And he finally had an idea how.
17
Willow had bitten off all her nails.
It wasn’t something she was proud of, and she desperately wished she could hide evidence of her bitten nubs for the first round of interviews that week. Gel nails weren’t quite a thing in Al Ghuman yet, which meant she needed to find acrylics, and stat.
She couldn’t show up with this much evidence of her internal distress.
“Are you biting your nails again?” Calla asked softly from beside her in the backseat of the car.
Willow yanked her hand down, stuffing it underneath her thigh. This was her response to Ultimate Stress. It wasn’t often in life that she bit her nails down to the quick, but the first breakup with Nasser had definitely featured scary-looking hands. The second breakup was no exception. Add in a looming visa deadline and the just-under-the-wire wedding to a man she hadn’t seen in…
“Sorry. I just…” She shook her head, looking out the window. Calla had offered to accompany her on her apartment search. Like a good friend. Like the sister-in-law that wouldn’t be, at least not for long. “I need a spa day.”
Calla laughed softly. “Yeah. A few of them, girlfriend. I can organize that, you know.”
“I can’t afford multiple spa days,” Willow said.
“You still have access to the palace bank account, carrying the royal heir,” Calla said. “And don’t you forget that. Nasser might be an ass, but he won’t leave you high and dry.”
Willow just grunted, crossing her arms. She’d crossed over into the second trimester just that day. Big news that she would love to share with a partner who cared.
Except she didn’t have one. And she was still trying to pretend she was okay with it.
There was only one thing she hated more than being unprepared: when her best-laid plans went horribly awry.
To be fair, sham-marrying Nasser hadn’t been one of her best-laid plans. It had been a last-minute plan, so she couldn’t hold that against herself. Even so—and perhaps worse—she’d come to see Nasser and this growing family of theirs as the best thing she’d never planned for. She’d believed in it. She still did, in her dark moments, when she tortured herself with thoughts of how happy they would have been someday, if they had only gotten their shit together.
“Co-parenting will be fun with him,” Willow remarked dully.
Calla shook her head. “You guys will find a rhythm. I’m sure of it.”
“I never should have invited him to join the calendar,” Willow sighed, starting down the same path she’d traveled at least a thousand times over the past week.
“Trust me, Willow. The calendar is not the problem,” Calla said, slicing her hand through the air. “It’s Nasser.”
“I come on too strong,” Willow went on. “I could have been…I don’t know…more of a doormat?”
“You’re talking like a crazy person,” Calla chided. “If Nasser can’t handle a strong, dedicated, determined woman, then he doesn’t deserve you.”
Willow finally cracked a grin. “Sounds like you’re more on my side than his.”
“Oh, believe me—I am,” she said. “Our family dinners have not been jovial recently, to say the least.”
Willow hated that she took some pleasure in that. But then again, Nasser deserved it. For kicking her out. For not calling even once to check on her. For missing the all-important transition into the second trimester, which she’d also marked on the calendar.
“Even with how much he’s hurt me, I still love him,” Willow admitted in a small voice, picking at the seam of her dress.
“Oh, honey,” Calla tutted. “Of course you do. You two were so in love.”
Willow heaved a big sigh, watching the streets of Al Ghuman blur past. They were getting close to the city center now, and rickshaws crowded around them in traffic. A blue pickup drove directly in front of them, the bed loaded with an absurdly high pile of lumber. The energy of the city was always something that Willow had loved, but right now, it exhausted her.
She just wanted to curl up in the comfy king-size bed in Nasser’s room. Find the reassuring solidness of his chest. His heartbeat that reminded her that she was his, and he was hers.
“We’re here,” Calla said a few moments later, once Willow had roped herself into another sad trip down memory lane. She jerked her head up, looking at the modern block of apartments before them. They were more like condos—each apartment featured a first and second story, with a tiny postage stamp of a front yard—and the stucco exterior appealed to her.
But still…the crushing loneliness of the rest of her pregnancy bore down on her.