Eloise had expected that they would wind their way back toward downtown, where her hotel was. After all, the sun was getting low in the sky. This had been a magical afternoon, but surely it couldn’t go on for much longer.

Mentally, she prepared herself to say goodbye to Masoud. He had already been gracious above and beyond her wildest expectations.

To her surprise, however, he didn’t take the exit that she knew would lead them to town. Instead, he drove straight past it, accelerating on the highway. She could see for miles in every direction, now; they were surrounded on three sides by desert with the ocean at their backs.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Masoud smiled. “You know what I’m going to say.”

“It’s a surprise?” she guessed.

“Exactly.”

“You seem to like surprises.”

“They do keep life interesting. Most of the best things in my life have been surprises.”

She wanted to ask him what those things had been—his statement had seemed to invite further inquiry, and she was curious—but she held back. They didn’t know each other that well. He was royalty. And as much as she was enjoying herself, this was not a date. She didn’t have the right to ask him such personal questions about his life.

They rode on in silence for a while and Eloise took in the beauty of the desert. She had never realized how diverse this sort of terrain could be. To her right, she saw rocks and patchy shrubs that looked like they might be dying, although she supposed they probably weren’t since they had grown here in the first place. To the left, there was nothing but uninterrupted sand, blown into gentle ripples that looked like the surface of a lake in the wind. It was breathtaking.

Masoud, she noticed, seemed unaware of the scenery, and it occurred to her that he had grown up looking at these landscapes. He had never really seen them with fresh eyes, as she was. It made her wonder what he would make of the vistas she was used to driving through, and whether there was a beauty she had been missing all along in her own home.

After about twenty minutes, Masoud signaled and took an exit. The car slowed considerably as he wound his way onto a narrow lane that was lined on either side by low stone walls. She was still gazing in awe out the window when he spoke.

“There it is,” he said. “You can see it, now.”

Eloise turned to face forward and gasped aloud. They were approaching a beautiful building in the middle of a verdant patch of green. She could see the lowering sun glinting off a small lake encircled by shrubs that looked far healthier than those she’d seen out in the desert, along with a couple of thriving trees. The building itself was an architectural wonder, with smooth white walls and massive arches that must have been three stories tall. It was lit from within by golden light that made it look enchanted.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“This is the palace where I grew up,” Masoud told her.

“I thought we’d already seen the palace.”

“That was the Sheikh’s palace. My uncle’s house. It’s also where state business is conducted, so it’s a site of politics. This is simply a home. My home.”

“There’s nothing simple about it! You live here?”

“No,” Masoud said. “I live nearer to the office, now. But this is where I was raised, and my mother still lives here.”

“Won’t she mind us dropping in?” Eloise was anxious, and it was audible in her voice.

“No, no. Nothing to worry about.” Masoud smiled. “She’s away at the moment, with friends. They travel often—I believe they’re in Rome this month. She was very excited about the opera and all the fine food.”

“And she won’t mind that I was here while she was gone? In her house?”

Eloise couldn’t help feeling awkward about it. Maybe things were different when you lived in a palace, but she certainly couldn’t imagine bringing a friend to her parents’ apartment uninvited while they were away, much less someone she had just met.

But Masoud was laughing. “I promise, it’s not a problem. We won’t go into her private quarters. And I’m always welcome in the rest of the house.”

“Well,” Eloise relented. “I guess that’s all right, then.”

Masoud parked the car at the top of the long drive, and the two of them got out. The palace was even more beautiful up close, and even more imposing. The archway that led to the front door was intricately detailed, and there was a massive stone fountain on the other side of the drive that featured a fish with tiny jeweled scales spitting graceful arcs of water into the pond.

Masoud took her by the arm. “Would you like the tour?”

Eloise nodded, unable to find words.

* * *

The inside of the palace was very different from Masoud’s uncle’s palace, Eloise determined, but it was no less beautiful. In fact, she preferred this one. The cacophony of color in the royal palace had here been substituted for muted tones; everything was done in beige and rose gold and a soft but deep purple hue. The marble floors were laid over with oriental rugs that looked as though they’d been expensive but were now well-worn.

Masoud did seem at home here, she noticed—he relaxed visibly and smiled all the more. He was comfortable here. She felt lucky to see this.

Masoud began their tour by asking if she wanted to see the library, which of course she did. The library turned out to be not a single room, as she would have expected, but rather a network of them. The outermost room held modern classics and novels Masoud and his mother enjoyed, and looked rather like a bookstore.

As they went deeper, however, the books got older and older. By the final room, Masoud was holding back from even touching the books. He hovered his fingers over the spines as he told her about how old they were, how rare, and how they had come into his possession. She noticed his behavior and mirrored it, keeping her hands off the books and bending close to read the titles.

He must have been working on this collection for years, she thought, feeling slightly envious; if there was one thing Eloise adored, it was a good book. The crack of a spine, the way old pages smelled, the millions of different stories that she knew she’d never manage to read…if only she could have spent the rest of her life in this library, she mused, that would be enough to keep her happy.

All too soon, Masoud was leading her out of the room to show her the next stop on their tour. She longed to ask him for more time in these rooms, but didn’t want to overstay her welcome.

“This is the ballroom,” Masoud said, placing his hands on a pair of large, dark, wooden double doors.

“Why do you have a ballroom?”

He looked perplexed. “For balls?”

“You have balls here?”

“Where else would I have them?”

“I mean, I thought that was something that would be done at the main palace. You know. The other palace.”

“Of course, sometimes,” he agreed. “When it’s an event of international significance.”

“So, what balls happen here?”

“Just ordinary ones. My birthdays. Holidays.”

“You had balls for your birthdays?”

“What did you do?”

“I went bowling. Or to the movies.”

Masoud smiled. “That sounds like a lot of fun. Balls can be trying, especially as a child. I had to dress smartly and be polite to people I didn’t know all night. I rarely got to choose the food that was served. I would have liked to go out with my friends.”

“Then why didn’t you?” she asked.

“Well, I am royalty. My uncle would attend my parties, and that meant other important people were often on the guest list, as well. It wasn’t so bad. My cousins were there.”

“You were close with them?”

“I still am. They’re my closest friends.”

“I don’t even know my cousins well,” she said. “They live far away.”

“America is too big,” Masoud mused.

“Sometimes.”

“Are you ready to go to the ball, Your Highness?”

“What?”

He pushed open the double doors.

Eloise was stunned. She had seen ballrooms in movies, of course, but the real thing left her speechless. It seemed larger than any room she had ever been inside. It was tiered, with an outer ring raised a few steps higher than the center, and the whole thing was laid in tiny concentric tiles. At one end of the room, a dais held three ornate chairs.

Masoud saw her looking. “That was where my parents and I sat to greet our guests.”

“You really were royalty.” The sight of this room, of those throne-like chairs, brought it home to her in a way nothing else so far had.

“I still am,” Masoud said softly.

Worried she’d offended him, she glanced up. To her relief, he was smiling.

He extended an arm. “Shall we dance?”

“I don’t know how,” Eloise admitted, flushing. The only dancing she’d ever done had been at college parties and at the occasional club on a girls’ night with Alani. She had a feeling that wasn’t what was called for here.

“Not to worry—the gentleman leads.” Masoud swept her into his arms and set them on a slow waltz around the room.

He was masterful, moving with a grace Eloise couldn’t have imagined. Dancing with him was like going for a ride; all she had to do was hold on and allow herself to be steered. She couldn’t have replicated this dance on her own, she knew, and yet it felt like she was a good dancer. It was strange and wonderful.

He smiled down at her. “We all had to learn. I had classes from the time I was very small.”

“Why?”

“Socializing is an important part of life for the royal family. It’s part of making a good impression.”

Eloise returned his smile. “Well,” she said, “You’re certainly making a good impression on me.”

* * *

Eloise found it difficult to leave the ballroom behind, but eventually they did, walking down hallways lined with paintings, darting up spiral staircases seemingly placed at random until they found themselves at a padlocked mahogany door.

“What’s in there?” Eloise asked. She could hardly contain her curiosity. No other door she’d seen so far in the palace had been locked. Even the main entrance had been nothing but an open archway—they’d been able to walk right through—so it came as a surprise to see this extra measure in place on the door before her.

Masoud had been clear that all the business pertaining to the state took place in the other palace, where his uncle lived. It couldn’t be military secrets or high-clearance intelligence. Jewels, perhaps?

Masoud hesitated. “That’s not part of the tour.”

Eloise could have bitten her tongue off. She should have known better than to pry into what was clearly private business. “I apologize.”

“Not to worry,” Masoud said. “Shall we explore the gardens?”

Eloise would have said yes to anything to escape the awkwardness of the moment. “I’d love to.”

The gardens turned out to be the outdoor area surrounding the pond she’d seen as they’d driven up to the building.

“This pond has been here for almost a century,” Masoud said, “but the trees are new. I had them installed myself, once I had earned enough money to bring something back to my boyhood home.”

“That’s nice, that you wanted to add to it,” Eloise said.

Masoud nodded. “My mother always used to talk about more greenery out here. It was something she never got around to.”

“Is that why you decided to work at Khan Capital? To earn the money for this?”

Masoud laughed lightly. “No. That was a pleasure, of course, but not my primary motivation.”

“Then what was?”

“Khan Capital was my father’s business before it was mine.”

Eloise nodded. She’d known that much from her research.

“He started teaching me the business when I was just a teenager,” the Sheikh continued. “At first, it was very glamorous, being part of the adult world in that way. I felt special. I knew his dream was to hand his company down to me. It wasn’t my dream, but I always assumed that was a conversation we could have later.”

“What was your dream?” Eloise asked.

“I studied to be an architect,” Masoud admitted. “Living in this building, seeing these beautiful features every day…it inspired me in a way nothing else ever has. I had sketchbooks full of designs, dating back to when I was very young. My parents always thought my studies were more of a hobby, but I truly believed that someday I would open up my own firm in the city and create buildings that resembled this one in style and design, but that were affordable to everyone, not just royalty.”

“That sounds amazing,” Eloise said, thinking of her apartment back home, how spare and minimal the design was. It served its function perfectly well, but she would have loved to live in a place with the elegance and style of the palace, even if it wasn’t so richly appointed. “What happened to that idea?”

“When my father passed away, I lost the opportunity to tell him the truth,” Masoud said. “We had never discussed my true ambition. He died expecting me to take over Khan Capital, so there was no other plan in place, and if I hadn’t followed his wishes, the company would have been left to the board to fight over. Anything could have happened. It could have been sold to a third party or dissolved for wealth. I couldn’t let my father’s memory be dishonored that way.”

Eloise nodded, understanding. “So you did it for his sake.”

“And for my mother’s. It would have destroyed her to see that happen to my father’s life’s work. I had a responsibility.”

This was something Eloise could understand. As she watched Masoud stop to run his hands through the low-hanging leaves of a tree, it occurred to her that, for the first time since they’d embarked on their day together, she was feeling a kinship with the Sheikh. Maybe they weren’t so different after all.

Masoud took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’ve gotten too personal.”

“No,” she said. “I appreciated hearing that. Thank you.”

“I don’t often talk to people this way,” he admitted.

“Neither do I,” Eloise said. So, that’s another thing we have in common.

The sun emerged below the bough of the tree, red and glaring, dipping below the horizon, and Eloise realized they’d been here at the palace for several hours. No doubt Patrick was completely stymied as to what had happened to her.

He shouldn’t have ditched me, then, she thought, with some satisfaction. Still, if he was worried, he might send someone out searching for her. Eloise didn’t want to cause anyone any trouble. Maybe they ought to get back.

Masoud seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “It’s gotten late.”

“Yeah.”

“I should be getting you back to town.”

Eloise did not want to leave the fairy tale that seemed to have taken over her life. But she had always known this was temporary.

“All right, thank you,” she agreed, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice, and let Masoud lead the way back toward the car.