As I perused the newspaper in front of me, Sophia and Mother discussed some upcoming banquet. Glancing over the top of the paper, I watched my wife of six months calmly eating her breakfast. Tilting my head to the side, I noticed something different about her. I couldn’t quite pinpoint it. I wasn’t sure if it was her outfit; today she wore one of the more traditional outfits of our country. Over the last months, Mother had been an excellent tutor to Sophia, teaching her about our customs, traditions, and the language.

Even though Sophia hated when we went full immersion with the language, she loved it at the same time. It worked her brain like her reporting career did. I still felt a little twinge of guilt now and then for taking her away from her passion, but she had a full schedule since we had returned from our honeymoon. We both liked to keep busy, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

It didn’t take long for Mother to get on board with the new way of life around the palace.

After going against the council’s initial wishes, they were more amiable to any changes that I wanted to make within the kingdom. Nothing was over the top or unreasonable, and they knew their lives would be better if they agreed with me. Jaabir proved to be an antagonistic force within my day-to-day interactions with the council, but I preferred life with a little conflict, or else I might be bored to tears.

“Oh, Luke, Qadeem’s wife informed me that they are taking a trip for a week.”

“They are?” I asked. None of the council members ever missed a meeting, at least not while I had been king. “Why wasn’t I informed?”

“I’m informing you now,” she said with a smile. “Since the kingdom is running so well, they’ve wanted to get away.”

“Good for them,” Sophia said.

“It’s all a testament to the two of you,” Mother said.

Sophia preened at me. “Well, I’ll give most of the credit to Luke.”

I took her hand in mine. “I won’t accept credit without you accepting it as well. We’re a team, remember?”

Mother sighed. “Your father and I were just getting to know each other at this point after our marriage. I wonder if your method of finding a spouse needs to be written into the laws. You two make it seem effortless, and the kingdom is greatly benefiting from it.”

Sophia finished off her tea while she and Mother went over some key phrases of our language. Sophia’s tongue rolled over the syllables beautifully, and if it were possible, I found her even sexier at that moment.

I would definitely sneak another lesson in the next time we were making love. It would be sure to heighten my arousal even more than usual.

Leaving them to their lesson, I grabbed my tablet and scrolled through the BBC news website to check out more news from around the world. It had been a daily habit of living in the UK, and I didn’t plan on giving it up anytime soon.

When Father was alive, he kept up with only the big events. I preferred to get a greater look at the world as a whole and shape my rule around it. Keeping an open and broad mind about the world would only further my country’s wealth and prosperity. I would do anything to secure that and to ensure that generations from now would be set up for success as well.

An email from Maddox popped up on my screen, and I opened it. Another set of quarterly numbers hit my inbox. I wanted to view them on the computer to compare them to last quarter’s numbers.

“Ladies, I am going to excuse myself to do some work,” I said, standing.

“That’s fine,” Sophia said. “I need Gia’s help with something anyway.”

Mother raised an eyebrow. She knew what was happening all around the palace, why was she surprised that Sophia needed her?

I glanced at Sophia, attempting to read her face. She was careful to keep all thought and emotion from crossing her expression.

Narrowing my eyes, I said, “Everything good?”

She glanced at me over the top of her teacup. “Yeah.”

I didn’t believe her, but I also didn’t have time to question her about it. If she had a secret, I had a feeling it was going to be revealed soon. I was glad it had nothing to do with me. She knew I wasn’t a fan of surprises.

I kissed Sophia and bid farewell to Mother before leaving the room.

Heading up to the study—which I finally started to think of as mine instead of Father’s—I got to work. Maddox was killing it each quarter with our numbers. Within one year, he had accomplished more than I had in two. Granted, I had a lot more pressure from Father at the time, but I responded to my best friend positively. He took to the job so well that I had to give him a raise.

I wrote that on my to-do list, the one that seemed to grow by the page every single day. I had to review that with the partners, but I knew it would slip through without question. As their pockets grew, the more likely they were to spend money on things that were working.

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When a knock sounded on my door a little while later, I glanced at the clock, and my jaw dropped. An hour had already flown by, and I’d checked off several items from my list.

“Come in!” I called. Everyone knew that when the door to the study was closed, they were to knock and wait for my approval before entering. It was my sacred space in the palace, and it wasn’t a hard rule to follow. Though, I imagined bending the rules for our child—whenever we got around to having one—since Father had always done so for me.

Sophia stood in the doorway for a moment before entering the room.

“Hi,” I said to her. “What’s up?”

“Do you have a minute?” she asked. Her hands clasped in front of her, as Mother’s normally were. The both of them were turning into clones of each other. I wondered if I should limit their time together or not. The thought made me smile. Neither of them would agree to that. They were two peas in a pod now.

“For you? Always.” I stood up and stretched. For the last hour, I had leaned close to the computer, and a small ache in the middle of my back gave me a slight twinge.

“It’s not just for me,” she said, taking my hand in hers. She led me out of the room and down the hallway.

“Is this about earlier?” I asked.

“What happened earlier?”

“When you said you wanted to do something with Mother?”

“Oh, that,” she said. “I only needed her to pry Abir away from Alda. They were out together, again, and I wanted to bring all of you together.”

“All of us?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “What I have to say affects all of us.”

I regarded her, but once again, she was a locked vault. “Where are we going?”

“To the fountain,” she said.

Even though I visited Father’s fountain on a daily basis, I still got chills each time I went there. It was as if his spirit was present in the marble itself.

We walked out onto the palace grounds. The sun was high in the sky and beating down quite hard. I hoped she didn’t plan on baking us outside for too long. But I wasn’t going to ruin her plan for whatever it was she had to tell us. I racked my brain to figure out the mystery. Sophia hadn’t acted strangely lately. Maybe this was a new development that cropped up over the last few days.

I was aware of everything going on around the palace, but I had no idea what was whirring in her brain.

As the fountain came into view, I remembered the last time Father shared a secret with us. That he was sick and dying.

Sophia looked okay. I would die if something were wrong with her. And I would be furious for her not telling me sooner.

I was all worked up by the time we reached the fountain. Mother and Abir were already there. Both seemed confused as well but more patient than I felt.

Sophia stood next to the fountain and picked up a small box from the edge. There were three of them in total. Two of them were the same size, rectangular, wrapped with white ribbon, while the third was smaller and square-shaped.

She handed the two rectangular shaped boxes to Mother and Abir. “I want you all to open these at the same time. So give me a moment.”

Then she came to my side and handed over the square one.

“I wanted everyone in this family to be present when I said this.”

We all glanced at the fountain then back to Sophia. Weighing the gift in my hand, it was very light. Did it contain jewelry of some kind? Sophia knew I wasn’t much of a jewelry-wearer, unless it was my wedding band.

“Over the last six months, you’ve all been so kind to welcome me into your family. I wanted to show you my appreciation somehow by inviting you all into my life with a very special message.”

Mother’s eyebrows furrowed as she looked to me for answers. I shrugged my shoulders and returned my attention to Sophia.

“You can all open your gifts,” Sophia said.

Abir ripped his open as if it were his birthday. He pulled the tissue paper away and curled his lip before lifting up a small pale blue shoe from the box. “Umm, Sophia. This might be a little too small for me.”

Mother lifted the other half of the matching pair from her box, but hers was pink. “I don’t understand.”

Sophia looked at me. Her eyes sparkled, and her smile grew broader than ever. The last time I saw her like this was on our wedding day. “Open yours, Luke.”

Pulling the ribbon off the box, I lifted the top, and a small photograph stared up at me.

“What is it?” Abir asked.

I pinched the photograph between my fingers and raised it up, taking a closer look. It was black and white but clear as day.

“An ultrasound?” Mother asked before throwing her hands up to her face.

Sophia nodded. “I’m ten weeks pregnant.”

“Ten weeks,” I said. “How long have you known?”

“About nine weeks,” she said, grinning.

I turned to her and pressed my hands against her belly. Tears of joy sprang to my eyes. If I wasn’t completely overwhelmed with happiness, I might have been embarrassed by my display of emotion. “I don’t believe this.”

“Believe it,” she said. “I don’t know the sex yet, which is why I got two shoes.”

“I don’t care about the sex,” I said. “I just want all of you to be healthy.”

“We’re fine,” she said. “We’re so fine.”

I cupped her cheeks in my hands, and I kissed her. The entire world fell away, and all that was left was me, Sophia, and the future of Qatar living inside of her. I felt Father’s presence more than ever before, and I knew that he was happy for us too.

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