Lila’s story…
“He’s gorgeous!” Bethany Carlisle whispered, peering at the computer monitor over Lila’s shoulder.
Startled, Lila immediately clicked the X on the screen, causing the image of Crown Prince Tazir el Mitra to disappear. “He’s a friend,” she replied, even though that wasn’t the whole truth. Her roommate didn’t need to know the details. Bethany was obnoxious enough.
Bethany flopped onto her bed in the opposite corner of their dorm room. “He’s the guy who is in line to become Sheik of Farhe someday, isn’t he?”
Lila shrugged, wishing that her roommate would drop the subject. Tazir wasn’t someone she wanted to discuss, especially with someone as vicious and evil as Bethany Carlisle. The woman was a horrible human being and went through men like they were tissues. Her roommate didn’t actually like the men she dated. Bethany had long ago admitted to Lila that she dated men merely for the control she could exert over them.
“I bet he’d be a lot of fun to date,” the other woman sneered. “But not my kind of man.”
Lila’s shoulders relaxed and she tried once again to concentrate on her homework. She had a paper to write for her English Literature class and several chapters to read before her next organic chemistry class. Since chemistry wasn’t something that she excelled at, Lila knew that it would take a great deal of concentration to get through those chapters.
Which meant that she shouldn’t have been looking at images of Tazir! The man was the oldest brother to two of her good friends back home. But…there was so much more to Tazir than just the sibling to a friend. He was…smart and funny! Tazir was so tall and devastatingly handsome, but in a nice kind of way.
Well, he used to be nice. She hadn’t seen him in years. So he might be an absolute ogre now.
“You’re from Fahre, right?” Bethany asked.
Lila muttered a sound that her roommate took to be agreement.
“What’s he like?”
“Who?”
“Prince Tazir!” Bethany laughed.
Lila didn’t bother to turn and look at the other woman, but the acrid scent of nail polish drifted to Lila’s nostrils. Good grief, that woman painted her toenails or fingernails about every other day!
“I don’t really know him. I was friends with his sisters.”
“Oooh! So did you get to go to his palace? Does he have a horse? What was it like inside?”
Lila snorted at the series of questions. “You told me that one of your family homes is a castle in Wales.”
Bethany sighed. “Oh, that place is nice, but castles are drafty. They’re made out of stone and were mostly built for defense.” She bounced off of her bed and Lila wondered how much of the nail polish was spilled during that stunt. “But a palace! I bet a place like that was amazing!”
Lila shook her head. “I guess so.” She wasn’t going to give Bethany any information. Turning around, she lifted her eyebrows, needing to distract the other woman. “Would you tell me more about living in a castle? Are the rooms big or small? Are they really as cold and drafty as you say or are some of the spaces nice and cozy?”
She’d learned early on that Bethany loved to talk about herself. So Lila distracted the woman by asking questions, because there was no way she was going to reveal anything about Tazir. The man was her secret crush, the man by which she measured all other males. Tazir was the reason she rarely dated, because none of the boys here at university could measure up to the intelligence and…and whatever that something special was that Tazir had in spades!
Besides, maybe she could turn Bethany’s answers into a blog post!
Tazir’s story…
“What are you ladies up to today?” Tazir asked, moderating his voice so that he sounded interested. The bar was dark and filled with other university students. Apparently, this was the place to be on a Friday night after mid-term exams.
The four women laughed…well, giggled actually…as they sidled up to the table. Tazir ignored his classmates as each of them jostled to make room for the women. They were all pretty enough, but as he watched the ladies sit down in the chairs, Tazir studied each of them. Two blonds, one brunette and a “redhead”. The color wasn’t a natural red, but then, he doubted that the blonds were genuine either.
It didn’t matter to him. If women wanted to dye their hair a different color, more power to ‘em. Personally, he preferred dark haired women. Someone who was about five feet, five or six inches tall with chocolate eyes and…!
Tazir muttered a curse under his breath. He was thinking about Lila again.
“Another round of beers?” the waitress asked, smiling at the larger group. Tazir leaned back in his chair, pulling the mug of beer towards him as he nodded to the waitress. “And four more mugs,” he added.
The waitress nodded and happily turned, heading towards the beer taps.
“Whoever she is,” his mate hissed into Tazir’s ear, “she’s not here and these lovelies are!” Brian nudged Tazir in the ribs with his elbow. “Why not just enjoy the present and leave the mystery woman in the past?”
Tazir took another sip of his beer, then said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Brian snorted. “She must be amazing,” he guessed.
Tazir ignored him, but his mind slipped back to his home. And Lila. Why hadn’t she ever come back to the palace? She’d been good friends with his sisters, Sada and Zhara. They used to hang out together all the time.
Or did Lila come back now that he was away? He wondered about that and considered asking his sisters the next time he called home.
“What’s your name?” one of the blonds asked, looking coy as she twirled a lock of blond hair around her finger.
Tazir silently groaned, wondering how he was going to extricate himself from this woman’s clutches. She was pretty enough, but he seriously wasn’t interested in her.
“You have pretty eyes,” he commented, trying to distract her. “Where are you from?”
The woman giggled started talking about her family, and who in her family had the same blue eyes, blah blah blah. While she was talking, he wondered what Lila was doing. Was she still in school? Was she attending school in Fahre? Or was she off at boarding school? Or was she attending one of the local schools back home?
