“You haven’t even met her,” Syed snapped.
“I have, however, seen the dossier on her. A waitress in an American bar? Who grew up in a trailer park? She is, quite literally, trailer trash. Can you really expect our Kingdom to accept her as your bride?”
Syed wrapped his fingers around the railing of the balcony until his knuckles glowed white. “She is so much more than that. The dossier makes her sound common. And she’s not. Zahir, she is the most spectacular woman I’ve ever known.” And though Syed hadn’t cried since their mother died, he felt an overwhelming emotion as he thought of Sarah and her beautiful uniqueness. “She is a brilliant artist; a photographer who can capture emotion and mood with a single picture. She is kindness and compassion, and grace and beauty. Zahir, she is more worthy of royal life than I am.”
Zahir’s lips curled in an amused smile. “And it does not hurt, I suppose, that she has just the kind of figure you go crazy for?”
“It was never just about sex,” Syed said simply.
“Perhaps not.” Zahir turned to face him, propping his hands on his hips. “But it is all it can ever be again. Go. Sleep with her, if that is what you need to get her out of your mind once and for all. But when you come back to Kalastan, I do not want to hear this woman’s name again. Sarah Smith is not welcome in our kingdom. Understood?”
CHAPTER ONE
The town was just as he recalled.
Small, old-fashioned and faintly smelling of pine needles. His eyes lifted past the flat rooves of the main street towards the forest beyond.
Strange that the trees had not grown much.
Five years.
A frown pulled at Syed’s face, like a branch being weighted by too many persimmons.
The trees hadn’t grown but that didn’t mean other things hadn’t changed.
Five years.
Had it really been so long since he’d held Sarah Smith in his arms?
Out of nowhere, his body stirred with the memory of that pleasure. Her soft flesh, her generous curves.
She may not still live in the little house with the green door, of course.
She might have left. Moved to a bigger city. Forgotten all about him.
Was it possible? When she had burned his dreams, night after night?
There was only one way to know for sure.
*
The stench of liquor was now, she feared, deep inside her organs.
At first, it had just been her shirt. Then her skin, and now, her muscle and deep tissue were surely saturated in it. Fantasies of a long, hot shower to wash away the double shift were tantalising, but just out of reach. She shot a glance at her slim-gold wrist watch.
It was an hour before Lexi’s bed time.
Hardly time to read her a book, give her a bath and share a meal.
She paused two doors down from her own and pressed her finger on the ringer. The scuffle of many little feet sounded from within, bringing, as always, a smile to Sarah’s face.
Caitlyn opened the door. At eleven, she was the self-appointed leader of the gang – the six or so children her mother took in each evening to care for and earn extra money.
“Hi honey,” Sarah smiled, not mentioning the clown-like makeup on Caitlyn’s face.
“We were doing dress-up,” she giggled, explaining anyway. “I was the model.” And she curtseyed, revealing two little bodies behind her own.
“And a very good model, too.”
“Want to come in?”
Sarah adored her neighbours. Caitlyn’s mother, Jenny, was cheap childcare and she truly loved the kids in her care. But she could talk the hind legs off a donkey and Sarah had already suffered through enough banal small talk that day. “I’m late,” she apologised. “Lexi will be exhausted.”
Caitlyn shrugged. “I’ll go get her.”
“Thanks.” Sarah rubbed her hands together as a cold wind rustled past. It was the beginning of Autumn and the season’s change was all around her. She tilted her head towards the sky, admiring the crisp view of the stars, and the heavenly fragrance of the pine plantation.
He’d spotted her as soon as she’d turned the corner. Just as she’d approached her door, he’d gripped the handle of his, readying himself to step from the confines of his luxurious vehicle. But then she’d stopped, two houses before reaching the green door. She was chatting now.
His impatience grew, but the certainty that Sarah was still here, in Iron Oaks, answered at least one of his questions.
The tiny little figure that hurtled out of the door and ran at her jeans-clad legs a moment later answered another. And this one left something like iron in his mouth.
“Mommy!” Lexi wrapped her chubby arms around Sarah’s legs, her fingers splayed wide across the back of Sarah’s knees.
Sarah scooped down, lifting Lexi up against her chest. “Hi, baby girl.” She kissed Lexi’s cheeks, smiling when she saw the little girl had green eye shadow and garish pink lipstick.
“She was a model, too,” Caitlyn explained helpfully.
“I can see that. Tell your mom ‘thanks’.”
“Sure thing.” Caitlyn pushed the door closed and Sarah turned back down the street, covering the short distance to her home with Lexi bouncing on her hip.
“You look like you’ve been to the beauty parlour,” she drawled, raking her gaze over her niece’s face with another smile.
“Uh huh. I have.”
“I see.”
“Did you have a good day, mama?”
Sarah’s heart turned over. Mama. Such a beautiful word. A word that should have been filling her sister’s heart and mind. Instead, it was Sarah who got to enjoy the delicious sense of being loved and needed by this adorable little person.
“I had a great day,” Sarah’s voice was thick with emotion. She reached into her bag with one hand and felt around for her keys. “Did you have a good day?”
Lexi tilted her head to one side. “I think so.”
Sarah laughed. “You think so?”
“I didn’t like the lunch.”
Jenny, a committed vegan, often served meals that could be, at best, described as economical, at worst, slosh. “Oh. What was it?”
“There were little seeds in it.”
“Seeds?”
“Like hard circles. Lumps.”
“Lentils?” Sarah guessed, pushing the door inwards and stepping into their small house with relief. The bathroom was immediately to the left.
It beckoned to her from her mind, a warm shower a tantalising talisman. Soon, she promised herself, putting Lexi down inside the door. The little girl sat on the floor immediately and began to unlace her shoes. Though she was only three, she was impressively self-sufficient.
“Good job,” Sarah murmured, stepping around her and sliding her well-worn ballet slippers from her feet before scooping down and collecting up the envelopes that had been thrust through the mail slot.
A roll of adrenalin charged her blood as she saw the first two postmarks – electricity company and gas company. She’d have put all the money she didn’t have on the fact the envelopes contained more than just a merry little ‘hi’. Mentally counting her bank balance, including what she’d earned from her double, and the tips she had folded into the back pocket of her slim-fit jeans, she figured she might be able to cover at least one of the bills this month.
“Okay, little love,” she forced an over-bright smile to her face. “Let’s get you dinner.”
She padded down the hall and into the kitchen, stuffing the bills between the microwave and the basket of spices, and pulled a packet of pasta from the pantry.
There was a thumping noise before she could split the plastic. The door? She poked her head into the hallway just as Lexi pulled the door inwards, her tiny hand adept and turning the knob.
Sarah cursed inwardly. She’d forgotten to latch the chain across – a precaution she always employed to stop this exact thing from happening.
“You’re a big man.” Lexi’s observation was as true as it was shocking. Sarah couldn’t help the noise of garbled surprise that escaped her mouth as she stared down the hallway and into the past.
Syed.
His Royal Highness Syed Al’Eba, she corrected mentally, the flare of betrayal at how he’d lied to her not even remotely diminished by the years that had passed.
His eyes were boring into her, as though he too was assessing her through the veil of passed-time. Seeing her as she’d been, reconciling and accounting for what she was now.
And she knew how that comparison would end.
Five years ago, she’d been twenty-two and full of hope and aspiration. She’d been on the brink of leaving Iron Oaks.
She’d been tanned, fit, and happy. Vibrant.
She withdrew into the kitchen for a second, closing her eyes and waiting for the mounting tide of panic to subside. Only a second. Long enough to pull herself together and step into the corridor with renewed confidence, or the appearance of it, at least.
“What are you doing here?” She asked, the words pleasingly cold, her manner off-hand. She walked quickly, though, and scooped Lexi into her arms, nestling her back onto her hip.
“He’s a big man, mommy,” Lexi said thoughtfully, her head tilted to the side once more, as she examined him.
And he was big. All over. Tall, like all the men of the powerful royal family, with broad shoulders, and a muscled physique. His eyes were darker than the night, his nose straight and his jaw squared.