She watched with the fascination of a rabbit facing off a snake as the heavy wooden door swung inward.
The handsome but set face of Sheikh Sayed bin Falah al Zeena showed itself, along with his imposing six-foot-two-inch body clad in his usual designer suit under the traditional black men’s abaya.
Dark eyes narrowed in shocked recognition.
SAYED KNEW EXACTLY what drove him to his former fiancée’s suite and it wasn’t any form of sentimentality.
It was for the fully stocked liquor cabinet he could indulge in without witnesses.
He’d stopped in shock at the sight that greeted his eyes once inside, his body’s instant response not as unwelcome as it would have been only two hours before.
Aaliyah Amari lounged on the sofa, a crystal glass in her hand, her emerald eyes widened in surprised befuddlement. The scent of a very good malt whiskey lingering in the air implied she’d come to Tahira’s room for the same reason he had.
To drink.
On any other day, he would have been livid, demanding an explanation for her wholly unacceptable behavior. But today all his fury was used up in response to the betrayal dealt him by his betrothed.
“She’s not here,” Aaliyah said, her words drawled out carefully.
“I am aware.”
Aaliyah blinked at him owlishly. “You’re probably wondering why I am.”
“It would appear you needed a drink and a private place to have it.”
Her expression went slack. “How did you know?”
He shrugged.
“Have you been speaking to my father?” She leaned forward, her expression turning nothing short of surly.
The woman had to be inebriated already if she thought the emir of Zeena Sahra had taken it upon himself to converse with her parent. “If I have seen Mr. Amari, I am unaware of that fact.”
Her lush lips parted, but the only sound that came out was a cross between a sigh and a hiccup.
He almost laughed. “You are drunk.”
“I don’t think so.” Her lovely arched brows drew together in an adorable expression of thought. “I’ve only had three glasses. Is that enough to get drunk?”
“You’ve had three glasses?” he asked, shocked anew.
“Not full. I know how to pour a drink, even if I don’t usually imbibe. I only poured to here.” She indicated a level that would be the equivalent to a double.
“You’ve had six shots of whiskey.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “Is that bad?”
“It depends.”
“On?”
“Why you’re drinking.”
“I learned someone I thought would never lie to me had done it my whole life, that I believed things that were no more than a fairy tale.”
That sounded all too familiar. “I am sorry to hear that.”
It was her turn to shrug, but in doing so she nearly dropped her mostly empty glass. “She said my father wasn’t a bad man.”
“She?” he heard himself prompting.
“My mom.”
“You didn’t know your father?” His life had not been the easy endeavor so many assumed of a man born to royalty, but he’d had his father.
A good man, Falah al Zeena might be melech to his people, but for Sayed, the older man wasn’t just his king. He was and had always been Sayed’s loving father—papa to a small boy and his closest confidant now.
“Not until recently.” Aaliyah’s bow-shaped lips turned down. “I think Mom was wrong.”
“He is a bad man?” Sayed asked, the surreal conversation seeming to fit with the unbelievable day he’d already had.
Aaliyah sighed, the sound somehow endearing. “Not really, but he’s not very nice.”
“I think many might say the same about me.”
“Probably.”
He laughed. “You are supposed to disagree. Do you not realize that?”
“Oh, why? I think’s it’s the truth. You’re too arrogant and imperious to be considered nice.”
“I am emir.”
“Exactly.”
“You do not think a ruler can be kind?”
“Kind isn’t the same as nice and you’re not ruler yet, are you?”
“As emir I have many ruling responsibilities.” Which were supposed to increase tenfold when he became melech after his wedding to Tahira.
A wedding that wasn’t going to take place now, not after she’d eloped with a man a year her junior and significant levels beneath her in status.
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“I’m not sure.” She looked at him like he was supposed to explain the conversation to her.
“You’re smashed.”
“And you want to be.”
“You’re guessing.”
“My brain may be fuzzy, but it’s still working.”
“Yes?”
“You guessed I wanted a private place to drink because you do, too.”
“That’s succinct reasoning for a woman who probably couldn’t walk a straight line.”
“I’d prefer not to try walking at all right now, thanks.” She waved a surprisingly elegant hand.
“I’ll get my own drink, then.”
She made a sound like a snort, putting a serious dent in any semblance to elegance. “You were expecting me to do it?”
“Naturally.” He failed to see why that should cause her so much amusement.
But his response was met with tipsy laughter. “You really have the entitlement thing down, don’t you?”
“Is it not your job to serve me?” He dropped ice in a glass and poured a shot’s worth of ouzo over it.
“You wanted to make this official?”
“What? No, of course not.” He found himself taking a seat beside her on the sofa rather than settling into one of the armchairs. “You will tell no one of this.”
She rolled her eyes at him and shook her head. “What is it with rich, powerful men assuming I have to be told that? Believe it or not, I don’t need anyone knowing I was caught getting sloshed in a guest’s room.”
The mental eye roll was as palpable as if she’d done it with her glittery green gaze.
“Tahira won’t need it.” Not the room and not the liquor she’d ordered for her rooms. The words came out more pragmatic than bitter, surprising him.
Sayed might be undeniably enraged at Tahira’s lack of commitment to duty, her deceptions and her timing, but it was equally undeniable that he felt no emotional reaction to her elopement with another man.
“That worked out conveniently