5
“Well, of course we’re still getting married,” Lora said, sipping the sweet tea Carmen had poured for the two of them. They were in Lora’s hotel room—the Honeymoon Suite—and the air-conditioning was sending out a cool stream of air as the desert sun blazed through the floor-to-ceiling windows. “What kind of a question is that, Carmen? I mean, how can you even ask me that?!”
“For the record, I’ve been asking you that ever since you said yes to Mark’s lame-ass marriage proposal,” Carmen replied, stirring her tea and looking directly into Lora’s eyes. Then she glanced down at the plush red carpet and blinked twice. “Also, I saw that kiss. We all saw it. Hell, we all felt it!”
“Carmen!” Lora shouted, standing up so fast she almost knocked the entire tea-set off the low table. She stormed towards the large windows and stood there, her image faintly reflected in the slightly tinted glass. She gazed out across the Capital City of Johaar, taking in the sight of its yellow sandstone bungalows, narrow streets, the wide modern roads outside the city center. There were domes and minarets peppered throughout the bustling city, little marketplaces nestled between ancient mosques and modern highrises. Beyond the city lay rolling sand dunes stretching to infinity, changing as the winds carried the golden sand to new places to form new dunes, new patterns, new lives.
It all felt like a fantasy suddenly, that fantasy of a little girl who read too much. Kissed by a handsome king? Kissed?! Oh, God, she was about to be married and she’d kissed another man!
Then the fantasy disappeared and the reality set in. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was a woman. An adult. And adult women with degrees in Library Science don’t act like . . .
“Wait,” she said, almost to herself though she turned to Carmen, a frown twisting her round face. “I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me. You saw it. It was assault, Carmen.”
“Well, of course. But at the same time, I saw what I saw, hon. A man kissing a woman.” She paused and took a breath, glancing meaningfully in that way only a best friend could. “A real man kissing a real woman. End it, Lora. Stop this before it’s too late.”
“Stop what? The wedding? Are you insane? Are you my friend or the evil stepsister?! You’ve been against this marriage from the beginning, and it’s becoming too much to take, OK? All that talk about Mark being a cheater, that he was going to make me sign a pre-nup . . . and now you’re saying I’m the cheater?! Screw you, Carmen!”
Carmen laughed and shook her head. She sipped her tea and took a breath. “I never said you were a cheater. You’re not a cheater, and you never will be—not to any man. Of course the Sheikh forced himself onto you. At the same time, I saw that kiss, Lora. There was something there.”
“Something? Like what? I haven’t said two words to the man! Besides, he’s a Sheikh . . . of some obscure Islamic kingdom! How could there ever be something there?!”
“Aha!” Carmen said, pointing a long index finger at Lora. “So you admit you’ve thought about it!”
“Get out,” Lora said, pulling at her hair and closing her eyes so hard her head hurt. “Just get out, OK? I can’t deal with you right now. I’ve got to deal with Mark.”
“Yeah, where is Mark, by the way? Still on the phone with that sleazebag attorney of his? Did you know his lawyer’s been married three times and doesn’t pay a dime in alimony even though he’s rolling in it?”
Lora couldn’t help but smile. “No, and I don’t want to know how the hell you know that! Now please go. Mark’s here.”
The door to the suite clicked open, and Carmen walked out just as Mark walked in, the two barely acknowledging one another. Mark slammed the door shut and strode in, plonking himself down on the couch and putting his feet up on the table. He looked pissed. About time, Lora thought.
“Well, I couldn’t get the police to file a damned report,” he said, his face red, his eyes darting back and forth like a badger’s. “They said that whatever happens within the walls of the Sheikh’s palace is out of their jurisdiction! Can you fucking believe that?! Is this the goddamn Middle Ages? And of course there’s no American Embassy in this bumblefuck country, so we can’t get their help either. What the hell am I paying taxes for, anyway?!”
Lora wanted to remind Mark that he spent months every year holed up with his lawyers trying to find ways to avoid paying taxes, but she stayed quiet. At some point he was going to ask if she was doing OK, wasn’t he? She almost laughed as she waited.
But Mark was in his own world—that world where money was everything. He sat up and hunched over, biting his nails as he muttered and shook his head. “Maybe we call the media right away,” he said, those black badger-eyes moving again. “Get the story out there. Embarrass the hell out of the Sheikh. Make him write that check.”
“But once the media publishes the story and it’s out there, what incentive does the Sheikh have to pay anything?” Lora said with an almost playful tone, a perverse sensation coming over her as she marveled at how little she knew the man she was about to marry. Or perhaps she knew him too well. He really didn’t give a damn that another man had just kissed her! What did that mean? Did it mean he was an elevated soul who was beyond feeling jealousy? Did it mean Carmen was right and that he was a cheater at heart, so it didn’t matter if his wife-to-be also cheated (not that she did anything of the sort, but that wasn’t the point)? Or did it mean his opinion of Lora was so low that he couldn’t even consider the possibility that a handsome billionaire Sheikh might actually be interested in her?!
And as she thought it Lora realized Carmen was right. Somewhere in the depths of her subconscious Lora had considered that very possibility: That the kiss was more than a kiss, that it meant something.
Stop it, she told herself. You’re in shock and you’re not thinking clearly. That was an arrogant assertion of power by the Sheikh. Nothing more and nothing less.
She closed her eyes and took a breath and shook her head. Give Mark a chance, she said. Everyone reacts differently to the unexpected. Give him a chance.
“You’re right,” Mark said, smiling like a madman as he chewed his nails. “We need to simply threaten to go to the media. The threat is what’ll make him pay up.”
“What makes you think he’ll pay you anything?” Lora finally said, folding her arms beneath her breasts and looking down at Mark. “Clearly he didn’t give a damn who was watching.”
Mark glanced up. “Did you give a damn?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You know what it means, Lora. I didn’t see you resist.”
Lora’s mouth hung open and her eyes flicked wide. “I didn’t even realize what was happening until it was over! And why am I even defending myself here?! I didn’t see you resist! Did it even matter to you that another man kissed me?”
Mark shrugged. “What was I supposed to do? Punch a king in the nose for touching my woman? Get real, Lora. I’d be in a goddamn prison right now, probably awaiting execution.”
That doesn’t sound too bad, Lora thought as fury ripped through her. She didn’t know why she was so damned angry, but she was. Perhaps it was guilt at secretly enjoying that kiss, secretly feeling special that a handsome billionaire king with a jawline that looked like it had been chiseled from granite seemingly lost control of himself because he wanted her so badly. Perhaps she was seeing parts of Mark that she didn’t want to see, didn’t want to believe existed.
Perhaps I’m seeing parts of both of us that I don’t want to admit exist, she thought as she turned from Mark so he wouldn’t see the anger in her eyes, the disgust on her face.
“Anyway,” he said, clearing his throat, “what’s done is done. We can put this behind us. We’re getting married in a few days.”
“You still want to?” she said carelessly, shocked at herself even as she said the words. For a moment that disgust had taken over, and in that moment she swore she felt no love for Mark, none at all. How was that possible?! Had she ever loved him? Was there even such a thing as a love which burned forever bright, always on, never in doubt? Or was it just some crap she’d read in all those books as a teenager?! Was she as bad as Mark? Getting married to satisfy her own private needs? Oh God, she was no better than Mark, was she? She’d said yes because he was the best option available, not because she truly loved him! She just wanted that wedding and that happily ever after, and perhaps it didn’t matter who it was with!
What’s happening, she wondered as she heard the rustle of papers and slowly turned back to Mark. Why are all these thoughts coming out now? Is it last-minute jitters? Is Carmen finally getting to me? Was it that kiss? Am I a whore? A naïve girlchild in the body of a thirty-year-old woman with a big butt? Perhaps I’m just insane, she thought as she watched Mark place a set of papers on the wooden table in front of the couch and clear his throat again.
“So,” he said, looking up at her and then down at the papers. “Don’t take this personally, love, but I had the lawyers draw this up and fax it over. It’s pretty standard these days. You understand.”
“Understand what?” Lora said, blinking as she stared at the papers and then into Mark’s eyes. He couldn’t hold the eye contact, and she snatched up the papers. “You’re kidding,” she muttered, shaking her head and thinking back to what Carmen said. “A pre-nup?” She shook her head and blinked. “You think I’m a whore,” she said to him. “Is that it? You think I’m going to cheat on you?”
“No, of course not!” Mark said, standing up and grabbing her by the arm. “I was going to . . .” he started to say, stopping mid-sentence and looking down as if he was trying to remember lines he'd memorized.
Then Lora got it. Mark had screwed up. The pre-nup hadn’t just been drawn up and faxed over in the last two hours. Mark had it with him all along. He’d planned to hijack her with it all along, just like Carmen had warned! The Sheikh’s kiss had messed up the timing, messed up his plan, maybe messed up his thinking as well! Maybe he thought this would be a good time to get her to sign without a fuss, while he could play off her guilt and shock? That bastard!
“You were going to what?” Lora said firmly, one hand on her hip. “Have me sign a pre-nup anyway? I thought you just had this faxed over from the lawyers?”
“Yes,” Mark said hesitantly, and she could see he was stuck between two strategies. “I mean, it’s pretty standard these days, Lora. Grow up. I’ve got three million in the bank, and you’re a goddamn librarian. Sixty percent of marriages in the US end in divorce. You gotta play the odds. It’s simple math.”
“I didn’t realize love was about math,” Lora said, dropping the papers onto the carpet and smiling in a way that disturbed her. “I don’t give a damn about your money, Mark. But I’m not signing anything. What are you going to do now?”
Mark frowned as he stared at the scattered sheets of white paper on the red carpet, but just as he started to speak there came a solid knock on the door.
Without thinking Lora walked over and yanked the door open. She frowned when she saw two men in black tunics with the insignia of the Royal House of Johaar embroidered in gold silkthread. They bowed their heads as one of them handed her a rolled-up sheet of thick paper, closed with a wax seal like this was a scene from the 1400s.
“What the hell,” Lora muttered, shaking her head as she tried to move her attention from what she was feeling for Mark and his ridiculous timing with the pre-nup. She took the paper and broke the seal, her eyes going wide as she read. Then she just started laughing, shaking her head again as she collapsed on the couch and read the order from the Sheikh once again:
Pursuant to the laws of the Royal Kingdom of Johaar, the supreme Sheikh hereby invokes Sheikh’s Privilege, by which any betrothed woman within the borders of the Sheikh’s domain must present herself to His Eminence the night before her final vows are taken.
She was still laughing when Mark snatched up the letter and read it. He cursed and shouted, finally showing some of that jealousy Lora thought she wanted to see. But now it was too late. Things were out of control. Reality was no longer a consideration. This had turned into a goddamn farce, where she was caught between two men’s different versions of pre-nups, one of them insulting as hell, the other straight up bizarre.
Bizarre, but strangely exciting.