Though that mattered less and less with each passing day. Aaliyah had connected to Sayed the man and respected the prince. What more could he want from his emira?
His practical brain had no answer.
“I thought sending you to school in the States would curb some of that elitist mentality.”
“I am no elitist.” He didn’t like the sensation of having the same argument with his mother as he’d had with Aaliyah.
“Perhaps not, though evidence would suggest otherwise. You are, however, undoubtedly an idiot.” Affection in her tone dulled some of the sting of her denouncement.
He turned back to face her, only to watch as his mother left the room, throwing both doors wide.
“She always was good at the grand exit.” His father stood near the door leading to an adjoining room.
Sayed dry-washed his face with his hand. “Yes.”
“She has also always been very intuitive. If she is pressing you to spend time with Miss Amari, perhaps that is what you should be doing.” Was it possible his father agreed with Sayed’s mother?
Maybe the melech didn’t realize how close to gone on Aaliyah his son, the emir, was. “Why? So I can get into yet another weeklong wait to discover my fate?”
“You are that attracted to her?”
“I wanted to snatch the birth control pill from her hand and throw it in the garbage rather than let her take it,” Sayed admitted.
He’d wanted to just let destiny take its course, but a prince could not deny his responsibilities. Sayed thought Yusuf might have realized it, too, but like a true friend, he’d said nothing.
“I am surprised,” his father admitted, sounding it.
“No more so than I.”
?
?Your mother and I were betrothed in the cradle.”
“I know.”
“But I was in love with her before our wedding ever took place.”
“You were?” Sayed could not stifle his shock. “You married so young.”
“From the moment I began to notice the opposite sex, Durrah was the one I wanted. Discovering on our wedding night that she shared my affection was the happiest moment of my life to that point.”
“You were very lucky.”
“Blessed by fate,” his father agreed with a rare genuine smile. “Yes, we were.”
“Mother was everything that you could want in your queen.” With nothing in her background for the media to feast on.
Not like Aaliyah, who not only came from the masses but whose mother had not been married to her father. Sayed did not care, but some would and she could be hurt deeply by the viciousness the media was capable of.
“Yes, she was and is.”
“I barely know Aaliyah,” Sayed claimed, though he wasn’t sure he spoke the truth.
He felt like he already knew the important parts of her too well to forget easily.
“You knew Tahira your entire life.”
Sayed wasn’t sure what point his father was trying to make. “And I had no idea she was having an affair.”