royal village.”
“You still have the cottage?”
“Yes, I suppose I do,” she said. It was the only property willed to her by her mother. Kara paid the neighbors a small fee to look after it, but she hadn’t visited since her mom died. It had been in the family, and then Kara’s family had been gone. It didn’t make sense to keep visiting. “But I haven’t been there in a long time. Maybe this is the year I’ll sell it.”
“I’m sorry,” Yaseen said abruptly. “For not asking about that beforehand.”
She fixed a smile on her face. “For not prying about my inheritance?” She laughed and felt a knot loosen in her chest. “A tiny cottage like that one doesn’t make a difference to what we’ve got going.”
The instant the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Maybe the cottage would make a difference. She and Yaseen were contracted to divorce a year after the baby’s birth. She might end up back at that same cottage by some twist of fate. Who knew? It would surely be the opposite of whatever path Yaseen’s life took. The two of them were so different. He was the business-minded, serious prince of the family. She had dedicated her life to lifting up those on the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum. He could return to the palace any time he wanted. She had only a cottage in Michigan to her name. No matter how it played out, the next year and three months could be pretty lonely.
Kara wanted to bridge the divide. Should she reach for his hand? At the very least, it would shift the heavy silence between them. But despite being pregnant with his baby, she just wasn’t sure how Yaseen would react. They really didn’t know each other very well at all. She kept her hands in her lap.
3
The villa sat gracefully at the end of a long drive, the traditional structure seeming perfectly frozen in time. The arabesque designs on the front facade were the same as they ever were, preserved so well the villa looked new. Kara blinked up at the building in the golden light of the late afternoon, the sunbeams catching in her hair.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I’m sure the grounds are just as lovely. In fact, I think I’ll take a walk to stretch my legs. Do the guards know the way?”
He saw this last statement for what he hoped it was—a signal that s
he was finally relaxing into the protocols and standards of the royal family. They couldn’t just stroll away from the palace, or any building, without protection. He knew she hadn’t loved this at the beginning.
“I’ll come with you.” At his words, Kara broke into a smile. “Let’s change into something more comfortable, and then we can go.”
A smile quirked the corner of her lips, but she turned away before it became overtly flirtatious. He stifled his own disappointment. What right did Yaseen have to want her to flirt with him? He shouldn’t. She shouldn’t. They shouldn’t get into that kind of routine, not with the end of their marriage written into a contract. The more he focused on work and the less he focused on how beautiful her eyes were, the better.
They went inside. Two members of the staff had run ahead with their suitcases and set them on the foot of the bed in the master suite. The room was done in shades of cream and white. Aunt Zein had been in charge of the original scheme, and Yaseen’s family had never changed it. It was just like Zein to design a house that served as a perfect backdrop for her signature pottery. One of her pieces kept watch from a built-in shelf in the corner.
“Oh, look at that,” Kara said, leaning in close.
“One of her creations.” Yaseen had to stop himself from pulling her back by the elbow. His aunt’s pottery pieces were priceless—both in terms of their dollar value and the sentimental status they held for the family.
Kara brushed by him on her way back to the bed, her hand making the barest contact with his. Goosebumps erupted on both his arms. Kara bent over her suitcase and pulled out a light blue sundress. She shook it out, then disappeared into the walk-in closet to change—no one would think they’d spent a hot night together, once upon a time. Yaseen tamped down his disappointment at her departure and focused on changing out his starched dress shirt for a casual pullover. He turned away from the open suitcase to find Kara watching him. Her dress had a square neckline he wanted to trace with his finger inside the fabric, and her bare toes wiggled charmingly.
“What?” he asked.
“I’ve never seen you dressed so...informally.”
“I’m not expecting any press out on the walking path.” He nodded toward the DSLR camera cradled in her hands. “What’s that for?”
“Pictures,” she said. “What else? It has a feature that can transfer them directly to my phone for my Instagram.” She slipped on a pair of espadrilles.
A laugh escaped him. “Are you taking photos for the sports center? Because we won’t be building that on the villa’s grounds.”
“It’s for my own personal collection.” Kara kept the camera close at hand as they went out the wide back doors of the villa, crossed the yard, and took a path underneath ever-thickening shade trees.
Zein had been very fond of the walking paths and had them continually manicured, but she hadn’t paved them. I want it to still feel like nature, she’d said to him once, when he was a teenager. You don’t get that feeling with a layer of concrete between your feet and the earth. Kara walked slightly ahead of him, adjusting the settings on her camera. She stopped and snapped a few shots of the trees against the sky.
“Our marriage is so far from normal,” she said, her tone almost absent. The breeze picked up her voice and brought it to him with a warm caress against his skin.
He put his hands in his pockets. “What even is normal?”
“Not this.” Kara laughed, wrinkling her nose.
“No, tell me,” insisted Yaseen. “What about it isn’t normal?”
She pursed her lips, and they kept walking along the path, the sundress lifting deliciously on the wind. “I don’t know,” she admitted after several beats. “I didn’t have a stereotypical middle-class upbringing with two parents and a white picket fence.”
“Neither did I,” he said wryly.
She laughed again, and the sound lifted his mood. “We don’t share a bed, for one thing. I don’t know many wives who sleep in a separate suite, like medieval royalty. And we’re mainly together for public appearances.”
“You don’t think that counts as normal?” They both laughed then, and the silence between them settled into something easy and light. “What do you think of the villa?”
“Oh, it’s perfect,” gushed Kara. “I loved the city from the first time I visited. All of it’s wonderful. The villa and Mennah itself.”
It only seemed natural to keep asking questions. “What do you like about the city?”
Kara paused to think. “The architecture and the marketplace are standouts from that first visit, but for me it comes down to the people.” She shook her head, her eyes wrinkling with a smile. “It’s not like the capital city. Things move at a slower pace here. But it still manages to feel alive.”
“Agreed,” Yaseen said firmly. Kara looked over at him, a spark in her eye. “I came here as a boy.” No need to show her how excited he was that she loved Mennah. It didn’t even make sense to him why her approval meant so much, but in this moment, it did. “It was one of the few places we were allowed to be ourselves. Not nearly so many prying eyes here. And I think the people in town truly loved my great-aunt, and not only because she was a member of the royal family.”
“Why did you stop coming back?”
“Life. Duties.” He shrugged. Why had he stopped coming back? It wasn’t as if he couldn’t spare the time for a visit once or twice a year.
He stopped midstride at a fork in the path.
“Which way?” Kara asked.
“There’s actually something this way I wanted to show you.” He’d just now made up his mind to take her there. “Come with me.”
She followed him down that branch until they came upon a wide clearing. In the center, rising up from a covering of grass, rose—
“Ruins!” said Kara, her voice hushed but still excited.
“Ruins,” he repeated, but she was already gone, walking forward with light steps. It struck Yaseen that the way she moved had changed. Her hips swayed from side to side to accommodate her growing belly. He hung back at the edge of the clearing and watched as she settled into photographer mode. She wielded her camera with the same confidence she’d had dancing that night at the club, and again a week later, when she’d welcomed him at their first business meeting at her office. It hadn’t mattered that they’d had an intense fling not seven days prior. She still commanded the attention of everyone in the room without revealing a thing.
“I’ve never seen someone so happy about some crumbling ruins.”
Kara looked up from her camera screen. “It’s gorgeous here.”
“I think you’re gorgeous.”
He watched the shock widen her eyes and color come to her cheeks. Soft footfalls behind him alerted him to the close presence of the guard unit. They’d hung back, but now they were very nearly in the clearing with them.
“Is that so?”
“More than ever.” He went to her and put a hand on the small of her back. There—that felt right. When she was in his arms. In his hands. It was ridiculous, how hard he’d tried to forget the feeling of her. It was one thing to touch her through the blue sundress, but Yaseen’s blood thundered in his veins at the memory of her moving against him. It had been a long time, but the memory was fresh and new and hot. “I wouldn’t want you to miss this part of the ruins, either.” He led her around behind the most intact of the ancient structure’s walls. They were completely hidden from the guard—for another moment or two.
“There’s nothing back here,” Kara whispered. This was the same anticipation he’d felt that night in the club, when she’d hooked a hand in the collar of his shirt and pulled him in close. They had been surrounded by people, bodies in motion, but the world had come to a halt when he was an inch away from her lips. Kara had given him that—the chance to move away, the chance to pretend he didn’t want to kiss her.
He wanted to kiss her now.
And he had wanted to kiss her again, after the two of them had sworn it was
a little fling—nothing they could sustain, not with their jobs and duties and the prying eyes of the city. He had burned hot under his clothes when he sat in the meeting with Community Connections. He had burned hot in his soul when he saw her name on his daily schedule. He’d sat in that meeting pretending he didn’t long to press kisses down the side of her neck.
Every day since, he’d wanted to do the same thing. But he’d stopped—he’d stopped.
“It’s a ruse that’s worth it.” Yaseen bent down and kissed her. Here, away from the palace, nothing weighed on him. Not the impending divorce, and not what anyone thought of him for having a fling with an American “commoner”—none of it. All that mattered was that they were together and hidden from view. It loosened something at the center of him—something that kept him hyper-aware, at all times, that the public was watching. That his family was watching, if only to see if he’d make a mistake.
Gorgeous Kara tipped her face toward his and kissed him back. Why hadn’t he done this in the car or the helicopter? What had he been waiting for all this time? He brushed his tongue along her bottom lip, and the kiss deepened. Kara pulled him in close. The guard stayed put.
4
“Ready?”
Yaseen appeared at the doorway to the big walk-in closet in the master suite, freshly showered. His dark eyes flickered down her body, and Kara’s cheeks heated. That kiss. She could not stop thinking about the kiss behind the ruins. Yaseen had to be the most frustrating man she’d ever been involved with. He kept things so cool, so professional, and then that heat came to his eyes and all bets were off.
“Yes,” she said, putting her second earring in. They were tiny sapphires to match the blue of her dress. Yaseen had furnished her with an entire maternity wardrobe, including the sheath dresses she favored for work at Community Connections. “I’m ready.”
Kara was also ready for Yaseen to take her back behind those ruins and kiss her again. As much as she tried to focus on the impending meeting, it was all she could think about as they rode to the helipad. Cid waited for them next to the helicopter, looking only slightly nervous. He was the official representative of the design-build firm in charge of the project’s construction, and he shook hands firmly, his eyes steady on Kara’s. Yaseen fired off a question about the budget for the site, Cid answered, and the two of them were off to the races.