Athena stared at Johara as though she were losing her mind. ‘Your Highness...’
Johara sighed, reaching up and putting a hand on Athena’s. ‘It’s fine. No one saw me.’
She could see the fight being waged inside Athena. Their relationship was strange. While they were friends, it was a friendship that existed in a particular way. Athena would never overstep what she considered to be her place, despite the fact Johara often wished she would.
‘What is it, Thena?’ She pronounced her friend’s name ‘Thayna’, as she always did when she wanted to set aside their professional roles and be simply two women who’d known each other a long time.
Athena’s smile, though, showed the conversation was at an end. ‘I was just thinking how to style it. A bun will hide the mess.’
‘These are your parents?’ She stopped walking, staring at the beautifully executed portrait, her eyes lingering on every detail.
‘Yes.’ At her side, Amir was very still. ‘Painted the year of their marriage.’
‘She’s beautiful.’ And she was. The artist had captured something in his mother’s features that made Johara feel a tug to the other woman. She shifted her gaze to Amir’s, conscious that servants surrounded them so keeping a discreet distance and a cool look pinned to her face. ‘You have her eyes.’
He returned her look but it was futile. It didn’t matter how cool either of them attempted to appear, heat sparked from him to her, making her fingertips tingle with an impulse to reach out and touch. She ached to drag her teeth across his collarbone, to flick her tongue in the indentation of his clavicle, to run her fingertips up his sides until he grabbed her and pinned her to the wall...
Her cheeks flushed, and she knew he recognised it because his attention shifted lower in her face and a mocking smile crept over his mouth—mocking himself or her, she didn’t know.
She turned away from him, moving a little further down the hallway, her gaze sliding across the next painting—another couple. ‘My grandparents,’ he supplied. The next had her feet stilling, to study it properly.
‘It’s you.’
It jolted him—the painting had been done when he was only a small boy. ‘How can you tell?’
‘Your eyes,’ she said seriously. ‘And your smile.’
Ahmed had moved closer without either of them realising, and caught her observation, a small frown on his face. ‘I beg your pardon, Your Majesty.’ He addressed Amir alone.
‘What is it?’ Amir’s impatience was obvious.
‘There’s an update, on the matter we discussed this morning. Zeb has the information. He’s waiting in your office.’
Amir’s brow creased in consternation but he nodded, turning back to Johara. ‘I have to deal with this.’
Disappointment crested inside her. Perhaps Amir sensed it because he lowered his voice, though Ahmed stood at his elbow. ‘I won’t be long.’
It was too obvious. Heat sparked in Johara’s cheeks. She looked away, nodding with what she hoped appeared disinterest. ‘It’s no bother, Your Majesty. I have plenty here with which to occupy myself.’
Amir didn’t stay a moment longer than necessary. He turned on his heel and stalked down the corridor. Johara watched until he’d turned a corner, before realising that Ahmed was still there, his eyes intent on her face.
She forced a polite smile. ‘The artwork here is first class.’
‘Yes, madam.’
Frosty. Disapproving. She turned away from him, telling herself she didn’t care. She continued to tour the gallery, each painting deserving far more attention than she gave it. She couldn’t focus on anything other than Amir.
‘My mother used to play the piano,’ Amir said quietly. ‘She was very good. When I was a child, I would listen to her for hours.’
Johara reached for another grape, grateful that they were—finally—alone. It had taken a heck of a lot of logistics but they’d managed to find a way to give all of their servants the slip, so that they could now sit, just the two of them, in his beautiful private hall that he’d brought her to the first morning she’d arrived. The morning he’d asked if she was pregnant. How much had happened since then!
‘Do you play?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I think her musicality escaped me.’
‘Music can be taught,’ she pointed out.
‘The techniques can be, but not the passion and the instinct.’