Conveniently His Princess

Maybe she should stay until he totally forgot about her.

*

The moment Aram finished his last memo for the night, he pounced on his phone to call Kanza. Before he did, Shaheen walked into his office.

A groan escaped him that he had to postpone the call—and seeing her—for the length of Shaheen’s visit.

His brother-in-law whistled. “Ya Ullah, you missed me that much?”

Aram winced. His impatience must be emblazoned across his whole body. And he’d been totally neglecting his friend as of late. But he’d been reserving every hour, every moment, every spare breath for Kanza.

“Actually I do miss you, but—” he groaned again, ran his fingers through his hair “—you know how it is.”

Shaheen laughed. “Menn la’ah ahbaboh nessi ashaboh.”

He who finds his loved ones forgets his friends.

He refused to comment on Shaheen’s backhanded reference to Kanza as his loved one. “As much as I’d love to indulge your curiosity, Shaheen, I have to go to Kanza now. Let’s get together some other time. Maybe I’ll bring Kanza over to your home, hmm?”

Shaheen blinked in surprise. “You’re going to Zohayd?”

Aram scowled. “Now, where did that come from? Why should I go to Zohayd?”

“Because you said that you’re going to Kanza, who’s on her way to Zohayd right now.”

*

Aram glanced at his watch, then out of the jet’s window, then back at his watch.

Had it always taken that long to get to Zohayd?

It felt as if it had been a day since he’d boarded his jet—barely an hour after Shaheen had said Kanza was heading there.

He was still reverberating with disbelief. With…panic.

His condition had been worsening since it had sunk in that the “home” Kanza had meant was Zohayd. According to Johara, Kanza was returning there at her father’s urgent demand. Kanza herself didn’t know why. Shaheen hadn’t been able to understand why he’d be so agitated that she was visiting her family and would probably be back in a few days.

But he’d been unable to listen, to Shaheen or the voice of reason. Nothing had mattered but one thing.

The need to go after her.

A tornado was tearing through him. His gut told him something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

For how could she go like that without saying goodbye?

Even if she had to rush, even if he’d been swamped, the Kanza he knew would have let him see her before separation was imposed on them.

So why hadn’t she? Why hadn’t she made it clear where she was going? If he’d known, he would have rushed to her, would have paid the millions that would have been lost for a chance to see her even for a few minutes before she left. She had to know he would have. So why hadn’t she given him the chance to? Hadn’t it been as necessary for her to see him this last time as it was for him?

Was he not as necessary to her as she was to him?

He’d long been forced to believe his necessity to her differed from hers to him. He’d thought that as long as the intimacy remained the same, he’d just have to live with the fact that its…texture wasn’t what he now yearned for.

But what if he was losing even that? What if not saying goodbye now meant that she could eventually say goodbye for real? What if that day was even closer than his worst nightmares?

What if that day was here?

He couldn’t even face that possibility. He’d lost his solitariness from the first time he’d seen her. She’d proceeded to strip him of his self-containment, his autonomy. He’d known isolation. But he hadn’t realized what loneliness was until he’d heard from Shaheen that she’d left.