Protecting the Desert Heir

You should have known better, sneered that internal voice that she knew came from her foster parents, across all those years, as if she was still standing in the middle of that cold kitchen waiting for the next blow to lay her out on the linoleum floor. You taint everything you touch.

She’d ducked into one of the cordoned-off alcoves for a little breather after that unpleasant last encounter. She wanted to take a moment—only a moment—to let her face do whatever it wished. To drop her public smile. To simply not be on display.

Sterling pulled in a deep breath, then let it out. Then again.

And it was as she was preparing to walk back out and face it all again that she heard Rihad’s deep voice from the other side of the pillar that concealed her.

“I have no worries whatsoever about the union     between our countries,” he was saying in his crisp, kingly manner. “Nor can I imagine that Kavian has indicated otherwise, to your publication or to anyone else.”

That meant it was one of the reporters, Sterling understood, and that was why she didn’t reveal her presence. She’d had enough of the press earlier, with their sugary smiles and all those jagged claws right underneath, sharpened on her own skin every time they asked her a pointed question.

“Yet your sister remains at large.”

“The Princess Amaya’s schedule remains private for obvious security reasons.” Rihad’s voice was so cold then it made Sterling’s stomach clench tight. “But I can assure you that no member of the royal family is ‘at large.’ Your information is faulty.”

“Neither Kavian nor Amaya have been seen—”

“His Royal Majesty Kavian ibn Zayed al Talaas, ruling sheikh of the desert stronghold Daar Talaas, is certainly not in hiding of any kind, if that is what your impertinent suggestion is meant to imply.” Rihad’s voice held dark warning then. “But he no more clears his schedule with me than I do with him. He certainly does not clear it with you. I would advise you to step away from this subject.”

“Certainly, Sire.” The man’s voice made Sterling feel dirty. Tarnished. “My congratulations on your recent marriage.”

Sterling winced then, at the thunderous silence that told her all she needed to know about the expression Rihad was likely wearing.

“Tread carefully,” Rihad all but growled. “Very carefully.”

“Certainly, Your Majesty, you must be aware that there is mounting concern among your subjects that a woman like that—”

“A woman like that?” Rihad’s voice turned mild, which was her husband at his most volatile, even as that same old phrase knocked around inside of Sterling, leaving marks. New bruises to join the old. “By all means, enlighten me. A woman like what, exactly?”

That was when Sterling moved. She swept out from behind the pillar and hoped it would be assumed she’d simply taken herself off to the powder room.

Rihad stood squared off against a small, toad-like creature Sterling recognized as one of the paparazzi who had followed her every move in New York. She had no doubt that he was responsible for a great many of the horrible narratives that circulated about her to this day, as he’d taken after her as if Sterling was his pet project. He’d always looked at her as if he could see that truth buried deep inside of her. As if he knew how flawed and unwanted and ruined she truly was.

Part of her wanted nothing more than to leave him to Rihad’s scant and rapidly eroding mercy, but she didn’t dare. Not now, after all the recent bad press and a museum filled with more reporters. She was already enough of a stone draped around Rihad’s neck, dragging him down. There was no need to add an assault-and-battery charge on her behalf to the list of her sins against this man.

“Sterling,” the awful little man oozed at her. “We were just talking about you.”

She didn’t know which part of that offended her more—the way the man looked at her, the way he spoke to her with such unearned familiarity or the way he sidled closer to her with his hand extended as if he planned to put it on—

“Ancient Bakrian law states that if another man touches my queen without my permission I am not only permitted to rend him limb from limb with my own hands, but must do so to protect the honor of the crown,” Rihad said conversationally, and the reporter froze. Rihad’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Barbaric, is it not? And yet so many of my subjects find comfort in the old ways.”

He did not say, myself included, but Sterling felt certain she was not the only one who felt as if he’d shouted it from the rooftops.