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Ms. Young made scrupulous notes but Zayn saw the vertical frown between her brows. “Is there a problem, Ms. Young?”
Her gaze couldn’t quite hide her judgment. “Women are known to have children even at the advanced age of thirty, Your Highness.”
“Yes, but women reaching thirty have stubbornly decided ideas, Ms. Young. They will not be malleable. I might not meet their expectations of an ideal man, either.”
The woman didn’t quite snort but Zayn had a feeling she wanted to. “A woman ambitious about her career will not do. She’ll have to understand that her role in life is to complement me.”
“So beautiful but not really smart.”
“Yes. She will have to come to me as a virgin.”
Outrage flared in Ms. Young’s expressive eyes. “That’s barbaric.”
“That’s the only way I can ensure there’s no future scandal or shame attached to her name.”
“Virginity need not be required. We check their backgrounds very thoroughly before we make matches based on your requirements.”
“Ex-boyfriends and old lovers have a way of showing up in one’s life to make the most trouble. I would like to avoid any future scandals concerning my Sheikha and her past. This ensures it.”
“Beautiful, young, malleable, not particularly smart and a virgin. I don’t know whether to say this is the easiest or the hardest match I’ve ever made, Your Highness.”
“Are you saying you cannot find me a woman to match those requirements, Ms. Young?”
“Of course I can, Your Highness. But I just wondered if love was going to be a part of the equation.”
“You run a matchmaking business for billionaires, Ms. Young. Has love ever been part of it?”
“I was curious about your opinion.”
“Some foolish, fantastic notion will not make my marriage a success. I require a wife who will yield to my superior judgment in all areas of our life and be an asset to my political life.”
“A kind of accessory?”
“The perfect accessory, if you will,” he finished, amused at the flicker of anger in Ms. Young’s eyes.
He had known for a long time that was all a wife could be for a man like him.
Two weeks later
In all her carefully mapped-out adult life, Amalia Christensen had never imagined that one bright, hot-as-Hades day she would be waiting in the administrative offices of the ruling sheikh, Zayn Al-Ghamdi. In the spectacularly grand palace of her father’s homeland, Khaleej, she stared at the breathtaking domes and ornately lavish halls decorated in pure gold.
In the time that she’d lived with her mother in Scandinavia, a lot of things had changed in Khaleej, and for the better.
With infrastructure improved to rival any western nation, and its meteoric entry into the global finance world, Khaleej was now a flawless blend of artistry, tradition and technology.
If not for the constant knot of worry in her gut about her twin, Aslam, she’d have been clicking pics and Instagramming left, right and center. The rust-colored palace with its turrets and domes, sitting in the center of hundreds of acres of landscaped gardens and a golden sandy beach corralling it on one side was a visual feast.
But in all the years that she’d yearned to visit Khaleej, she hadn’t imagined doing it this desperate way. The beauty of Khaleej and her reconnection with her roots was empty, meaningless, without Aslam by her side.
If only she’d visited last year; if only she’d understood how restless and angry Aslam was...
It had taken her two months after arriving in Sintar, the capital city of Khaleej, to get this meeting with a palace official. After one short visit with Aslam, who had poured out the entire story to her in the jail; several tense, monosyllabic c
onversations with her father over the phone—Amalia had no interest in addressing the decade-old silence that still stood between them—followed by endless reaching out to friends of Aslam and learning about the instigator of the whole escapade; and finally, asking her boss Massimiliano to use his connections and arrange this meeting for her.
Massi had laughed and asked if it would bring back the best executive assistant he’d ever had to work for him. Glad that he hadn’t written her off during her long-term leave, she’d promised to return soon. Much as she missed her career and cringed at the dent in her savings, she couldn’t leave until Aslam was free.
The sound of the glistening blue waters of the gulf gently breaking onto the pristinely white sandy beach, visible to the right of her, added a background score to the pregnant silence of the corridor.
