Aram shot his friend an incredulous look when Shaheen rose to face him. “Has conjugal bliss finally fried your brain, Shaheen? There’s no way I’m marrying that monster.”
In response, Shaheen reeled back his flabbergasted expression, adjusting it to a neutral one. “I don’t know where you got that name. The Kanza I know is certainly no monster.”
“Then there are two different Kanzas. The one I know, Kanza Aal Ajmaan, the princess from a maternal branch of your royal family, has earned that name and then some.”
Shaheen’s gaze became cautious, as if he were dealing with a madman. “There’s only one Kanza...and she is delightful.”
“Delightful?” A spectacular snort accompanied that exclamation. “But let’s say I go along with your delusion and agree that she is Miss Congeniality herself. Are you out of your mind even suggesting her to me? She’s a kid!”
It was Shaheen’s turn to snort. “She’s almost thirty.”
“Wha...? No way. The last time I saw her she was somewhere around eighteen.”
“Yes. And that was over ten years ago.”
Had it really been that long? A quick calculation said it had been, since he’d last seen her at that fateful ball, days before he’d left Zohayd.
He waved the realization away. “Whatever. The eleven or twelve years between us sure hasn’t shrunk by time.”
“I’m eight years older than Johara. Three or four years’ more age difference might have been a big deal back then, but it’s no longer a concern at your respective ages now.”
“That may be your opinion, but I...” He stopped, huffed a laugh, shaking his finger at Shaheen. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not dragging me into discussing her as if she’s actually a possibility. She’s a monster, I’m telling you.”
“And I’m telling you she’s no such thing.”
“Okay, let’s go into details, shall we? The Kanza I knew was a dour, sullen creature who sent people scurrying in the opposite direction just by glaring at them. In fact, every time she looked my way, I thought I’d find two holes drilled into me wherever her gaze landed, fuming black, billowing smoke.”
Shaheen whistled. “Quite the image. I see she made quite an impression on you, if after over ten years you still recall her with such vividness and her very memory still incites such intense reactions.”
“Intense unfavorable reactions.” He grunted in disgust. “It’s appalling enough that you’re suggesting this marriage of convenience at all but to recommend the one...creature who ever creeped the hell out of me?”
“Creeped?” Shaheen tutted. “Don’t you think you’re going overboard here?”
He scowled, his pesky sense of fairness rearing its head. “Okay, so perhaps creeped is not the right word. She just...disturbed me. She is disturbed. Do you know that horror once went around with purple hair, green full-body paint and pink contact lenses? Another time she went total albino rabbit with white hair and red eyes. The last time I saw her she had blue hair and zombie makeup. That was downright creepy.”
Shaheen’s smile became that of an adult coddling an unreasonable child. “What, apart from weird hair and eye color and makeup experimentation, do you have against her?”
“The way she used to mutter my name, as if she was casting a curse. I always had the impression she had some...goblin living inside her wisp of a body.”
Shaheen shoved his hands inside his pockets, the image of complacency. “Sounds like she’s exactly what you need. You could certainly use someone that potent to thaw you out of the deep freeze you’ve been stuck in for around two decades now.”
“Why don’t I just go stick myself in an incinerator? It would handle that deep freeze much more effectively and far less painfully.”
Shaheen only gave him the forbearing, compassionate look of a man who knew such deep contentment and fulfillment and was willing to take anything from his poor, unfortunate friend with the barren life.
“Quit it with the pitying look, Shaheen. My temperature is fine. It’s how I am now.... It’s called growing up.”
“If only. Johara feels your coldness. I feel it. Your parents are frantic, believing they’d done that to you when you were forced to remain with your father in Zohayd at the expense of your own life.”
“Nobody forced me to do anything. I chose to stay with Father because he wouldn’t have survived alone after his breakup with Mother.”
“And when they eventually found their way back to each other, you’d already sacrificed your own desires and ambitions and swerved from your own planned path to support your family, and you’ve never been able to correct your course. Now you’re still trapped on the outside, watching the rest of us live our lives from that solitude of yours.”
Aram glowered at Shaheen. He was happy, incredibly so, for his mother and father. For his sister and best friend. But when they kept shoving his so-called solitude in his face, he felt nothing endearing toward any of them. Their solicitude only chafed when he knew he couldn’t do anything about it.
“I made my own choices, so there’s nothing for anyone to feel guilty about. The solitude you lament suits me just fine. So put your minds the hell at ease and leave me be.”
“I’ll be happy to, right after you give my proposition serious consideration and not dismiss it out of hand.”
“Said proposition deserves nothing else.”
“Give me one good reason it does. Citing things about Kanza that are ten years outdated doesn’t count.”
“How about an updated one? If she’s twenty-eight—”
“She’ll be twenty-nine in a few months.”
“And she hasn’t married yet—I assume no poor man has taken her off the shelf only to drop her back there like a burning coal and run into the horizon screaming?”
Shaheen’s pursed lips were the essence of disapproval. “No, she hasn’t been married or even engaged.”
He smirked in self-satisfaction at the accuracy of his projections. “At her age, by Zohaydan standards, she’s already long fossilized.”
“How gallant of you, Aram. I thought you were a progressive man who’s against all backward ideas, including ageism. I never dreamed you’d hold a woman’s age against her in anything, let alone in her suitability for marriage.”
“You know I don’t subscribe to any of that crap. What I’m saying is if she is a Zohaydan woman, and a princess, who didn’t get approached by a man for that long, it is proof that she is generally viewed as incompatible with human life.”
“The exact same thing could be said about you.”
Throwing his hands up in exasperation, he landed them on his friend’s shoulders. “Listen carefully, Shaheen, because I’ll say this once, and we will not speak of this again. I will not get married. Not to become Zohaydan and become your minister of economy, not for any other reason. If you really need my help, I’ll gladly offer you and Zohayd my services.”
Shaheen, who had clearly anticipated this as one of Aram’s answers, was ready with his rebuttal. “The level of involvement needed has to be full-time, with you taking the top job and living in Zohayd.”
“I have my own business...”
“Which you’ve set up so ingeniously and have trained your deputies so thoroughly you only need to supervise operations from afar for it to continue on its current trajectory of phenomenal success. This level of efficiency, this uncanny ability to employ the right people and to get the best out of them is exactly what I need you to do for Zohayd.”
“You