Her eyes rolled. “We’re back to princessing me, huh? Please don’t tell me you’re even suggesting that when it comes to status, I’m the one standing on higher ground!”
“I’m not suggesting. I’m stating.”
She almost snorted. “Please! You’ve overcome unimaginable adversity and are now a phenomenal self-made success story, with a kingdom begging you to be its king. And what am I? While I made enough money to set up my business, and it’s beginning to take off, it will never be anywhere near as huge as yours. And while my family might have thought they were ‘prizing’ me—what they actually did was hold me back and almost break me down. I’ve barely recovered from a lifetime of emotional abuse. At least when your guardian and his family abused you, you had the comfort of knowing they weren’t your flesh and blood. So no, there’s nothing higher about my status.”
Again she felt that vast...wrath percolate inside him. It made her shiver, even when she knew it wasn’t directed at her.
“You’re still a princess,” he finally said.
“A minor one.”
“The only daughter of the Aal Shalaans is anything but minor. Your parents are siblings of monarchs. You’re next in status only to those in line to the crown of both kingdoms. If that doesn’t make you a major princess, I don’t know what does.”
“Take heart. I’m no longer royal on one side, since my mother’s family was ousted from Zohayd and Azmahar. And with Uncle Atef relinquishing Zohayd to Amjad, having only a cousin on the throne distances me from it and diminishes said lofty status.”
“Whatever the political developments, you’re still royal on both sides going back a few dozen generations.”
She threw her hands in the air. “Ya Ullah...now I know why dates are my fourth impossibility. My statistics make me sound so...stuffy. Not to mention scary. Who wants to go out with a woman with all this ancient blue sludge clogging her veins? And all the minefields that come with it?”
“Any man would do anything to...date you, even if it would jeopardize his very life.”
Was that a compliment? That doozy? Would “any man” include him? Or was he just saying men would overlook the dangers of associating with her for supposedly unimaginable privileges?
Before she could ask what he meant, he was already asking another question. “You don’t date?”
“No.” Because you exist, and any man compared to you is predictable, disappointing and...well, non-existent. Out loud she qualified her response. “I start nothing I know won’t work.”
“How do you know it won’t work out until you try?”
“One try is enough to tell me it won’t.”
Ugh. She’d made it sound as if her M.O. was a string of one-night stands, ditching guys who didn’t wow her the morning after.
Before she could rectify this massive miscommunication, she found him on his feet.
She blinked up at him. “You gotta teach me how you do that.”
An empty glance answered her as he produced his phone. After he again ordered his right hand man to come over, he turned to her.
“It’s time you went home, princess.”
She found herself on her feet, too, her heart almost uprooting itself in dismay. “But I don’t want to go yet.”
“It’s 1:00 a.m. That woman who seems joined to you at the hip must have already reported you missing.”
“Mira had to fly to Tennessee—her father was taken to the emergency room. That’s why I haven’t called her yet, and why I was going home alone tonight. I was also much later than usual because I had to stay behind and finish things for her.”
“So her father forced her into one E.R., and you forced me into another.”
Her lips quivered on a mixture of humor and rising anxiety. “As if anyone could force you into anything.”
“I once believed no one could. After tonight, I stand corrected. Look what’s happened to me since I let that lowlife nick me. I’ve been dragged to the E.R., pushed into the hands of doctors who had anything but work on their minds, blackmailed back into my car, taken home like a minor, informed how I feel, told to sit and where, and fed and pampered like an invalid. Now I can’t even go to bed because you want to fuss over me some more.”
No longer sure if he was teasing or fed up, she blurted out, “I promise to stop fussing over you, if you let me stay the night.”
And she finally did it. She’d shocked him mute.
When she thought he wouldn’t speak again, he exhaled. “Coming here was inappropriate. ‘Staying the night’ needs new adjectives.”
Still not sure what to make of his mood, she ventured a smile. “Unacceptable? Outrageous? Shocking as hell?”
“How about ‘out of the question’?”
“C’mon, Rashid, this is twenty-first century Chicago.”
The hardness settling in his eyes told her no argument would work this time. He’d send her away then tell himself he shouldn’t see her again. Tonight was all she could have.
She caught his arm, her voice shaking then breaking. “You can’t send me home to an empty condo after what happened tonight.”
The frown furrowing his forehead along the lines inflicted by his harsh life was one of bafflement this time. “You’re that afraid of being alone? You didn’t seem worried before.”
“Just because I’m not a mess doesn’t mean I’m okay.” Which was true. “Only being with you has stopped the whole thing from sinking in and ripping at my insides.” Which was also true.
His eyes widened that fraction that told her something major was going on inside him. This was the moment she had to seize, when he was teetering on the verge of relenting, before he talked himself out of softening.
She did. “Let me stay with you. Please, Rashid.”
Her insides were quivering for his verdict when he suddenly let out a long breath.
Before she could gauge if that was exasperation or capitulation, he turned and walked away.
As she struggled with worry, he threw her a cool glance over his shoulder. “One thing for sure, princess. Your mother and aunt were clueless about you. You could influence the dead.”
She hurried after him, needing confirmation. “And since you’re very much alive, this means I can stay?”
“At your peril, princess.”
Five
Talk about false advertisement.