But Dr. Zakhari, he had been mistaken to dismiss her so quickly. She owed him. And she would become his route to freedom from this palace, from a life that would slowly but surely do what a bullet hadn’t been able to do— kill him.
* * *
Nikhat finished her dinner and dismissed the maid from her quarters. Ten seconds later, she couldn’t remember what it was that had been served to her in the glittering silverware.
She only remembered looking at her reflection in the plate, rushing to the long, oval mirror in her bedroom and redoing her unruly hair.
She stood before it again now, going over herself with a critical eye. Her long-sleeved, high-collared caftan in unrelenting black was made of a stiff silk that instead of clinging to her breasts sat on her shoulders like a tent. Small diamond studs, a gift she had given herself for her thirtieth birthday, were her only jewelry.
Sighing loudly, she grabbed another pin and slapped it over one strand of hair that refused to sit back in her braid. Satisfied with how she looked, she pressed her temples with her fingers and massaged.
She was used to braiding her hair back tight for the operating room. But this time, she had done it so tight that her head ached.
She checked the pile of gifts she had spent hours wrapping, unable to sit still. Had she known that Princess Zohra would allow her father to come straight into Nikhat’s suite in the far-off wing of the palace that housed her, she would have straightened a little more. As it was, she had made the maid nervous with her own twitching and needed to dismiss her.
Pulling her sleeve back, she checked her watch again. Her father was due any minute.
She was pacing the floor, wearing out the ancient, priceless rug when a knock sounded. Her feet flying on the floor, she opened the door.
And froze.
Azeez stood on the other side of the threshold. His jaw was clean-shaven, his gaze steady, a glimpse of the old him peeking out of it. She had forgotten the compelling effect his very presence held.
Her already strung-out nerves stretched a little more.
The fact that he was a few doors away in the same wing as her, night and day, rang like an unrelenting bell in the back of her head however busy she was. Seeing him outside her suite, in the palace of all the places, was a shock that needed its own category.
“I need to speak with you.”
He didn’t wait for her answer. In true arrogant-prince fashion, he pushed his way past her into the suite. Flustered at his sudden appearance, Nikhat turned around.
“Close your mouth, Nikhat. And the door.”
She shut her mouth, not the door. Hopefully she looked defiant, because inside she was trembling. “Why?”
The curve of his mouth turned up in a smirk, his gaze shining with an unholy light. That spark, that smile, had once played havoc with her senses, and apparently it still could. Because her legs were barely holding her up.
“Are you afraid to be alone with me?”
She closed the door shut behind her with a thud that should have silenced the resounding yes in her head.
Her luxurious and vast suite, which had mocked all her New York sophistication, suddenly seemed impossibly small with him standing in the middle of it. He was like the sun, reducing everything around him to colorless insignificance.