19. Chapter 19 Hijacked!
JULIANA
Swiping at my tears, I lift my head and grasp onto my self-control with both hands before I open the secret door. It opens into the only other room on the ground floor that Gabriel showed me in his tour of the family tunnels and how to use them to navigate the palace unseen by staff or guests.
The throne room is quiet as I hoped it would be. There hadn't been anyone in here when Gabriel showed it to me yesterday either. He said it was only used for formal occasions.
Using the app I downloaded for ordering transportation in Zahriya before my first visit, I order a car to take me to the airport.
At the time, I had thought I would have a lot of time to myself to explore Ayn al-Hayat because he would have to work.
And I didn't realize Gabriel would insist on me being accompanied by bodyguards and Reem when I went anywhere.
I did not in fact end up with much free time away from Gabriel during those two weeks. I took his willingness to adjust his schedule as a sign he really wanted to be with me.
But he was just solidifying his position. Fulfilling the terms of the contract to make me fall in love with him.
Only I'd already told him I loved him at that point. After a matter of weeks, more the fool me. And I'd already agreed to marry him.
So, why go overboard rearranging his schedule to treat me like the treasure he claimed I was?
Didn't he realize how devastated I would be when I learned all of it was part of a plan?
I rub my wet cheeks again, telling myself to get it together. I’m not going to leave the palace crying like my heart is broken, even if it is.
Gabriel never said he loved me, but he pretended to want me, not a contract. Not to do his duty.
Once I'm out of the throne room, I walk like I know where I'm going and I have a reason to be there. The haris guarding the exit don't challenge my leaving the palace. Why should they? I'm not a prisoner and if I choose to go out without my guards, that's my lookout.
They must assume the very fact I don't have guards trailing me means it's okay for me to be without them and to leave.
The car I ordered is parked on the street in front of the palace. It's a black, sleek looking sedan, but the license plates match the one the app gave me. One of the guards rushes forward to open the backdoor for me.
I slide onto the backseat with a quiet, "Thank you."
The driver doesn't greet me and I'm grateful. If I open my mouth to talk, I'm afraid a sob will come out instead. It's taking everything in me not to start crying again as I watch the streets of Nurayn pass on the way out of the capital.
I thought this was going to be my home.
Well, not Nurayn, but Zahriya.
Now…
I don't know. I can't marry Gabriel knowing it was all a sham, but I may not have a choice about living in Zahriya either. I’m pretty sure the king will insist on his grandchild being raised here.
Gabriel probably will too. He'll want to be a part of the baby's life. Of course he will. Family means everything to him.
A sob snakes up my throat and I muffle the sound with my fist against my mouth.
The driver says a word I don't recognize in a low, forceful tone.
"What was that?" I ask when I think I can control my voice. "I didn't hear you."
The driver doesn't hear me, or he's ignoring me.
I look up to the rearview mirror, trying to get a glimpse of his face, but there's no mirror. So, all I can see of my driver is the back of his head covered by a white ghutra with a metallic agal.
"Ahmed?" I ask, saying the name the app gave me for my driver.
He grunts.
Okay, so he's not a big talker. That's fine.
I'm definitely not up to a friendly chat for the hour it will take to get to the airport.
I should text my brother to tell him I left. Only then he might call wanting to talk and I don't want to talk to anyone right now.
Bobby was doing a good thing telling me the truth about the contract, but part of me resents my brother's interference. Because I was happy. Really, really happy.
Now everything inside me hurts.
And that's not on Bobby. I know it's not. But I'm not up to a brother and sister heart-to-heart either.
I definitely don't want to talk to Gabriel. And I guess he doesn't want to talk to me either because my phone doesn't alert with a text or a call. Does he even know that I'm gone from the palace?
I hope not. I wouldn't put it past him to put some kind of royal edict out to stop me from getting on my flight, or something.
I prebooked the next flight out of the airport after I arrive. It's going to Doha, the major hub for international flights with three flights a day from Zahriya.
I can get a flight from there back to the States, even if I have to stay a few days in Doha on standby waiting for a seat.
I'm not going back to Santa Fe. Not after finding out how my father betrayed me. I'll try to get a flight to Seattle. To Tessa.
I'll call DeeDee from there to tell her the wedding is off.
Hot tears spill over again from my eyes and I rummage in my oversized tote for a tissue. I've got a couple of changes of clothes, money and my passport. And no tissues.
For some reason that makes the tears fall faster and I sniffle.
The driver says that word again. Maybe he doesn't like crying women.
Then a snowy white handkerchief lands in my lap.
"Thank you," I say in a soggy voice, mopping at the tears before crushing the fine linen in my hand.
Feeling the bumps of embroidery, I look down at the now damp square of fabric. The embroidery in one corner is the same sharp white as the handkerchief, but the hawk is unmistakable.
It reminds me of Gabriel and his brothers. He told me the men in the family are all taught to hunt with hawks from a young age, but only his older brother really excels at it. Even so, it's a symbol of Ayn al-Hayat. The palace there was originally built as a hunting residence for the royal family.
Staring down at the embroidered hawk, the significance of the metallic agal suddenly strikes me. Black is the traditional color of the agal. Some are made of leather stained a dark brown as well, especially in Ayn al-Hayat.
But the metallic agal is reserved for the royal family. The king and crown prince wear gold agals, but Gabriel and his younger brother use agals of interwoven copper and gold.
Like the agal on my driver.
My heart gives a big whump in my chest before it starts racing. "Gabriel?!"
"Of course it is me. Did you think I would allow you to leave me so easily?" he demands, his tone laced with arrogant anger.
What does he have to be angry about? I didn't lie to him.
"But I ordered a car from the app. The license plate matched."
"Your request was flagged and I took appropriate action."
I gasp, stunned. "How was it flagged?"
"I saw that you had the app on your phone, so I naturally apprised your security of it so there would be no incidents where you left the palace without a proper escort."
"That's such an invasion of my privacy."
"A necessary precaution I cannot regret taking as you have in fact attempted to leave the palace without your bodyguards."
"You're not a bodyguard either!"
"They are following in the SUV behind us."
I sit up and turn to look out the back window. Sure enough, there's a familiar black SUV following.
"So, you're driving me to the airport?" I ask sarcastically.
"No."
"Why not? You still want the deal with my dad," I say answering my own question.
"According to your brother, your father signed a new contract with my father."
"According to my brother? Didn't you check?"
"No. I had more important things to focus my attention on."
"Like kidnapping your ex-fiancée."
"It is hardly kidnapping and you are not my ex anything. Anti lī."
"You are taking me wherever we are going," which is undoubtedly Dar al-Hayat. "Against my will. That is the very definition of kidnapping." I'm not touching his claim that I am his. Only the next thing out of my mouth is, "Just because you were my first lover doesn’t mean you have to be my last."
So much for ignoring his possessive claim.
The sound that comes out of Gabriel sends a shiver through me and it's not fear.
Neither of us speaks again, but I don't cry either. I'm too mad.
How dare he have my activity on the transportation app tracked? This isn't the Middle Ages, no matter what he and my dad seem to think.
I don't comment when we pass the turnoff for the airport. What would be the point? Gabriel is determined to fill the requirements of the contract so the Markaz al-Malika can offer treatments with the CRV-7 protocols and pharmaceuticals.
Besides, I'm too busy going over the conversation between Gabriel and Bobby that I overheard word-by-word, because apparently I am a glutton for punishment and need to wallow in the pain of Gabriel's betrayal.
Of being nothing but a caveat to a contract.
Only, Gabriel didn't talk about me like that.
He'd said, "I respect your desire to protect your sister. But I will not allow you to threaten my future with Juliana."
And then he'd threatened Bobby with revealing something shady my brother has been doing to make money over the past five years. My brother doesn't see the world like everyone else does. There are rumors that his best friend from university, Dario Ricci, has ties to organized crime.
When my dad brought it up and suggested my brother curtail his friendship for the sake of the company's reputation, Bobby told him he'd cut ties with Dario as soon as Caldwell Biomedical cut ties with pharmaceutical companies that kept selling opioids to doctors they knew were running pill mills.
Then he'd brought up the company that admitted to basically paying doctors to prescribe fentanyl to people who didn’t have cancer, then coaching their employees on how to fool the insurance companies.
Would Bobby provide pharma grade meds to a distributor to keep the more deadly fentanyl off the streets?
He might. My brother's moral compass has its own north and it's not societal-typical.
But it doesn't stretch to colluding with my father to trick me into marrying a man as part of a business arrangement I knew nothing about.
But Gabriel has to know that my father wouldn't see things the same way. That he'd do anything to protect the reputation of Caldwell Biomedical Holdings, including taking the caveat of our marriage out of the contract.
So, why didn't Gabriel use the info he had on Bobby to force my dad to do that very thing?
I will not allow you to threaten my future with Juliana.
Not, my deal with your father, not my country's access to the CRV-7 treatments. But my future with Juliana.
What does that mean?
"What's in the new contract with my dad?" I ask, instead of letting myself dwell on words that might have simply been a different way of saying the other stuff. "Don't tell me he wants a guarantee of a grandchild, or something just as draconian, now too."
"Our marriage is no longer a caveat for the partnership," Gabriel grits out from the front seat. "But do not think that means you get out of marrying me."
Me get out of marrying him? What the heck is he talking about. "Excuse me, but it's the other way around. If you don't have to marry me to get what you want from Caldwell Biomedical, there's no need for you to go through with the wedding."
"There is every need."
"Why? Is this about your princely honor, or something?"
"You have been my wife since the first night we made love. The wedding allows the rest of the world to know that."
"That's not how it works. People have sex all the time without making a major commitment."
"Those people are not you and me. When you allowed me into your body, you accepted me into your life. When you agreed to make love without condoms after the first time, you confirmed that commitment."
"You think I'm pregnant and that is why you are insisting on going through with the wedding." That sick feeling washes over me again.
Because I am pregnant and there's no way Gabriel is going to allow his child to be born without his name.
"I did my very best to make it so, but whether you are, or not, make no mistake jawharat qalbi, you will marry me in front of our chosen witnesses and celebrate the happy event with the people of my country."
Why does he keep calling me the jewel of his heart? "Stop calling me that. Your heart had nothing to do with you asking me to marry you."
"In that you are very wrong."
"It was all about the contract and don't bother pretending otherwise." Please stop saying things that make me want to hope that it wasn't all a lie.
"It is no pretense." Gabriel takes a turn before the long drive to the palace.
I sit forward and peer out the window. "Where are we going?"
"You will see momentarily."
"Is this a different access to the palace grounds?" Is he trying to keep my presence a secret to stop my brother from coming after me?
"Not exactly, though there is a new road that connects this property to Dar al-Hayat."
New road? "But there's already a road that connects them." The one that we just turned off of.
"The new one is private with more direct access and security."
I'm about to ask why when we turn a bend and a compound surrounded by a high wall comes into view.
A sign above the arched entryway wide enough to accommodate a delivery truck reads Is?ablāt Jawharat al-Qalb. Heart's Jewel Stables.