The foolish girl was infatuated with him.
It was there in her eyes.
And when she finally spoke—-
"Yam jamil, alshaykh." A beautiful day, sheikh. The expression was nothing but a formal greeting in Ramilian, and yet the way the princess uttered the words...
Was she aware of how husky her voice had become? Of how dirty the words turned out just by speaking the way she did?
"You're staring at me, alshaykh."
The words caught him off guard, and Altair's lips tightened. He had thought the princess an open book, someone he would have an easy time handling, but perhaps Yara was right. Sheikh Mahmud's daughter was definitely not one to be underestimated, and as for her earlier words...
"Maehdina, hamira." I'm sorry, princess. "I did not mean to make you uncomfortable." He was about to apologize for it, thinking that the princess was playing coy, but he was once again surprised when the girl shook her head at him.
"I didn't say I was."
Kayf muthiralaiti. How interesting.
She not only spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, but her gaze...it was also completely direct and the very opposite of coy.
"I only mentioned it," the princess went on to say, "because I wish to know the reason for it."
"What else is there," he asked lightly, "except for the fact that I find you beguiling?"
"And just that?"
Tread carefully, Altair.
Tread the fuck carefully.
And yet he still heard himself say, "If you are expecting me to say I am in love with you—-"
He heard the princess sharply draw her breath.
"I cannot tell you that. All I can admit to is wanting you."
SAFIYA TANNOUS WAS not like other princesses. She only knew of princesses from the few books she was allowed to read, and all of them had seemed to lead pampered and picture-perfect lives.
Safiya's life, however, was the opposite. By four in the morning, she was expected to be awake and already dressed, her bed made up, and her room spic and span. She had never been allowed to watch the television or listen to the radio, and heaven forbid she was ever granted even a minute to explore the Internet and all it had to offer. Even so, she knew everything about the outside world, with her education so comprehensive that she was more than capable of discussing anything from cryptocurrencies to streaming wars or from Super Bowl goats to space tourism. It was all part and parcel of her father's grand plans to install her on the Ramilian throne, and Safiya had learned early on it was simply safer to play along. One only courted trouble when one was ready, and one could not be ready when locked in a gilded cage.
Most of Safiya's days were spent in solitude, and although Safiya did have Urwa and Lady Beatriz looking after her, even her hours with the two were strictly limited. As for her father, Sheikh Mahmud only remembered she existed when he was made to believe she had done something that required punishment.
But in spite of this, she loved her father still, and she believed he loved her back. Naturally, she also loved Urwa and Lady Beatriz, and she loved the memory of her mother. It used to bother Safiya, this side of her that knew no limits when it came to love. But eventually she had learned to simply accept it; just as God had a purpose for everything, so must there be a reason for why He had given her a heart that kept beating for others. Safiya was born to love, and so she loved.
But as for trust...
Safiya's most important lesson in life came at the expense of a cat. She had been seven at that time, and the cat had been this big, white, and fluffy thing that found its way to her room by slipping between the steel grills installed on the window sills.
On some days, the cat would scratch her hands and leave ugly red gashes on Safiya's skin. But on other days the cat could also be so unbearably sweet, with the way it would lay its head on her lap before going to sleep.
Safiya had wished terribly to call the cat her own and give it a name, but even as a child, she had also known that to claim the cat as pet was also the quickest way to have it banished from the estate. And so it was with a reluctant heart she would always usher the cat out before sunrise, and come evening, she would find herself waiting nervously if the cat would ever come back.
But it always did.
Night after night, she would have her big white cat to cuddle next to, but just when seven-year-old Safiya had started thinking in terms of forever, that was when the Fates had swept down to teach her a lesson.
A rare storm had blown into the desert kingdom of Ramil, and as power went out and everything went dark, it was then Safiya had heard someone slowly open the door to her room. She remembered how terrified she had been as the shadowy figure turned towards her—-
But before he could even reach her, Safiya's cat had come to her rescue, mewling and screeching so loudly that it had woken the entire household. By the time the guards had come running to her room, candlestick in one hand and a loaded gun in another, the assailant had escaped, and the cat that was not hers was lying on the floor, still and lifeless.
Safiya had wept for months for her cat, and she had continued to weep even though her tears so incensed Lord Saul that he would occasionally punish her by sending her to her room without dinner.
Years passed, and as Safiya grew older and wiser, she had gradually realized that her dear, dear cat reminded her just a bit of Sheikh Mahmud. Just like how her cat would often scratch and claw at her, so would her father, to the point that she had lost count of the number of times he had hurt her with his cold and hard ways. But even so, never had she doubted her cat's love for her, and so it was as well with her own father.
If there ever came a time he would be asked to lay down his life for her, she knew he would do so without hesitation. She trusted very few people in this world, but those she did trust, such as her father, Urwa, and Lady Beatriz, she trusted implicitly and loved unconditionally. She trusted and loved them even knowing that they could hurt her, and she did so because she knew that even if they were to hurt her, it would never be because they wanted to...the way people like Lord Saul did.
People like Lord Saul always knew what they were doing, and they were the kind of people Safiya stayed as far away from as possible. People like Lord Saul never changed; when hurting others, they did so by choice and without guilt, and it was for these reasons Safiya would never trust her father's right-hand man and his ilk.
In Safiya's life, to love had no consequences while to trust could mean the difference between life and death. Trust took time, and it was why even though she thought the world of Yara, there was still a part of herself that Safiya kept secret from the other girl. Trust was a gift that had to be earned, and so when Sheikh Altair said the words he did—-
What would you say...if I told you I agreed to the betrothal because I wanted you?
It had filled her with such joy and relief she could have wept then and there.
If Sheikh Altair had told her he had accepted the betrothal because he was in love with her, it would have crushed Safiya completely. As those words could only be lies, it would have meant he was a lie as well, and that her beloved hero was just as devious and dishonest as Lord Saul.
But because he had said what he did—-
Safiya knew then that the kingdom's military commander was truly what she hoped and dreamt him to be, and her heart started to race as she prepared herself to speak the truth.