Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Tory.
She was now hearing things she was not supposed to hear, literally—-
The chambermaid chopping vegetables beside her stopped. “Umm, Anisah?”
Lowering the pan to the sink, she turned to the other woman reluctantly. “Yes?”
“I think...the sheikh wishes to, umm, talk to you?”
Anisah jerked.
“Tory.”
She looked at Mila. “Did you also hear that?” The other woman nodded, and Anisah slowly peeled off her gloves. The sheikh...was truly here? The gloves slipped off her suddenly nerveless fingers. They fell to the kitchen’s sparkling-clean floor soundlessly, but she flinched all the same, the sight no different from a detonating bomb as it forced her to confront the truth.
I can’t talk to him.
As soon as the words formed in her already-hazy mind, she made a run for it. Or at least she gave it her best shot. She was fast, but the sheikh was faster, and cries of shock rose inside the vast kitchen when the sheikh lunged for her.
His arm shot out, his fingers curling around her arm, and Anisah cried out, “No!” His touch burned, painfully so. It hurt her because it still felt good...when it was not supposed to.
She looked away as soon as he had spun her around to face him, but even so Tarif managed to catch sight of her bright, tear-stained eyes.
Smiles are a luxury to her, and so are her tears.
And since he himself knew how Anisah, the woman who took pride in having only ten pieces of clothing in her wardrobe, felt about luxury –
“I’m sorry.” He felt her stiffen, but still she didn’t look at him, and he did not blame her for it. “I’m sorry, Tory.” He spoke quietly but clearly; he wanted everyone to hear and see him eat humble pie. It was what she deserved – and more.
Chapter Seventeen
“Hyacinth didn’t know what she was talking about when she called you a fanatic.”
They were in the privacy of his office, both of them seated on the couch, albeit on opposite ends, and his first words were completely unexpected. That Hyacinth had the temerity to contact or even confront the sheikh no longer surprised Anisah. Her younger sister was quite the fighter when it came to protecting the ones she loved.
But that bit about the fanatic?
“I’m proud to be committed to our kingdom,” Anisah said without meeting the sheikh’s gaze. And while the cheeky, talkative brat probably hadn’t meant her words to be a compliment, she would take it as so.
The sheikh’s lips twitched at Anisah’s words. “I should’ve known you’d be happy to hear that.” He paused. “However – I’m sorry to disappoint you that you don’t actually qualify.”
“If that is a dig about my loyalty to the crown—-”
“You may have your moments,” the sheikh cut her off smoothly, “but real fanaticism?”
“And your point is, Your Highness?” She glared at the center table, which unfortunately was not as satisfactory as glaring at the sheikh.
“My mother was one.”
Anisah started. What...did he say?
But the sheikh had already started talking again.
A scandalous divorce that involved having her husband leave her for an older and less attractive woman, an all-consuming need for validation, a psychological incapacity to care – these were just a few of the various factors that had eventually turned his mother Tamara into a fanatic.
Because her gender prevented her from fulfilling her dreams of leading the kingdom, Tamara had then set her sights on her only son on becoming her older brother Khalid’s successor. For her, Khalil couldn’t have been the rightful heir because of his illegitimacy. Tarif, however, was not only legitimate but was also the only full-blooded Al-Atassi among his cousins.
Because of his mother’s obsessive ambition, most of Tarif’s childhood memories were of Tamara screaming at him constantly, pushing him to be more and better than the other Al-Atassi children. In public engagements, she would pretend to laugh things off when someone remarked how beautiful he was. But as soon as they arrived home, she would throw a fit and threaten to claw his face so that people would finally realize there was more to him than his good looks.
All this the sheikh had uttered in a dispassionate tone, and it was this above all else which had squeezed her heart. She had found herself turning to him, and her heart crying out even more at the total absence of expression on his face – the beautiful face that his own mother should have cherished but had despised instead.
Had no one tried to stop her?
No one knew it was happening. I only made myself speak of it when she was dead, and only because by then I was old enough to understand that the truth would help prevent the same thing from happening.
He then told Anisah of how he had been torn between rebelling and desperately seeking for his mother’s approval. Tamara had liked to teach him about heroism, and in these so-called lessons, she would force him to do things. Lie. Cheat. Steal. He had even lost his virginity at his mother’s command; he had been thirteen then, and his mother had known heard about a powerful sheikh’s wife who liked her lovers quite...young.