1
“IF WE’RE GOING TO be stuck sitting beside one another, we might as well have some pleasantries, don’t you think?”
For the sake of the fragile peace accord after centuries of war, Sheikh Elon Katabi turned to the beautiful young woman with what he hoped would pass for a polite smile. “What would you like to talk about?”
When she sighed, Ella El Silandar’s pale blonde hair caught in the breeze of her exhalation, lifting from her face and trapping the early afternoon sunlight, making it shine like gold. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”
Elon raised a thick dark brow, his angular face a blank mask as he waited for her to continue.
“Oh, it’s okay, I’m used to that reaction, being the ‘illegitimate princess’ and all,” she said with a small laugh, only the shaking of her fingers as she reached for her water glass revealing that she might not find the nickname as harmless as she was implying. “I don’t know why I thought anyone here would be any different.”
“Different to?”
She angled large blue eyes to his face, an assessing glint in their depths. “Everyone.” Another sigh, this one shifting the soft turquoise fabric of the elaborate gown she wore – delicate silk embroidered with gold at the collar and on the cuffs of the sleeves. “The palace, the people…”
“Your brother?” He prompted, scanning her face with interest.
Her expression softened, her lips curling into a gentle smile. “I know you and he hate one another, but no, not Tasim. My brother is, perhaps, the one person on earth who doesn’t see me as an inconvenience.”
He thought of the stories of the ‘illegitimate princess’, his mind running over the scant details he had. The fact she’d been raised by her Irish mother in London, an extremely generous lifestyle provided for her but no true legal acknowledgement as the daughter of the Sheikh of Mosar, and during her late teens, a penchant for parties and a wild lifestyle that had seen her – and by extension the royal family of Mosar – dragged through the mud in a way he, Elon, would never personally tolerate from his own sister. Fortunately, Luna had never shown any tendency to that kind of shameless attention-seeking.
And yet Sheikh Tasim had turned a blind eye to that and brought Ella to Salim once her mother had died. He’d insisted on the royal order of succession being altered to include Ella, her legitimacy formalised by royal decree, and yet even then, a royal decree couldn’t alter the fact that everything about Ella set her apart, establishing her firmly as an outsider from this way of life.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m used to not being liked.” She turned away from him, her neck swan-like as she sipped her water.
He frowned, wondering at the spark of disapproval he felt. For her? Or at her statement?
“I don’t dislike you. I don’t know you.”
She turned to face him once more, her features breathtaking in their beauty. He could see why the British tabloids had delighted in splashing her picture over their pages. Wide-set eyes, a petite nose with a little ski jump at its end, and pink cupid’s bow lips, high-set cheekbones and skin that was – in contrast to the other delegates in attendance – an almost translucent cream.
“I’ll bet you know enough,” she murmured with a quiet sense of pride, her eyes daring him to dispute it.
Contrary to that expectation, he dipped his head in silent agreement. “Your life is hardly a closed book. In fact, I doubt someone could be in the tabloids more frequently even if they made it the sole purpose to their existence.”
Something flickered in the cornflower blue depths of her eyes, and then she smiled wistfully and looked away. An odd sense of frustration nipped at his heels. There was something she wasn’t saying – something important – and despite the fact she was exactly the kind of person he usually avoided – as he fastidiously did any scandal – he felt a sharp inclination to press her on the point, to ask her why she didn’t exit nightclubs using back doors, or engage a team of security personnel to keep the paparazzi at bay? These were definite choices she’d made, each leading to her increased publicity. All he could presume was that she’d courted the media’s attention because she liked it.
The thought brought a sardonic grimace to his face. Surely that fact was as unpalatable to Tasim as it was to him? Though they were sworn enemies, they were alike in many ways. For one thing, they both valued their privacy and protected it assiduously. Ella was a death knell to that, for Tasim. Despite the fact the media was, for the most part, respectful of the royal family within Mosar, the international press continued to buy whatever images they could, speculating on her latest lover, and gleefully gossiping about her party girl lifestyle.
She sat beside him silently now, a composed expression on her face, as though she’d been attending diplomatic events such as this all her life. The speech commemorating the tenth anniversary of the signing of the regional peace accord went on for far longer than allocated, the Alsani head of state apparently enjoying the fact he had the eyes of thirty powerful men and women locked to him.
The hall in which they’d gathered was an ancient stone building to the west of the peninsula, and as the sun continued its trajectory towards the sea, and the sky began to glow with peach and gold, Elon found it hard to ignore the woman to his right. Leaning forward in his chair, and angling himself towards her slightly, he spoke in a hushed tone, “I wasn’t aware Tasim was sending you to this event.”
She didn’t look at him. “Does my brother make a habit of informing you of his every move?”
For Elon, being spoken to in such a manner was a novelty. It didn’t bother him. On the contrary, he found something like heat sparking in the pit of his stomach. He tamped down on it, ignoring the unwanted reaction. “I’m sure you are aware of our…differences.”
She ran her finger over the edge of the day’s schedule, printed on thick card and placed before each delegate. “A situation called him away quite urgently. He asked me to come in his place.”
“You seem to be doing a lot of that, lately.”
She still didn’t look at him, but in profile he could see her lips lift in the same mocking smile she’d employed earlier. “Tasim likes to include me.”
“You think that’s what this is about?”
She lifted her slender shoulders so the embroidery on her gown caught his attention momentarily, shimmering in the late afternoon light.
“I think he’s giving me every opportunity to be the princess he thinks our country requires.”