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“I said I didn’t want you. And I do.”
She closed her eyes, all hope dashed. “Even though I’m little better than a prostitute, according to you?”
She moved to disentangle herself from his arms, but was left disappointed when he let her.
“Let’s not get into another argument now,” he said warningly, stepping away from her and moving back towards his desk. “My house is big. Find something to do here.”
She sent a beam of hot disapproval at his retreating back. “I take it I’m dismissed?”
He felt a wave of impatience. “Stop acting like a child. I’m working. My business interests are responsible for employing around ninety thousand staff. That is a lot of people, and a lot of families, who depend on me to put food on their tables.”
“Oh, yes,” she said with a sarcastic nod. “I had forgotten that the world would stop turning if you stopped working for even five minutes. Silly me!”
“You’re being childish again, Julia.”
“You married me, Zayn. This is what you get.”
His expression was full of boredom, and it made her even angrier. Fortunately for Julia, she knew the one thing in the world that could anger Zayn in equal measure. Going against his wishes.
“Fine,” she held her hands up in what she hoped seemed a conciliatory gesture. “Have fun working.”
Only Zayn couldn’t work. After she’d meekly left his office, and quietly pulled the door shut, he was filled with swirling frustration. By the time he went to find Julia and apologize for his curtness, it was too late. She was gone, and her life was in danger, and he was powerless to do a thing about it.
* * *
It hadn’t been hard for Julia to leave Zayn’s home. She was, after all, married to the lord and master of the manor, and his staff were apparently willing to do her bidding. More than that, Julia had been raised in a style that gave her a natural authority. Though she was egalitarian to the core, she had no hesitation in assuming a haughty manner to achieve her ends.
She had just known that if she didn’t get out of Zayn’s vicinity, she might explode.
And so a small team of three security staff had assembled and driven her to one of the bazaars nearest the edge of the city. It was so beautiful, that she found herself wishing she had waited until Zayn had time to show it to her. She kept enthusing to her little band of staff, but she was met, in response, with resolutely blank faces. She gathered they’d been trained to interact as little as possible with the royalty they minded.
What a strange way to live.
Julia was a naturally skilled people person. Though crowds were not her predilection, one on one, she enjoyed meeting new people. She had always enjoyed chatting to strangers, and learning about their lives. The fact that she couldn’t do so now was a source of irritation to her. She turned her attention to the busy market and tried to simply enjoy the strange new sights she was encountering.
The thing that impressed her most of all were the spice stalls. They were all set up, side by side, and each of them had bowls of fine powder that were piled in perfect mountains of different colors. The artful presentation was something she’d never seen before. Then, there were the carpets. All beautifully woven, some out of bright colors, others from earth tones. There was a large, circular carpet at one stall that reminded her so much of the cover on Zayn’s matrah that she couldn’t resist buying it.
“Oh,” she said with conster
nation, when the stall keeper told her, in halting English, how much the floor covering would cost. Without knowing the exact currency conversion, she was certain it was an arm and a leg, but that wasn’t the problem. She had no physical money on her, and the stall keeper didn’t appear to take credit cards.
“I’m sorry,” she said earnestly. “I’ll have to come back another day.”
“No, no,” one of her aides – the pretty, dark haired woman – interrupted, and a rapid fire exchange took place in Arabic before the shopkeeper was all smiles and the aide turned to speak to her. “He is happy to bill the palace.”
Julia bit down on her lip. She had wanted to buy it as a surprise for Zayn, and now she saw what a stupid gesture it had been. The sun was beating down hard and hot, and she felt her spirits deflate. The brief glimpse of pleasure she’d received from rebelling against Zayn’s ridiculous decree that she couldn’t leave his home evaporated. But the shopkeeper was still beaming at her, having no idea that the last thing she wanted was for her husband’s family to pay for her stupid and ill-thought out gift to him, and Julia didn’t want to retract her offer to buy the carpet, and so she nodded, and forced a smile to her face. “Thank you,” she said with a nod of her head.
“You have very good taste,” the aide who had negotiated the transaction said as they walked past the carpet stalls and down another alley of the markets.
Julia opened her mouth to say something but a sudden movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. She was aware then of a small child, perhaps only five or six, crouching down, and a heavy-set man with a long beard and mean looking eyes picking up a large flat paddle. “He’s going to hit her,” Julia said, frozen into inaction out of surprise. “He’s going to hit her. Why isn’t anyone doing anything?”
The aide looked confused and Julia felt her fear rise. The child was crying. Obviously, she was a little urchin, perhaps homeless, and Julia knew that no one was going to intercede on her behalf. Fear so strong she could taste it in her mouth flew through her system, but she didn’t hesitate. Julia quickly ran across the market, unaware of the commotion she’d caused by her actions. She threw herself between the man and the child at the exact moment the horrible beast brought the metallic paddle down with great force.
Julia had never been hit before. The sensation of a hard, cold metal reverberating against her skull was eclipsed only by the sight of blood dripping onto her expensive cream suit. She felt like she was going to faint but she couldn’t. Not until the child was safe. She glared at the man as she wrapped her arms around the little child, and she felt her heart go out to this frail little body.
The two men from her detail were only seconds behind her, and while they set about detaining the man who had hurt the new princess of Naman, the aide who had been speaking to Julia moments earlier tried to disentangle the urchin from her arms.
“No.” Julia hissed from beneath her teeth. “I want to make sure she’s okay.”
