Their Desert Night of Scandal

SHEIKHTAHIRBINHALIMAL-JUKRAThad dealt with his most senior aide long enough to know the older man’s tells. Yet Ali insisted on playing these games with him. Tahir watched him fidget with the papers in his leather-bound folder, straighten corners that didn’t need straightening, place the expensive Montblanc pen Tahir had gifted him two Christmases ago precisely in the centre of the top page before moving it a fraction of an inch.

Given the chance, Tahir suspected the other man would’ve conducted a microscopic inspection of each fingernail for dirt and brushed invisible lint off his tailored suit before stating what was obviously on his mind.

‘Are we done here? I’d like to get on with my next appointment before I leave for Zinabir,’ Tahir said after a full minute, attempting and failing to keep impatience from sharpening his voice.Ali gave the merest grimace, an action not many would’ve noticed.

Tahir noticed.

He noticed everything. Because these days, he couldn’t afford to be oblivious to anything. Not any more.

Those carefree days when he’d freely trusted, and tossed out benefits of the doubt like candy at a toddler’s party, were far behind him. Smothered to death by a far too close brush with a different fate. A fate averted at a steep price he’d never be able to fully repay in this life.

In his quietest moments, Tahir couldn’t help but hope he would be able to repay it in his next. Hoped to have done enough in this life to erase the deep disappointment from his father’s eyes when they met in the afterlife.

Until then...

He tightened his gut against the surfeit of emotions triggered by thoughts of his father.

‘Not quite, Your Majesty,’ Ali replied, shifting the pen yet again.

Tahir suppressed a sigh. ‘What is it, Ali? Has my brother landed himself in the papers again?’ His brother, Javid, much to Tahir’s constant disgruntlement, was ‘living his best life’, which inevitably meant dragging Tahir’s treasured homeland of Jukrat into the spotlight just for the hell of it. Luckily for him, Javid hadn’t done anything scandalously outrageous enough...yet...

Infuriatingly, his younger brother had learned to skate close to the line without stepping over it. For now, Tahir had let him be because, when he cast aside his playboy ways long enough to do his duty, Javid was the most astute diplomat Tahir had ever come across. He could saunter into near-crisis international incidents and un-ruffle feathers with jaw-dropping proficiency.

Unfortunately, it was the same brilliant technique his brother used to seduce the clothes off some of the most beautiful and influential women in the world. On a regular, tabloid-salivating basis.

Tahir himself preferred much more discreet liaisons and not just because his spotlight was much brighter as the unmarried ruler of Jukrat, but because of another viciously learned lesson fromthatincident twelve years ago.

Dragging himself away from another unwanted memory jaunt, he fixed a gimlet stare at his aide. ‘I don’t have all day.’

Ali cleared his throat. ‘My apologies, Your Majesty. No, this isn’t about your brother. His Royal Highness the Prince is behaving himself.’

‘Then what is it? Spit it out, Ali.’