Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 31800 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 159(@200wpm)___ 127(@250wpm)___ 106(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31800 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 159(@200wpm)___ 127(@250wpm)___ 106(@300wpm)
Ambassador Farouk, on the other hand, is beyond elated.
What an honor, Your Highness!
What a privilege you have bestowed on this humble household, to be the first to welcome and celebrate your engagement!
Long live the future queen of Sharasa!
And of course, this has Scarlette paling and stammering, her confusion and panic evident as she fumbles for something to say.
“Ambassador, please...it’s not...” She looks at me as if asking for help, and I only gaze back at her with a raised brow. Where she sees trouble, I only see the truth, with Scarlette’s reaction as an entertaining sideshow.
Scarlette turns back to the ambassador. “Sir, if you could...we’re hoping...privately—”
The older man chuckles. “You have a great sense of humor, Ms. Hood.”
“O-Oh?”
“His Highness is one of the world’s most eligible bachelors,” Ambassador Farouk says with a respectful toward my direction. “Any news about his engagement is sure to spread like wildfire.”
“I’m just, um, concerned for Sheikh Qahari’s sake,” Scarlette says weakly. “I don’t want people to, er, look down on him because of our engagement. That’s why, I was thinking, it’s better that only few people know—”
Ambassador Farouk beams at her. “How kind and humble you are, Ms. Hood.”
Scarlette turns red. “No, I’m not. At all.”
“Your humility is refreshing, Ms. Hood. Indeed, it is becoming quite clear why our esteemed prince has chosen you to be his bride.”
“I’m not yet—”
The ambassador chuckles again. “Ah, I finally understand.”
Scarlette sighs in relief. “I’m glad.”
“Everyone knows that royal engagements in Sharasa can only end with either a wedding or a beheading. And it will make a nice little joke, if you say that you are only marrying our prince to save your neck.”
Ambassador Farouk is still chuckling to himself when he finally takes his leave, and to my Scarlette’s credit, she has the patience and wisdom to wait until I have led her away from the rest of the crowd—
“You lied to me!”
—before whispering her words of accusation under her breath.
I gaze down at my Scarlette, with her cheeks flushed in emotion, and her eyes so full of trouble that she appears blind to the old-world grandeur of the ambassador’s estate. Wealth and power is in full display all around her, and live strings play somewhere in the distance, which is yet another subtle demonstration of how my world operates quite differently from the rest.
This is but a taste of the kind of life I can give her as my future wife, but Scarlette sees none of it. All she cares about is what she perceives as my deception and betrayal, but is it, really?
“To accuse a member of the royal family is no light matter in our kingdom, habibti. I will let your earlier words go, in consideration of your emotional state. But I would also also advise you to think carefully before repeating such an accusation.”
“Are you threatening to me?” she demands shakily.
“Do I have any need to? Think back to all the conversations we had,” I say gently. “Have I truly said anything that would constitute as a lie?”
“But you let me think—”
“Oh, come now, habibti. I am a prince, not a god. You alone, and no one else, has control your thoughts.”
“Stop twisting my words—”
“Are you not the one doing that?” I ask her coolly. “I told you I wanted to marry you.”
“I know that, but—”
“You asked for an engagement. And I agreed. But I never said it would change anything, did I?”
Scarlette
I hide in the ladies’ powder room, my hands trembling as I grip the marble countertop. The bathroom is pretty and posh, all gold fixtures and hand-painted flowers on the walls. Something you can only feel comfortable with if you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.
Which I'm not.
Three hours into the ambassador’s party and the truth has finally sunk in.
This may be the world I'll soon be a part of...whether I like it or not. There’s no escape clause. No getting out of this. I’m not just engaged to Sheikh Lykan Qahiri, billionaire businessman. I’m engaged to a literal prince. A future king.
And royals don’t do trial engagements.
The ambassador’s words echo in my head. Royal engagements in Sharasa can only end with either a wedding or a beheading.
He’d laughed like it was a joke, but the look in Lykan’s eyes told me it wasn’t. Not entirely.
My phone buzzes against my hip. I pull it out, expecting a text from Grandma Jackie, but instead see Vaughn’s name on the screen. My heart gives a strange little twist. Not the desperate leap it used to make, but something more complicated.
I answer without thinking. “Hello?”
“Scar.” The stiffness of his voice is a startling contrast to how he usually speaks to me. “Do you have time to meet?”
In the past, I would have described his usual tone as casual confidence, but now?
“I’m kind of in the middle of something.”