“Of course not,” Faidh said. “I believe you.”

  Another lie.

  5

  Camil had someone waiting to give Piper the invitation in the morning. He’d given explicit instructions to give her time to wake up first, and then deliver it. He knew those instructions would be followed. And he knew she would accept the invitation. Now all he had to do was wait for her to arrive.

  He and his father had two meals a week that they considered off-time. They could be more informal. They could be candid with each other. The rest of the time, as the sheikh and prince, they had to be more formal, but not during these meals together.

  It was the perfect time to tell his father that he was to be a grandfather.

  Telling Faidh hadn’t gone how he’d hoped. Camil hadn’t known he’d hoped for a better reaction until he saw the sting on Faidh’s face and heard the disbelief in his voice. That was why he’d sent the invitation to Piper. The pregnancy was happening to her body. It was only right that she be present for this announcement. Camil, dressed for the day in his suit, his heart beating out of his chest, waited in the small dining room in the private wing of the palace.

  “Good morning.” His father greeted him by clasping his hands, and the two of them took their seats at the table. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did. And I’ve extended an invitation to Piper to join us.”

  His father raised his eyebrows, but before Camil had a chance to elaborate, she was entering the room in a flowing skirt and blouse that Farah must have chosen. It was, without question, the perfect outfit for an informal breakfast with the sheikh. Camil and his father both rose from their seats as Piper entered.

  “Good morning,” he said to her, and the nervousness in her face made him want to hold her close. A current passed between the two of them. Ah—there it was. Understanding in her eyes. She must know what he planned to do.

  “Good morning,” she said softly, and took the offered seat. “Thank you very much for letting me stay last night.”

  Tension pulled the air tight between the three of them, and Camil’s collar seemed to tighten around his neck. His father had to know. He had to have heard the rumors when Piper ran out of the room. It was better if he got it out in the open. But first—

  “It was our pleasure to have you as our guest,” he said to Piper, holding her gaze.

  “Of course,” agreed his father.

  Piper gave Camil the tiniest nod. Go ahead, the gesture said. Do it now.

  Camil knew exactly why she wanted him to say it. His own nerves felt frayed and sparking.

  “Father.” He looked Sheikh Jal in the eye. “I wanted Piper to be here when I told you the news. We’re going to have a baby.”

  If Faidh’s reaction had been a disappointment, his father’s gutted him. The sheikh’s shoulders sagged, and he let out a harsh, disappointed breath. Camil’s heart sank. This was his father in anger. He wasn’t a violent man or prone to loud outbursts, which made his disapproval hurt more. His cheeks went red, but he took several deep breaths and stayed in control of himself. That was part of his duty as sheikh. To stay in control, even when confronted with situations he didn’t like.

  And he did not like this one.

  “I’d hoped never to have to deal with such a thing,” his father said finally. He turned to Piper. “I’m sorry. Please accept my apologies for being so blunt. But you can understand how it would be difficult to be happy about an illegitimate heir.”

  The hairs on the back of Camil’s neck stood. How dare he. How dare he. Camil struggled to force his own anger and hurt back into a manageable shape. This was his child.

  “What kind of good leader gets a girl pregnant like this?” Jal went on.

  Piper shrugged one shoulder, a delicate movement that made him want to trace the line of her shoulder all the way down to her wrist. “A lot of leaders have, historically speaking.”

  A laugh tried to escape him. She’d met with the sheikh’s own disapproval, to her face, and that was how Piper responded? He loved that about her. Camil swallowed the laugh. A storm was brewing in his father’s face. Still, Camil met his eyes.

  “Father, the baby is coming. It would be better if we had a plan now rather than later, when it gets into the papers.”

  “I already have a plan. You’ll marry her.”

  “No,” Piper said. “No, that’s not—” Her voice had taken on a hint of desperation, and it was clear she was struggling to keep her composure. “I will marry for love.”

  “Marriage won’t solve anything,” Camil pointed out, giving everything he had to keep his voice level. The voice of a leader. The voice of a sheikh. But that didn’t change how she’d flatly refused him. She wanted love, not an agreement with his father. He wasn’t enough for her without some grand romantic attachment, and he regretted it. He pushed that regret away. What was he supposed to have done, fallen for her? Somehow made her fall for him?

  His father scoffed. “You must excuse me. I can’t stay.” He tossed his napkin onto the table. “I can’t bear to look at you any longer.”

  Piper counted her heartbeats.

  The beat of her heart was all that got her through the ringing silence of the moments after the sheikh left the room. Had she ever been this embarrassed, this mortified, in her entire life? She didn’t think so. Nothing came close to being so…rejected.

  And she hadn’t expected the idea of staying unmarried to be shot down. She and Camil were good friends. Camil didn’t want to be more than that, even if Piper let herself forget it sometimes.

  What was she supposed to say to make any of this better? She couldn’t take back what she and Camil had done, and she didn’t want to.

  Camil shifted in his seat, and relief cracked open like an egg. At least he was doing something. She just wanted to move past this moment. Please, let them move past this moment.

  “I’m going for a drive,” Camil said, and she lifted her eyes from the tablecloth to look into his. The hazel color, twined with strands of gold, made her breath catch. “Would you like to come with me? We should probably talk.”

  “Yes.” For one thing, she was desperate to get out of this palace and out of the room where the sheikh had left them simmering in his disapproval. “We do need to talk. The news is going to get out, and we do need to have a game plan.”

  She followed him numbly to the garage. A new selection of cars waited for them there, and once again, Camil let her choose the ride for the day.

  “That one.” It was the easiest decision of her life. A banana yellow Bentley Continental GT.

  “This car,” Camil said, a note of pride in his voice, “goes very fast.”

  “And it’s beautiful,” she added.

  “Yes,” he agreed, but he was looking at her when he said it. An approving smile slid over his face, and he escorted her to the car with a flourish to make her laugh. They both got in, Camil shrugging off his suit jacket. He steered them out of the garage and down a series of twists and turns that led them to open road.

  Piper’s shoulders let down as they sped along the highway, the car responding to every touch of Camil’s capable hands. Midmorning sun shone down on the blacktop and the green fringes at the edges that gave way into flatlands. In the distance, a mountain range rose into the new day. She let the palace and that conversation fall behind her. It unspooled away behind them, and she settled back into her seat.

  “My parents’ marriage didn’t end well.” Camil spoke to her as if they’d already been talking. They had, in a way. Sitting together in an accepting silence was a kind of communication. An open door, at least. She watched him from the passenger seat. His dark hair, which he always kept neat, began to curl near one temple. His olive skin was pure perfection. She wanted to run a hand over his cheekbone. “My father was besotted with my mother. Absolutely in love with her. He was devastated when she left him for someone else.” He released a slow breath. “I have two half-siblings in the US that I’ve never met.”

  Her heart ached for him—for the pain in his face, and in his voice. She knew how he felt. Knew the loneliness of a fractured family, and how a person always wondered if there was something they’d done wrong to keep everyone so painfully separate.

  “I understand broken marriages.” She reached for his hand. Patted it. Should she try to hold it? No. Not now. “My parents’ marriage collapsed when I was small, and my father treated my mother like garbage from that moment on. I’ve never been able to figure out why.” Her throat went tight at telling him this, thinking about it again. “From what I understand, the decision to divorce was relatively mutual, but they couldn’t stand sharing custody of me.”

  “There was never a question of custody.” The longing in Camil’s voice squeezed at her heart. “As prince, I would stay with the royal family. There was never an opportunity to make another arrangement.”

  “Did you want that?”

  “I don’t know.” He kept his eyes on the road and his hands steady. “I’m not sure. I wanted to see her more than I did, but I didn’t want to watch her build a new life. I didn’t want all the complications of trying to convince my father to let me go.”

  Camil made a turn, and oh—the flatlands had become the desert. While they approached a mountain road and climbed, climbed, climbed, he spoke to her about how much he’d missed his mother. Camil parked them at the edge of a desert overlook. The sand sprawled out before them, gold in the light of the morning, and in the distance, she could see the city and the white walls of the palace. The view stunned her. Took her breath away. It also had the benefit of putting their conversation this morning into a bit of perspective. It all looked so small from this distance. Small and manageable.

  “Come with me.” Camil got out of the car and came around to her side, holding a hand out to her. She took it and slid out of luxury and into the hot, dry air of the desert. He put his hand on the small of her back to guide her around a curve in a nearby path. It took them to another angle in the mountain, where more desert stretched out like a blanket. “There. Look.”

  He pointed, and she followed his gesture to what looked like—

  “A palace?”

  Camil pulled her closer against his side and nodded. “It’s the palace I’m planning to renovate for the hotel. My great-grandfather built it for my great-grandmother at the beginning of their marriage. It’s the very seat of their romance. It’ll be perfect for what I have planned.”

  He released her, and Piper took one more step toward the edge. She stayed a safe distance away from the drop and shaded her eyes. The windows sparkled in the sun. This palace was a jewel in the midst of all the sand. Oh, she wished she could change his mind.

  “It’s a beautiful spot,” she told Camil. “You should seriously consider preserving your great-grandparents’ home instead of turning it into some hotel.”

  A beat of surprised silence. Piper didn’t often disagree with him so bluntly. She almost never did.

  “I don’t see the point in that,” Camil answered, his tone level. “They’re gone, and Al-Fahr would benefit from being able to bring in more tourists.”

  “But if this is a testament to their love, shouldn’t it be left as is, authentically theirs?” Piper regretted stepping away from him, but it had been the right move. She wanted his hand on the small of her back again. She wanted the warmth of his touch, even in the rising heat of the day. And Piper couldn’t want that. It wasn’t true love, if it was all for show, if it was all for reputation’s sake.

  “I can appreciate that my grandparents truly cared for each other.” Each word seemed measured, as if he’d considered them for a long time. “But I find the whole fuss over their love story ridiculous. Too many of my relatives have chased that particular dragon, and they’ve all ended up burned. Not just the couples themselves, but everyone around them. I was no exception. When my parents divorced, it…had an effect.”

  “You’ve truly—” It would be so sad, so crass, to cash in on that part of the past rather than honor it. “You’ve truly never wished for someone in your life to care for you the way they cared for each other? Someone you felt a connection with?”

  A moment of silence. “What kind of connection do you mean?” The deep, brilliant hazel of his eyes met hers, and a shock of recognition arced through her. Me, she thought dizzily. It’s me who can show him.

  Piper took his face in her hands, rose up on her tiptoes, and kissed him. Slow and deep and tender. Like she’d never kissed him before. Her tongue skimmed his bottom lip until he let her in. But Camil was the crown prince, and he took command. Tasting her back. Warmth shot through her as he cupped a hand around the back of her neck and teased her tongue with his.

  6

  It was still early when Camil knocked on the door of Piper’s flat a week later. Not particularly early in the day, but early for Piper. He’d wanted to get here before she left for the palace. Camil pushed away the nagging worry that she’d left just before he arrived and was getting to those big stone steps even now. His heart pounded a neat rhythm behind his ribs. Let her be inside.

  He hadn’t been avoiding her all week. Not technically. Not within the bounds of—

  Fine. He’d been avoiding her. The kiss on the overlook had shaken something loose in him, and Camil’s mind had spun and spun and spun, trying to come up with a meaning that he could accept. It could not have been love he felt when Piper kissed him. It couldn’t have been. He’d promised his friends never to let himself fall, and more than that, he’d promised himself—he wouldn’t have the kind of life his parents did.

  Despite this, he’d missed her. Camil had also avoided the archive, scheduling meetings during the time they usually had lunch and making it a point to be out of the palace as much as possible. He hadn’t wanted to see her again until he had a handle on himself.

  Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. But he couldn’t wait any longer.

  The deadbolt clicked and the door cracked open a moment later. Piper blinked out at him. She’d showered already, and dried her hair, and she wore dress pants and a flowing top. Camil did his best to ignore the way the fabric of the shirt slipped over her curves. He held up the garment bag he’d had Farah put together.

  “Get changed,” he said in a low voice, in case the neighbors were still sleeping. “I’m taking you on an adventure.”

  Piper narrowed her eyes, but he saw curiosity there, too. The corners of her mouth turned down. She didn’t appear to be impressed, but she didn’t shut the door in his face, either. “Why should I go with you?”

  “You don’t have any choice.” He’d been smiling at her since she’d opened the door, but now he let that grin grow. “I’m kidnapping you for the afternoon.”

  She hesitated, and Camil stifled the urge to put a hand on the door so she couldn’t close it in his face. It would be within her rights to do it, of course. He’d avoided her. He had kissed her, driven her back to the city, and promptly put distance between them.

  Piper chewed at the inside of her lip, and then she let out a little sigh, finally cracking a smile as she took the garment bag from his hand. “Fine. You can come in, if you want.”

  Camil did want. He stepped across the threshold as Piper said, “I’ll just be a minute to change. You can wait here in the living room. I’ve got tea brewing, if you’d like some. Help yourself.” She went into her bedroom and closed the door.

  He didn’t need any coffee. Camil wanted to know more about Piper. This apartment was a haven for a writer. Stacks of notebooks lined the table, some of them open to various pages. Signs of her hard work. He wished he hadn’t stayed away for the week—one of Camil’s favorite sights had become Piper at the table in the archives, head bent over her work. She got so absorbed in it. And he’d missed it.

  He shook those thoughts away. This was his chance to see Piper’s flat. He’d never been to the place she’d slept in at night and woke up in each day to come back to him.

  To come back to her work at the palace, he meant. Camil stood in the center of her cozy living room and took in the neat cream sofa with a colorful throw blanket. He could picture her here, writing in a notebook, her eyes lit up with the connections she made in the material. He could picture her making a cup of tea and humming in the narrow kitchen with its red kettle. He could see her just through there, in the bedroom, where—

  “It’s a beautiful dress.” Piper came back through the doorway in a lightweight dress in robin’s egg blue, which brought out her eyes. The long sleeves were loose and flowing. Her toes were adorable in her sandals.

  “You’re beautiful in it,” he told her, and offered her his arm.

  She glanced down at it, a moment of hesitation that spoke to irritation. He didn’t blame her. Camil had been the one to stay away.

  Relief tumbled through him when she took his arm and let him lead her down to the waiting SUV. He got behind the wheel and checked for the security car set to follow them, then pulled out into traffic.

  “Al-Fahr is lacking in some natural tourist attractions. I’m trying to make up for that lack with the hotel renovation.” He paused. “The one thing we do have is an oasis that’s absolute heaven.”

  She perked up, straightening in her seat, but didn’t smile. “Why not bring in more tourism that way? Put the hotel at the oasis instead of converting the palace into a resort.”

  He followed a curve in the road that led them to the outskirts of the city and beyond it. “The oasis is a popular spot. Many people enjoy visiting there. But it’s one of only a few in Al-Fahr, and they are necessary for the Bedouin tribes that travel all over the Arabian Peninsula. I would never interrupt their lives that way.” Camil felt slightly choked at the responsibility and the need to get this right. “I want to bring people to Al-Fahr for something wholly unique. Something they can’t get in any of the other emirates.”