11. Chapter 11 Unexpected Stratagems
JULIANA
"Iunderstand now why he put you in the queen's room. It is usually reserved for family, but if you are his fiancée," Reem says in a confidential undertone as she leads me up a grand staircase.
"We aren't engaged," I mutter.
And if this is how he's going to treat me after I shared such personal things and upended my life to spend time with him, it's not likely to happen either. I don't want to spend the rest of my life married to a man who plans to ignore me.
No matter how much I love him.
In fact, I'm pretty sure loving him would make that sort of life even more painful.
"Really? That's why he called you his intended then. It's kind of an old-fashioned word, isn't it?"
"Yes." I sigh inwardly. It's not Reem's fault that Gabriel is a thoughtless jerk. "You speak way better English than I speak Arabic," I say in that language.
"Your accent is very good, my lady. How did you learn?"
I tell her about Aisha and my work at Solace Ridge.
Before I know it, we are entering a bedroom suite that is as beautiful as it is spacious. It has a sitting room, a bedroom, a bathroom that could double as a spa and a balcony with French doors leading out onto it from both the sitting room and bedroom.
"Oh, wow, this is…" Words fail me. "I don't think I should be staying in his mom's room though."
"Mom's room?" Reem asks, her brows puckered in confusion and then she smiles.
"It is called the queen's room because it was the suite used by the last queen to keep her own apartment separate from the sovereign.
That was over a hundred years ago. Now, it is a guest room reserved for members of the royal family who do not already have their own apartments here in the palace. "
"Like who?" I can't help asking.
"The king and queen and their sons are the only ones who have apartments designated for their use alone," Reem says, both answering my question and not answering it.
My curiosity wishes she wasn't so good at being circumspect, but I'm not going to push for more answers. If I want to know who besides Gabriel's parents and brothers come to stay at the palace, I can ask him.
If I see him.
Stop. He said he would see you later.
Right. I'm being ridiculous. I'm just disappointed and feeling raw after exposing the pain of my past to him. If I'd really thought about it, I would realize that just because I found someone to cover for me at the ranch doesn't mean Gabriel could find someone to cover for him.
He's a prince. A sheikh. The President and CEO of a mining company that has partners and customers worldwide.
As busy as I have been for the last five days, I found time to read the results of my brother-in-law's research on not only Zahriya, but everything he could find on Gabriel and the Jabal al-Dhahab Mining Company.
Mark was impressed with Gabriel's business acumen. When his father named him Sheikh Jabal al-Dhahab, Gabriel took over a profitable but stagnant company no one thought could grow, being limited as it was to the natural mining resources on Zahriya.
Gabriel didn't allow himself to be limited, entering into partnerships with countries, companies and people who had the natural resources to mine but not the funds to set up earth-friendly mining operations.
He brought his technology and money to the table and turned the formerly small Zahriyan company into a global concern.
"He could buy and sell your dad ten times over," Mark had said with deep satisfaction in his voice.
My father has been trying to get Mark to come work for him since he married my sister. Tessa told him if he ever took him up on it, she'd divorce him.
I'm pretty sure she wasn't kidding.
My brother-in-law is a smart man and he stuck with the industry he loves: computer technology.
One of the things Mark discovered increased my feeling of affinity with Gabriel. His mom, Queen Camille, has cutaneous lupus associated with SLE, which results in dermatological flareups on her face every bit as obvious as the port wine stain birthmark I was born with.
A year ago, someone from the exclusive clinic she went to for treatment leaked pictures of her before, during and after treatment. I wonder if the royal family realizes the protocols used to treat her skin issues were developed as a result of my father's determination to rid me of my birthmark?
Regardless, I felt instant empathy for the lies and innuendo she had to endure.
Reem oversees three maids unpacking my cases in the walk-in closet before turning to me. "I will leave you to your rest. Just text me when you wake up. Unless you would like something to eat before you sleep?"
"I'm actually not tired. Maybe you could join me for a cup of coffee on the balcony?" The sun will be rising soon and if I have my bearings, this room faces east.
"Of course. I will have a tray sent up." Reem picks up the handset from a phone on the side table and gives instructions for the coffee and something else to be brought up.
I don't recognize the word, so I ask.
"Khameer is breakfast bread. It's delicious hot from the oven. You can split it open and fill it with hot cream cheese, dates or preserves if you prefer," Reem says enthusiastically.
We move out to the balcony to wait for the coffee. It's cool, but not too cold for comfort and the pale light of dawn is starting to illuminate the sky. I realize there's a large courtyard below my balcony and my view of the sunrise might be blocked by the structure of the palace on the other side.
That's okay. I have a feeling the courtyard itself is going to be a feast for my eyes. The sound of multiple fountains reach my ears even though I'm one story up.
"Isn't there any outdoor lighting in the courtyard?" I ask Reem.
"There is, but it is turned off at midnight."
I'll have to make sure I'm in my room tonight before then so I can see it from this vantage point. "Do many people live in the palace?"
Reem is telling me about the family quarters for the staff when there's a discreet knock at the door.
"Excuse me, I will be right back, my lady."
I don't think I can get used to being called my lady. How bad would it make Gabriel look to rescind the order?
I shouldn't care. He brought it on himself, deciding I would be called that without even asking me if it was what I wanted.
When Reem returns, she's carrying a tray with aromatic coffee and a plate of round rolls with sesame seeds on top. There are other pots with lids on them, probably the cream cheese and other things she talked about filling the rolls with.
My mouth waters in anticipation and then I notice the slight frown on Reem's face. "I apologize, my lady, but Moza wishes to speak to me. She has instructed me to allow you to get your rest."
"But I'm the one who invited you to share my coffee."
"His highness wishes you to take a nap."
His highness could start wishing for flying horses because those weren't going to happen anytime soon either.
Reem frowns at the tray. "Perhaps you should not drink the coffee. I can send some herbal tea up for you instead."
She moves as if she's going to grab the coffee pot and I step in front of it fast. "No thank you. I like coffee."
"But—"
"Please tell Moza that the coffee and chatting was my idea and that I am terribly disappointed you have been called away." It's on the tip of my tongue to add, it is unfortunate his highness did not consider my wishes before issuing his orders.
But I don't.
Because I can be circumspect too. Go me.
That doesn’t mean the next time I see Gabriel he isn't going to get an earful. Because he so is.
Rather than sit down and enjoy my coffee and the delicious looking buns, I kick off the heels I'm not used to wearing and do a second circuit of my suite, shamelessly opening drawers and cabinets to peek inside now there's no one here to see me be nosy.
The top drawer in the antique escritoire has a pile of thick, embossed stationery and two pens in a case.
For writing letters? Do people still write letters?
The drawer below has a remote, which means that somewhere in the suite, there's a television or media center. Hmm. Looking around, I search for a likely spot. A large, ornate armoire has pride of place on the wall opposite the settee.
I cross the room and open the double doors. Sure enough, a flat-screen television sits on a recessed shelf with a lip that looks like it's meant to be a handle. Testing my theory, I grab it and pull. The shelf slides forward about a foot.
"Thinking of watching something, juwayhira? Only, if you are bored, I can think of a much more pleasurable way to pass the time."
Gasping, I spin to face Gabriel. "Where did you come from?"
The armoire is on the same wall as the doorway to the hall. I couldn't have missed him opening it.
"There is a private passageway between the king's chamber and this one." Gabriel moves toward me with a predator's grace. "I will show it to you later."
I take two quick steps backward, only to run into the arm of the settee. "The king's chamber? Where your dad stays when he's here?"
I sidle sideways to move past the sofa.
Gabriel pulls his agal and ghutra off in a single movement, tossing them onto the settee. "The king's chamber is my private apartment."
"But you aren't the king."
"It is named thus for its first occupant, Malik Qadir."
Curiosity caught, my brows draw together as I try to work out what's different about that king's name from Gabriel's.
"You're called Al Qadir," I say. "Why wasn't he?"
"He was Qadir, our first malik after Zahriya claimed its independent sovereignty in the 16th century."
"Malik means king, right?"
"Yes. The title malik and king are used interchangeably in Zahriyan royal protocols." Gabriel unhooks the fasteners holding the embroidered edges of the thawb together one by one.
"Why not just malik?" I'm edging my way along the wall toward the bedroom, inexorably herded by the domineering movements of my lover.
"Several generations in the past, the malik noted some foreign dignitaries affording more deference to a visiting English prince than to him.
" Gabriel pulls his thawb over his head and tosses it aside.
"The malik decreed that all European visitors and dignitaries were to address him as king, thereby forcing them to acknowledge his superior rank to everyone there, including the prince. "
"Not American?" I ask with an embarrassing high pitch to my voice.
But Gabriel is standing in front of me in a snug-fitting white undershirt and cotton trousers hanging low on his hips.
He toes off his shoes. "The United States did not exist at that point."
Wow. Okay, so at least 250 years ago. "But malik is a superior rank to prince."
"It is, but forcing the prince to address him as his acknowledged superior influenced the behavior of the other dignitaries at the court.
My ancestor was a key tactician." Gabriel shows he is too by shoving his trousers and boxers down at once, revealing his impressive sex, already in an advanced state of arousal.
He certainly has no problem with his own nudity. At least not in front of me.
"And no malik has changed that decree since?" I ask, my gaze fixed on his engorged penis.
That fit inside me. And it felt good. So, so good.
But right now, I'm thinking I hallucinated how good because how is it not going to split me in two?
"My great-grandfather changed the decree from must to may." He pulls off his undershirt, and stands gloriously naked before me. "It is still common practice for foreign dignitaries from certain parts of the world to use the title king now."
I bump into the doorjamb. "Um, there's coffee. On the balcony."
I don’t want coffee. I want him. Inside me.
"I am not interested in coffee right now. You realize my plan was to take you to the stables and introduce you to my horses this morning? I planned for us to go on a ride."
What? Horses? My brain takes several seconds to catch up because all my blood is busy pulsing in my ladybits.
"But you sent me to my room for a nap instead." That still rankles.
"So I could be alone with you as we are. What were you thinking, inviting Reem to have coffee with you? Was it not enough that you talked to her like a long-lost friend?"
"How did you know we were talking?" Although, I'm not sure what else we could have been doing.
Watching television together maybe?
"I have been waiting in the bedroom, listening." His voice is laden with the impatience that pastime caused him.
"You abandoned me as soon as I got here. I didn't want to be alone."
"I thought surely you would realize I had plans to join you at the earliest possible moment."
"How in the world was I supposed to know that?" I demand, crankiness overriding arousal.
"Now you know how devious I can be, you will expect such outcomes." There's a message there in his eyes, one that I have no hope of interpreting. "Be assured that it is always my desire to be with you."
"That's not how it felt downstairs." But now I know differently.
This was his plan. He definitely has a more devious mind than I do.
"I have moved important meetings. Cancelled social engagements. I cleared my schedule to spend as much time with you as possible while you are here." I don't know how a naked, fully aroused male can look grumpy, but Gabriel's expression is definitely that.
My own crankiness takes flight and I smile. "That's good to know."
"Is it? I do not know if I like this addiction I feel toward you."
"No, I can see you don't." For an alpha male like Gabriel, needing to spend time with me will make him feel out of control.
And if a night of lovemaking with him showed me anything, it is that this man likes to be in control.