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"Psst."
Ilyas frowned. Had he just imagined that?
"Over here!"
A grimace crossed his features when he finally saw who it was, but since his choice was between Johanna and the gold-digger who was now heading his way like a piranha in heels, Ilyas decided to take his chances with Huzna's most famous fortune teller, never mind if the two of them had been butting heads since he was a kid.
The old woman cackled as Ilyas entered her "hut", which was actually an expensive replica of Johanna's home back in Huzna. The royal augur was very meticulous about her surroundings when reading people's fortunes, and since the king was a great believer of Johanna's skills, no expense had been spared in catering to the old woman's every need.
"Well, well, well..."
"Alright, fine. You were right again." Ilyas' tone was disgruntled. She had told him early this evening he would need her help, and it always irked him whenever her prediction came true.
Johanna waved for him to to take a seat, but Ilyas shook his head. "I'm only going to be—-"
The older woman shot him a scowl. "Sit."
Ilyas reluctantly did as bid, since respecting the elderly was one of the cornerstones of Huznan culture.
"Your palm, please."
"There's no need—-"
He hadn't even finished speaking when Johanna suddenly reached over her silk-covered table to capture his hand.
"Let go," Ilyas growled.
But the fortune teller was already using her nail to draw blood from his finger—-
"What the fuck?"
—-just before spitting on his palm.
Ilyas fought against the urge of driving his fist into the hut's fake wall. "You did that deliberately just to mess with me, didn't you?"
"Quiet!"
Ilyas's teeth gnashed. "You—-"
"Or I'll spit on your face next!"
Ilyas' mouth snapped shut. Johanna was a lot of things, but a liar she wasn't, and he had no fucking dreams of having another taste of her spit.
Johanna clucked her tongue as she studied the life lines etched on the sheikh's palm. "Beware a kitten that cries, for life as you know it will never be the same once its claws find their way to your heart."
Ilyas snatched his hand out of the old woman's hold. He had no idea what Johanna was talking about, and he had no plans asking what it meant.
The fortune teller grinned up at him as he came to his feet. "You're right, by the way."
Ilyas was in the middle of wiping the spit off his hand with a hanky when he heard her speak. "Right about what?"
"About that." She pointed to his hand with another cackle. "It was unnecessary, and I only did it to mess with you."
"Goddammit, old bat!"
Johanna was still cackling with glee as he stalked out of her hut, and it took him half an hour and about a dozen cycles of soaping and rinsing before Ilyas felt his hands were sufficiently clean of her spit.
The staff had just started serving dessert when Ilyas received a business call, and he didn't hesitate to use this as an excuse to leave the party earlier than planned.
Ilyas took the steel-and-glass bridge that connected the hotel to the commercial complex across the street, and he was just past the halfway point when he heard a faint mewl coming from an overturned box.
What the hell?
He nudged the box aside, and he cursed under his breath when he saw the kitten underneath.
Walk away, Ilyas.
Just walk the fuck away.
But when the kitten let out another miserable little cry, Ilyas found himself bending down...only to get himself scratched.
Fuck!
The kitten was obviously traumatized, but Ilyas was patient, and his soft, coaxing voice eventually won the little thing over, and Ilyas was able to gently scoop its body off the cold, hard tiles.
Beware a kitten that cries, for life as you know it will never be the same once its claws find their way to your heart.
Those were Johanna's exact words when she had supposedly read his palm, but Ilyas refused to believe that her augury had anything to do with this scraggly little thing.
The kitten rubbed its tiny head against his palm as Ilyas resumed walking, and it was fast asleep by the time he reached his workplace.
Unlike his brothers, who hadn't any problem working from their respective hotel suites, Ilyas didn't like mixing business with his personal life in any way. A compartmentalized routine was the key to an organized life, and rather than turning the spare room in his hotel suite into a temporary office, Ilyas had leased instead an entire floor of commercial space in the building next door.
Upon unlocking the door, Ilyas frowned at seeing all the lights in his office open.
"Oh, it's you."
Ember.
He had forgotten all about his troublesome little chick. Whenever they had to travel for work, Ember would nag and nag and nag until he finally permitted her to sleep in their office, which then allowed her to pocket the same amount of money Ilyas would've spent if she had been staying at a hotel.
