tall and thin, her face angular, her skin tanned and flawless, her long black hair twisted up in a beautiful braided design. “My name is Shara, I’m one of the Sheikh’s assistants. Did you have a pleasant flight?”
“It was a dream,” I replied with a smile. “Thank you.”
“Wonderful. We have a car waiting to get you out of this heat and take you to the palace. The security team will handle your luggage, you needn’t worry.” Shara gestured through the shaded alcove that had been closed off to public traffic by tough-looking men in black suits, earpieces dangling down the side of their necks. At the edge of the walkway, a black Bentley sat shining in the sun, waiting to take us down the curved driveway of the private airstrip.
I stepped inside, immediately grateful for the air conditioning. Shara got in next to me, and one of her men took his place in the passenger seat next to the chauffeur. Tinted windows kept out the worst of the sun’s rays while still offering me a gorgeous first-hand view of the city as we wound through its streets, towards the royal palace.
I had the urge to ask questions during the ride, but somehow felt a nameless urge not to do so. Though Shara was friendly and polite, I didn’t want to seem rude by piling her with questions. Instead, I sat confidently, silently watching the world go by as we left the city and wound up a great hill filled with cypress trees.
At its apex was the royal palace, surrounded by a wall ten feet high. A great gilded gate swung open as the Bentley approached, the driver barely having to slow at all as we entered the grounds. Manicured lawns and hedges, brightly colored flower beds, and palm trees planted in neat rows decorated the palace grounds, along with fountains and stone sculptures that seemed to have been there for centuries. The palace itself was dazzling, made from glittering white stone and carved with intricate details of plants and animals.
The car pulled around the curved driveway and stopped when it reached the end of yet another red carpet. This time, the carpet led up the grand staircase entering the palace. It looked like a scene straight out of Cinderella. A small crowd was waiting here, too, but it seemed like most of them were press and photographers waiting eagerly for a shot instead of an autograph. At the top of the stairs, a tall, dark-skinned man waited with a huge smile on his face. He wore the traditional robes of a Middle-Eastern monarch, the beautiful white cloth floating in the soft desert wind.
To my great surprise and delight, Sheikh Zane bin Alaman was young, and handsome. Gorgeous, even. His jawline was cut like stone, his smile a perfect glistening white. Even though the sun was shining brightly, he didn’t have any sunglasses blocking his eyes. They were deep brown in color and radiated a friendly, welcoming feeling.
“Are you ready?” asked Shara as the chauffeur and front passenger both exited the car.
I looked to her and nodded, flashing my best movie-star smile. “Always.”
Seconds later, the door to the Bentley swung open, and the dry heat welcomed me as I stepped out of the car—alongside the shouts of the photographers as they tried to get my attention. Camera shutters went off like fireworks, and I kept my smile strong and wide, happy for the wind that was blowing my sheer red outfit around. It would make for beautiful pictures.
I took a few more poses while the Sheikh waited patiently, smiling, at the top of the stairs. Then I carefully ascended to meet him, taking every step with caution, not wanting to become gossip rag fodder by falling on my face on the palace steps of a foreign king. Shara and her two men followed behind me, one of them carrying my luggage as promised.
The Sheikh watched me approach with great interest in his dark eyes. His smile widened with every step I took.
Well, at least he’s not some creepy old man wanting to spend time with me. That’s definitely a point in the ‘win’ column, I thought with relief.
Once I reached the top of the stairs, the Sheikh outstretched his hand to me, and I took it. His skin was warm, his hand enveloping mine completely.
He dropped to one knee before me without warning, kissing my hand like he was Prince Charming. The photographers, who had climbed halfway up the steps at this point, began to shoot like crazy. It was a perfectly dramatic moment.
“Miss Wood, I am Sheikh Zane bin Alaman, ruler of Al-Dali,” he said to me. His voice was deep and smooth. “Thank you for accepting my invitation to host you for the next twenty-four hours.”
For a moment, I felt a little out of my depth. I hadn’t met a great many royals in my career and didn’t have a lot of practice with protocol.
I smiled at him and squeezed his hand, still holding mine. “Thank you, Your Highness. It was a generous offer, and I’m excited to be here. I had no idea I had fans this far around the world. I’m thrilled to meet them.”
This seemed to amuse him, just like it had amused Raj and Nareem on the plane. He gave a great belly laugh as he stood up next to me, a whole head taller than me, even in my heels. “Indeed, you do have quite a few fans here, Miss Wood—including myself.”
I flushed at the compliment. Charm flowed off of him like cologne.
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“Please, call me Zane. Now, shall we get out of this heat?”
EIGHT
We left behind the photographers and red carpet and entered the palace. Immediately I was blown away by vast halls of marble. Huge vases of tropical blooms dotted each room as Zane led me further into the building, its ceilings high, its halls seemingly endless.
“Please feel free to make yourself at home while you are here,” said Zane.
I couldn’t help but giggle at that. “Make myself at home in your huge palace? I don’t see a problem with that.”
He laughed, too, and after walking a little further we stopped in front of a closed wooden door carved with images of a beautiful dancing woman surrounded by tigers.
The Sheikh put a gentle hand on my arm. “Please, excuse me for just a moment.”
I nodded at him and watched as he disappeared into the room. I admired the art in the hallway for a few moments, and when Zane returned, he had changed out of his traditional garb and into an immaculately tailored pinstriped suit that highlighted his broad, strong shoulders and trim waist. He looked stunning, like he was ready for a red carpet premiere of his own, and I had to keep myself from staring at him.
“That outfit was just for the cameras,” he explained. “My constituents prefer that I greet foreign dignitaries in our traditional costume. The cameras love it, and I don’t mind indulging a few traditions.”
“Foreign dignitaries? I like that, it makes me sound like I’m brokering some peace treaty instead of just playing a troubled ballerina or something,” I laughed.
Zane chuckled as he finished buttoning up his suit jacket. “As I said, you’re well-loved in my country, Miss Wood. Your visit here means a lot to your fans here. It’s not often we get visitors from Hollywood.”
“Well, I’m happy to be here. And please, you can call me Julianne,” I told him.
“Julianne,” he repeated with a happy smile. “May I give you a tour of my home to begin our visit?”
“I would love that,” I admitted. “I have to say, I don’t know too much about your country. Not beyond what the news tells me, anyway, and what I’ve learned watching history shows.”
“So you know we are rich, ancient, and love soccer,” Zane joked with a wink.
I giggled. “Yeah, that’s about it.”
Zane gave a charming half-smile and proceeded down the hallway with me keeping pace next to him. “Fortunately, all of that is true. Al-Dali has a rich history of great civilizations and early settlements. More recently, we were lucky enough to uncover some of the world’s most massive oil reserves within our borders, and this has allowed us to elevate the status of the entire country and all its citizens. We have peace and prosperity now, which for centuries was not the case.”
I pointed to a section of the palace wall that was very clearly older, its stone carvings worn down to mere shadows,
with shinier, newer white stone placed around it. “What are these darker stone accents? I’ve seen them everywhere, inside and out.”
“Good eye. When my great-grandfather built this palace, he did so on the ruins of one of the older palaces of my ancestors. Al-Dali has been the home of great civilizations for millennia, but much of what they left behind has been lost to the desert. This hilltop preserved quite a few archaeological wonders that were incorporated into the building of the new palace, in order to merge the history of Al-Dali with its present and future.”
I stopped to get a better glance of the section of wall, marveling at the expanse of space and time I was standing in front of. “Incredible,” I said breathlessly as my gaze ran over the weathered outlines of animals and people. “It seems like a lot of pressure to live with every day—constant reminders of the greatness of those who came before you.”
When I turned back to Zane, he had a thoughtful look on his face, tinted with sadness. But that handsome half-smile was still there, too. “Indeed, it is a lot of pressure. Quite similar to the pressure I’m sure you feel in Hollywood. Cinema is barely a century old; you are competing with its originators, its trailblazers. You see their names on the ground and live in their old houses. I imagine it can be very taxing.”
“You know, I never thought about it like that,” I replied. “But I guess you’re right. We haven’t really had time to escape the shadow of the first ages of Hollywood.”
“I think that pressure is familiar to anyone who is trying to achieve something with their life,” said Zane. He offered his arm to me, and I accepted, slipping my hand through his elbow. He led us down the hallway, my heels clicking on the marble floor. “Trying to somehow forge your own identity, steal just a little bit of sunshine from a forest of giants so you too can grow big.”
Zane’s thoughtful speech was conjuring up all the bitter emotions I was having about my career. He was absolutely right—being an actress was like being a starving little sapling in a redwood forest, just trying to push through the undergrowth so that one day I might join them, taking their place when one of them fell. Because fall they would, and the forest had to stay intact. Someone had to take their place—why couldn’t it be me?
I shook the thoughts from my head, realizing I hadn’t heard the last thing the Sheikh had said. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
“I was just saying we should stop by the kitchen, because my cook usually makes pudding for the staff’s children to have when they get off school, and it’s about that time.”
A girlish grin spread over my face. “Oh, I definitely approve of that tour stop.”
Zane was right about the pudding, but what he didn’t prepare me for was the beauty of his vaulted-ceiling kitchen that looked like it could hold a staff of twenty at the same time. There were only five or six working at the moment, but when big meals were being prepared, Zane said, this place was a circus of activity.
Nor did the Sheikh prepare me for the group of beautiful children, giddy after a long day in the classroom and a gourmet sugar rush. I was surprised when they excitedly told me they knew who I was, and they were all too happy to pose in a group picture with me. I signed each of their school notebooks, making sure to include hearts on the signatures. One of their mothers rushed them out of the kitchen impatiently, convinced they had bothered me enough, and Zane and I took the opposite exit out of the kitchen, into the dining hall.
And what a dining hall it was. Paneled with dark wood and accented with oil lamps, the grand table was probably twenty feet long, an elegant maroon silk runner extending its length. The table settings hadn’t been put out yet, but it wasn’t hard to visualize a gorgeous setup of china and crystal and well-dressed guests dining on dishes of steaming, first-class cuisine.
Zane showed me the water gardens, explaining that there wasn’t a palace within three thousand miles in any direction that didn’t have one. Every family that could afford to build them created their own smaller versions.
“When you are carving your existence out of an unforgiving desert, the opposite quickly becomes holy to you: water and life.”
He waved a big hand out towards the gorgeous square courtyard. A bubbling, ancient fountain sat in the center, circulating crystal-clear water that Zane said was from an underground well and fresh to drink. A veritable jungle of tropical plants, ferns and flowers surrounded the fountain and the courtyard walk, creating a tiny oasis in the middle of the palace. Birds sang happily, darting from tree to tree, and a smaller pond lay near the southeast corner, filled with shimmering koi fish and dotted with water lilies.
“This is like heaven,” I told him, taking a deep breath. The earthy smell of the desert was almost entirely overwhelmed by the sweet fragrance of flowers and freshness of water.
“That’s the idea,” smiled Zane as he gently touched the petals of a large pink flower. “When the desert drains your life and spirit, you can retreat here, to your own little piece of heaven where life flourishes.”
“I can see now why your society loves these gardens,” I agreed. “This is magical.”
The Sheikh’s face lit up and he bowed his head politely. “Thank you, Julianne. I’m truly glad you like it here.”
“I do. And thank you for inviting me. I don’t think I would have visited your country otherwise, and I know now that that would have been a huge mistake on my part.”