AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As he listened to her inhale, he forced his eyes away from her and instead took in the scene he’d been blind to until she’d appeared. Four separate areas were full of thick green foliage and he would always associate this courtyard with the oasis his family used to visit in the desert.
‘...hungry.’
‘Excuse me?’ he asked, dragging his eyes and awareness back to Star.
‘You looked hungry,’ she replied with a smile.
‘Really?’ he asked, surprised.
‘Aren’t you?’
‘Well, yes, but...’
Star sat down beside him and began to unpack the large canvas bag she’d had slung over her shoulder. An impressive glass-bottomed lunch box landed between them on the bench. A flask of something was soon propped up against it, while she passed him a smaller box with the instruction, ‘Can you open that?’
He found himself once again staring blankly at her before recovering and doing as she’d asked, the traces of yesterday’s smile returning to his lips. It had been so long since someone treated him like an equal, he was determined not to break the spell.
He lifted the lid from the box she’d handed him and the smell of parsley and coriander and rich tomato sauce hit him hard, making his mouth water. He stared at themahshiin wonder.
‘Where on earth did you get this?’
‘Oh, the chef at my hotel,’ she replied, reaching over to take one of the courgettes stuffed with rice and vegetables. ‘He promised that he didn’t mind making it for me.’
‘Of course he didn’t,’ Khalif replied, thinking that she could probably talk the birds down from the sky as easily as getting a chef to make her whatever she wanted. He bit into the courgette he’d helped himself to and groaned. Hats off to the chef. He really hadn’t realised how hungry he was until she’d asked.
‘We were talking last night and he was telling me about...’
He let her voice trail over him as he cast an eye back to where the security detail had come up against Amin, who seemed almost apoplectic that he’d taken food from a stranger. Khalif didn’t really know what he was so angry about. Amin would probably prefer it if therewaspoison in the food. That way he’d be able to fulfil his royal duties without the hindrance he clearly saw Khalif as being.
He cast an eye back to Star, still talking but looking ahead of her and gesturing expressively with her hands, clearly missing the way that the thick tomato sauce was dripping perilously close to his trousers. Khalif supposed that she could be a spy sent to poison him—if it hadn’t been for the fact that there had been no threats to either the country or the royal family in over one hundred years. Faizan’s helicopter crash had been investigated by both Duratra and an international investigative team and both had confirmed that a mechanical fault was to blame. Accidental death. Somehow the term seemed cruel, especially for the twin daughters he and Samira had left behind.
‘And so, after a few failed attempts, it was decided I should probably leave it to the professionals. But it’s so delicious I just couldn’t refuse,’ she said, handing him a piece of flatbread and the little porcelain pot of hummus. She’d managed to convince the chef to make her a packed lunch with breakable china? He stared between the little pot and the redhead, who seemed utterly oblivious to the impact that she had on those around her. And suddenly he envied her that. No second-guessing and doubting the impact of every single move, look, step, decision or indecision. As he scooped some of the hummus topped with beautiful pink pearls of pomegranate and flecks of paprika onto the flatbread, he saw his assistant throw his hands up in the air and as the taste exploded on his tongue Khalif decided that frustrating his particularly sanctimonious assistant was a small victory in an otherwise complete failure of a day.
‘That was the bestmahshiI’ve ever had,’ she sighed, leaning back against the wooden bench.
Khalif laughed. ‘Had a lot ofmahshi, have you?’
Star nodded, her smile lighting up eyes that were a touch lighter than they had been yesterday. ‘Yup. My mum, she’s...some would call heralternative,’ she said in a half whisper, as if confessing some great sin. ‘But she travelled a lot when she was younger and that influenced her cooking. We’re all vegetarian so we do a lot of cooking ourselves. That, and we didn’t have a great deal of money growing up,’ she announced without the resentment that usually weighed down such a statement.
‘What do they do? Your parents,’ he clarified, unable to resist going in for one last mouthful of the hummus.
She should have known it was coming. Usually she could feel it building in a conversation, but with Kal it had taken her by surprise so she hadn’t been ready for the swift pain that nicked her heart. ‘My father died when I was a few months old, but he was a carpenter.’ She rubbed her hands unconsciously, as she often did when she thought about her father, imagining the calluses on his hands that her mother had told her about.
‘That must have been very hard. I am sorry for the loss you have felt.’
Rather than shy away, this time she wanted to feel the burn, the flame that was lit when Kal looked at her, even if she felt guilty for welcoming it to avoid that ache, but instead what she found in his eyes... Her heartbeat thumped once heavily in sympathy.
‘And I am sorry for yours.’
He frowned, his head already beginning to shake, but she stopped him with her hand on his arm.
‘I’m sorry if that was intrusive. I don’t know who or...’ she trailed off ‘...but I can tell.’
Kal nodded once. It was an acceptance of her offered comfort, but a definite end to the moment. Seizing the threads of the earlier conversation and definitely not ready for him to leave just yet, she pressed on. ‘My mother has done lots over the years, but currently she’s into candle magic.’
She folded her lips between her teeth, waiting for the inevitable reaction.
‘Wait...candle what?’
