The True King of Dahaar
Tara Pammi
Once he was Crown Prince, with a kingdom to rule…But when heartbreak drives him to recklessness Azeez nearly loses everything – including his life. Now he must make a choice: spend his life in the shadows of the past, or embrace his future as the true King of Dahaar.Behind every strong man…Dr Nikhat Zakhari left Azeez because she couldn’t give him what he needed to rule. But now the only man she’s ever loved needs her healing touch, and she is powerless to refuse him.Azeez knows he must assume the crown – but will this unforgettable woman agree to be his desert queen?Discover more at www.millsandboon.co.uk/tarapammi
“Stop looking at me like that.” His low growl rumbled over the silent courtyard.
“How am I looking at you?” Nikhat said, tucking her feet beneath her legs.
Azeez leant his head back, giving her a perfect view of the strong column of his neck. Even dressed in the most casual clothes, he epitomized the supreme male arrogance and confidence that had always messed with her usually practical personality. And continued to do so, if she was ready to admit the truth.
“Like you cannot stop. Like you want to eat me up alive.”
The heat rising through her cheeks had nothing to do with the sun. “That’s not true.”
He leaned forward, his gaze thoughtful. “Yes, it is. There’s a temerity in your gaze now. You always knew your own mind, but now it’s like your body has caught up.”
She shrugged, holding herself tight and still under his scrutiny. The look Azeez cast in her direction was thorough. “I’m not a shy twenty-two-year-old anymore.”
“I can see that.” A lick of something came alive in his gaze. “I can almost see you staring down your patients into good health.”
Nikhat laughed, half to hide the little tremble that went through her. “I do have a reputation as the scary doctor. If only things could be fixed so simply. And you’re right. I can’t stop looking at you. I can’t stop wondering what in Allah’s name you think you’re doing to yourself.”
A DYNASTY OF SAND AND SCANDAL
A throne where secrets never sleep!
The Desert Kingdom of Dahaar has been beset by tragedy, scandal and secrets for as long as anyone can remember.
Those that reach for the crown are forced to pay a high price indeed. When duty calls, these royals must obey …
But these are children of the desert, and the fires of passion run hot in their veins.
And rarely does passion pair with duty.
Have you read the first title in this unstoppable miniseries by author Tara Pammi?
THE LAST PRINCE OF DAHAAR
This month read:
THE TRUE KING OF DAHAAR
The True King of Dahaar
Tara Pammi
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
TARA PAMMI can’t remember a moment when she wasn’t lost in a book—especially a Mills & Boon
romance, which provided so much more excitement to a teenager than a mathematics textbook. It was only years later, while struggling with her two-hundred-page thesis in a basement lab, that Tara realised what she really wanted to do: write a romance novel. She already had the requirements—a wild imagination and a love for the written word.
Tara lives in Colorado with the most co-operative man on the planet and two daughters. Her husband and daughters are the only things that stand between Tara and a full-blown hermit life with only books for company.
Tara would love to hear from readers. She can be reached at tara.pammi@gmail.com (mailto:tara.pammi@gmail.com) or through her website: www.tarapammi.com (http://www.tarapammi.com)
For my sister and my friend—
you’re an inspiration to me, always.
Contents
Cover (#u6b8abc64-56e4-5db0-9c3e-9ddb930e5b42)
Excerpt (#u688916bc-a955-55ad-bfad-b6083fe83bef)
Introduction (#ucc80e5f7-ba9f-5611-8128-17adeff87396)
Title Page (#u85b04f32-ab2f-5883-a361-d4d7fb0b0ad8)
About the Author (#ube903c79-0621-5f07-b2a1-62c7db997241)
Dedication (#u3e695ee5-9eed-58ea-80e9-d8244665fe63)
Chapter One (#ua835c433-b580-5df3-8738-acc0d59b3a59)
Chapter Two (#uf41b8950-f64c-593e-8e54-ffa7d003eb87)
Chapter Three (#u43b93f4a-9e9d-538d-96a7-524de2bc2206)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_11c17541-78e0-575d-ba23-b4440292e48f)
DR. NIKHAT ZAKHARI followed the uniformed guard through the carpeted corridor of the Dahaaran palace, assaulted from every side by bittersweet memories. Eight years ago she had known every inch of these corridors and halls, every wall and arch. This palace, the royal family, they had all been part of a dream she had weaved as a naive girl of twenty-two.
Before it had come crumbling down upon her and shattered her.
She stepped over the threshold into the office and the guard closed the door behind her. The formal pumps she had chosen instead of her usual Crocs sank into the lush carpet with a sigh.
She had been in this office one night when the Crown Prince had been the man she had loved, the two of them slipping in like thieves in the night.
All because she had voiced a juvenile wish to see it. Her long-sleeved thick silk jacket couldn’t dispel the chill that settled on her skin at the memory.
Drawn to the huge portrait of the royal family behind the dark sandalwood desk, she gave in to nostalgia.
King Malik and Queen Fatima, Ayaan and Amira, each member of the royal family was smiling in the picture except Azeez. Because of what Nikhat had told him that day eight years ago.
A cavern of longing opened up inside of her. Even thousands of miles away, she had felt as if she had lost her own family when she heard of the attack. Her throat ached, her vision felt dizzy. She ran trembling fingers over Azeez’s face in the photo.
She leaned her head against the wall. Seeing this familiar place without him was shaking the very foundations of the life she had resolutely built for herself.
And she couldn’t—she wouldn’t—give that much power to a memory. Couldn’t let it undo everything she had accomplished.
“How have you been, Nikhat?”
She turned around and stared at the new Crown Prince, Ayaan bin Riyaaz Al-Sharif, the boy she had once tutored in chemistry. His copper-gold gaze shone with warmth. The cut of his features, so similar to Azeez’s, knocked the breath out of her.
She had gone into shock the day she had heard of the terrorist attack. To see Ayaan again, so many years later filled her with a joy she couldn’t contain. Nikhat reached him, and hugged him.
Something she wouldn’t have dared do eight years earlier.
A soft chuckle shook his lean frame. Stepping back, Nikhat fought the urge to apologize for her impulsive gesture. Her composure was shaken by being back here but not torn. A woman, and one not connected to the royal family in any way, would never have hugged the Crown Prince. But she was not the average Dahaaran woman anymore, bound by its traditions and customs. “It’s good to see you, Ayaan.”
He nodded, his gaze studying her with unhidden thoroughness. “You, too, Nikhat.”
He led her to the sitting area, where a silver tea service waited. Settling down opposite him, Nikhat shook her head when he inquired if she wanted something.
The Ayaan that she had known had always had a twinkle in his eyes, a core made of pure joy. The Crown Prince that looked at her now had the mantle of Dahaar weighing him down. There was grief in those eyes of his, a hardness that had found a permanent place in his features.
She had been back in the capital city of Dahaara hardly a day before she had been summoned to a private meeting by the Crown Prince. Not something she could have actually refused, even if she had wanted to. “How did you know I was back in Dahaara?” she said, getting straight to the point.
He shrugged and crossed his legs. Hesitation danced in his eyes before he said, “I have an offer for you.”
Nikhat frowned. After eight years with no word from her father, she had been beyond thrilled to hear his voice. But now… “You ordered my father to call me home,” she said, the unease she had felt the minute she had received his request solidifying. “You knew how eager I would be to see my family. That’s a low blow, Your Highness.”
Ayaan rubbed his brow, no hint of guilt in his steady gaze. “It’s the price I have to pay for that title, Nikhat.”
His words were simple, yet the weight of responsibility behind them struck Nikhat. Clamping down her anger, she remained seated. “Fine, you have me here now. I should warn you though. I’m not a genie to automatically grant your wish.”
A sudden smile split his mouth, warmth spilling into his eyes. And the flash of another face, smiling like that, similar yet different, rose in front of her eyes.
Her chest felt incredibly tight and she forced herself to breathe through it. There were going to be reminders of Azeez everywhere in Dahaar. And she refused to spiral into an emotional mess every time she came across one.
She had done that long enough when she had left eight years ago.
“I see that you have not changed at all. Which is good for me.”
“No riddles, Ayaan,” she said, forcing herself to address him as the young man she once knew.
“How would you like to spearhead a top-notch women’s clinic here in Dahaara? You’ll have complete authority on its administration. I’ll even get the Ministry to sign off on a health-care-worker training program, specifically for women. It is something I have had in mind and you are without a doubt the best candidate for it.”
Shock spiraling through her, Nikhat had no words.
All the longing she had held at bay for eight years, the loneliness that had churned through her, rose to the surface. It was what she had wanted when she had begged her father to let her study medicine, her one goal that had become her focus and anchor when everything else had fallen apart, the impossible dream that had pulled her back to Dahaar from a prestigious position in New York.
She had readied herself for an uphill battle against prejudices masquerading as traditions, and so much more. The sound of disbelief ringing through her must have escaped, because Ayaan clasped her hand.
“You can make a home here in Dahaara, Nikhat. Be near your family again,” Ayaan continued.
Nikhat nodded, eternally grateful for his understanding. Ayaan had always been the kinder of the two brothers. Whereas Azeez…there had never been any middle ground with him.
She returned his clasp, clinging to the high of his announcement. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted, Ayaan.”
A flicker of unease entered his gaze. “There’s something I require from you in exchange, however. A personal favor for the royal family.”
Nikhat shook her head. “I owe my profession to your father. Without King Malik’s aid and support, my father would’ve never let me finish high school, much less study medicine. I don’t need to be manipulated or offered incentives if you need something from me. All you have to do is ask.”
Ayaan nodded, but the wariness in his gaze didn’t recede. “This position, this is something I want you to have. It’s what my father wanted for you when he supported your education. But what I’m about to ask stretches the boundaries of gratitude.”
Nikhat nodded, trying to keep the anxiety his words caused from her face.
He sucked in a deep breath. “Azeez is alive, Nikhat.”
For a few seconds, the meaning of his words didn’t sink in.
It felt as if the world around her had slowed down, waiting for the buzzing in her ears to pass. The tightness in her chest morphed into a fist in her throat as she saw the truth in his eyes. A stormlike shiver swept through Nikhat and she fought to hold herself together, to fight the urge to flee the palace and never look back.
How many times was she going to flee?
She had worked so hard to realize her dream, had waited all these years to see her family again and she couldn’t let anyone stop her now. Not even the man she had once loved with every breath in her body.
Letting herself breathe through the panic in her head, she forced calm into her voice. “I haven’t heard a word about this.”
“Because no one other than a few trusted servants and my parents know. Until I can be sure that revealing that he’s alive doesn’t have a negative effect on Dahaar, I have to contain it.” His voice shook and Nikhat reached for his hand this time, even as she fought her own alarm.
How could he be alive after all these years? How was he now?
“I found him four months ago in the desert and I still have no idea how he survived or what he did these past six years. He refuses to see our parents, he barely tolerates my visits. The true prince of Dahaar is now my prisoner.” Utter desolation spewed into his words. “I have managed to keep it a secret until now. It would crush the people of Dahaar to see him like this. They…”
“They worshipped him, I know.” He’d been their golden prince, arrogant but charming, courageous, born to rule his country. And he had loved Dahaar with a passion that had colored everything he had done.
His love, his passion…they were like a desert storm, consuming you, changing you if you came out alive.
“I’d hoped that he would get better, that sooner or later, he would decide to rejoin the living.” Powerlessness colored his gaze, his words raw and jittery. “But with each passing day, he…”
Azeez is alive.
The words rang round and round in her head. But with the dizzying of her emotions also came the control she had developed in order to flourish in her career. “Ayaan? What’s wrong with him?” she demanded, forgetting propriety.
“He is little more than a breathing corpse. He refuses to talk, he refuses to see a doctor. He’s refusing to live…Nikhat, and I can’t lose him all over again.”
A knot of fear unraveled in her stomach now. “What exactly is this favor that you want to ask me?”
“Spend some time with him.”
No. The word rang through her. Shaking her head, she stepped away from Ayaan. “I’m an obstetrician, Ayaan. Not a psychiatrist. There’s nothing I can do for him that all your specialists can’t.”
“He won’t let anyone see him. You…you he won’t refuse.”
She felt brittle now, as if her calm was nothing but a facade, as if she would fracture under it. But she couldn’t fall apart, she refused to let pain and powerlessness wreak havoc on her again. “You don’t know what your brother will do if he sees me.”
“Anything is better than what he is now.”
“And what about the price I’ll have to pay?” The question escaped her before she knew she had said it.
His head jerking up, he studied her. Nikhat looked away. The air between with them reverberated with questions he didn’t ask and she didn’t answer.
Ayaan reached her, his jaw tight with determination. There was no grief or comforting familiarity in his face now. He was the man who had come back to life against all odds, the man who fought his demons every day to do his duty by Dahaar.
“Would it be such a high price? All I’m asking for is a few months. I’m running out of options. I have to find something that will pull him from this spiral. Spend some time with him alone in the palace. Talk to him, try anything that might—”
“If word of this gets out, I’ll be damned for the rest of my life in Dahaara,” she said, only realizing after she spoke that she was even considering the proposition. “That clinic you are baiting me with will be nothing but a sand castle.”
“The Crown Princess Zohra is pregnant. She needs someone who will stay in the palace, a dedicated ob-gyn. And as to any time you spend with Azeez, no one will know you are with him. I give you my word, Nikhat. I will protect your reputation with everything I have. My coronation is in two months. At that time, whatever state he is in, you can walk away from him. No one will stop you.”
Two months with a man who would once again plunge her into her darkest fear. Two months revisiting everything she couldn’t have, couldn’t be. Ya Allah, no. “You’ve no idea what you’re asking me to do.”
“I was hoping that you would accept my proposition, but I cannot give you a choice, Nikhat. Desperation never leaves you with one. As of this moment, you’re either the Crown Prince’s guest or prisoner. If I have to lock you with him, I’ll…” His words reverberated with a pain she herself was very familiar with. “He’s my brother. He was once your friend. We owe it to him.”
Her friend? Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her.
Azeez bin Rashid Al Sharif had never been just her friend. He had been her champion, he had been her prince, and he had been the man who had promised to make her every dream come true.
And he had kept each and every one of his promises.
Nikhat sprang to her feet and straightened her shoulders. She met Ayaan’s gaze and nodded before she could refuse, before ghosts of the past crippled her courage, before her bitterest fear trampled her sense of duty.
She would do it because she owed it to King Malik for turning a middle-class girl’s fantastic dream to be a doctor into reality; she would do it for a childhood friend who had been through hell and survived; but more than anything, she would do it for the man who had once loved her more than anything in the world.
It was not his fault that she wasn’t the woman he had thought her. “I will do it,” she whispered, the true consequences of what she had accepted weighing her down.
Strong arms embraced her tightly. “I have to warn you, Nikhat. He’s not the man you or I knew. I’m not even sure that man exists anymore.”
* * *
There she was again, tall, beautiful, graceful.
Like a mirage in the desert, she appeared every day during this time to taunt him, to remind him of everything he was not.
The darkest time of the day when dawn was a mere hour away, when he found himself staring at the rise of another day with nothing but self-loathing to greet it with.
However drunk he got, it was the time the reality of everything he had become, everything he had done, pressed upon Azeez.
He had been the Crown Prince once. Now he was the Crown Prince’s prisoner, a fitting punishment for the man responsible for his sister’s death, his brother’s suffering and so much more.
Just the passing thought was enough to feel the palace walls close around him.
A cold breeze flew in through the wide-open doors to his right. The cold nipped at his bare chest, slowly but silently insinuating itself into his muscles. He would feel the effect of it tomorrow morning. His right hip would be stiff enough to seize up.
But his imagination was stubborn tonight, the moment passed, and he saw her again.
Tonight, she wore a dark brown, long-sleeved kaftan made of simple cotton with leggings of the same color underneath. She had always been simple in real life, too, never allowing him to splurge on her, never allowing him anything he had wanted to do with her, for that matter.
Like kiss her, or touch her or possess her.
And yet, he had been her slave.
Her hair, a silky mass of dark brown, was tied back into a high ponytail in the no-nonsense way she had liked. Leaving her golden skin pulled tightly over her features.
A high forehead that had always bothered her—a symbol of her intelligence—almond-shaped copper-hued eyes, which were her best feature, her too-long nose—a bit on the strong side—and a wide pink-lipped mouth. If one studied those features objectively and separately, as he had done for innumerable hours, there was nothing outstanding about any of them.
And yet all together, she had the most beautiful face he had ever seen. It was full of character, full of laughter and full of love.
Or being a naive, arrogant young fool, so he had thought. Until his love for her had destroyed him, shattered him to pathetic pieces.
Leaning over the side of the lounger he was sitting on, Azeez extended his right hand. The movement pressed his hip into the chair and a sharp lance of pain shot up through it. Reaching the bottle of scotch, he took a quick sip.
The fiery liquid burned his throat and chest, making his vision another notch blurrier.
But the image in front of his eyes didn’t waver. In fact, it became much more focused, as if it had been amplified and brought much closer for his very pleasure.
Because now he could see her long neck, the neck he had caressed with his fingers so long ago. The cheap, well-worn cotton draped loosely over her breasts, losing the fight to cover up their lushness. The fabric dipped neatly at the curve of her hip.
Wiping the back of his mouth with his hand, he grabbed the bottle with his other hand and stood up abruptly.
White-hot pain exploded in his right side, radiating from his hip, traveling up and down. He had been sitting for way too long today and had barely exercised since his brother had locked him up here in the palace.
Gritting his teeth, he breathed through the throbbing pain. He leaned against the pillar and looked up.
The sight that met his eyes stole his breath. The intense throbbing in his hip was nothing compared to the dark chasm opening up in his gut.
Because, now the mirage was torturing him.
The woman had tears in those beautiful eyes. Her lips whispered his name. Again and again, as though she couldn’t help it, as though her very breath depended on saying his name.
In the mirage, the woman he had once loved more than anything else in life, the woman who had eventually destroyed him, was standing within touching distance. And for a man who had almost died happily, only to discover that he was alive, and a cripple at that, it was still the cruelest punishment to see her standing there, teasing him, tormenting him.
With a cry that never left his throat, he threw the bottle at the mirage, needing it to dissolve, needing the torturous cycle of self-loathing to abate.
Except, unlike all the other times he had done it, the woman flinched. Even as the bottle missed her, shattering as it hit the floor with a sound that fractured the silence.
Her soft gasp hit him hard in the gut, slicing through the drunken haze in his head. Shock waves pulsing through him, he moved as fast as his damaged hip would allow.
His fingers trembled as he extended his hand and touched her cheek. Her skin was as silky soft as he remembered. Bile filled his mouth and he had to suck in a harsh breath to keep it at bay. “Nikhat?”
Fear and self-loathing tangled inside him, his heart slamming hard against his rib cage.
The sheen of liquid in her beautiful dark brown eyes was real. The tremble in those rose-hued lips was real.
Azeez cursed, every muscle in his body freezing into ice. And before he could blink again, she was touching him, devouring him with her steady copper gaze.
She caught his roughened palm between hers, sending a jolt of sensation rioting through his body. It was as though a haze was lifted from his every sense, as though every nerve ending in him had been electrocuted into alertness. “Hello, Azeez.”
He pushed her away from him and jerked back. Leaning against the pillar, he caught his breath, kept his eyes closed, waiting for the dancing spots in front of him to abate. He heard her soft exhale, heard the step she took toward him.
Suddenly, utter fury washed through him, ferociously hot in contrast to the cold that had frozen his very blood just a few minutes ago. “Who dared to let you in here? I might be a cripple but I’m still Prince Azeez bin Rashid Al Sharif of Dahaar. Get out before I throw you out myself.”
Nikhat flinched, the walls she had built around herself denting at his words. But she couldn’t let the bitterness of them seep in and become a part of her. This was not about her. “I have every right to be here, not that I think you’re lucid enough to understand that.”
He didn’t snarl back at her as she expected.
He just stood there, staring at her, and she stared back, eight years of hunger ripping through all her stupid defenses.
Jet-black eyes set deep in his face, and even more now with the dark shadows beneath, gazed at her, a maelstrom of emotions blazing within. His aristocratic nose had a bump to it that hadn’t been there before. It looked as if it had been broken and had never healed right.
And then came the most sensuous, cruelest mouth she had ever seen. Even before the terrorist attack, even before she had left him without looking back, he had had a fierce, dark smile that stole into her very skin and lodged there.
Being at the receiving end of that smile had been like being in the desert at night. When the Prince of Dahaar had looked at you, he demanded every inch of your focus and you gave it to him, willingly.
Right now, the same mouth was flattened into a rigid line.
The white, long-sleeved shirt he wore was open halfway through, showing his thin frame. His long hair curled over his collar.
“Leave, Nikhat. Now,” he said, drawing her attention back to him. His gaze didn’t linger on her face. He didn’t meet her eyes, either. “Or I won’t be responsible for what I do next.”
“Apologize to me. That bottle could have done serious damage,” she said, giving up the fight against herself.
The moment she had stepped out of her suite into the dimly lighted corridor, unable to sleep a wink, and wandered through this wing of the palace, wondering if he was nearby, exposing herself to the guard outside, she had given up any sense she’d ever had.
Only, she had thought she would take a quick look and slink away in the dark of the night. Self-delusion had never been her weakness and she couldn’t let it take root now.
“No,” Azeez said without compunction. “Didn’t my brother warn you? You took the risk of visiting a savage animal in the middle of the night.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Azeez. I never will be.”
She took another step, bracing herself for the changes in him. He had lost weight and it showed in his face. The sharp bridge of his nose, and those hollowed-out cheekbones, they stood out, giving him a gaunt, hard look.
“Ayaan told me about you last night,” she said, opting for truth. One gut-wrenching lie was enough for this lifetime. “I couldn’t wait. I…couldn’t wait till morning.”
He fisted his hands at his sides, his fury stamped into his features. “And?” he said in a low growl that gave her instant goose bumps. He clasped her cheek with his fingers, moving fast for a man in obvious pain. His grip was infuriatingly gentle yet she knew he was holding back a storm of fury.
His gaze collided with hers and what she saw there twisted her stomach; it was the one thing that did scare her. His eyes were empty, as though the spark that had been him, the very force of life that he had been, had died out.
“Have you seen enough, latifa? Is your curiosity satisfied?”
She clutched his wrists with her fingers, refusing to let him push her away.
And it wasn’t for him. It was for her.
She hadn’t cried when she had learned the news of the terrorist attack and of his death. Her heart had solidified into hard rock long before then. And she wouldn’t cry now. But she allowed herself to touch him. She needed to know he was standing there. She touched his face, his shoulders, his chest, ignoring his sucked-in breath. “I’m so sorry. About Amira, about Ayaan, about you.”
With a gentle grip, he pushed her back. There was nothing in his gaze when he looked at her. Not fury, not contempt, not even resentment. His initial shock had faded fast and he looked as if nothing she said would ever touch him. “Are you, truly?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“Why, Nikhat?”
She wasn’t responsible for the terrorist attack, she knew that. And yet, nothing she had said to herself had prepared her for the tumult of seeing him like this.
“You’re not responsible for what I’ve become. But if you want, you can do me a favor.”
The force of his request didn’t scare her. If she could do something to help him, she would. Ayaan had been right. She owed it to Azeez. “Anything, Azeez.”
“Leave Dahaar before the sun is up. Leave and never come back. If you have ever felt anything true for me, Nikhat, do not show me your face ever again.”
Nikhat stood rooted to the spot as he walked away from her. It seemed she was always going to disappoint him.
She couldn’t leave now, just as she hadn’t been able to stay when he had asked her eight years ago.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_93475bce-1553-5884-880b-24c7bdca8260)
AYAAN PUT HIS coffee cup down on the breakfast table when he heard the sound that hammered at him with relentless guilt. The sound of his brother’s approach.
Catching his wife’s gaze, he saw the same shock coursing through him reflected in her eyes.
In the four months since he had practically dragged his brother to the palace, Azeez hadn’t stepped foot into the breakfast hall once. Despite Ayaan’s innumerable pleas. And today…
Ayaan signaled for the waiting staff to leave just as the sound of Azeez’s harsh breathing neared the vast table. He pushed his chair back and looked up. Suddenly, the morning seemed brighter. “Would you like some cof—”
He never saw the punch coming. Shooting pain danced up and down his jaw as it landed, his vision blanking out for a few seconds.
Her loud, abrasive curse word ringing around them, his wife reached him instantly. Ayaan rubbed his jaw and looked up just in time to see Zohra march around his chair and push his brother in the chest.
Azeez’s mouth was curved into a fiendish smile, and Ayaan was about to interfere, when Azeez stepped back from Zohra. He mocked a curtsy, his mouth curled into a sneer. “Good morning, Your Highness, you look…lovely.”
“You are acting like an uncivilized thug,” Zohra said, her gaze furious.
“I am an uncivilized thug, Princess Zohra,” his brother replied with a hollow laugh. “And it is your husband who is keeping me here.”
Flexing his jaw, Ayaan turned to his brother and froze.
Ferocious anger blazed out of that jet-black gaze he knew so well. The same gaze that had been filled with emptiness, indifference, for four months. The constant, hard knot in his gut relented just a little. “What was that for?”
“You are the future king of Dahaar, Ayaan, not of me. Keep your arrogant head out of my affairs.”
Settling back down into his chair, Ayaan took a sip of his coffee. “I have no idea what you refer to, Azeez.”
“I want her out of here.”
The vehemence in his brother’s words doubled his doubts. “Why are you so concerned about Nikhat’s presence?”
Leaning his hip on the solid wood, Azeez bent. “I think all this power is going to your head. Don’t manipulate me, little brother. Or I will—”
“What, Azeez?” Ayaan refused to back down. His cup clanged on the saucer in the ensuing silence, hot liquid spilling onto his fingers.
“You’ll shoot yourself? I fell for that until now, but not anymore. If you were going to kill yourself, you had numerous chances to do it over the past six years. You would have been killed by that bullet. And yet here you are, stubborn as ever and intent on destroying yourself the hard way.” Silence snarled between them. “Nikhat is not going anywhere. Not for at least six more months.”
Emotion flashed in his brother’s gaze but Ayaan had no idea which one.
“If your plan is to bring back memories that will suddenly fill me with a love for life, how about some good ones, Ayaan? Why don’t you invite one of the numerous women I slept with six years ago to the palace?” He slanted a wicked glance at Zohra before looking at Ayaan again. “There used to be a particularly sexy stripper in that nightclub in Monaco who could do the wildest things with her tongue. If you want to see me rejoin the living, send the starchy doctor away, build a pole in my wing and have that stripper on a…”
His words tapering off, his brother looked as if he was the one dealt a punch.
Nikhat stood at the entrance to the hall. Against the colorful, blood-red rug on the wall behind her, she looked deathly pale. Their gazes locked on each other, Azeez and Nikhat stood unmoving, as if they were bound to each other.
Tension coiled tighter and tighter in the air around them.
His brother recovered first. And watching him closely, seeing a dark light come to life in his eyes, Ayaan realized that he’d made a terrible mistake.
“I’m regaling my brother and his wife with stories about Monaco. Was it the year right after you left?”
Beneath the humor, something else reverberated in Azeez’s words, filling the vast hall with it.
“Does it matter when it was that you went around seducing the entire female population in Monaco, shaming Dahaar and your father with your wild exploits?” Nikhat delivered with equally lethal smoothness, even as her skin failed to recover its color.
Walking around Ayaan to Zohra’s side, Nikhat whispered something to her. And walked out of the hall without another glance at his brother.
“Enough games, Ayaan. Why is she here?” Azeez roared the moment she left.
“Zohra is pregnant and is having complications. Nikhat is one of the best obstetricians in the country today. I need her to take care of my wife.”
Azeez turned toward Zohra, his gaze assessing. “Congratulations to both of you. If she has to be here, keep her out of my way. Tell her she’s forbidden from seeing me.”
“I won’t tell her any such thing. Nikhat is practically a member of this family. And she’s doing me a favor. So unless you want to be my personal prisoner for the rest of your life, you better behave yourself.”
“You’ve become a damn bastard, brother.”
Ayaan laughed, the first in a long time he had truly done that. “I had to become one for Dahaar, Azeez. See, I wasn’t born one like you are. It’s the reason why you were so good at being the Crown Prince too. The minute you want it back, the crown’s yours.”
“That was a lifetime ago.” Tight lines fanning around his mouth, Azeez stepped back. As if Ayaan had asked him to jump into the fiery pit of hell. “It’s all yours now.”
Azeez left the room, leaving a dark silence in his wake.
Once, his brother would have given his life to Dahaar. Once, a fire had shone in his eyes at the mere mention of it.
“Something’s changed in him,” Zohra said, a hint of warning in her voice. “And…Nikhat looked like she would break apart with one word from him.”
Reaching for her outstretched hand on the table, Ayaan nodded. In four months of banging his head against the intractable wall that his brother had become, this was the first time there was a faint crack. He felt tremulous hope and excruciating guilt.
“Did you know if they were more than friends?”
Ayaan shook his head. He hadn’t known before, but something his servant Khaleef had said in a throwaway comment had stuck with him. So he had taken a gamble and commanded Nikhat’s father to summon her.
Being right had never left such an ugly taste in his mouth.
* * *
After a couple of wrong turns, Nikhat reached the courtyard behind the wing she had been shown to three days ago. High walls surrounded the courtyard, shielding it from any curious gazes.
It was only ten in the morning but the sun was already bright and hot. Wiping the beads of sweat on her forehead, she sat down on the bench near a magnificent fountain. The rhythmic swish of the water, the scent of roses coating the air…it was a feast for the senses, but she couldn’t get her stretched nerves to relax.
For three days, she had been busy with Princess Zohra and yet going out of her mind, intensely curious to see Azeez again.
She had dreamed of him so many times when she had thought him dead, had imagined all the things she would say if she had one more chance to see him, to touch him, to hold him…
Reality, however, didn’t afford her the same recklessness.
Closing her eyes, she leaned back and felt the sun caress her face. She couldn’t let him unsettle her any more than she could weave silly dreams again just because he was back from the dead.
She would be of no use to Ayaan either way.
Taking her Crocs off, she dipped her toes in the water. It was forbidden to do so, but the cold water tickled her feet. Drops splashed onto her leggings. Her jet lag was gone, but she still wasn’t used to the quiet that surrounded her after the mad rush back in the hospital in New York. Nor was she happy with the way things were run here, even though she had known to expect it.
Even with Ayaan’s command that she was solely in charge of Zohra’s care, her instructions had been met with resistance from the numerous medical advisers and staff that surrounded the Princess. Which only made her realize how much she would need the royal family’s backing to succeed in Dahaar and even more resolute to make a difference.
It couldn’t have been more than two minutes when her skin prickled in alarm. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. The relentless heat of the day receded for a minute. A shadow. Her heart stuttering in her chest, she realized who stood over here, stealing the warmth from around her.
Keeping her eyes closed, she took a moment to pull herself together. She opened her eyes slowly and sat up straighter on the bench.
His gait uneven, Azeez walked to the bench on her left. His face tightened, his right hand flexing into a fist as he slowly slid into the seat.
He hadn’t shaved and the beard coming in made him look even more dangerous. His eyes still had that haggard, bruised look, the planes of his cheekbones prominent.
The pristine white shirt hung loose on his frame while his cotton trousers hung low and loose on his hips. They made him look darker than usual, but not enough to hide the tiredness from his face.
His will was a force of nature and offense was her best course if she wanted to get through. She made no effort to curb the stinging comment that rose to her lips. “That hip will be permanently useless if you continue like this. Even in the state you’re in, I believe…”
Those thickly lashed eyes trapped hers, a puzzle in it. She couldn’t have looked away for anything in the world. Everything else she could control, curb, but not the greediness with which she wanted to look at him. “I believe you still have enough sense to know that.”
“Ya Allah, stop looking at me like that.” His low growl rumbled over the silent courtyard.
“How am I looking at you?” she said, tucking her feet beneath her legs.
He leaned his head back, giving her a perfect view of the strong column of his neck. Even dressed in the most casual clothes, he epitomized supreme male arrogance and confidence that had always messed with her usually practical personality. And continued to do so, if she was ready to admit the truth. “Like you cannot stop, like you want to eat me up alive.”
The heat rising through her cheeks had nothing to do with the sun. “That’s not true.”
He leaned forward, his gaze thoughtful. “Yes, it is. There’s a temerity in your gaze now. You always knew your own mind, but now, it’s like your body has caught up.”
She shrugged, holding herself tight and still under his scrutiny. The look he cast in her direction was thorough. “I’m not a shy twenty-two-year-old anymore.”
“I can see that.” A lick of something came alive in his gaze. “I can almost see you staring down your patients into good health.”
She laughed, half to hide the little tremble that went through her. “I do have a reputation as the scary doctor. If only things could be fixed so simply. And you’re right. I can’t stop looking at you. I can’t stop wondering what in Allah’s name you think you’re doing to yourself.”
His jaw tightened, his nostrils flared.
For anyone looking from afar, they would seem like two old friends chatting up each other. And yet the courtyard felt like a minefield. She had to take every step carefully with him. And not because she was scared of him, but of herself.
Her stupid midnight jaunt had already proved her brain wasn’t functioning at its normal, rational level.
He ran his palm over his jaw, his gaze never moving from her. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“The palace has been ringing with it. And apparently, it is the first time in three days that you have a minute to yourself.”
“So you’re not completely oblivious to the world around you? That’s always a good sign.”
“Don’t show off your credentials with me, Nikhat. Is Princess Zohra having complications with the pregnancy?”
There was no nuance to his words. She had no idea if he was worried for the Princess, no way to gauge how deep the emptiness in him was. And more than anything, the very thought she might not be of any use to him scared her. “Yes.”
“How serious is it?”
“I have ordered some more tests for her. Her blood pressure is at dangerous levels. She needs rest and she needs to take it easy. Stress is adding to her complications. From what I’ve seen in the last two days, you’re at the root of it.”
“Just because I punched her husband?”
“You punched Ayaan? Why?”
Because Ayaan had brought her here, the answer came to her in the taut silence.
Do you hate me so much?
The pathetic, self-indulgent question lingered on her lips. But there was no point in asking it. There was no point in giving the past even a passing thought.
“You have really changed,” she said, hoping to find a hole in that indifference he wore like armor, hoping to land a blow. “The Azeez I knew would have never lifted his hand against his brother, would have never thrown a bottle at an innocent, harmless woman.”
He chuckled, and the unexpected sound of it shocked her. Sharp grooves appeared in his cheeks. “You are neither innocent nor harmless. I was drunk. It was your own fault for walking into a man’s wing in the middle of the night where you’re forbidden.”
“And you throw bottles at imaginary figures when you are drunk?”
“Only at you.”
The barb cut through her, knocking her air from her lungs. She drew in a jagged breath, swiping her gaze away from him. This was the future she had wanted to avoid eight years ago—his resentment, his bitterness. Because Azeez had never hidden from what he felt, neither had he let her. And yet, after everything she had done, she was right where she didn’t want to be—the cause of that resentment.
She looked up and found him studying her with a curious intensity. “I’m serious, Azeez. Princess Zohra needs to rest and relax. Unless you do something that allays her concerns for Ayaan, she’s only going to get worse.
“She…loves Ayaan very much. And the fact that he’s worried about you is directly transferring to her.”
“She’s the future of Dahaar. I don’t want anything to happen to her.”
Did he realize he had betrayed himself? From everything Ayaan had said, Azeez had claimed he didn’t care about anything. “Is it only the future of Dahaar that concerns you? Not what you are doing to Ayaan, to your parents? To yourself?”
He shot to his feet so quickly that Nikhat jerked her head up. Just in to time to see the flash of pain in his face. “This is where this session ends. You’re not my friend. You’re definitely not my doctor.
“You’re a servant to the royal family. Do your job. Look after Princess Zohra. Believe me, there’s nothing you can do to help me. Except disappear, maybe.”
“I’m not leaving, Azeez. Not until I accomplish my job. And as to Ayaan’s belief in me, I’ve never let down the royal family’s trust in me until now and I never will.”
“Never, Nikhat?”
Her breath trapped in her throat, Nikhat hugged herself. “Never.”
Nodding, he came to a stop at the wide arched entrance, the sun shining behind him casting shadows on his features. She had no idea what he saw in the mirror when he looked at himself, what tormented him from the past. But the fact that he was here, concerned for the Princess, gave her hope like nothing else could.
“I never thought of you as naive.”
Uncoiling her legs from under her, she took a moment to compose herself. The last thing she wanted was him talking about her. “I used to be. But not anymore. I’m not the girl you once knew, Azeez.”
“Why obstetrics of all the specializations? Why not cardiology?”
She stayed painfully still, amazed at how easily, even after all these years, he could drill down to the heart of the matter. How well he knew her.
“Your mother’s been dead for eighteen years, Nikhat. You cannot save her or the child she died giving birth to.”
It took everything in her for Nikhat to stay standing.
“Do I need to have your case history checked?”
“What do you mean?”
“Princess Zohra is valuable to Ayaan and Dahaar.” This time, Dahaar was the afterthought to his brother. “Will you be able to keep your objectivity when the time comes? Or are you fighting a never-ending battle with yourself and trying to save your mother again and again?”
She flinched, his words finding their mark. She could feel the blood leaving her face, but in this, she would not keep quiet. In this, she would not let him find fault.
“Hate me all you want, Azeez, but don’t you dare insult my ability as a doctor or my reasons for it. I chose obstetrics because, with all the progress your family has made for Dahaar, there are so many things in women’s health that are still backward, so many antiquated notions that dictate a woman’s life.
“My profession has nothing to do with the past. It’s my life, my future.”
“As long as you are remember that, Dr. Zakhari. Because you paid a high price for that, didn’t you?”
Nikhat sank back to the seat, her own lie coming back to haunt her.
He still thought she had left him because her love for her dream had been more than her love for him. And crushed under the weight of the truth, she had let him believe the lie.
She had paid a high price. She had paid with her heart, with her love. She had paid for something she couldn’t change. And she had meticulously built her life from all the broken pieces to let even the Prince of Dahaar shatter it.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_0173ea27-c09e-5baf-ae8e-7c7b96fea8f8)
AZEEZ LEANED AGAINST the wall outside Ayaan’s office and sucked in a harsh breath. Sweat trickled down his shoulder blades after the long walk from his wing to this side of the palace. Closing his eyes, he rubbed his palm over the right hip, willing the shooting pain to relent.
But of course it didn’t. He’d spent the past four months drinking himself into oblivion, uncaring of if he ate or moved. His negligence was coming back to him in the form of excruciating pain. His hip was sore from months of inactivity, from lack of exercise. Breathing in and out through the dots dancing in front of him, he slowly sank to the floor.
His brother had been right. There had been more than one occasion when he had wished himself dead. But he hadn’t actually indulged the thought of killing himself.
His list of sins was already long enough without committing one against God, too. So he had carried on, uncaring of anything, uncaring of what a wasteland his life had become.
But his self-loathing, his lack of interest in his life, his lack of respect for his own body—as long as it had been only him who faced the consequences, he had been fine with it. But now…
Now it was beginning to fester into his brother and his wife.
After everything he had gone through, after recovering from the blood loss because of the bullet wound he had taken during the terrorist attack, waking up amidst strangers with a useless leg, realizing what he had become, after the excruciating pain of keeping himself away from his family, he could not allow this.
Whatever rot was in him couldn’t be allowed to spread, couldn’t be allowed to contaminate the good that was finally happening in his family. He couldn’t be allowed to take more from them, from Dahaar.
And if the price was that he give up the last ounce of his self-respect, if the price was that he stop hiding and face his demons, face the reality of everything he had ruined with his reckless actions, then so be it. He couldn’t have escaped the consequences of his actions forever anyway.
“Azeez?” Ayaan’s question reached his ears, unspoken, guarded, with a wealth of pain in it.
Azeez licked his lips and cleared his throat. The words stuck to his tongue. He forced himself to speak them. “Help me up, Ayaan.”
For a few seconds, his brother didn’t move. His shock pinged against the corridor walls in the deafening silence. Gritting his teeth, Azeez strove to keep his bitterness out of his words. “Do you want to exact revenge for that punch I threw three days ago?” he mocked. “Will you help me if I beg, Your Highness?”
A curse flying from his mouth, Ayaan spurred into action. Shaking his head, he tucked his hands under Azeez’s shoulders. “On three.”
Azeez nodded, and took a deep breath. He gripped Ayaan’s wrists and pulled himself up.
Ayaan leaned against the opposite wall and folded his arms. “Is it always like this?” There was anger in his brother’s words and beneath it, a sliver of pain.
Curbing the stinging response that rose to his lips, Azeez shook his head. “It’s my own fault. The less mobile I’m, the worse the hip gets.”
“Why didn’t you just summon me then?”
“I never did that. You are the one forever coming into my suite for one of your bonding sessions.”
Frowning, Ayaan opened the door behind him and held it for Azeez. Azeez stepped inside and froze.
Smells and sensations, echoes of laughter and joy, they assaulted him from all sides, poking holes in his deceptively thin armor.
A chill broke out over his skin as his gaze fell on the majestic desk at the far corner. A wooden, handmade box that had been in the Al Sharif dynasty for more than two centuries. The gold-embossed fountain pen that had passed on through generations, from father to son, from king to king. And the sword on display in a glass case to the right.
The sword he had been presented in the ceremony when his father had announced him the Crown Prince and future King, the sword that had represented everything he had been. Now, it was his brother’s, and Azeez didn’t doubt for a minute that it was where it belonged.
A portrait of their family hung behind the leather chair.
The smiling face of his sister, Amira, punched him in the gut. He had killed her as simply as if he had done it with both his hands.
Enough.
He hadn’t come here to revisit his mistakes. He’d come to stop more from happening.
Shying his gaze away from the portrait, he walked toward the sitting area on the right and slid into a chaise longue. Ayaan followed him and took the opposite seat.
“Nikhat says it’s because of me,” he said without preamble. He needed to say his piece and get out. He needed to be out of this room, needed to be back in the cavern of self-loathing that his suite had become. Before the very breath was stifled out of him by broken expectations, by excruciating guilt.
Ayaan frowned. “What is because of you?”
“Zohra’s complications with the pregnancy.”
His mouth tight, a mask fell over his brother’s usually expressive face. Cursing himself for how self-absorbed he had been, Azeez studied him, noticing for the first time the stress on Ayaan’s face.
Dark blue shadows hung under his brother’s eyes. His skin was drawn tight over his gaunt features.
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” Ayaan spoke finally, with a sigh. “For reasons the doctors say they can’t speculate over, it’s been a high-risk pregnancy from the beginning.”
“Then what did Nikhat mean by saying it was because of me? I know she didn’t say that to manipulate me.”
“I thought you didn’t want to see her or hear a word from her mouth. Now you trust her opinion?”
“Nikhat wanted to be a doctor since she was ten years old. If there’s one thing that she would never betray, it’s her profession. So if she says I’m the reason for Zohra’s stress, then I am. What I don’t understand is why. I might be a cripple but I have a working mind.”
“Do you? Because, so far, I haven’t seen evidence of it.”
Azeez continued as though his usually even-tempered brother hadn’t just snarled at him. “I have watched your wife growl at me like a lioness, as if she needs to shield you from me. I don’t think she would crumble because her husband is dealing with his difficult brother. So what is it, Ayaan?”
A flash of utter desolation came alive in his brother’s gaze. Azeez stared, shock waves shivering through him. Ever since he had learned that Ayaan had returned after six years, Azeez had known that his brother would do his duty, no matter what. And Ayaan had risen to every challenge.
Only now did Azeez realize what he had overlooked. His brother had fought his own demons for so long and Azeez had not given a passing thought to it until this moment.
“She’s worried about what this—” he moved his hand between Azeez and him “—is doing to me.”
A chilly finger raked its nail over Azeez’s spine. “What do you mean?”
“I have nightmares, vicious ones. I have had them every night ever since I… since I became lucid. Sometimes, they are minimal. Sometimes, I get violent. And…”
Azeez held his head in his hands, feeling his breath leave him. Guilt infused his blood, turning him cold from inside out. Looking up, he forced himself to speak the words. “They have become worse since you found me.”
Ayaan shrugged.
There was no shame or hesitation in his brother’s gaze. Only resigned acceptance. And in that minute, Azeez realized what he had been too blind to see until now.
His brother had lived through his own version of hell and had come out of it alive and honorable. And Dahaar was blessed to have him.
Unless he, Azeez, ruined it all again.
“I keep reliving that night and every time I see all that blood in the stable, your blood, I wake up screaming. And Zohra is right there with me, suffering through them, right by me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When would I have told you? In between the punches you threw at Khaleef and me? When you refused point-blank to see Mother even though you could hear her heartbreaking cries on the other side of the door and informed Father to assume that his firstborn is still dead? Or in the few hours that you have been sober in the last four months?”
Azeez shifted in the seat restlessly. He wanted to run away from here. “Be rid of me,” he growled, his powerlessness eating through his insides. “All this will be solved in a minute.”
Ayaan rocked forward onto his knees, a fierce scowl on his face. “You think I can just wish away your existence as you have been doing?”
“Then send your wife away. Protect her.”
“I can’t,” Ayaan said, a sarcastic chuckle accompanying his words. “I am to be crowned king in two months, but I can’t dictate my wife’s behavior. I have ordered her to sleep in a separate wing, to go back to Siyaad for a few days. But, like you cleverly noticed, my wife has a will of her own. She won’t leave my side.”
From the moment he had met her steady gaze, Azeez had realized how much Princess Zohra loved his brother. Something he had wanted once, something he had thought he had once.
He swallowed back the surge of envy that gripped him. He would not envy the little happiness that Ayaan had. This had to stop today, now. “Fine. What is it you want from me?”
“What?”
“Tell me what you want me to do. Tell me what I can do to make this…make you better and take this stress off Zohra.”
“Why now, when you have all but thrown back my requests in my face?”
“Because there’s already too much blood on my hands and I don’t want more.”
Ayaan’s face tightened, his gaze filled with pity that Azeez didn’t want. “Azeez, that’s not—”
“This is your chance to protect your wife, Ayaan. Don’t waste it on useless matters.”
“Fine,” his brother said, standing up. “I want you to take care of yourself. I want you to have physiotherapy, I want you to see a psychiatrist, and I want you to see Mother and I want you at my coronation in a—”
“Don’t push it,” Azeez said, feeling the shackles of his brother’s demands binding him to Dahaar. Just the word coronation was like sticking a steel spike into his heart.
With his hand on the armrest, he pushed himself off the chaise. There was only one choice left to him, only one solution to stop the ruin he had begun again. And everything within him revolted at it. “I will do this, but I will do it my own way.”
“What do you mean?”
“I won’t see a team of doctors. Nikhat can attend to me in between attending to Zohra.”
“Azeez,” his brother’s voice rang with warning as Azeez walked toward the exit, keeping his gaze away from everything in the room. “Whatever you are planning to do, don’t. She is here by my request.”
“Exactly. You brought her into this, Ayaan. Now that I’m following your orders, don’t complain about it.”
Stepping outside his brother’s office, Azeez slowly made his way back to his own quarters. He still planned to leave Dahaar. For his own sanity, he had to.
But he would postpone it until things were right with Princess Zohra. And he couldn’t live the rest of his life the way he had been doing, either.
He would do what his brother asked him to do because nothing else would be enough for Ayaan. However, there was no point in a team of doctors poking through his head. There was nothing anyone could do to fix him.
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.
Standing close, his gaze moved over her like a caress. “Why are you dressed in that awful thing? And what happened to your hair?”
Nikhat stared back at him, all her worldliness, her sophistication, sliding away like sand between her fingers.
She had prepared herself to bear the brunt of his contempt, even hatred, in the coming months. But his attention, especially of a personal nature? No amount of preparation could help her deal with it.
“If this is how you dress usually, no wonder they were so happy to be rid of you in New York.”
“I left of my own volition. I left a good position in a cutting-edge hospital to come back.” Too late, she realized he was playing with her. His whole demeanor today was different. It was as if he had a strategy, as if all the fire of his emotions was neatly packed away for now. And even as he cut through her with his acerbic words, she still preferred him like that. The real him. “To build something that’s very much needed here in Dahaara.”
“Ah….I heard about all your plans for the clinic. Princess’s Zohra’s pregnancy, Ayaan’s desperation to fix me, your history with me, everything’s falling into place for you, isn’t it? Like always.”
Anger burst through her. “You think it’s easy for to me to be back here? To leave behind the freedom, the position, the respect I had in New York? To constantly fight against invisible prejudices just because I’m a woman? Even being the Princess’s personal physician is still apparently not recommendation enough.”
“If you expected anything different, then you’re a fool, Nikhat.”
“Because I want to change some things for the better in Dahaar? You had a dream like that once, Azeez. Or have you completely wiped out everything from the past?”
He remained unflappable, even as her temper soared. “You chose a difficult path for yourself and an even harder one by coming back. Why stay if it’s so hard?”
“Because I know that I can make a difference. I want all the hard work I put in to amount to something for Dahaar. And I refuse to let any prejudice masquerading as tradition stop me.”
His silence this time didn’t grate on her. Because being back in Dahaar was harder not only on a professional level but a personal one. She had tasted freedom in New York. She could go wherever she wanted, she could talk to whomever she wanted to, without written permission, without seeing questions lingering in gazes wherever she turned.
“No, you never stray from your path once you decide, do you?” A grudging respect filled his words. “Just don’t expect any changes overnight, Nikhat.”
She nodded, fiercely glad for this discussion. Because even if he said his words in a mocking tone, Azeez gave her a sense of being understood that she needed so much.
“So, dressing like you’re going to your own execution is the first step to convince everyone here to take you seriously?”
She raised a brow and smiled, smoothing a hand over the stiff silk. “Your mask of indifference in slipping, Azeez. You sound rather interested in how I’m dressed.”
Something playful entered his gaze as he shrugged. “You look like a black hole, Nikhat. Unless you tell me why, I will assume it’s to dissuade my interest. Then I’ll have to inform you that I would rather take another bullet in the hip than touch you.”
Heat flaring under her skin, Nikhat glared at him. “My father is coming to see me any minute. And my sisters. If you need me to be your punching bag, I would like to schedule the session for some other time that suits me better.”
She checked her watch again, unable to contain her anxiety.
“You have to look like this to see your father? Is this some new law that Ayaan passed?”
She looked down at herself, knowing he was right. But she didn’t want to give her father any more reason to be angry with her, or to find fault with her in any way. Loneliness she had battled for eight years solidified in her throat. “I…I have not seen him in eight years, Azeez. My sisters…can you imagine what Noor would look like now?” she said, thinking of her youngest sister. “Please, just leave, for now. I don’t have the luxury to turn my back on my family like you have done.”
The humor faded from his face. “Why didn’t you see them all these years?”
“My father’s condition for when I left Dahaar to study was that I not return. What you don’t know, and I didn’t realize, is how intractable he is. He forbade me from seeing him or my sisters.”
Before he could reply, a knock sounded on the door. Panic tying her stomach in knots, she grasped his hands and jerked back as the contact sent a jolt of sensation through her. “Please, Azeez,” she whispered, turning toward the door.
With a hard look at her, he walked around the sitting area and into her bedroom.
Only after she heard the click behind her did Nikhat’s heart settle back into place. Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, she opened the wide, double doors.
The smile froze on her mouth when she saw her father, alone. “Hello, Father,” she said, unable to pull her gaze away from the eerily silent corridor.
His hands folded behind him, her father stepped into the suite. He stood there stiffly, casting a glance around the room, not a hint of warmth in his gaze or welcome in his stance.
Swallowing back her disappointment, Nikhat gestured toward the seating area. “Would you like something to drink?”
“I cannot stay long, Nikhat. There’s an urgent security issue that I have to address with Prince Ayaan.”
Nikhat nodded. “I understand how busy you are. I just…I thought the girls were coming with you.”
His gaze remained steady on her, nothing betrayed in his set face. “I wished to make sure it was suitable for them to visit you here.”
“It’s the palace, Father. It’s the most secure place in Dahaar. Ayaan said—” She caught herself at the spark of displeasure in his tight mouth. “Prince Ayaan informed me himself that I have permission to have guests. I’m the personal physician to the Crown Princess, not a prisoner of state,” she said, bitterness spewing into her words.
“I did not think you were a prisoner.” Even more hardness settled into his features, making his expression intractable. “I have heard rumors, however. Nothing I would repeat. In fact, it is what I need to address with the Crown Prince. But between the rumors and his sudden command to call you back to Dahaar, I do not like the conclusions I had to draw.”
Anger filled her, replacing the powerlessness that had been clawing at her. All she wanted was to see her sisters. One small thing. And it seemed as if the whole universe was conspiring to deny her that. “What are these conclusions, Father?”
“I will not repeat them. And certainly not in front of you.”
Hot fury filled every inch of her. “Yes, you will. I am your daughter and I’m thirty years old. I have lived outside Dahaar, in a foreign land among strangers for eight years. Without any man’s protection, I have seen the world. I have not only taken care of myself but I have also flourished in my career. If I’m being denied the chance to see my own sisters—” she knew she was shouting at him now, that her voice was breaking, but she didn’t care anymore “—you will damn well tell me why not.”
“Swearing when you speak to your father? Is this what you have become?”
She gritted her teeth. For so many years, she had kept quiet. Even before she left Dahaar, she had always tried to be a model daughter, tried to be the son he had always wanted. “What have I become? What have I done that is so wrong that you’re still punishing me for it?”
He shook his head and Nikhat felt the one thing she had wanted slipping away from her hands. Everything she had achieved amounted to nothing if she still couldn’t see her sisters. “You owe me the truth at least.”
“Who are you serving, Nikhat? The Crown Princess Zohra or Prince Azeez?”
Nikhat could feel the blood fading from her face. “You cannot mention your suspicions to anyone. You cannot betray them.”
Her father flinched. “I would never betray the royal family. It’s all the small things I’ve been hearing. And no one else can come to the conclusion as I have. You and Prince Azeez…” He looked away from her as though his very thoughts were shameful. “I knew there was something between you all those years ago. Time and again I reminded you to keep your distance from them, to remember the disparity between our life and theirs. You never paid any attention to my warnings. You never do once you settle on something.”
Nikhat tried to wrap her mind around what he was saying. The truth of it shone in his unforgiving eyes.
He had known she had been in love with Azeez and he had assumed she had left Dahaar because her relationship with the prince had fallen apart. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at how perceptive her father was. “I have never done anything to bring shame upon you.” Even when she had known that she had to walk away, she had still refused herself what she wanted more than anything in the world.
“It does not matter. But if the Crown Prince has summoned you back to the palace, if he’s keeping you here because he thinks it will…help Prince Azeez…then I can’t risk bringing your sisters here. Your life, your reputation, it’s out of my hands. You took the right to protect you away from me when you left Dahaar. When you finish this…assignment, you will leave again. Leave whatever scandal you might create behind you. Your sisters have to live here, marry and make their lives. And I am still their father. I have to protect them.”
“What would you have me do, Father? Deny the Crown Prince’s request after everything King Malik has done for this family?”
“No, do your duty, whatever it…entails.” Tight lines fanned his mouth, and Nikhat knew what it cost him to say those words. And yet, it didn’t shock or surprise her. Her father had served King Malik for forty years. His loyalty was what had brought Nikhat to the palace to be educated at Princess Amira’s side. “But do not ask me to involve your sisters in this. Not until whatever you are doing for the Crown Prince is finished, not until I know this will not affect their reputation.”
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