The Sheikh's Secret Princess (13 page)

Now she only had to wait, and try and resolve in her mind what it was she would say.

She didn’t have to wait long. The king and queen arrived from the stage. The queen was in the lead, and she looked livid. The king, on the other hand, seemed half-worried, half-curious.

The queen grabbed Anita’s arm roughly, dragging her back away from the stage, further into the dressing areas behind it.

“What is the meaning of this?” she hissed.

Anita was afraid. The woman was a powerhouse, who could buy and sell her family several times over and ruin her lie in an instant.

But, then, Anita could be a powerhouse, too.

“You will take your hands off of me,” she said coolly. “I am a royal, even as you are a royal. A princess, and the last of my line. And you will treat me with respect.

The queen removed her hand and stood at a distance, though she still wore a sneer on her face.

Now was the time. This was it. Anita could barely hear the crowd, now.

“We’ve met before,” Anita began, only stating the obvious. She hoped they couldn’t tell how nervous she was. She spoke to them in words she knew they would understand.

“You looked at me, but you didn’t listen to me. You will listen to me now, though. You owe me that much. If only for my parents. If only because my station demands it.”

The sneer on the queen’s face had subsided, and the king’s had a very shrewd look on it now. He was listening. She had his full attention. And for some reason, that was even more intimidating that the queen’s still-hostile glare.

She’d gotten their attention, and she’d done it the only way she could: with feigned confidence and demands. But now she had to do something different. She had to beg.

She addressed her first words directly to the queen herself. “I didn’t know who I was until Hakim told me. I know you didn’t believe that, and it may be difficult for you to understand how that came to be, but it’s true. For my own safety, the man I grew up with as my father felt it was best if I never knew. And whatever your intentions, what you have done revealed my family to me. And for that, I will always thank you.

“I came to your son with no expectations. Whatever scheme you thought I had in my head, it wasn’t true. All I thought would happen was dinner. But your son… Hakim, he’s a special man. He’s an incredible man. I’ve never met a man like him, and I know in my heart that I never will again. From the moment we met I felt like we knew each other. I felt that he was the sort of man I could fall for, if I let myself. And I tried hard not to. But if you know your son at all, you know that he usually gets what he wants. He wanted my heart. And he got it.

“I love your son. I love him with everything I am, and everything I have, although I know it isn’t much. And I know that you may not trust me, but I will spend the rest of my life earning your trust if I have to. I will spend every day of our lives proving to you that I want him wholly and completely, and for the man he is—not for his title, or his kingdom.”

She shifted her focus to the king.

“And I know you think there are those who may have a problem with who my parents were. I understand that. I know that for your people, sometimes old sentiments linger on past the time when they should have died out. And I admire the concern you have for your people, sir…”

She swallowed hard, not wanting to say the words that she knew needed to come next.

“As I said, I have only just learned who my parents were. I have only just found out that I am a princess. I have dreamed all my life that one day I would learn who my family was, and that I would be able to claim my identity, and live without secrecy. But if losing who I am is what I need to do in order to be with the man I love, then I am willing to do it.

“I will be Anita from Houston.
Just
Anita from Houston. To your people and to the world. I will never breathe a word of who I am. I swear to you. I will never travel to visit the kingdom that would once have been mine to rule.”

There was a long pause. Anita didn’t look at the queen. She knew she wouldn’t be happy, but the fact that she hadn’t said anything was good enough for Anita to assume she no longer held quite the same objections.

The king made her wait a long time before he spoke.

“You would give up your father’s ring?”

Anita looked down at her hand. Her father’s signet ring looked out of place with her delicate formal outfit, but it had never occurred for her for a moment to take it off. It was a part of her.

But it was a part of her she could not have, if she was to have any chance of being with Hakim.

She put her clutch under her arm and brought her right hand to her thumb. Her fingers were shaking as she began trying to remove the ring. It had been on there so long that it was stuck. She began struggling with it, trying to get it over her knuckle.

“Stop!”

Anita’s eyes darted up as she heard Hakim’s voice. She thought she must be hallucinating. This couldn’t really be him. This wasn’t in her plan.

But there he was, larger than life, stepping around from behind the curtain.

Anita tried to read his face. She tried to judge from it if the damage that she had done in pretending to betray him had been permanent.

He was walking straight towards her, as though his parents didn’t exist. And when he reached her, Anita braced herself for anger.

But instead, he lay his hand on hers.

“Don’t take your ring off,” he said. She could hear the exhaustion in his voice, but there was something else, too. Hope, maybe? Happiness?

“You are who you are, Anita, and no one in the world should ever take that from you. And the world should know it.”

“Hakim, I—“ she began, but he stopped her with a finger to her lips.

“I heard everything. What you have said just now is all I need to know.”

Then he turned, and put his arm around her, and they faced his parents together.

“Mother,” he said, “Father. I have found a woman that I love. I didn’t think it would ever happen to me. Not the way that I have heard it happen to others. But Anita is and always will be the woman who has my heart.”

The queen opened her mouth to speak, but Hakim kept going.

“You may think that you can disinherit me, or discredit me. But the truth will be what it is. I will tell the world about who I am, and who she is, and what happened. And if there’s one thing I know that people want to hear about, it’s a love story.

“Father, you gave me two choices. You said that I could either follow my heart, and be disowned, or I could deny myself the only true happiness I could find in this life, and continue living a hollow life in her absence. But that is not a choice at all.

“And so, instead I give you two choices. You can either have your kingdom be known as the nation that betrayed and abandoned its own prince, simply for falling in love with a woman you didn’t approve of. Or, you can have your kingdom be known as a land that was willing to set aside the petty disagreements of the past, to pursue peace in our time and greater harmony within the region. The choice is yours.”

Anita could hear nothing but her own breath. In and out. In and out. She could see nothing but the stone features of the king’s face, set in an indecipherable expression.

“Son,” he spoke at last. “I have loved you since the moment you were born. But…”

Anita felt like her whole world was collapsing in on itself. She listened with rapt attention to what was coming next.

“I don’t believe I truly respected you, or understood what you are capable of, until this moment.”

Before she knew it, Hakim was sweeping her up into his arms, and planting kiss after kiss on her face. Her whole body was buzzing like a live wire, his every touch setting off sparks.

Then he was down on one knee, speaking words she was too far above the earth to hear.

“Yes,” she said, over and over. “Yes, yes, with all my heart, yes.”

He didn’t have an engagement ring, so he gave her his own signet ring. It was too large for her finger, but she held onto it, keeping it in place.

Anita looked at her hand, now adorned with two heavy golden rings.

“Well, would you look at that,” she heard the king say. “Princess of two kingdoms.”

His voice sounded warm, and kind, in a way she hadn’t expected. Even the queen embraced her.

And then Hakim took her hand, and led her out on stage in front of the crystal curtain. She’d promised Mr. Farr a story, she thought absentmindedly, but she hadn’t expected to actually deliver.

As Hakim announced their engagement to the crowd and to the world, Anita didn’t look at them. She didn’t even listen to his words, sweet music though they were. No, she only looked at the features of his face. He was happy. Truly happy, and overflowing with love for her.

This was the face of the man she loved. It was the face that she would wake up to every morning. It was the face she would see before going to sleep every night, for the rest of her life.

Nothing could have prepared Anita for the complete peace and satisfaction that thought gave her. And as the crowd applauded and Hakim turned to kiss her, Anita knew one thing for certain: of all the places she might rule, his heart was the only one that truly mattered.

EPILOGUE

Being back in the ballroom of the Da Vinci hotel after so many months, Anita couldn’t help but remember all that had happened there. The fear, the joy, the struggle… After all the events of these past months, Anita couldn’t help but feel that that time was both so far away, and so close.

And here they were at another gala. Only this time, they weren’t celebrating a business milestone. It was December 31
st
, and they were celebrating the end of an old year, and the beginning of a new one. And Fadi was there, sitting in a place of honor at the Sheikh’s table, there where he belonged.

She had been sad that he could not attend the royal wedding in Az Kajir, but he said there were too many people he might run into from his past life that might cause problems for him. But instead, they’d thrown a small informal ceremony at the restaurant, just for themselves and Anita’s friends from Houston who would not be able to travel overseas. And for all the extreme pomp and celebration of the day that would legally bind Hakim and Anita together for the rest of their lives, she still considered that small ceremony beforehand to be the moment when she truly became Hakim’s wife.

Recently, time had seemed to move so quickly, when it had moved so slowly for the first twenty-one years of Anita’s life. Now she had a shimmering ring on her finger, and a whole new kingdom and identity to learn about.

She and Hakim divided their time between Az Kajir and Houston, where the business was going well and Hakim had managed to bring many of the best employees from the bankrupt American company on board. Business was thriving, and public opinion was moving more and more to accept Hakim’s company—and the fact that he had married a woman raised in Houston certainly hadn’t hurt.

When midnight approached, the champagne was poured, although Anita refused it, opting instead for sparkling grape juice. The whole party—Hakim and Anita, their family, and all their guests—headed up to the roof of the Da Vinci, to watch the fireworks.

As the sky lit up with colors, and midnight struck, Hakim turned and kissed her. Fadi was making a toast. Anita could hear him. But she was only interested in one thing.

She put her lips close to her husband’s ear and whispered.

“Pregnant?” he said, and his face lit up as bright as the fireworks above him.

Anita nodded. Their future looked bright, indeed.

Holly Rayner

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