“But?” she prompted.

  “But she’s also totally charming and talented. And she makes me laugh.”

  Meher shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve never seen you try so hard with a woman before. She must be very special to you.”

  A smile came to his face before he could stop it, and then the meaning of her words registered. “No,” he said. “No. I’m not trying hard with her, and she’s not special to me. It’s because of our arrangement. This is only about making sure it seems realistic for the council. I’m not trying for her.”

  His sister’s eyes slid to the plate on the countertop. “You’re not? That’s why you’re in the kitchen cooking her breakfast, even though you don’t know the first thing about making eggs?”

  Forget it. He would forget about the breakfast in bed idea. What had he been thinking? That he would, in the space of one morning, go back and gain all the life experience that Mina had growing up? Find himself competent in the kitchen? He’d been so taken with the idea of watching her face light up with surprise that he’d skipped over reality. Faidh couldn’t cook. And more than that, he couldn’t be the one to make her happy. Not permanently. They were limited.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked Meher. “I won’t bother her with this.”

  Faidh turned to go, but Meher followed him. Her hand was on his arm in seconds. “Faidh. Wait.”

  “For what?” Frustration burned at the pit of his gut, but he couldn’t be sure what it was about. He’d known from the start that he was hopeless in the kitchen. Not hopeless—uninformed. Cooking had never been part of his royal education. Why would it be? He was born to be a sheikh, and sheikhs had their meals prepared for them. “Have some breakfast. I need to get upstairs.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it.” Meher patted his arm. “I was teasing, little brother. If I upset you—”

  He swallowed the urge to tell her that she hadn’t been teasing. She had been telling the truth, and for whatever reason, the truth had cut some essential part of him that he’d been keeping under wraps.

  “I’m not upset.” He smiled at her, feeling how false it was in every muscle.

  “Hush.” Meher went back to the oven, opened the warmer, and took out the pan with the toast. She put it onto the plate alongside the eggs and sausage, then brought the plate to Faidh with a fork and knife wrapped up in a napkin. “Take this breakfast to the poor girl. She’s the only one in the palace who’s going to eat eggs like this anyway. Stand there one second, and I’ll get you a tray.”

  He waited while Meher took out a tray. She held it out so he could put the plate on it, and the silverware, and then she pulled it close to her body.

  “Faidh,” she said.

  “The food’s getting cold.”

  She handed the tray to him with a sigh, and Faidh left the kitchen.

  His stomach roiled all the way back to Mina’s room. It was such a small space—smaller than he’d realized the previous night. Small enough that he knew she was awake and out of bed the moment he shouldered open the door.

  The shower ran in the even smaller attached bathroom.

  He felt like a fool. Wanting to see her happy and surprised because of something he did—that was for other men who were actually pursuing a woman, not for Faidh. They were only together as part of a mutually beneficial arrangement. The last thing he should be doing is stepping over that line.

  Faidh ignored the voice in his head that warned him that they’d left the line far behind them. He’d slept with her last night, and he’d loved it. Every inch of him had loved it. His skin tingled with the memory of her body underneath his, of the way her muscles had tightened whenever she pulled him closer. It was like she hadn’t been able to get enough of him. Faidh, not the sheikh of Nouzar. Just Faidh. And she’d wanted that. She had been so wet for him, so eager, and the sounds—

  He couldn’t do that again. Wouldn’t.

  With exquisite care, he put the tray down on the small dresser. She kept a notepad there, along with a necklace and a small stack of other papers, and he took the top page to write her a note.

  Enjoy breakfast—I wanted to stay with you, but I got called away.

  Faidh

  He hesitated over the paper. Should he write something about how much he’d enjoyed last night? No. Not a chance. That would only make it worse, now that he was more determined than ever to avoid an entanglement. He’d allow himself to enjoy her company and allow himself to make it pleasant for Mina in Nouzar, but he wouldn’t bring up the night they’d had.

  It felt terrible to move toward the door and worse to go out and close it behind him. Once he was out in the hall, Faidh’s neck prickled. He looked both ways, up and down the corridor, but no one else was there.

  It wouldn’t be the end of the world if he were spotted in Mina’s quarters. People in the palace might pretend to be scandalized. Fine. They were engaged, as far as the rest of the world was concerned. But Faidh didn’t want to be stopped here. Didn’t want to be seen here. He didn’t want to answer another question about how he felt about Mina or endure another knowing look from even one more person.

  He made his way to his quarters, avoiding eye contact whenever possible. Faidh shut the door tight behind him the moment he could.

  Meher’s words and her teasing looks had followed him anyway.

  9

  The next day was busy in the kitchen. Alma’s arthritis flared, and the pain kept her away from the prep table. This was Mina’s chance to prove herself. She was ready when the list arrived from Alma with the tasks for the day. She blew through the list—putting the finishing touches on a tray of desserts for a palace dinner later, chopping nuts for a batch of baklava—in record time.

  So quickly, in fact, that she found herself with a few free hours. The pastries she’d put in the oven wouldn’t be done for a while, and she didn’t have anything else to clean, but she didn’t want to spend the time anywhere else. What better place to spend it than the kitchen?

  Mina laughed to herself as she made up her mind. She’d still be available to Alma, should the pastry chef decide she needed Mina to do something else for her, and she could thank Faidh for the breakfast he’d made. It had been so sweet to find the tray on the table, even though he couldn’t stay. Better that way for both of them, really. Her cheeks had been so hot after her shower. Mina hadn’t wanted Faidh to see how much the sex had affected her.

  In a good way, of course. She couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  She’d make him one of her signature desserts. Harissa was a spongy coconut cake, a relatively simple recipe, but delicious, and she could fit it into the time before her pastries were finished. Mina lost herself in the measuring and stirring and pouring. The timer rang for her pastries, and she took them out. Baked the coconut cake. Drizzled it with an orange blossom simple syrup.

  And—

  It was gorgeous. A fluffy round yellow cake, the drizzle absolute perfection on top. Easily one of the most beautiful cakes she’d ever made. Why not share it with the council, too? Faidh had a council meeting right about…now. Mina put the cake on a tray with a collection of small plates and silverware and carried it up to the council chamber, already glowing with anticipation.

  No one stopped her at the door, and Mina went in with a smile on her face. Faidh had told her that she could interrupt these meetings at any time, because they were supposed to be making the council irritated with her, so this was even better.

  “Knock knock,” Mina said. “I’m so sorry to interrupt.” She came to the side of the big council table. “I’ve made some cake for the sheikh and his council. Would anyone like some?”

  The dead silence around the table made her stomach sink. One of the older council members cleared his throat. “What kind of cake is it?”

  “Harissa,” she said, though it should have been obvious to anyone who was looking. There was a tense shuffling in the room. Council members glanced at one another, and Mina’s face went as hot as it had ever been. Harissa was a simple recipe, but it took a deft hand to get the right texture. “Is there a problem?”

  Faidh leaned forward in his seat, an apologetic smile on his face. “I’m allergic to coconut. Deathly allergic.”

  His suggestion to remove the desiccated coconut from the cake design came back like a slap. He hadn’t told her why! Her cheeks got even hotter, which she hadn’t thought possible, and now it felt like she was holding something rotten on a tray.

  “I’m so sorry,” she managed to say. “I didn’t know.”

  An elderly man on the council spoke nearby. “The cake looks wonderful, Ms. Parks. You should be very proud of it. But the members of the council cannot risk shaking the sheikh’s hand or getting too near to him after we’ve eaten coconut, so we cannot have any, either.”

  “Of course. I’m sorry to have interrupted,” she said, backing away. Mina couldn’t bear to look at Faidh. She felt like she had a neon sign above her head that read outsider as she made her way back to the kitchens. She was halfway there when she broke into a run.

  She fought back tears all the way through the main kitchen and into the pastry kitchen, where Mina slammed the cake down on the counter. The center sank. Of course it did. It was a ridiculous cake, and she felt like a fool for not knowing something as simple and as important as an allergy. She should have known. A sick horror gripped her. What if Alma had told her, and she hadn’t been listening because she’d been too taken with texting Faidh? But no. That should have been first on the list. The sheikh is deathly allergic to coconut. No one had said anything. It hadn’t been brought up in any of her interviews, she was sure of it. Not once. Not ever.

  “Mina?” Faidh pushed open the door to the kitchen, looking sheepish.

  She wanted to throw the harissa at him, but instead she put her hand up. “Don’t come any closer until I’ve dealt with this.”

  “Mina—”

  He didn’t say anything else as she swept the cake off the tray and tipped it into the garbage. Mina turned the water hot in the sink until it felt scalding. She scrubbed and scrubbed at her hands, hoping he’d leave, but when she shut off the water and snapped a length of paper towel from the industrial roll, he was still there. Mina threw it into the garbage and faced Faidh.

  “Now you can talk,” she said, and she knew as the words left her mouth that her tone was all wrong for Faidh the sheikh and for Faidh the man she knew.

  His shoulders came up, his eyebrows rising. If she’d expected some kind of apology before, she wasn’t going to get it now. “The council is now suspicious.”

  “Of course they are!” she burst out. “Most people share their allergies with the people they’re closest to. Or, you know, their kitchen staff.”

  “I don’t think about it.” He took a step toward her, and she couldn’t tell if he meant for his tone to be soothing or scolding or somewhere in between. “It’s been a nonissue for so long. No one ever sends anything with coconut from the kitchen. Alma would have caught it if you’d tried.”

  It did nothing to soothe her. It only made the embarrassment sharper. “You put yourself in danger by not saying anything. I didn’t know, Faidh. No one told me. You didn’t tell me.”

  “I didn’t,” he agreed. “I assumed Alma would inform you.”

  “It’s just—”

  “It’s just what? Tell me, Mina. You look enraged enough for the both of us.”

  It wasn’t rage. It was hurt and mortification. Mina swallowed past a lump in her throat. “I don’t know why I’m so upset. It’s fine. I know better now.”

  She didn’t believe the words, and from the look on Faidh’s face, he didn’t either.

  The truth was worse. The truth was that she had a creeping suspicion. The real reason she was so upset wasn’t because she’d inadvertently put him in danger, though that was part of it. The bigger part was that he hadn’t shared with her. He had kept this from her. Deliberately. Because it would have been natural for him to say something about the cake design the other night.

  “Mina, we could talk about it. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you. Alma knew, and everyone knew—”

  “Not everyone knew,” she pointed out, struggling to keep her voice in check. “But you have nothing to apologize for. You’re not obligated to tell me anything. I should have done my research.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Faidh’s jaw tightened, and it all seemed so absurd. The idea of baking the cake in the first place. Imagining that she’d somehow play his game and impress him. Picturing the glint of satisfaction in his eyes. She’d seen none of that. It had been awkward and terrible and—worst of all—avoidable. “It’s not your fault that—”

  “Of course it is.” She was interrupting him too much, and Mina knew it, but she couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t let Faidh explain this away. “A good chef always does her research. And I didn’t do mine. I should have checked with you or Alma before I ever got this far.”

  He was still holding himself away from her. Standing up tall. Giving her the public-facing expressions that he used with other people. Mina hated it. Fine, then—if Faidh was going to be his public persona, then she would be the Mina who worked in the kitchen and nothing more. She could save her energy for the times when they had to appear in love.

  “Let’s have something to eat,” he suggested. “Dinner in my dining room. We could talk. It’s not so bad, Mina. We can smooth over their suspicions, and everything will work out for the best.”

  It sounded like a speech he’d give in front of visiting dignitaries. This wasn’t the man who had been in her bed. Who had let himself relax with her and laugh with her and told her about how much he missed his mother. He wasn’t that man at all. How had she ever been so foolish?

  Mina dismissed all the things she wanted to say.

  “I think it’s better if I go back to work,” she said, clasping her hands to hide how they were shaking. “I think it would be better if I focused on the kitchen for the day.”

  Faidh looked at her for a long time, the expression in his eyes unreadable. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll leave you in peace.”

  He did leave, but Mina didn’t feel peaceful. Not at all. She rummaged through the cupboards and got out the nuts to chop only to feel sick at the thought. They’d had such a moment over the baklava. She’d felt so close to Faidh. And then it had turned out that they weren’t close. Not at all.

  And what right did she have to be upset about it? It shouldn’t bother her in the slightest that he didn’t tell her things about himself. A relationship of any kind had never been part of their arrangement, and certainly not a close one.

  Mina moved on to rolling out yesterday’s phyllo dough. She rolled out the balls and began to stretch them.

  Her hands weren’t steady enough. She stretched it too far, one section and then the next coming apart, until she sent the whole batch flying into the garbage.

  She didn’t have to question her memories. Faidh had been different after the baklava, after the conversation they’d had about his mother. And after they’d slept together. Mina had seen the smile on his face as they caught their breath, and again later in the night, when she murmured dazed things into his ear about getting up early and not wanting to be in an empty bed. He’d looked different to her. More open. More of the man, less of the sheikh.

  That didn’t matter now. He was back to being the same avoidant, charming sheikh.

  That shouldn’t bother her. It was who Faidh had always been and who he would be again after she completed her apprenticeship. Mina didn’t dare think about what it meant to succeed at the apprenticeship. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life here, making baklava for the sheikh of Nouzar. That’s what Faidh would be if their plan failed. If she couldn’t go through with it.

  Mina stood up tall and rolled her shoulders.

  That was it, then. She’d shut down her feelings. They’d gotten carried away because of the proximity and the pretending, that was all. Mina had to keep her eyes on the prize. A successful apprenticeship would help launch her career. Her father would get the pardon he’d longed for all these years. And she and Faidh would not fall for each other.

  No more emotions. Only acting. From here on out.

  10

  Mina should have told Faidh that she couldn’t do a regional dinner. Under any circumstances. But they needed to be seen at an official event—at least one—outside of Faidh’s council. This was, after all, part of the original deal. Dating was one thing, but bringing her to an official dinner meant something to Faidh’s fellow sheikhs in the region. It would also, according to Faidh, resonate with the council.

  She hadn’t counted on the dinner being held in Larasan.

  It was the former sheikh of Larasan who had asked her father to spy for him. Her father hadn’t wanted to do it. Of course he hadn’t. But the sheikh had threatened his business and his livelihood, and therefore his family, so what choice had he had?

  Mina spent the helicopter ride over trying to look calm and collected while she fretted over visiting Sheikh Haatim’s palace. He wasn’t the sheikh who had ruined her father’s life, but he might know something about her. About the story. Faidh was banking on the idea of her being his queen being so repulsive to the council that they would snatch his title away, but he wouldn’t set her up for failure like this, would he?

  He was withdrawn and quiet too, a folio of papers on his lap. Faidh signed them one by one as they flew across the evening sunset. They were about to land when he closed the folio and handed it to his body man, who rode in the second row of the helicopter’s seats.

  “Ready?” Faidh, dressed in a tuxedo for the formal evening, offered his hand.

  Mina took it, though it hurt to touch him. Surprisingly. She wasn’t going to feel emotions about Faidh anymore, and yet something pricked at her heart as their palms met. “I’m ready.”