Undone by the Sultan's Touch

It was a mobile phone and a charger. Neither hers.

She stared at both for a long time. And then she went back into the bedroom and fired up her laptop. It was only when she clicked on the Skype icon on her computer screen that it occurred to her how long it had been since she’d done it last. So long that she hesitated before she clicked on Jessie’s name—

But she did it anyway. And Jessie answered at once, despite the fact that it was mid-morning in New Orleans and she was at work. That heavy thing inside of Cleo shifted in a drunken sort of tilt that made her stomach flip over, and it was hard to look at her oldest friend suddenly. At those warm brown eyes that saw too much, the strawberry-blond hair that had always been in complete disarray throughout their youth that Jessie wore in a sleek style befitting the high-powered attorney she was now, or the faint crease of concern in her friend’s brow.

“I found the phone,” Cleo said, as much to start the conversation as to skip over the uncomfortable things she didn’t want to address, such as why she’d been out of touch for months despite all the emails Jessie had sent with those articles Cleo wasn’t supposed to read. “A wedding gift, I’m guessing?”

“Are you mad at me?” Jessie leaned closer to her screen, a world away and yet it felt like she was right there with Cleo—and Cleo wanted that so much it made her eyes glaze over with emotion. “It was my attempt to re-create our youth.”

“Did we have secret phones? I remember sneaking out to see that embarrassing concert and that boy you liked, but no secret phones.”

“We had pretend secret phones,” Jessie said, and sighed as if she couldn’t believe Cleo didn’t remember that. “That made them particularly secret.”

“Do you have a secret phone now, too?” Cleo asked. “Or is it only for me?”

She’d meant that to come out light and easy, but it didn’t, and she felt a lump in her throat as Jessie studied her face through the screen.

“I always like to have an escape hatch, Cleo,” she said softly, after a long moment. “You know that.”

“That’s the lawyer in you, I guess.”

“No, that’s what happens when you grow up with four brothers, all of whom think it’s hilarious to lock you in your room whenever they think you’re being annoying.” Jessie sat back in her seat and smiled brightly, and Cleo thought she’d never loved her more. “How’s my favorite newlywed?”

And Cleo could have told her. Jessie was the only one she’d have considered telling, in fact, and who cared that it was all so twisted and tangled inside of her—but she opened her mouth and found she couldn’t do it.

Because the things she felt for Khaled consumed her whole. Made her feel that there was something wrong with her that she could feel so much. That was the truth no matter how she fought against it.

She might not know him, but she was pretty sure she loved him.

Cleo had thought she loved Brian, and what she’d felt for him even in their happy beginning had been pale and silly compared to this. She wondered if he’d known that. If that had been why he’d done what he did. And how could she hold on to all that bitterness she’d been carrying around when the truth was, if Brian hadn’t cheated on her, Cleo would never be here? She’d never have met Khaled.

And she couldn’t imagine that. She might not be as happy in her fantasy life as she’d assumed she would be, but she couldn’t imagine not being in it.

“Sometimes it’s hard to separate the sultan from the man,” she admitted to Jessie in a rushed sort of whisper, and even that felt like a betrayal.

Jessie met her gaze, her brown eyes uncompromising, as if she knew every last thing Cleo wasn’t saying.

“Listen to me.” Jessie used her lawyer voice. “You’re the most fearless person I know. You didn’t accept what Brian did to you the way a lot of people would have, especially so close to the wedding. You walked away and wandered the world by yourself. You married a terrifying man who might as well be a freaking king. There isn’t a single thing you can’t do if you put your mind to it.”

“You’re right,” Cleo said, as though it came from somewhere deep in her gut. “I did.”

That was why, when she and Jessie had finished catching up and vowing to stay in better touch this time, when she’d had her dinner on a tray again, she decided she was going to do something about all of this. Because she’d grown too quiet since the oasis. She’d become too worried about being the perfect sultan’s wife when what she should have been worrying about was how to be herself.