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“Oh, tell me.”
The melecha smiled with obviously fond reminiscence. “He took me to a European castle for our honeymoon.”
“You live in a palace.”
“He bought me the castle and a title to go with it.”
“Being queen wasn’t enough?” Liyah teased.
“It was something that was just for me, not Zeena Sahra.” Queen Durrah smiled softly. “That castle became our refuge after Umar’s death, a place we could take Sayed and simply be a family.”
“A place he could still be a boy and play freely,” Liyah said softly.
The queen nodded. “And in safety.”
*
Liyah was still thinking about her visit with Queen Durrah when Hasiba arrived to tell her the driver was waiting with the car.
“Where is Sayed?” Liyah asked Hasiba with some trepidation, worried the older woman would have decided Liyah took advantage again.
“I believe it is supposed to come as a surprise,” Hasiba said with a conspiratorial smile.
“Okay.”
Hasiba reached for Liyah before she left the suite. “I am truly sorry about before. My emir has never been so happy as since meeting you. Even back in London, though none of us understood his dreamy preoccupation was not with his coming nuptials but the woman that would steal his heart.”
If only that were true. “Thank you, Hasiba. Your support means so much.”
The older woman pulled Liyah into a tight hug. “You will be a wonderful emira.”
Liyah would do her best.
The limo ride into the city only took about twenty minutes, but it was the longest twenty minutes of her life. It ended when they pulled up in front of an elegant hotel.
A man dressed in a dark kameez rushed forward to lead Liyah inside and to an old-fashioned cage elevator.
Sayed was waiting beside a table set on a dais in the center of the large and very full dining room of the hotel’s rooftop restaurant.
He wore a men’s dishdasha in the same crimson shade as Liyah’s. Though with the elaborate gold embroidery on her chiffon outer dress, Liyah’s was a lot fancier.
His black abayah had more moderate masculine embroidery in the same crimson shade. His egal was the ceremonial black shot with gold and his keffiyeh the color of the royal house, as well.
“You look like the emir,” she said in a near-whisper as she took his hand to step up on the dais.
“But you remember always the man underneath the robes,” he said with pure satisfaction.
“Yes.”
His smile was blinding as he helped her into her chair.
Dinner was amazing, Sayed in top form, practically oozing charm.
Though they consumed no alcohol, she felt tipsy on hope by the time dessert arrived. Several photographs had already been taken throughout the evening, everyone at the tables around them smiling and nodding as if they were as much a part of what was to come as Liyah and Sayed.
Maybe they were.
Sayed would always serve his people with his whole heart.
