The Desert King / An Affair with the Princess. Оливия Гейтс
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sighed. “If I thought it would help, I’d let you. You probably think I owe it to you for passing the throne to you.”
“You talk as if you passed me a ball.”
“I did my share of the running but had to leave the touchdown to you.” Before Kamal turned on him, made him touch down face-first, Shehab raised placating hands. “But sports metaphors aside, whatever went wrong between you, Kamal, bury it. She’ll be your woman, your wife and your queen. And she looks and sounds like your match. You must have felt enough for her in the past if it hurt that bad and affected you that long when things went sour. Focus on the positive, dismiss the negative. Treat her well and it can only circulate in a flow of goodwill and intimacy.”
Kamal slowed as they passed through the soaring mahogany doors. “What’s this? Did our mother leave you instructions to read me before I married? Or did you find this in a wife user’s manual? Or an edition of Domestic Bliss for Dummies?”
Shehab threw his head back on a hearty laugh before his gaze turned penetrating. “I want you to be happy. You haven’t been for a long time, Kamal. I don’t have any information on the situation, but I do trust my instincts, my heart. Especially after they led me into what you so strongly object to, the deepest reaches of love with my incomparable Farah. I want the same for you.”
Holding back his response, which would have been riddled with obscenities, Kamal picked up speed as they crossed the vast columned hall that sprawled underneath a gigantic dome. The transition from the glare and dry heat to the interior’s soothing light and the coolness achieved by the palace’s structure and building materials silenced him. That, and feeling that he was seeing everything through new eyes now that he would call the palace home. His and Aliyah’s.
The sweeping spaces, the extreme opulence, the floors that looked like polished extensions of the palace’s beaches, felt as unreal as the whole situation. And the man who’d been the cause of it all was at his side spouting romantic nonsense.
He finally shot Shehab a dagger of displeasure. “Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want to be in the deepest reaches of anything. I’ll leave wallowing in the depths of blinding self-deception to you and Farooq. You especially, as a spare crown prince, have it really easy. No pressure, no demands. You threw the job of king in my lap, now leave me to do it right.”
Shehab’s gaze lengthened until Kamal felt he’d given him a total mind scan, documented every thought and evasion and struggle. Then Shehab finally wagged his finger at him. “Attitude.”
Before Kamal showed him some real attitude, Shehab’s gaze suddenly gentled. “Don’t take the past into your future, Kamal. It serves no purpose but to poison your views, your very life.”
“Ah, talking from precious experience now, aren’t we?” Kamal scoffed as they halted in front of his stateroom and he sent guards away with a flick of a hand. “How preconceptions robbed you of appreciating to the fullest every moment of your plunge from the realm of sanity to life under your siren’s influence?”
Shehab had the temerity to look moved. “Such an indescribable waste, yes. But a wise man learns from others’ mistakes. Don’t try them yourself just to find out for sure that they’ll yield the same result. For they will.”
“Your situation,” Kamal spat, “as pathetic as it is, is nothing like mine, your mistakes in no way comparable to my alleged ones. You leave the past out of the future and bury your head in the sand. There’s nothing more around here.”
Shehab’s gaze summed him up again, then he exhaled. “If you don’t think you owe it to her, or to yourself, you owe it to your subjects. Forgive and forget, or you won’t be the king they deserve. Or change your mind. Try it. It might turn out to be the best move of your life, letting go of preconceptions and bitterness.”
“Watch it, ya akhi. You might one day overdose on optimism.”
“I’ll take that over doing so on pessimism any day. If the end is the same, at least I’d have the journey. Think about it.”
Kamal gritted his teeth. “Yes, sage older brother. I’m in your debt for this pep talk. How can I live without your wisdom?”
Shehab looked around, then after making certain they were alone, smacked him on the back of his head. Hard.
Before Kamal charged him, Shehab bowed deeply then turned and walked unhurriedly away, chuckling. “Anytime…ya maolai.”
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