In my country,” Rashid explains, “for me to marry a woman who is not a member of the royal family is a sin punishable by death. Stoning for her. Beheading for me.”
“Oh,” I say. Good Lord. I’ve never thought of my future in-laws as particularly warm, but at least they don’t want to execute me. “Well, as long as you both die, and they keep it fair between the sexes.”
I’m being flippant, but I don’t really feel that way. I’m horrified . . . horrified for them, and horrified at myself. My butt may more than fill Lisa’s chair, but I don’t know what I’m doing in it. I’m completely out of my depth. I’m the assistant resident director of Fischer Hall! I’m used to dealing with complaints about hair-clogged shower drains, roommates who won’t stop eating one another’s cereal, and making sure the payroll gets done.
I don’t have the slightest idea how I’m supposed to deal with a resident who is going to be executed if his countrymen find out he’s married outside the royal family.
Rashid has smiled weakly at my pitiful joke.
“We met at the Summer Olympics,” he says, tightening his arm around Ameera. “I had no idea women like her even existed—or that if they did, one of them would ever be interested in an idiot like me.”
“Don’t,” Ameera says, reaching up to stroke his face. She still looks frightened, but not as much now that Rashid is beside her. “Don’t speak about yourself that way. You’re not an idiot.”
“I am,” the prince informs me. “She’s the smart one. Perfect test scores! She’s here on a full scholarship, can you believe it? But for some reason she likes me.”
“Everyone likes you,” Ameera says warmly.
“Not my father,” Rashid says, with a scowl. “He thinks I’m a wastrel because I’m not interested in his missiles and defense systems. But when I told him I wanted to give up tennis and go to college in the States, he was overjoyed. He moved heaven and earth to get me into this school. The only thing I didn’t tell him was why it was so important that I go to New York College, of all places—that I was following my strong, beautiful, intelligent wife there. She wants to be a pediatrician—”
Ameera laid a hand on his chest and said, blushing, “Darling, stop it.”
“I won’t. I wish I could tell everyone in the world about how wonderful you are. But for now I’ll have to settle for Miss Wells.”
“So all the partying?” I ask. “The Shiraz thing? It’s an act to cover up the truth?”
“Of course.” Rashid regards me as if I really am the dumb blonde I’m occasionally told I look like. “Ameera and I don’t even drink. Our religion forbids it. But I can’t let anyone find out the truth, or it could endanger our lives.”
“But you’re not even a resident of Qalif,” I say to Ameera. “Aren’t you British?”
She nods.
“No one can drag a British citizen to a foreign country and stone her, no matter who she’s married to. Not without facing some really severe consequences. And you.” I look at Rashid. “There’s no way a father would have his own son beheaded.”
Rashid looks at me sadly. “My father had his own sister shot in the middle of a public square when she tried to flee Qalif with a commoner with whom she’d fallen in love. He had the commoner beheaded. The charge was fornication. You can look it up if you don’t believe me, it was only a few years ago.”
“It’s one of the many human rights violations for which Rashid’s father has been criticized,” Ameera says, just as sadly. “It’s why some of the faculty members of this college didn’t want to take the money he donated.”
“Oh God.” I sink my head into my hands. I need to think. This is all happening too fast, and I’ve only drunk half my coffee.
“That’s why we’ve tried to keep this a secret, Miss Wells,” Rashid says gently. “We don’t want to endanger anyone else by dragging them into it. I love the country in which I was born, but some parts of it are ugly . . . very ugly. If I live long enough to rule Qalif someday, I hope to change the ugly things. But I honestly don’t know if that will ever happen.”
“Worry,” Patsy Cline wails over Lisa’s computer speakers. “Why would I let myself worry?”
Easy for her to say.
“Okay,” I say, lifting my head. “Okay. So who else knows you two are married? Does the State Department know? Special Agent Lancaster?”
Rashid and Ameera look at each other blankly. “No,” Rashid says. “I certainly hope not.”
“For obvious reasons,” Ameera says, “we’ve told as few people as possible, and I’ve tried to keep people from suspecting we’re even acquainted by not being seen alone with him, and not accepting expensive gifts from him—for example, large floral arrangements.” She nudges Rashid reproachfully in the knee.
“You don’t have to go that far,” he protests. “I got flowers for the two ladies in this office as well.”
“My family doesn’t even know,” Ameera says.
“They don’t?” I’m shocked. “What’s the point of even getting married, then, if it’s going to put you both in so much danger?”
The young couple exchange knowing glances, the way people who share a secret often do.
“Because we love each other, of course,” Rashid says simply.
“So your family doesn’t know, Ameera,” I say, frustrated. “And obviously Rashid’s doesn’t know. Your roommates don’t know.” Obviously, or Kaileigh would have figured out where Ameera was going every night. “Who does know?”
“Well, you, now,” Rashid says. He glances once more, at the grate. “And Hamad and Habib, of course.”
“Your bodyguards know?”
“Of course,” Rashid says, as if I’m a fool not to have guessed this. “They know everything about me.”
“But don’t you think that’s risky?” I ask, thinking of Hamad’s burning gaze, and the iron grip in which he’d held my wrist the day before. “Isn’t there a chance they might tell your father?”
Anger flashes across Rashid’s face. “Of course not,” he says. “My men are completely loyal to me. They would die for me! They might literally have to die for me one day if our secret gets out and my father sends his own men to kidnap us and take us back to Qalif for punishment—”