Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Yes, I know my older sister can be terribly haughty and proud, but when we were young, her pride was all she had. She hadn’t wanted other people to find out that our father beat her constantly because she was afraid what it would do to me if I learned the truth about him.
It’s true she can act like a fanatic when it comes to serving the kingdom, but you don’t know what she had to go through when she was young. There were people who believed that an 11-year-old Anisah was old enough to actually connive with my father, and they thought this was reason enough to mistreat my sister.
Initially, he had only decided to hear her out for a bit simply because he knew Rayyan would be on his case if the other sheikh believed Tarif had disrespected his woman. He would listen to her but not believe a word she said. That had been the plan, but by the time she had finished, he realized that if Hyacinth had sought him out in hopes of putting in a good word for her sister, then she couldn’t have botched the job any better than she had.
Anisah was a robot, a fanatic, and a cheapskate. Anisah was this and that.
She hadn’t even seemed aware she had been insulting and complimenting her sister in the same sentence, and it was that, more than anything else, which had convinced the sheikh to believe in Hyacinth and – later on – give up on Anisah.
Hyacinth’s words had made him think he knew the real Anisah, enough to make him think he did not deserve her. Now – he didn’t even seem to know himself anymore.
“If you’re here to defend your sister and convince me to give her another chance—-”
It was rare for Hyacinth to lose her temper in public, but the sheikh’s words incensed her so that she found herself snapping, “It is you who should beg my sister for another chance!” Drawing herself up, she continued tightly, “My sister doesn’t know I heard her on the phone earlier. She was speaking with a member of the press, and she has agreed to meet with the journalist tomorrow on the condition that the resulting write-up will exonerate you and ensure that you regain public favor.”
Stepping away, Hyacinth said bitterly, “I still don’t know what happened between the two of you, Your Highness. My sister refuses to speak of you in any way. But what I do know is the kind of person my sister is, and if I could do things over again, I would never have called you that night.”
****
At close to six in the evening, the staff kitchen was noisy and crowded, with palace employees happily indulging in chitchat while they prepared dinner. For tonight, Anisah was slated to do the dishwashing, and so she had reluctantly set aside her abaya so she could put on an apron over a large old shirt and jeans. The sight of her in Western clothes had everyone snickering, but she only rolled her eyes to this.
“Do none of you get tired making a big deal out of this,” Anisah muttered crossly as she took her place before the sink.
“Won’t you ever get tired of treating our robes like they’re made of spun gold?” Edna, one of the palace’s station cooks, retorted.
“I just don’t like it when I dirty my robe unnecessarily,” she protested.
“Ha! I don’t believe ‘don’t like’ is an accurate term.” Mila, the chambermaid standing next to Anisah, snorted as she pulled a drawer open and took out a chopping board. “The last time you ended up with a stain on your abaya, you totally freaked out.”
Anisah made a face when everyone nodded profusely, as if reminiscing about some kind of shared nightmare. “So I value our national garment,” she said with stiff dignity. “Is that so horrible?”
“Yes,” a data encoder in Sheikh Rayyan’s finance department affirmed with a grin. “Horribly funny, that is!”
The whole kitchen laughed, but even as she pretended to turn her back on them with a huff, Anisah was more relieved than anything else by their continued teasing. It was their way of letting her know that she was still one of them, in spite of the fact that the sheikh had just last week declared her as his fiancée, only to start womanizing—-
Don’t go there, Anisah.
She quickly reached for her gloves and started cleaning the dishes with singlehanded focus. This was how she had survived the entire week, working on each task one at a time and like her life depended on it. Working so hard prevented her mind from dwelling where it wasn’t supposed to go, her body from feeling what it’s supposed to feel—-
Tory.
Oh no. Anisah scrubbed the bottom of the pan with greater force. This was a first, she thought uneasily, and this was bad.