The team got to work. Chloe, Roz’s assistant, as usual all in black, ran errands for the rest of the team—fetching a brush for Byron, the hairstylist, an eyeshadow for Sabine, the aesthetician with the perfect face, and pins for Catriona, the designer with the asymmetrical haircut.
When they were done, Mina was once again transformed. This time she was all sharp edges and shadows. Her hair had been pulled back into a sleek and elegant French twist, without a wisp out of place, and she wore a custom-fitted black one-piece pantsuit.
Deep V cutouts adorned the chest and back of the suit, with panels of sheer fabric in dark black sewn in for modesty. The design displayed the distinct impression of the curves of her breasts without showcasing any actual cleavage. The sleeves were fitted and full-length, tapering to narrow slightly at the wrists. Everything she wore followed and hugged the lines of her body—no one would dare call this suit boxy.
Roz had chosen diamonds as her only accessory—enormous teardrops at her earlobes and a monstrous solitaire hanging on a long platinum chain in the center of her breasts.
For shoes, they’d selected simple black leather pumps with heels high enough to add a few more inches to her legs. Once again the heels had bright red soles and a foreign name tastefully stamped into the leather.
Sabrina had made her eyes look smoky and large, without being overly dark and dramatic, and used a muted dusky rose for her lips, ensuring she looked alluring, yet professional.
Dressed in all black, she would be the perfect complement to Zayn, ensuring that they presented an image of sleek, young and modern monarchs, just as he wanted. She would be everything he said a queen ought to be: temptation in an untouchable package—at least not until long after the dinner was over.
His face when she met him in the foyer justified the effort. His gaze heated, igniting an answering flame in her that she let him see, but she kept tortuously outside of his arm’s reach. He wore a black suit with a black button-up shirt and tie.
“You look lovely. Excellent choice for the evening.”
She smiled at his compliment. Roz had taught her an important lesson—one she had already subconsciously observed in academia: clothes made the man—or the woman, the professor, or the Queen. Tonight she had dressed the part. Together they were a pair of silk-clad ravens, grave and imposing. And the sporadic flares of electricity between them only emphasized the intense magnetism that paired them.
Mina inclined her head with a cool, “Thank you.”
He led the way to the entrance, where their driver held open the limo door. Mina thanked the man as she entered the vehicle, and slid along the smooth leather seats to sit beside the window. Zayn followed her into the car and the driver shut the door.
They arrived at the venue to find a red carpet and flashing cameras. Cyrano was certainly developing a celebrity culture—paparazzi and press included.
Zayn slid an arm around her waist, the heat of the contact branding her through the layers of fabric that separated them, and he smiled, obliging the media covering their arrival and sending a thrill down her spine at the same time.
He was an excellent multitasker.
The dinner was being held in the grand ballroom of the Palace Museum—an aristocratic palace in the capital that had fallen out of the hands of its original owners nearly a century before and had been purchased by a private citizen and art collector. Upon his death, the palace and the collection it housed had been converted into a museum.
Mina had been to private events at the Palace Museum throughout her academic career, but nothing as grand as the occasion before her now. The museum had clearly spared no expense for the evening, and every effort had been made to impress the distinguished guests, which included all of Cyrano’s standing ambassadors and their families, in addition to other delegates from the nations Cyrano was courting relationships with, as well as members of Parliament and the bulk of the island’s aristocrats.
As they approached the Chancellor Klein, Mina’s nerves around the importance of the encounter, coupled with the constant exertion of withstanding her inconveniently relentless attraction to her husband, had her pulled taut as a bowstring. Practiced smile in place, however, she vowed to herself that she would do nothing to jeopardize the relationship Zayn sought.
In fact, filled with an oddly protective determination, Mina reached for Zayn’s hand and squeezed it as they walked, unthinkingly mirroring the reassurance her father had used to give her before every big event.
The memory flashed through her without any of the acrid tang that memories of her father had recently taken on, and she was glad, hoping that it meant the process of forgiveness had begun. She might never be able to think of him in quite the same way again, but their love had been real. His peerless rooting for her had been real.
She didn’t understand why he’d done it, but she could accept that her father had arranged the betrothal out of love. And somehow, as if acknowledging that had shattered the shield of ignorance that had been protecting her, as her hand clasped his, she realized that she loved Zayn.
Not in the enduring and mellow way she loved her mother, and not in the vague, patriotic way she loved Cyrano. It wasn’t the complicated, angry, nostalgic, yearning love for her father either, and it wasn’t her captivating love of study.
She loved him the way a woman loved a man.
Passionate, greedy, and demanding. Intense, delicate, and needy. She loved him for trying to make her strong enough for the job at the same time as trying to make up for everything becoming royalty had changed in her life. She loved him with her full self. And so, for the first time, she felt engaged—fully and completely—with everyday life. She was no longer preparing for the future or breaking over the past. She was here, in the present moment, absolutely in love.
And it was time to meet the Chancellor.
The Chancellor, a slender gray-haired woman with impeccable style and wireless glasses, wore a graphite pantsuit and sensible black pumps. Her husband was on a well-televised reconciliation tour of the African continent, so she had brought her college-aged son Werner to attend the dinner with her instead. The two of them stood with a number of other Farden officials who had made the trip alongside the family.
Chancellor Klein’s son’s interest in politics was well known, and he was expected to make a bid to turn his family into Farden’s first political dynasty within the next decade. Already famous in his own right, the striking blond youth also happened to be athletic and highly intelligent, on his way to graduating with honors from Cambridge. Werner was the kind of star pupil Mina had seen pass through her classroom only rarely, as they typically bypassed Cyrano’s humble Capital University to travel to more internationally renowned institutions.
Mina smiled warmly as she and Zayn closed the distance between themselves and the foreign visitors, first catching Chancellor Klein’s savvy blue eyes before turning her gaze slightly to include her son.
As their eyes connected the young man’s expression took on a glint Mina did not immediately recognize, both haughty and hungry at the same time, and she schooled her features so as not to give away her confusion as she allowed him to take her hand. He bent over it with a kiss and a smile while Zayn engaged with his mother.
In English, he said, “I had heard the Queen of Cyrano was a common woman of rare beauty, but the reports do not do you justice.”