Chapter Ten
HANA DIDN’T WANT to leave the Summer Palace but Ehsan had bought them only one more night before they had to resume the tour. She and Malik had been here three days already, which had been the best days of her life.
She had woken that first morning in a bed, surprised to find herself tucked against Malik’s side.
It had felt so magical, so unreal, that she’d almost dared not breathe.
Her body felt…strange, different. She was aware of it in a way she’d never experienced before.
Malik’s words of praise from the night before filled her mind and her heart and she thought perhaps that this was what it had all been about, what everything had been leading towards, every hurt and every hope coalescing into getting her to this magical place.
Hana took her mint tea and went to stand at the sandstone parapet of the rooftop terrace.
Behind her, the desert stretched almost all the way back to Omrhain, and before her was a mountain range that separated Al Surrahin from the sea.
Their looming presence on the horizon made her want to see them up close, but Ehsan had explained that they would be travelling south from here, to the small city of Merkeh, where Malik’s uncle on his father’s side held a powerful position.
With such little time her eyes feasted on the dramatic landscape.
The sands rolled in with the wind from the west, drawing her gaze towards the vibrant green area at the foot of the mountains.
She imagined it would be warm and humid, lush and fresh.
But Hana found herself turn back once more to the deserts.
The angular shapes of the dunes and landscape around the palace were wild and untameable, a little scary but utterly enthralling.
Right now, a sun dressed in pinks and oranges was creeping into the sky.
It was incredibly early in the morning, and she hadn’t wanted to leave Malik, certainly not when he looked so peaceful.
But they didn’t have much time left here and she wanted to imprint as much as she could in her mind before they went back to the palace in the city.
To the suites that Malik didn’t like and… might not want to share.
‘I thought I’d find you up here again,’ Malik said from behind her.
She smiled as she felt his arms wrap around her and happily leaned back against the hard planes of his chest.
‘I don’t want to leave,’ she confessed.
He bent to whisper in her ear. ‘I don’t either.’
‘You’re not looking forward to Merkeh?’ she asked, twisting in his arms to look up at him.
‘I am. It’s a beautiful place. But I’ve never liked Councillor Ettenu. I’ve been trying to replace him for the last two years, but he’s my father’s brother and can make things quite difficult.’
She smiled as she rubbed his forearm, unconsciously trying to soothe him.
‘Can we come back here?’ she asked. ‘At some point? Obviously, we need to return to the capital but…’
She trailed off, struggling to find the words that spoke of a future she couldn’t quite see. As if she knew that it was delicate, fragile even. As if it were on the other side of a desert storm.
‘That’d be nice,’ he said, breathing in deep, his chest pressing against hers and perhaps not realising that he hadn’t actually answered her question.
Footsteps sounded on the tile behind them.
‘Your Highness? You have a guest.’
Malik’s sister-in-law had arrived with her young son, Aayan, the heir to the Al Surrahin throne.
Sitting opposite Yara in the living area, Hana could see that the sheikh’s wife was strikingly beautiful.
Older than her by about ten years, Yara made Hana feel impossibly young and inexperienced.
There was an innate confidence and sophistication about her.
Composure. The kind that Hana had always envied.
Aayan was thirteen, tall and full of angles and long limbs that he seemed to find awkward and unwieldly. He watched Malik with wide eyes and a little wariness and Malik pretended not to notice, even though Hana was pretty sure that he did.
There had been exchanges of small talk, polite, somewhat stilted conversations about people they knew, and Hana got the sense that Malik and Yara were skirting around an issue that they didn’t want to share in front of either her or Aayan, or the both of them.
She waited until Malik and Yara were midway through a conversation that seemed as unimportant as the weather before turning her attention to Aayan.
‘Have you spent much time here at the Summer Palace, Your Highness?’ she asked.
He bit his lip and shrugged. She held back a smile, remembering how awkward Danesh had been at that age, an awkwardness that would be compounded by a sense of suspended loss for a father who was neither present nor gone. And with that thought, her smile dissolved.
‘I bet you know all the best places. I’ve only found one hidden gem so far,’ she lied. The baths, the bed, the rooftop, they had all become her absolute favourites.
‘Maybe,’ he hedged.
‘You see,’ she said, leaning forward, confiding in him with a whisper, ‘I want to play a trick on my husband and I’ve been trying to find the absolute best hiding place that he will never, ever, ever, find. And I wondered whether you’d help me?’
Aayan cast a cautious look in Malik’s direction.
‘Oh, it’s okay. I promise not to tell him if you help me,’ Hana insisted, feeling something like relief when she saw the spark of curiosity and interest. ‘Do you want to help me?’
He nodded, so quickly she worried he’d get dizzy.
She stood, drawing Malik and Yara’s attention.
‘His Royal Highness is going to take me on a tour,’ she announced, catching eyes with Yara, who, Hana knew, had missed nothing of her and her son’s conspiratorial conversation.
Yara smiled and nodded, and when Malik looked as if he were about to interject, Hana subtly waved away his concern and, despite being bemused by their departure, he gave his consent.
Malik leaned back in his chair, the silence growing between him and Yara now that they weren’t trying to keep up the pretence for Hana and Aayan.
‘She’s lovely,’ Yara said.
Malik sighed and looked down at the floor. He wanted to talk about Hana as much as he wanted to talk about his brother. Which was very little.
‘Mmm,’ he said non-committally.
Because how could he talk to her of Hana when he could barely find the words to explain it to himself?
The way that she had crept under his skin, the way that he feared that he genuinely might never be able to sleep without her by his side, ever again.
The way that his mind felt…quiet next to her, as if it were finally at peace.
Yara arched a single eyebrow before slowly smiling.
‘She’s not what I thought she’d be.’
‘And what’s that?’ Malik demanded, uncaring that he sounded defensive and unaware that it drew the smallest of smiles to the lips of his sister-in-law.
Yara shrugged. ‘Even I had heard the news of how chaotic and accident prone she was. I was half expecting to find you in bandages and the palace half destroyed.’
Malik opened his mouth to object, but Yara pressed on without noticing.
‘I’d even wondered if the Sheikh of Omrhain was being disrespectful by offering you the hand of his youngest daughter.’
Malik clenched his fist.
‘And then the reports from the first few visits on your tour weren’t exactly brimming with praise.’
‘She was uncomfortable.’
‘She doesn’t appear so now. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen Aayan warm to anyone so quickly. Not since…’
Ishmail’s accident.
Malik swallowed painfully.
‘Apparently, you’ve been different since meeting her.’
‘I’m going to fire every single member of staff that you know,’ Malik groused, making her laugh a little.
It was a sound he remembered, an echo of what it had been like when the three of them had stayed in this palace, Ishmail and Yara chasing after each other as if they were teenagers rather than rulers.
Yara leaned towards him as if about to confide some great secret. ‘Some even say that you’ve been heard to laugh,’ she teased.
Malik was as shocked as his sister-in-law, apparently, to find himself blushing.
‘You like her,’ Yara observed as if genuinely surprised.
‘Yara, you were the one that said she was lovely,’ he said, sidestepping her statement.
Yara looked at him, her eyes searching for and seeing more than he’d ever wanted her to.
‘And after your parents—’
‘My parents having nothing to do with this, Yara,’ he said, hating the way the mention of them left him cold.
‘I know that. But it’s not what I think that’s important, is it?’ she asked carefully.
She held his gaze. Her pale blue eyes had often startled tourists and travellers new to the area.
‘I’m glad you have her by your side,’ she said. Such simple words that said so much. Too much. It spoke of all the things that he had and she now didn’t. And he hated himself for it.
‘Is that why you had my things moved into the royal suites?’ he asked, almost fearful of the answer.
She looked at him, probably seeing in his face the hurt that radiated from his chest.
‘I did that because it’s time, Malik.’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head, his hand slashing a line through the still air in the room. ‘No.’
‘I understand that your marriage prevented you from meeting with Ishmail’s doctors, but—’
‘But what, Yara? It couldn’t wait…?’
‘No.’
Malik’s jaw was clenched so tight he could almost hear the crack of teeth and bone.
‘It can’t wait any more. I can’t. He can’t. And Aayan can’t,’ Yara said clearly, her gaze sad but strong. ‘If I were allowed to make this decision for you, I would, but I can’t. You know that it must come from you as regent.’
The air punched out of his lungs as if he’d been struck.
‘But how can I do that?’
‘As his brother, as the family member who loved him the most and the best, you are the only one who can,’ Yara replied passionately, unaware that her words shattered his heart into little aching pieces.