CHAPTER FOUR
SAYED KNEW EXACTLY what drove him to his former fiancée’s suite and it wasn’t any form of sentimentality.
It was for the fully stocked liquor cabinet he could indulge in without witnesses.
He’d stopped in shock at the sight that greeted his eyes once inside, his body’s instant response not as unwelcome as it would have been only two hours before.
Aaliyah Amari lounged on the sofa, a crystal glass in her hand, her emerald eyes widened in surprised befuddlement. The scent of a very good malt whiskey lingering in the air implied she’d come to Tahira’s room for the same reason he had.
To drink.
On any other day, he would have been livid, demanding an explanation for her wholly unacceptable behavior. But today all his fury was used up in response to the betrayal dealt him by his betrothed.
“She’s not here,” Aaliyah said, her words drawled out carefully.
“I am aware.”
Aaliyah blinked at him owlishly. “You’re probably wondering why I am.”
“It would appear you needed a drink and a private place to have it.”
Her expression went slack. “How did you know?”
He shrugged.
“Have you been speaking to my father?” She leaned forward, her expression turning nothing short of surly.
The woman had to be inebriated already if she thought the emir of Zeena Sahra had taken it upon himself to converse with her parent. “If I have seen Mr. Amari, I am unaware of that fact.”
Her lush lips parted, but the only sound that came out was a cross between a sigh and a hiccup.
He almost laughed. “You are drunk.”
“I don’t think so.” Her lovely arched brows drew together in an adorable expression of thought. “I’ve only had three glasses. Is that enough to get drunk?”
“You’ve had three glasses?” he asked, shocked anew.
“Not full. I know how to pour a drink, even if I don’t usually imbibe. I only poured to here.” She indicated a level that would be the equivalent to a double.
“You’ve had six shots of whiskey.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Is that bad?”
“It depends.”
“On?”
“Why you’re drinking.”
“I learned someone I thought would never lie to me had done it my whole life, that I believed things that were no more than a fairy tale.”
That sounded all too familiar. “I am sorry to hear that.”
It was her turn to shrug, but in doing so she nearly dropped her mostly empty glass. “She said my father wasn’t a bad man.”
“She?” he heard himself prompting.
“My mom.”
“You didn’t know your father?” His life had not been the easy endeavor so many assumed of a man born to royalty, but he’d had his father.
A good man, Falah al Zeena might be melech to his people, but for Sayed, the older man wasn’t just his king. He was and had always been Sayed’s loving father—papa to a small boy and his closest confidant now.
“Not until recently.” Aaliyah’s bow-shaped lips turned down. “I think Mom was wrong.”
“He is a bad man?” Sayed asked, the surreal conversation seeming to fit with the unbelievable day he’d already had.
Aaliyah sighed, the sound somehow endearing. “Not really, but he’s not very nice.”
“I think many might say the same about me.”
“Probably.”
He laughed. “You are supposed to disagree. Do you not realize that?”
“Oh, why? I think’s it’s the truth. You’re too arrogant and imperious to be considered nice.”
“I am emir.”
“Exactly.”
“You do not think a ruler can be kind?”
“Kind isn’t the same as nice and you’re not ruler yet, are you?”
“As emir I have many ruling responsibilities.” Which were supposed to increase tenfold when he became melech after his wedding to Tahira.
A wedding that wasn’t going to take place now, not after she’d eloped with a man a year her junior and significant levels beneath her in status.
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“I’m not sure.” She looked at him like he was supposed to explain the conversation to her.
“You’re smashed.”
“And you want to be.”
“You’re guessing.”
“My brain may be fuzzy, but it’s still working.”
“Yes?”
“You guessed I wanted a private place to drink because you do, too.”
“That’s succinct reasoning for a woman who probably couldn’t walk a straight line.”
“I’d prefer not to try walking at all right now, thanks.” She waved a surprisingly elegant hand.
“I’ll get my own drink, then.”
She made a sound like a snort, putting a serious dent in any semblance to elegance. “You were expecting me to do it?”
“Naturally.” He failed to see why that should cause her so much amusement.
But his response was met with tipsy laughter. “You really have the entitlement thing down, don’t you?”
“Is it not your job to serve me?” He dropped ice in a glass and poured a shot’s worth of ouzo over it.
“You wanted to make this official?”
“What? No, of course not.” He found himself taking a seat beside her on the sofa rather than settling into one of the armchairs. “You will tell no one of this.”
She rolled her eyes at him and shook her head. “What is it with rich, powerful men assuming I have to be told that? Believe it or not, I don’t need anyone knowing I was caught getting sloshed in a guest’s room.”
The mental eye roll was as palpable as if she’d done it with her glittery green gaze.
“Tahira won’t need it.” Not the room and not the liquor she’d ordered for her rooms. The words came out more pragmatic than bitter, surprising him.
Sayed might be undeniably enraged at Tahira’s lack of commitment to duty, her deceptions and her timing, but it was equally undeniable that he felt no emotional reaction to her elopement with another man.
“That worked out conveniently for both of us.”
That was drunken logic for you. “I would not be here if she had kept her promises,” he pointed out.
“She ran off with someone else, right?”
“The press already have the story?” he demanded.
Things were going to get ugly very quickly, but for the first time in his memory, Sayed could not make himself care right at that moment. He’d lost his brother and the rest of his own childhood to politics and the violence they spawned in angry men.
Sayed had spent the intervening years taking on every duty assigned him, dismissing his own hopes and dreams to take on the welfare of a nation. He’d put duty and honor above his own happiness time and again, doing his best to fill an older brother’s shoes he’d never been meant to walk in.
He was tired. Angry. Done. Not forever, but for tonight he wasn’t emir. He was a man, a newly freed man.
“I spent my entire life being what and who I was supposed to,” he offered, not sure why, but feeling the most shocking certainty that his confidences were safe with this woman.
Aaliyah drained the last bit of amber liquid from her glass. “Yes?”
“It was not as if I was attracted to Tahira. Marriage to a woman who seemed more like a little sister than a future wife did not appeal.”
“But you never tried to back out of it.”
“Naturally not.”
“And that makes you angry now that she’s taken off for the freedom of a life of obscurity.”
“Are you sure you’ve had three doubles? You’re very lucid in some moments.”
Aaliyah giggled and then hiccupped and then stared at him as if she couldn’t quite believe either sound had come from her mouth.
He found himself smiling when, ten minutes ago, he would have said that would be impossible. Even his fury was banking in favor of the constant burn of desire Aaliyah sparked in him.
She smiled tipsily. “You’re both better off.”
“That is a very naive view of the situation.”
“Maybe.” Aaliyah shrugged. “I was born to an amazing woman who gave up everything she knew of life to keep me, not a queen.”
“My mother is amazing,” he said, feeling strangely affronted.
“I know. I read about her. Melecha Durrah is both a gracious and kind queen. Everyone says so.”
“Not nice?” he teased.
“I would not know. I’ve never met her.”
“She is,” he assured. “More so than either her husband or son.”
“Nice can be overrated.”
“Why do you say that?”
“My mother was too nice. If she’d ever just let herself get angry at the people who hurt her, she would have had a better life.”
“Perhaps she enjoyed the peace of forgiveness.”
“Maybe.” Aaliyah stood, swaying in place. “I think I’ll have another.”
He jumped up and guided her back to the sofa. “After some water, I think.”
“I don’t want water.”
“Yes, you do, you just don’t know it.” He wasn’t sure anything would prevent a hangover at this point, but staying hydrated would help.
“You’re awfully bossy.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I’m sure you have.”
He shook his head, filling two glasses with ice from the bar. He snagged a couple liter bottles of water as well as the ouzo before carrying it all back to the sofa.
He put everything on the coffee table before pouring them both a glass of water and topping off his ouzo.
“You weren’t even finished with your first drink,” she commented after taking an obedient sip of water.
“You’re five shots up on me.”
“And you intend to catch up?”
Why not? “Yes.”
“How did you know Princess Tahira had alcohol in her rooms?”
“I know everything about the people I need to.” With one glaring exception.
“Not everything.”
“No, not everything.” Clearly, he hadn’t known about the palace aid. “It would have been politic of you not to point that out.”
Aaliyah shrugged. “I’m a lead chambermaid, not a politician.”
“You don’t act like any maid I’ve ever encountered.”
“Gotten to know many of them, have you?” she asked with a surprisingly bitter suspicion.
“No, actually. That is precisely what makes you so different.”
Her ruffled feathers settled around her. “Well, I don’t usually work housekeeping. I was assistant manager of desk reception in my previous job.”
“Why are you working as a maid now?”
“They wanted my mother, but she died.”
“Your mother is gone, as well?” he asked, pity touching his heart as it rarely did.
“Yes. She was from Zeena Sahra.”
“Did you come to London to be with the rest of your family?” There was a small community of Zeena Sahrans residing in the British city.
“The Amaris don’t recognize me.”
“But that’s impossible.” Family was sacrosanct in Zeena Sahran culture.
“Mom refused to allow someone else in the family to adopt and raise me. The Amaris refuse to recognize a bastard.”
He frowned, inexplicable anger coursing through him. “Do not use such language to describe yourself. It is not seemly.”
“Neither was offering to pay me off if I’d change my last name.”
“They did that?” It boggled his mind.
Aaliyah nodded, an expression of deep vulnerability coming over her features he was fairly certain she was not aware was there. “No matter what Mom hoped, they were never going to accept me into the family. She is buried in the family plot. I won’t be.”
“It is their loss.”
“I keep telling myself that, but you know? Sometimes it’s hard to believe.”
“Believe it.”
“They’re not alone. I am and I don’t like it.” She covered her mouth and stared suspiciously at him, as if he’d drawn the admission out of her rather than her offering it unasked for.
“No one should be abandoned by their family.”
She tried to put on an insouciant expression that fell far short, but he wouldn’t tell her so. He found he enjoyed seeing what he was sure others did not.
The true Aaliyah Amari.
“It happens.” She shrugged and this time her glass tipped enough to spill its nearly full contents down the front of Aaliyah’s inexpensive black suit jacket.
She didn’t even jump, just looked down at the water-soaked jacket. “Oops.”
“You are all wet.”
“I am.” She cocked her head to one side as if studying him and finally said, “You could offer to get a towel.”
“Should I?”
Instead of answering, Aaliyah unbuttoned the front and started shrugging the black fabric off her shoulders.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, his body tightening in a familiar way.
“Don’t worry, I’m wearing a blouse underneath, but if I don’t get this off, that will be soaked, too.”
Once she removed her jacket, Sayed couldn’t hold back his gasp. She’d been too late. The white cotton was wet and clinging to the skin of her torso and the lace-covered curves of her breasts.
Aaliyah looked down and made a moue of distaste his mother would have been proud of, then she giggled. “Too late.”
“My very thought.”
“I guess I’d better take this off, too.”
His conscience demanded he discourage her from that particular course of action, but he refused to listen, watching in lustful fascination as she removed her uniform tie and then the soggy blouse.
Her lacy bra was surprisingly revealing.
“You like pretty lingerie,” he said with a blatant shock that would have indicated the ouzo had already hit his system to anyone who knew him.
Sayed was not blatant. He was subtle. Especially in delicate situations like this one.
Aaliyah nodded. “Why shouldn’t I? I have to dress conservatively for the job, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be as feminine as I like underneath.”
“Your uniform does not mask your womanliness.”
“Are you sure?” she asked very seriously. “I always thought it did.”
Very decisive, he shook his head. “No.”
“This isn’t very modest, is it?” she asked in that way that said her brain was catching up to her actions.
“It is all right,” he heard himself say.
“You would say that. You’re a man.”
“I am.” Despite what many thought, he was indeed a flesh-and-blood male.
“Well, I know what to do.” She nodded with exaggerated movement.
Expecting her to put her damp jacket back on, he sat blinking in lust-ridden surprise as she lifted her hands to fiddle with her hair at the back of her head.
A moment later long, black, silky waves of hair cascaded down over her shoulders and breasts. She arranged it so the wavy strands created a black silk blanket over the tempting mounds of flesh of her breasts.
“There.” She smiled with satisfaction, clearly proud of herself.
“You believe that is more modest?” he asked, his voice cracking on the last word in a way it had not done in more than twenty years.
She looked down, as if trying to figure out why he would ask. “It covers the important bits.”
“It does.” In a way guaranteed to send his libido into overdrive.
She poured herself another glass of water, managing to do so without spilling any of the liquid. Though it was a close thing.
Taking a sip, she gave him a look of expectation.
“What?” he asked.
“It’s your turn.”
“To spill on myself. I do not think so.”
“You don’t have to spill your drink, but you’re supposed to take off your outer robe and stuff.”
“I am?” Had he fallen through the rabbit hole and not realized it?
“It’s only fair.”
That made surprising sense.
He stood up, a little startled at how difficult that simple act had been. “It is called an abaya.”
“I know.”
He let it slide from his shoulders, laying it over the back of the sofa.
“The gold around the collar with burgundy embroidery means you’re a big mucky-muck in Zeena Sahra,” Aaliyah said sagely.
“Yes.”
“So does your egal. I think you should take it off.”
“Why?” He never removed his keffiyah and egal in front of strangers.
The head covering and triple-banded braided cord that bespoke his position as prince were as much a part of him as his close-cropped beard.
“I think you could do with a few hours of not being emir.”
Aaliyah’s words resonating through him, he stared at her. “I think you are right.”
Isn’t that what he’d decided himself not minutes ago?
She nodded, her hair shifting to reveal glimpses of honey-colored flesh he had a near-irresistible urge to taste. The reasons for resisting were melting away with other inhibitions that came with his place of state.
“My current thoughts are definitely not appropriate for an emir,” he admitted.
“So, take it off.”
“Removing my egal won’t take away my role.”
“We’ll pretend it does.”
The idea was very appealing. He gave in and pulled off both the head covering and egal holding it in place.
“Now the suit jacket,” she instructed.
“Are you trying to get me naked?”
“I don’t think so?”
“You don’t sound very sure.” And looked adorably confused by the idea.