AllFreeNovel
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It was one of the many benefits he enjoyed for having rescued so many people from his homeland. There was a great deal of incredible traditional cooking in his life, and he did not take it for granted. For his people had been overrun. His people had been oppressed these many years.
Seeing where the spirit endured was part of what had given him motivation. Strength. Hope. For as much as he was dark, gritty and forged in the iron of pain, hope resided. It must.
One did not seek to seize back the throne without hope. Even now, the endeavor that they were undertaking with Riyaz required hope.
For Riyaz had suffered unimaginably. And Cairo had to cling to hope that they could bring his brother back from the brink. There was no other option.
Not for his country, and not for him.
Cairo was the only family Riyaz had left. Cairo and Ariel were the only remaining links to the past beyond the food on this table. Beyond traditions and remembered songs and stories. The whisper from the window that reminded him of his mother’s voice.
Riyaz was all he had.
He looked up at Ariel. “I hope this is to your liking.”
“I... I don’t know why I feel the need to reassure you,” she said.
“I don’t know. Do I seem a man in need of great reassurance?”
“I just find it interesting that I am compelled to ensure that I’m not rude to my kidnapper.”
“Perhaps because you know I am not your kidnapper. Rather, your trustee. Your guardian.”
“Please.” She sat down in the chair just to the right of the head of the table, and he took his place at the head.
“Is it to your liking?”
“Is my answer important? Yet again, I did not think that my preferences signified.”
“Oh, they change nothing of note. But they may actually change the menu. So it would not be the worst thing in the world for you to voice your opinions on the cuisine.”
“It looks lovely,” she said. “Truly. And there, now I have successfully done something to ease the monster of rising Stockholm syndrome inside of me.”
“Stockholm syndrome? Have you begun to sympathize with me?”
“Don’t go that far.”
“But would you like some jeweled couscous? Perhaps some lamb?”
“Yes.”
He did the honors of dishing out the feast. And he presented her a plate laden with delicacies, and he was gratified when he saw the rising hunger in her eyes. And he felt an answering hunger rising inside of him that had nothing to do with food. This woman had always fascinated him. She was something quite a bit beyond anything he’d ever experienced before. And always had been. Yet again he wondered if that had something to do with the fact that when he’d met her he had been nothing more than a virgin boy. A boy who knew nothing about desire. Whose first taste of it had been when sitting near her. Was it possible that it was simply such an experience that was so formative that one never truly moved beyond it?
Perhaps it was his punishment, for his sins.
Or perhaps it was just a reminder of his weakness.
“I do not wish to fight with you,” he said. Because there was no point to that. She could fight him all she wanted, but his mission would not change. If she thought she might wear him down, she was incorrect. If she thought she might eventually appeal to some sort of sympathy inside of him, she was incorrect there as well. He did not possess any. He could not feel sorry for a woman who was bound to a life of finery and protection. He would see no harm done to her, and she would enjoy an elevated position. There were true hardships in the world. Having choice taken away from you was hardly one of them. Especially not when the cage you would be put in was so finely gilded.
Everyone had cages.
“Why do you wish to know anything about me?” she asked.
“Because. We are to be family. Should we not know one another?”
“Then you tell me first. How did you decide to start a chain of hotels that would make you a billionaire? How did you get into property management, and innovation? How did you know that it would make you the kind of successful that you needed to be in order to claim your country again?”
“I looked at the success of other men who had done similar things. Men who had come up from nothing. And I used the information that I had about what made men envious. Exclusivity. I lived the life of a royal, so I understood luxury. And I understood the way wishing to feel connected to luxury could drive some men insane. And so I cultivated that angle. I manipulated human nature. Because if there is one thing that I have learned it’s that humans do not change. And that they can always be exploited for your purposes.”
