Raed snapped his attention to him. He looked mildly conflicted. About what? The meeting had gone so well so far. “No, please,” he offered, putting on a welcoming expression, the same one he used for visiting dignitaries. “Mr. Taylor, go ahead.”
Bradley blinked, a relieved smile spreading across his face. “It’s so good to be in a meeting with you at last, Sheikh Al-Qasha,” he began. “I’m hopeful we can have a face-to-face sit down soon. My only concern is that we’ve heard that a first project has already started up. But we can discuss it at another time.”
Another member spoke up then. What had Bradley been about to say? Raed forced himself to focus on the next item they wanted to discuss. At least until Bradley’s voice cut across the meeting. He was holding a phone to his ear, a separate phone call.
He hadn’t muted himself on the video conference. Raed added up the ways he was being rude, and then he heard what the man was actually saying.
“—would hate to level a charge of favoritism, but—yes. Yes. I’ve heard that a rival pitch was given a pilot with no consultation with the foundation’s leadership and before the foundation is even officially up and running.” A space for breath. “Because the person in charge, Annalise Danbury, is attractive, and the sheikh is biased in favor of beautiful women.”
One by one, the others had stopped talking as Bradley passed on this information to whoever he was speaking to on the phone. Raed’s blood roiled, his heart pounding. Bradley was correct on one account—Lise was the most gorgeous woman ever to exist. But that didn’t mean he was biased. Or showing her favoritism. Not like that. What he’d done, he’d done to protect his child. The threat of scandal hung over his head, seeming to thicken the air in the room. It would ruin things for his foundation if they got mired in tabloid stories and accusations.
Bradley ended his call and seemed to register the silence of the other board members. They were all watching Raed. All waiting for him to react.
Quickly.
“Mr. Taylor, I don’t think your microphone was muted,” he began. “But since I’ve heard what you said, I’ll take a moment to address it. There is no romantic entanglement here. We are acquaintances from a brief period in London, and her project is quite small.” Below the view of the camera, his hands clenched into fists. He could not allow these rumors to hit the gossip magazines. He wouldn’t. Raed laughed. “There’s nothing between myself and Ms. Danbury to concern you.”
“I should think not,” one of the other board members put in, his tone awkward. “Not with Katharine on the horizon.”
Bradley apologized, looking chagrined but not as embarrassed as Raed would have expected. “So sorry, Sheikh Al-Qasha.” He dipped his head, once, then again. “My deepest apologies. Of course—”
“Let’s move on,” snapped Raed. “What else do you have in your plans? We’re over on time, but I can find a few more minutes—”
“Go,” said a small voice by the door. Horror cascaded down Raed’s back, pulling the hairs on his neck up straight. He didn’t want to look and see who stood at the door, but he already knew.
Raed turned his head.
Lise stood red-faced at the threshold, Jake’s chubby hand in hers. Raed’s son beamed at him, showing his teeth, and he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet.
She’d heard.
He could see it written on her face, in the thin press of her lips and the high color in her cheeks. Why hadn’t he remembered their plan to meet? Why hadn’t he kept better track of the time? Raed put on a smile for Jake and gave him a wave, then turned back to the screen.
“We’ll have to wrap this up after all, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. The sooner the better. He had half a mind to end the connection on the video call right now.
There was a hurried thirty seconds of planning for the next meeting, and then the images on the screen began to wink out one by one. Raed shut off his own camera and got out of his seat. The doorway was empty. Lise hadn’t bothered to wait.
In the hall, he caught a glimpse of the end of her ponytail flashing as she turned a corner, Jake looking back over her shoulder. Raed rushed past the guard stationed at the door to his office and jogged after her. If she shut the door to her guest house in his face, he couldn’t blame her. She’d just caught him announcing to the world that there was nothing between them. He had laughed at the prospect. He’d meant it to be dismissive, but it might not have come off that way to her.
Or maybe it had.
“Lise.” She was headed briskly for a set of doors that led out into the gardens, but she stopped at the sound of his voice. “Wait.”
Careful, warned the voice in his head. It wouldn’t do for everyone in the palace to see him sprinting after her, so Raed maintained a measured pace. No matter how much he trusted the people who worked around the royal family, rumors got started. Rumors like the one that Bradley Taylor had tried to spread. Some people brushed them off as petty gossip, but Raed knew better than to dismiss them out of hand. He knew better than to be careless around the palace, just in case.
It was hard, though, because Jake so badly wanted him to catch up. He rocked in his mother’s arms, reaching for Raed. It took all Raed’s self-control not to reach back for him. Instead, he offered Jake his hand. His son wrapped his fingers around Raed’s thumb and pulled his hand in close to his face.
“It’s not what you think,” he told Lise, urgency radiating from his bones. “I promise you.”
She shook her head. “No? I’m not your dirty little secret?”
“No.” Of course not. And she wouldn’t remain a secret forever—just by virtue of his royalty and by virtue of his son. It was only that they needed a plan first. It was only that he needed to secure the future of the foundation before he started making announcements that would set the city ablaze with speculation.
“Mama,” said Jake. He let go of Raed’s hand and put a palm on her face. His little brow furrowed. Raed had never paid much attention to children, not once he started throwing himself into the work of growing the prestige of the royal family, and it stunned him how easily Jake had picked up on his mother’s tension. He wished there was no tension, but he hadn’t been able to pretend she hadn’t heard. The entire board of the university had heard what Bradley implied: that the foundation’s funding decisions were guided by Raed’s sex drive.
“Ah—that’s right.” Lise’s tone was so icy that it trickled down his spine in a frigid wave. “I’m not your dirty little secret. We are.”
And then she turned and pushed through the doors, never once looking back.
7
The embarrassed pinch at the center of Lise’s chest lasted for days. There was nothing she could do to get rid of it. Every time she did her deep breathing exercises and released the feeling into the universe, it came back twice as hard.
The queen mother sat patiently across a tea table from her in one of the palace’s sitting rooms, a map of the city spread out between them. Lise’s face heated all over again as Nenet went over aspects of the local culture, pointing out different places on the map, adding details so Lise could organize the appropriate classes. They would all have to be different, Lise had realized early on. Different methods of instruction. Different materials. Different supports.