LukeIn our years as friends and business partners, Qatar was one place that I kept sacred to me. Sophia was the first person that broke that rule, and it was only a matter of time before I did the same for Maddox. I hoped he didn’t have hard feelings about it, but if he had, he didn’t show any emotion either way.“Mate,” Maddox said as the car moved past the main gate and up toward the palace. “You’ve been holding back on me.”“I have?” I asked.He shoved my arm. “This is a palace! Like, a real palace.”“I am a king,” I said, chuckling.“I have a pretty wild imagination, but nothing that could have created this in my mind. I’m blown away. Thank god I have a seatbelt on.”“I’m glad you like it,” I said.“Like it? I think I’m going to move in. It looks like you have plenty of room.”“That, I do,” I said. Growing up in the palace, it was easy enough to hide from my parents. That was until the servants were employed to find me. They outnumbered my family by a lot, so I could never hide f
SophiaTaking the heavy bag from Luke’s hands, my head tilted to the side, and I narrowed my eyes. “I didn’t get you anything.”“I have all I need right here,” he said.I weighed the bag in my hands.“Just trust me,” Luke said and kissed me on the cheek.“Okay,” I said, bringing it over to the bed.Luke turned around. I couldn’t figure out why he was acting so strangely. First a mysterious package, and now he didn’t even want to see me open it?Knowing it was from him, I gently unzipped the bag and moved aside the pink and purple tissue paper. It wasn’t until the silky, white fabric moved under my fingers that I knew exactly what Luke had done for me. “Luke!” I gasped, pulling away the rest of the tissue paper. I couldn’t believe it! It was the dress from the shop in England. “How did you do this? When did you do this?”Luke didn’t move from his spot, and I understood why. I didn’t realize how superstitious he was. “I have my ways.”I rushed across the room and into his arms. He was
SophiaWhen I pulled away from him, I said, “Good luck in there. I’ll be back here as soon as possible.”His finger traced the line of my jaw. “I’ll look forward to that. And to see you in that dress tomorrow.”He brushed past me, and when the door closed, I let go of the breath I’d been holding. Walking over to the bed, the dress mocked me. It was a symbol of something that might not happen. What if the council refused to have Luke as king because he wanted to marry me? What would we do then? A sharp rap on the door shattered my thoughts into a million pieces. Did Luke need to tell me something else before he went in to see the council?I raced over to the door and flung it open. A female servant bowed her head to me. “M’lady, the car is ready to take you to the airport.”I sighed. “Thank you. I’ll be right down.”She nodded and shuffled away from me.I went over to the bed and brought the dress to the armoire. I made sure that after hanging it up that I replaced the tissue paper to
LukeI arrived in the meeting room earlier than the rest of the council members. It was a first for me and gave me a few minutes to organize my thoughts before they walked in through the back door and took their seats in front of me.Jaabir had a smirk on his face. My hand twitched, itching to smack it from his mouth. He was the reason for all of this. If he hadn’t pushed his agenda onto the other council members, maybe they would have accepted Sophia right away. Now, I had to stand up in front of them and defend myself for no reason.Qadeem, as head of the council, was first to speak. “Why have you called us to this special meeting?”It was a formality, but stating the purpose of a meeting outside the regularly scheduled ones gave the meeting purpose and drive. And it was useful for the meeting minutes.“I have called this meeting to discuss the wrongful ultimatum that you pronounced, forcing me to make a decision regarding my relationship with Sophia Holmes.”“Wrongful,” Jaabir spat
LukeThe council members shifted in their seats. I couldn’t be prouder of my mother for standing up for me. It was something I always wanted but never knew that I needed. I didn’t care that she commanded the meeting space where I was supposed to reign. We were a family, and treating the kingdom like that would be my legacy.“When Erol and I chose to adopt a son, it was not something we took lightly. We knew we would change a child’s life and possibly be able to choose the successor to the throne.” She looked over at me and smiled, the way she used to when I was a child. When things seemed much simpler. When had I lost touch with that?“We picked a boy that we felt, in our hearts, needed us as much as we needed him. You all worked with my husband and the previous king. You saw how big of a heart he had for this country. You trusted his choices. Why are you turning your backs on him now? He wanted Luke to become king in his stead. What would you say to him right now, face to face, if yo
SophiaSince Gia put together the wedding in such a short amount of time, there was nothing Luke or I could say when it came to the night before the wedding. She’d let go of most of her traditional views but chose to hold on to the one that didn’t allow us to sleep together that night.While I wanted to show Luke how appreciative I was about what he’d done for me, we respected her wishes.After a wonderful rehearsal dinner with the people we loved, I took Matt around the palace while Luke and Maddox went off together. Maddox had mentioned something about the bachelor party, and Gia’s face had paled to the color of the tablecloth. I knew Luke didn’t plan on going out to a strip club—I didn’t think they had those here—but he went off with Maddox anyway, probably to defeat his best friend’s urge to flirt.Matt eventually dropped me off in the same bedroom that I’d slept in when I first came to the palace. We said goodnight, and I thought I saw excitement flash in his eyes when he asked w
SophiaGia smiled and reached up to grab my veil. She pulled it down over my face, and the world turned a hazy shade of white. All but two of the servants dispersed, and Gia walked into the room, closing the door behind her.“You ready to get married?” Matt asked me.“Yes,” I said, lifting my chin. For a moment, I felt like Gia. Since I was to take her place as queen one day, it seemed fitting.A swell of music filtered out from under the doorway and the doors opened. It was a good thing the veil covered the surprised expression on my face. We’d planned for the wedding to be small and intimate, but I didn’t know that there would be more than immediate family at the event. Gia had mentioned some close family and friends that she’d wanted there, and I brushed it off, thinking there would be one or two extra people.All in all, there were only about fifty people, but when their gazes turned toward me, there might as well have been two hundred people there.Matt gripped my hand harder. “J
LukeI never wanted my wedding day to end. Even though it was an intimate affair with under a hundred guests, the party went much longer than most banquets that I’d attended. Sophia and I stumbled into my bedroom in the wee hours of the morning.Even though I celebrated, neither of us drank heavily. I supposed we were almost drunk from the music and dancing, so when we arrived in a quiet and sacred space, the both of us passed out from exhaustion.The one thing I remembered as my eyes closed was the way she looked slipping out of her wedding dress. God, I was a lucky-ass man.***When my eyes finally peeled open, Sophia was already up and facing me. She had a big smile on her face, and her left hand propped on the pillow between us. The sparkling engagement ring glittered in the morning light that streamed through the windows. The night before, I’d barely gotten out of my clothes, so there was no chance I had been able to reach the blackout curtains before falling onto the bed.“Good