Laylah’s lips twisted. “Then you should appreciate the irony here. Though you failed to set me up with those useless weasels whose only asset was their royal blood, I ended up with a man who will be king, because he deserves to be.”
“There’s irony in abundance here, indeed. For you to reject all those men because they wanted you for your Aal Shalaan blood, only to choose a man who wants you for just that.”
Laylah’s heart stumbled. Her mother was assuming...
Of course, she was. She believed that blood was Laylah’s only asset, believed everyone would think the same.
“But those men were honorable enough to declare their intentions. This leftover of the lowest branch of the Aal Munsooris, who is festering with hostility toward anyone higher than he is, is manipulating you, not even leaving you the dignity of knowing you are the chip he needs to become king.”
Laylah’s heart slowed down, as if afraid to take every next beat. “What—what are you talking about?”
Her mother’s gaze grew incredulous. “I always knew you had no insight or foresight. But that you didn’t even suspect him is too much. Let’s review history, shall we? For your first seventeen years Rashid Aal Munsoori didn’t look your way as you followed him around like a lost puppy, begging for a pat on the head.” At Laylah’s sharp intake of breath, her mother let out a bitter laugh. “Of course, I noticed. Everyone did. You were so obvious, it was painful to watch. That constituted the major part of my frustration with you. Especially as I watched him take his pleasure in pretending you didn’t exist, and it only made you humiliate yourself more as you begged for smaller crumbs, until a glance your way was the height of your aspirations.
“Then, like all inferiority-complex-ridden breeds, the first thing he did once he could was bite the hands that offered him friendship and support. He did everything he could to destroy your kin, but being the pathetic thrall that you are, I bet you convinced yourself he must have good or even noble reasons.”
“You know nothing about him, in the past or now.”
“I know far more than you do, you stupid girl. Didn’t you even ask yourself why, after you lived without incident in the United States, you were suddenly targeted for kidnapping? When you were no longer a good candidate for ransom, with half your family in exile and the other half off the royalty A-list? Didn’t you wonder how he happened to be there to save you?”
Her mother’s insinuations sank into her brain. “No...”
Her mother barreled on. “Let me guess what happened next. You were so grateful for his saving you, so thankful for the opportunity to be with him, you clung to him. Did he pretend to reciprocate your feelings right off, or did he dangle the bait of reluctance to stir you into a frenzy? How long did he make you pant after him before he deigned to let you closer? Knowing you, I expect you offered him everything, if only he’d take it. And he ended up taking it all, didn’t he?”
Suddenly her legs lost all cohesion. Laylah collapsed on the nearest couch, feeling like the little girl who used to suffocate under the barrage of her mother’s censure. But the way her mother wielded her contempt now was beyond any cruelty she’d inflicted on Laylah before.
And she wasn’t done. “So how soon did he play his hand? Ask to marry you? I expect he made you sweat it first.” That was the only part her mother had gotten wrong. It was as if she’d been with them, only putting alternate, horrifying interpretations on the actual events. “You didn’t find any of what was happening strange? That after a lifetime of shoving your irrelevance in your face, and after he declared war on your family, he’d explode into your life out of the blue and risk his life for yours? Then, in record time, ask to marry you? What reason did he give for this? What’s the reason you told yourself? That he wants you for you, not like all those ‘weasels’ you so righteously and shrewdly rejected?”
Mute with pain, coming apart with dread, that her mother still had worse to say, Laylah stared helplessly up at her.
“Let me tell you why he’s swallowing your abhorred pill,” her mother hissed. “Because you’re the only remedy for a major ailment he has. A severe lack of Aal Shalaan blood. Only a blood bond with the king of Zohayd through marriage will put him on the throne of Azmahar. And the only available female Aal Shalaan is you.”
That “you” felt like a direct hit to Laylah’s heart.
Her mother bent over her as if to make every word a harder blow. “But he couldn’t come to you with a proposition to use you to forge an alliance with Zohayd. Knowing you, you would have agreed to anything he asked, but he probably couldn’t risk the Aal Shalaans, especially that paranoid madman Amjad, suspecting his motives. So he had to make you think this was real. Since he knows everything about you and your infatuation with him, a little act was all he needed to have you thanking fate for bringing him into your life and blindly swallowing his bait. As you did.”
“Please...stop...”
At her bleeding whisper, her mother straightened. “I have nothing more to add. You can now go sacrifice yourself at the altar of your obsession with this psychopath, let him step on you to the throne of Azmahar then kick you aside once he sits on it. Or maybe he’ll keep you until he uses your womb to create a permanent source of Aal Shalaan blood, one he actually wants.”
Laylah stared at her mother, wounded to her core that Somayah would think nothing of mutilating her own daughter to “cure” her of her “obsession” with Rashid. But...what if anything she’d said was true...?
No. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be...
Her mother interrupted her chaotic thoughts. “Go ask him, Laylah. Look into his eyes as you ask, as he answers. If you’re certain in your heart that nothing I said is true, then just forget about it.”
With that, her mother turned, leaving the cloud of her exclusive fragrance behind as she exited the room.
Impending loss consumed Laylah. Whatever the outcome of confronting him, she’d lose something vital irrevocably. If her mother turned out to be wrong, Laylah wouldn’t forgive her, losing her forever.
If her mother was right, Laylah would lose everything else.
Twelve
“What’s your game this time, Rashid?”
He groaned at the sound of that voice. Haidar. His once-best friend. Rashid hated him now as much as he’d once loved him.
But he had no time to continue their battles. The pilot of his private jet had said he’d be landing in an hour. Rashid had to be at the airstrip to meet Laylah. She’d said not to come, that she’d be at the palace in half an hour. But he could not wait a half hour longer to see her.