ZAHIR - Her Ruthless Sheikh

Prologue-2

“Ah…I’m Prin Jones,” I answer, checking the guy out in a new light now that I know his relationship to Asir. “Sorry for the mix-up.”

I apologize—you know, like a decent human being even though I wasn’t the one throwing random girls into doors as soon as they walked into the room.

But instead of returning the apology, he blinks hard and asks, “How are you associated with my brother?” Again. In such a frigid tone, it sounds like a statement instead of a question.

No, not a statement, a voice inside me suddenly corrects. A command. Everything about this guy is commanding. From his suit to his icy expression. He doesn’t look much older than me, but I get the feeling he’s been telling people what to do for at least as long as I’ve been alive.

“Um…we went to school together,” I answer. “He invited me here to meet up with him. That’s who I thought you were…which is why I followed you in here. But obviously I was wrong…”

I trail off because this guy is not like most guys I know. He hasn’t interrupted me and doesn’t attempt to pick up the conversation when I trail off—which isn’t so bad. But the way he fixes his eyes on me, narrowed and assessing as if he’s running every word I say through some kind of mental scanner…well, let’s just say it makes talking to him feel awkward. Like, really, really awkward. So much so, I feel as if I’ve run out of air by the time I’m done talking.

“So yeah, wrong guy,” I finish, fumbling behind me for the door knob. “I, um, I’ll go look for Asir now.”

“No,” he says.

“No?” I repeat, not understanding.

“You and my brother. No.”

My eyes flare. Da f**k this guy think he is?

“What do you mean ‘no?’”

“I mean you should leave this party now, Prin Jones, and forget about any rendezvous with my brother.”

“Hold up,” I say, raising both hands with 100-proof pure outrage. “You trying to say I’m good enough for you to throw against a door and f**k dirty, but I can’t get with your brother?”

“I am saying my brother has a bright future in front of him,” he replies, giving me a cool up and down look. “One that does not involve you.”

And that’s when I catch my own wrist. Clasping it tight so I won’t give in to my baser instincts and punch the straight hell out this guy. But, you know, four years of Beaumont. I’m supposed to be classy now.

At least, “some class” was what I told my dad I was after when I used my allowance to apply to boarding school, so I wouldn’t have to take part in his farce of a reality show with the lingerie model/wannabe singer he all but hired to replace my mom. And Lord knows, this guy isn’t the first racist rich dude to suggest that going out with a girl like me would not be a good look for his perfect white bread future.

To Asir’s credit, he has never once made me feel like I am worth less than all the other girls at our school just because I was one of the few rich kids at Beaumont with skin darker than his.

But this isn’t Asir looking down his nose at me right now. Different guy. Different opinions. And I can see every ugly one in the hard set of his cold eyes.

“Okay, well, I think Asir and I are old enough to make up our own minds about one another, thank you very much. So, I guess that means you and your ‘no’ can go f**k yourselves.” I could leave it there. Really, I probably should leave it there. But you know…Jersey. I throw up both middle fingers and add, “Just like you tried to f**k me against the door.”

Something dark and furious flashes across his expression, but before he can say another word, the door suddenly opens. I jump and turn to get out of its way—only to run smack dab into Asir.

“Whoa! Sorry, Prin!” he says, his warm face lighting up when he sees me. He cups both my shoulders with an apologetic wince. “I spotted you earlier and called your name, but the music was too loud for you to hear me. Then I saw you come down this way and I tried to follow you, but I couldn’t figure out which door was yours. I tried them all and…here you are!”

“No worries,” I reply easily. And my heart melts because Asir has somehow managed to sound both unbelievably elegant with his smooth brandy-poured-over-honey accent, and just like one of us with his self-deprecating way of talking about himself. His long, elegant hands rest lightly on my shoulders, warm and engaging. I can’t believe it! Asir Zaman is touching me!

“I’m just glad I finally found you. Did you come here to get away from the music?” he asks. “Can’t say as I blame you. Plus, it’ll be easier for us to talk and get to know each other better in here.”

Asir Zaman wants to talk to me! And get to know me better!! By now, my heart is squealing louder than a tween at a Jonas Brothers concert.

But then like a dark cloud edging towards a sunny day, I recall my real reason for being in this room and confess, “I came in here because I thought he was you.”

“He…?” Asir repeats with a super adorable scrunching of his beautiful eyes.

Then he follows my gaze to where his brother is standing, hard-faced and dark eyes flashing as if what he’s just witnessed has infuriated him beyond belief.

And that’s when I discover Asir is nowhere near as unflappable as I previously thought.

Instead of laughing at my case of mistaken identity, he jerks his hands back from my shoulders and stutters, “Oh, h-hi, Zahir. I did not expect to find you here. I-I…”

His brother, Zahir, says nothing. He merely watches Asir stew in his own stutters. Eyes cold and assessing like a scientist studying a rat he’s decided to experiment on.

But something must be communicated between the two of them because Asir takes a big step back from me and says, “Um, know what? I think I saw your friend—the scholarship student with the Jamaican accent?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You mean, Sylvie?”

“Yes, Sylvie!” he agrees, clasping his hands tightly in front of him in thanks as if I’ve thrown him a lifeline of some sort. “I saw her go into Holt Calson’s room at the end of the hall. I think she was looking for you. You should probably find her…”

I tilt my head. “I should probably find her?” I repeat, my usual “da f**k?” Jersey accent rising to the surface though I promised myself it wasn’t going to come out tonight with Asir. “You invited me to this whack party,” I remind him. “Now you want me to go and find my friend because your brother is here?”

“I don’t…I mean, well…yes, I suppose that’s correct. I would like for you to go and find your friend now.” Asir crooks his arm to rub the back of his head like I’m making the situation more awkward instead of the other way around. “It’s just…I have some things I need to discuss with my brother who I didn’t know would be here. Sorry. I shouldn’t have—I mean, sorry, just sorry. I’m really sorry.”

With that final apology, Asir averts his eyes and opens the door a little wider so I can leave.

“Yeah, you are,” I agree, wanting to ask him a thousand questions like is he ashamed to be seen with me? Is that why he invited me to this party where we could disappear into the crowd instead of taking one of the million opportunities he’d had to talk and “get to know me better” during the four years we were at Beaumont together?

But you know, dignity. Instead of losing my mind on his b***h-a*s, I jut out my chin and say, “Okay. Bye, Asir.”

Then with my head held high and without looking back at him or his asshole brother, I walk out the door Asir holds open for me.

The night only gets weirder when a few seconds later, I find my best friend, Sylvie, in another of the bedrooms about to kiss Holt-freaking-Calson! And when I tell her we need to leave, Holt—who is special edition white boy wasted, by the way, is all like, “Don’t leave. Stay with me! I’ll send you home in a car.”

Hold up. Asir doesn’t want to be seen with me, but Holt Calson, the richest kid in, like, all of America is trying to keep my friend here in his penthouse castle like she’s some kind of Jamaican Cinderella?

I ignore him and pull Sylvie out of there, wondering if the world turned upside down when we stepped through the doors of this high rise.

I drive her back to Hartford, ranting the entire time about Asir—and even more about his asshole brother.

I spent four years at Beaumont, bettering myself and trying to prove I was way classier than anyone watching my dad and his girlfriend on their reality show, His Majesty, could imagine.

But by the time I’ve dropped Sylvie off, a new resolution has settled over me. I plug a phone jack into my special edition Dwayne Wade Sidekick 3 and speed dial a certain number before getting back on the 218 E, this time heading toward Beaumont, just north of Hartford.

“Prin?” my dad answers after a few rings. He sounds confused. I can hear music playing in the background, harder and a less recognizable than the stuff playing at Holt’s.

Fresh cuts, I guess. Hot off the track deck of Majesty Records’ in-house studios.

“Hold on!” he yells, And I can imagine him slipping out of what he calls our mansion’s “par-tay foh-yay” and into his nearby study, because it’s much quieter when he says, “What’s up, baby?”

“Hey, Dad,” I answer. “I’ve been giving it some thought, and…yeah, I think I’m ready to be on the show.”

“You serious?!?!” he demands. “You finally wanna be on His Majesty?”

Then before I can say anything else, I hear a door open and the loud fresh cut sounds again as my dad hollers, “My daughter’s gonna be on the show!!!!!”

Unlike Asir, my dad has never had a problem being heard over loud music. The party-goers not only hear him but give a roar of approval in response.

After a few more declarations of how happy he is, and how hype this is going to be, and then a three-way call with one of the show’s producers, everything is only a few signed contracts and a press release away from being official. Beginning this summer, I will be playing a member of my own family on His Majesty, a spin-off of Rap Star Wives: East Coast, which itself is a spin-off of the original L.A.-based Rap Star Wives.

Ironically, just as I’ve finished with the verbal handshake, I’m back at the dorms where I decided to stay for the entire grace week after graduation, just so I wouldn’t have to return to a life of avoiding cameras at my father’s Jersey mansion. But f**k trying to be someone I’m not, I decide as I get out of the custom gold-and-chrome Mini my dad got me for my 16th birthday. I walk toward the dorms with a new swing in my hips.

Asir and his brother might be sheikhs or something, but I’m hip-hop royalty. So Asir can forget me, and Zahir can go f**k himself. I won’t ever have to deal with either of them again.

Except that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The very next day, Asir shows up at my dad’s Jersey mansion with the purse I left behind at Holt Calson’s party, and an apology so beautiful and eloquent that I immediately forgive him.

Eleven years later, I am on a plane bound for Jahwar, where my best friend, Sylvie, in the surprise of the century, will soon wed Cal-Mart scion, Holt Calson. And I have only one goal in mind: to get a private audience with Zahir Zaman al-Jahwari, the newly ascended King of Jahwar, despite what happened with me and his brother.

HIS TO DENY