To Wed a Sheik by Teresa Southwick

Author:Teresa Southwick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2003-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Ali walked from room to room in her palace suite looking for any personal items she might have left around. After the Quality Council meeting the previous day, she’d informed Princess Farrah that she was moving back to her apartment in the city’s American compound. During her shift today, the palace staff had packed up her things.

Satisfied that nothing had been missed, she zipped up her suitcase, then did the same with her cosmetics bag and placed them in the foyer.

There was a knock on the door and she figured it was the driver Princess Farrah had promised to send for her. But when she answered, it was the princess herself. Behind her was a uniformed server with a cart.

“Ali, dear, I just couldn’t let you leave without one last afternoon tea.”

Ali was in no hurry to return to an empty apartment. The company was most welcome. And an opportunity to have tea in a palace might never happen again. “Come in, please.”

The princess smiled and entered the foyer. With a slight motion of her elegant hand, she bade the server wheel the cart into the suite. He set out china cups and a matching graceful teapot on the glass-topped coffee table in the living room. Then there were finger sandwiches, fruit and pastries on a delicate three-tiered crystal plate trimmed in gold. Last but not least, condiments and cloth napkins.

“Do you require anything else, Your Highness?”

“No. Thank you, Khalid.”

He nodded, then left.

“Ali, I wish to thank you for your assistance to my niece,” the princess said as she sat in the center of the semicircular, overstuffed sofa. “I do hope it hasn’t been an inconvenience for you to disrupt your life and stay here.”

Ali sat on the end of the couch, at a right angle to her. “Princess Farrah, I don’t mean to be impertinent or disrespectful, but it would take a special kind of stupid to feel inconvenienced by living in a palace.” She gazed around the perfectly appointed room with its French doors that overlooked the Arabian Sea.

The other woman laughed. “I do not think you are impertinent at all. You are quite delightful. And we shall miss you. I think Kamal most of all.”

“What makes you say that? I hardly see him.” But Ali found it wasn’t entirely the elegance and comfort of the palace that she would miss. It had something to do with sleeping under the same roof as the crown prince. And his aunt’s comment made her happy. How she wished it wasn’t so.

“I know he quarreled with the king yesterday.”

Ali nodded. “Do you think Kamal did the wrong thing? Helping his sister go away—do you think it was wrong?”

The princess poured tea into two cups. After handing one of them to Ali without milk or sweetener, she stirred some sugar into her own. “I will miss my niece terribly,” she started. “And her baby—”

Ali was surprised to see tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, I shouldn’t have asked. If you’d rather not talk about this—”

“It’s all right.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.