Why had he brought her here, if only to ignore her?
On the third morning, she woke early. An odd pre-sentiment was tingling down her spine, and she rose with an increasing sense of unease.
All of the clothes she’d been provided with were exceptional quality and undoubtedly expensive. They were also unstintingly modest, in what she presumed was a necessity in Dashan.
She pulled on an olive-green dress that fell to the floor and had wide bell-shaped sleeves all the way to the wrists. Despite the fact it covered her whole body, it was surprisingly cool, no doubt because of the linen fabric.
There were some books in a shelf across the room. She’d looked at all of them previously and dismissed them as too bland. But now, desperation and a gnawing sense of anxiety nipped at her heels.
When the door peeled inwards a little before noon, Olivia was not surprised. She’d been waiting. For what, she couldn’t have said. But the air had been thick with expectation all day.
Marook stood there, his expression neutral. Only his eyes seemed to smile at her with some of the kindness she remembered from
their time in Vegas.
“Hello,” she was friendly. Perhaps too friendly, given that he was complicit in this little saga. But Olivia had scarcely spoken to a soul for days, and even Marook was a welcome break to her solitude.
“Good morning, Miss Henderson.”
“Please, call me Olivia,” she invited, moving quietly towards him.
“Olivia,” he repeated with a nod. “His royal highness, Sultan Faisal Fayez has requested an audience with you.”
Her heart dropped to her knees. “With me?” She repeated, her brows knitting together as she contemplated just what the heck Zamir’s father could have to say to her.
Marook nodded. “Immediately.”
“Oh.” She looked at him beseechingly. “Will Zamir be there?” And though she was furious with him, and felt sure she hated him in that moment, she was desperately hopeful he would be.
“My understanding is that he doesn’t even know this meeting has been requested.”
“Oh.” Great. A kaleidoscope of butterflies was bursting through her stomach.
What had Zamir said? That his father would feel betrayed by what he would view as Zamir’s disrespect in bringing Olivia to Dashan. And yet, here she was. Against her will, and his better judgement.
Marook led the way from Zamir’s apartment, back down the burgundy and gold corridor she’d seen days earlier, and into yet another wing of the palace. This one with cream tiles and gold and white walls, and large pillars that stretched all the way to the ceiling. There were marble statues along its length, and at the end, a window the size of the wall that framed the view of the glistening desert beyond. There was a small collection of buildings far off in the distance, simple and low-lying, with cream-coloured walls and holes for windows.
“An old village,” Marook explained, when he saw the direction of her gaze.
“Do people still live there?”
“Yes, though more and more villages such as this are being deserted for the cities.”
“It’s so far from anything.”
“That, Miss Henderson, is part of its charm. Until you have had dined and slept in a clay hut, and stared out at the stars above, you have not lived.”
She arched a brow at him, though she wanted to smile and ask him to go on. The old Olivia – the version of herself she’d been before meeting Zamir – would have laughed and linked arms with him regardless of his position within the royal family. She would have been uncaring for such boring considerations as etiquette and causing offence.
But now, she had a weight of expectation pressing on her shoulders.
So she fell back into step beside Marook, moving silently through the palace as though she belonged in its exquisitely designed walls.
Marook paused eventually outside a glossy cream door. There were marble statues on either side. He spoke into a small device at his wrist and the doors opened inwards.
There was so much light in the room that Olivia was momentarily blinded. She had to blink for a moment to let her vision adapt. The source of the light was the windows that ran the whole length of the room, on two walls. The midday sun beat in unrelentingly, but it was beautiful and warming, rather than over-hot.
His royal highness Faisal Fayez was standing with the aid of a cane, looking unflinchingly towards the door. His bearing was very like Ra’if’s. Far more so than Zamir’s.