Her chin quivered, but Mina wasn’t going to cry. She was not going to cry about losing her job with Alma or losing Faidh or having to live in her childhood bedroom.

  One tear broke free.

  “Well?” Oh, she hated how her voice shook. “Are you going to say anything?”

  Her father looked at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, and then he pushed his chair back. Stood up. Came to her.

  He folded his arms around her and hugged her tight.

  She hugged him back.

  Neither of them spoke. What was there to say in the end? Her father wasn’t much for big speeches and displays of emotion. He had never shed a tear—that Mina had seen, anyway—about being exiled from his home country. As she hugged him now, she could feel how his hard heart beat.

  She’d take this as a thank you. She’d take this as an apology. Even if he couldn’t give her those things in words.

  It was a long time later when he patted her back. Mina stepped back with dry eyes. Her dad went back to his seat at the table.

  “Did you already eat?” Mina asked.

  “No,” her mother said, worry clouding her eyes. “Do you want me to cook you breakfast?”

  “I can cook it this time,” Mina said. “What do you think about scrambled eggs and toast?” She went to the fridge and rummaged through. “We have some sausage too, if it sounds good.”

  “It does,” her father said. “It sounds wonderful. It’s good to have you here, Mina. I know it’s not for long.”

  That made her throat tight. She swallowed around that feeling. “It’s good to be here,” she said.

  Mina set out all her ingredients in neat lines on the countertop. Everything in its place. She had always been an organized chef, and Alma had made her more so. It was the best way to be sure of what you had so you knew instantly if something was missing.

  She gave the eggs and the milk a rueful smile. Mina knew what was missing now, and it wasn’t anything she needed to cook her parents for breakfast.

  It was Faidh.

  His absence had caused a gigantic hole in her heart, and there was no way to describe it to another person. How would they understand what had happened? How could she ever find the words to say how a fake engagement had turned into something that felt very real? So real that Faidh pulled back from it? That’s what had happened, she decided. It wasn’t that the connection between them was all in her imagination. It was that he couldn’t take the risk.

  And now it was all over. No more risks to take, except one. She could take a risk on her new life. In fact, she would have to. It was exciting, in a way. For the first time, Mina would be in uncharted territory.

  “When do you start at the new place?” her father asked as she whipped eggs in a bowl.

  She looked over her shoulder and gave him the most confident smile she could muster. “Tomorrow,” she told him. “Everything starts tomorrow.”

  Faidh’s thirtieth birthday came and went.

  It was, bar none, the biggest anticlimax of his life. The scariest benchmark was suddenly meaningless to him. He watched Meher be installed as sheikha. He attended the party she threw for him with all the members of the palace court. Every one of them, to the last person, celebrated his birthday as if nothing had happened. As if Meher had been sheikha all along. He wondered if she’d ordered them to do it.

  Faidh didn’t really care.

  Mina had been gone a little more than two months when he and Elyas went to the raceway. Elyas, the head of palace security and now husband of the Sheikha.

  “Are you excited for the test race? Nervous?” Elyas asked as he pulled the SUV up to the racetrack entrance.

  “Hopeful,” Faidh said, though he felt largely empty inside. This event had been set up for weeks. Would-be Formula One drivers had gathered at the track to prove themselves to him, and he’d been looking forward to it. But as he and Elyas headed down to the track and spoke with the drivers, he felt a thousand miles away. Faidh made sure to greet each driver in turn, spending a couple of minutes with everyone so that no one would say the sheikh snubbed him. Old habits. Now he was the sheikha’s brother. He still had to make considerations in that position.

  It was just that Faidh had expected to feel much lighter. Freer. Better.

  With a few minutes to go before the race, he and Elyas made their way to the pit so they could observe the crews. He felt Elyas’s eyes on him and glanced at him. “What is it?”

  “You’re observing things the way you did when you were the sheikh,” he pointed out, arms crossed over his chest. “Detached. Distracted.”

  “I’m studying the drivers.”

  Elyas scoffed. “I know you better than that.” He pulled out his phone from his pocket and tapped at the screen.

  “Messaging someone?”

  “My wife,” he said. Meher. A few minutes passed. The race began. Elyas sent another message.

  “Are you still texting her? We won’t be gone for a full day. Is it too long, Elyas?”

  Elyas didn’t answer.

  It was dusk by the time they arrived back at the palace, and Faidh was exhausted. The race had gone well, and afterward he’d spent longer than he had intended talking it through with the drivers. It had been a long day in the sun. He wanted to go back to his rooms and go to sleep.

  One step inside the palace, and his plans fell apart.

  Camil leaned against the wall just inside the door, and Amare stood close by, feet planted. Along with Meher.

  “A welcoming committee,” Faidh said. “I hate to do this, but I’m too tired for socializing. We can talk another time.”

  “Stop.” Meher sounded the same as she had before she was the sheikha, but this time, the security personnel in the hall stopped and looked. “You’re going to talk to your friends.”

  “I’m not sure why you came,” he said to Amare and Camil, “but it’s been a long day, and I’m not in the mood for—”

  “Consider it a direct order from your sheikha,” Meher said.

  He was too tired for this fight. For any fight. “Fine,” he said. “Can I at least change?”

  “Be our guest,” Camil said. “Or we could do something else.”

  “Do you want a tour of the track?”

  “We’re not here for distraction,” Amare said.

  Camil’s face fell, and he let out a groan. “Why can’t we ever go anywhere for distraction? Why does it always have to be so serious?”

  Amare shot him a look. “We’ve had plenty of fun,” he said. “Faidh, go change your clothes. We’ll be right up.”

  They gave him fifteen minutes, then he heard them out in his living room. Meher, too, he saw as he stepped into the room. She stood up from her seat. “I’ll send some food up. Thank you both for coming,” she told Camil and Amare. “For taking time out of your schedules for my little brother.”

  Faidh narrowly resisted sticking out his tongue at her as she shut the door behind her. Instead, he dropped onto a sofa across from his friends. “This is awkward,” he said. “Why are you here?”

  They were his brothers in all but blood, but this—this meeting arranged by his sister for the express purpose of a chat—well, there wasn’t much of a script for this. Faidh wasn’t about to lay out his feelings for Camil and Amare to pick through. They were all good at solving problems. Not tangles of emotions.

  “Listen,” Amare said. “When I met Nadia, I thought I wanted to keep her at arm’s length. I thought that was the only way we could survive. You remember what happened with Haatim. He forced our hand with that engagement to save everyone’s reputation, and I thought—” He looked down at his hands. At the wedding ring there. “I thought that would be enough.”

  “My god,” Faidh said. “You’re trying to tell me your love story.”

  Camil snorted. “Give him a break, Faidh. He’s under orders.”

  “My sister can’t order around other sheikhs.”

  “I thought,” Amare said, “that I wouldn’t fall for her. Once I realized I had, it became necessary to change plans. I thought I couldn’t love again after what happened with Kamaria. I thought it would be too dangerous for everyone involved. But I was wrong.”

  “What about you?” Faidh asked Camil. “You’re going to tell me that Piper made you believe in love.”

  “She did,” Camil said, and it was the most earnest his joker of a friend had ever sounded. “I truly thought it was a fictional thing before her. Something that only existed in books. Piper showed me it was possible. And Zayn—” His baby son. “Zayn confirmed it, many, many times over.” He leaned forward, propping himself on his elbows. “I resisted it at first. I was an ass. But it would have been a mistake to let her go. The biggest mistake of my life.”

  “This is beginning to feel very pointed,” Faidh said. Watching his strong best friends try to describe softer emotions would be amusing if it weren’t so depressing. They had all agreed never to get married. Now look at them.

  “It is,” Amare answered. “Your sister says you’re not yourself. You haven’t reached out to us in weeks. You’re barely interested in your racetrack. This can’t continue, Faidh.”

  “Fine.” Faidh rubbed his hands over his face. “I miss her. Terribly. I want Mina back. But I’ve done something I can’t take back. She’ll never forgive me.”

  Amare smiled.

  Camil shrugged. “That’s why we’re here. To put our heads together.”

  14

  It took a week to get things in order for Faidh’s visit to the United States.

  First he had to confirm Mina’s home address with Elyas. It took a couple of days to be confident that she was staying with her parents, and then Faidh had gotten on a private jet and crossed the ocean.

  Now he stood on Mina’s parents’ doorstep, his pulse pounding in his ears.

  He had never done this before. He’d never laid his heart on the line for someone, and he’d had no idea he would be so nervous. The house was small and neat, with white siding and hanging flower baskets on the front porch. They bloomed nearby as he waited for someone to answer the door.

  Someone did. A woman with Mina’s nose and honey-brown hair.

  Mina’s mother. The open inquisitiveness on her face dropped into stony distrust.

  She knew who he was, then.

  Faidh cleared his throat. “I would like to speak to Mr. Abbas Hamid, if he’s available.”

  The woman hesitated, but a man’s voice came from inside the house. “Let him in.”

  “Thank you,” Faidh murmured to the woman. If it weren’t for the man in the house, she’d have shut the door in his face, no question.

  The famed Abbas Hamid was in the kitchen making a peanut butter sandwich. His collared polo shirt was tucked crisply into khaki shorts.

  He was just a man. Definitely not the hardened spy bent on bringing Faidh’s emirate to ruins, like his father had led him to believe for years. Still, his nervousness turned his stomach over.

  “Mr. Hamid, I’m Faidh Qadir.”

  Mina’s father arched an eyebrow at him and put the slices of bread together. “I know who you are, Faidh. And I’m sure you know who I am, too.”

  “I do,” Faidh admitted. Of course he did. “I came to apologize to you.” The situation felt incredibly awkward and incredibly right. “First, for dragging your family’s name into the spotlight for my own gain, and second, on behalf of all of Nouzar. I know that you were coerced into espionage. I know that the former sheikh of Larasan abandoned you when you were caught. My father should have listened to your testimony.”

  “I’m not surprised he didn’t.” Abbas took a bite of his sandwich.

  “My sister and I will do what we can to correct the record on your past with Nouzar.”

  Abbas put the sandwich down and stared at Faidh. Hard. As if he couldn’t quite put a name to what he was seeing. “I—” He cleared his throat. “I accept your apology.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be going, if—”

  Mina’s father picked up his sandwich again. “My daughter has started giving classes at a small café a few blocks away. Lisa’s, it’s called.”

  Faidh couldn’t stop the grin from spreading over his face. This was acceptance. This was a blessing, though it didn’t use the language of one. “Thank you, Mr. Hamid. I’ll be on my way to see her now. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Decide that after you’ve spoken with my daughter.” Abbas’s eyes came up to Faidh’s, and he saw real worry there. Did that mean she had missed him, or that she wouldn’t want to see Faidh? He couldn’t let himself think of it now. Faidh said goodbye to Mina’s mother and went in search of Lisa’s café.

  It was three blocks over in a little pink building sandwiched between a clothing store and an art gallery. Two wrought-iron tables with chairs greeted people outside, each one featuring its own little vase with fresh flowers. Faidh’s pulse ticked into his throat as he approached the door.

  Through the glass pane, he could see Mina. She stretched dough at a prep counter at the other end of the café. Six students at smaller tables tried to copy her movements. She smiled slightly as she stretched, her lips moving as she told the class to use a light hand. To only stretch the dough until it began to hint at translucency and no further. Surely that’s what she was saying. Those were things she’d told him when she showed him how to make baklava. It brought another smile to his face.

  Her posture shifted after several minutes, and she glanced at the clock. The class would be ending soon, and she would leave, and then—what? He’d have to appear in the parking lot or at her house? No. It was now or never.

  Faidh opened the door to the café and stepped inside.

  A few people turned to look at him, glancing over their shoulders.

  Mina didn’t look.

  She kept all of her focus on saying goodbye to the students. One woman chattered with her for a couple of minutes, and then went on her way with a warm goodbye from Mina. It seemed like several lifetimes later that the bell on the door chimed, and they were alone.

  Mina wrapped up her dough and carried it over to the fridge, where she put it onto a tray on the top shelf. Only then did she turn to face him. What was Faidh doing here? Her heart pounded at the sight of him.

  “How did you know where I was?” She held both hands palm up. “What do you want?”

  “I went to your house and spoke with your father.” He looked so handsome, standing there, and so out of place. “I wanted to apologize for everything he’s had to go through.”

  She’d never expected that. “You apologized to my dad?”

  “Yes.” Faidh gestured to the flour and tools still on her prep table. “Can I help you clean up?”

  Mina paused. A person like Faidh, coming all the way to America to help her in her kitchen?

  “Sure,” she said. “Of course.”

  He crossed over to her side of the table, and Mina took a deep breath. “The bakeware gets rinsed and then put in the sanitizer,” she said. “It’s the one next to the dishwasher. Run them through for a cycle and then put them on a cooling rack.”

  “All right,” he said and picked up the first piece of bakeware.

  She watched him as he worked. It was awkward for a while, and too quiet, but slowly Mina felt herself relax. There was still space between them after all. Space to talk.

  He ran a wet hand through his hair, turning his curls temporarily spiky. “I learned not to open up to people early on, in a very hard way. I had this tutor once,” he said into the silence. “When I was younger, obviously. She blackmailed me after I caught her stealing from my sister.”

  “Blackmailed?”

  “She’d tell me little secrets and then get me to share mine. Like the time I accidentally broke a vase and hid the pieces in an old chest. I trusted her. But then when I caught her stealing, she threatened to tell my father about all my childhood infractions. I ended up confessing myself. I couldn’t sit down for a week, and she was dismissed. My father was—” Faidh tipped another item of bakeware into the sink. “He was a good man. But he could be…rigid at times. Unforgiving. He was strict because he wanted us to be the best we could be. I wanted so much to be just like him.”

  “You’re not like him?” Mina asked.

  “He loved being the sheikh. All of it. He loved the meetings and the negotiations and the decisions. He loved greeting people out in the city. He loved being a role model. I don’t love it.” Faidh’s voice sounded raw as he said it. “I hated being a politician. I hated the endless meetings and boring dinners.”

  “I knew it,” Mina said, shaking her head. She had known the moment they’d arrived at that formal dinner that it wasn’t going to be a fun time. It had been full of pressures and veiled insults—not so veiled, actually. “That dinner was awful, and you tried to play it off like it was fine.”

  He smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Mina. That dinner was the worst one of them all. Haatim was in rare form, and I should have warned you about him well in advance. I should have canceled while I still had time. The good news is, we never have to go to one again. I’m no longer a sheikh.”

  Mina made a face at that. She didn’t entirely believe him, or know what to believe. If he was free from his responsibilities as sheikh, there was no reason for him to be here. They’d done what they’d set out to do. “What do you want, then? What are you going to do if you’re not a sheikh?”

  “I’m going to grow Formula One racing in Nouzar. Be a team owner. Establish a Grand Prix race all our own. I only wonder if—” He paused, putting a hand to his heart. “I wonder if my father would be disappointed in me. I imagine that he would be, but I hope he would understand in some way.”