Chapter 6: Stolen Moments
The Gulfstream touched down with a whisper, a stark contrast to the roaring Soviet-era transports Zahira was accustomed to at the military airfield back home. Through the oval window, Delhi sprawled in a hazy, golden twilight, a vast ocean of light swallowing the horizon. The air inside the cabin changed as the door opened—thick, warm, heavy with unknown florals and the distant, perpetual scent of diesel and dust.
Wali, a block of a man with a perpetually clenched jaw, led the way down the stairs. Laila and Fatima followed, their abayas black against the tarmac, their eyes scanning the receiving line of Indian protocol officers as if looking for hidden weapons. Zahira descended last, the silk of her modest, high-necked kameez whispering against her legs. She had followed the rules. She looked every inch the proper daughter of the Emir.
Then she saw him.
He was standing slightly apart from the official greeters, leaning against a sleek, dark car. Prince Amartya. He wore a simple, impeccably cut linen shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and trousers that looked both casual and expensive. He was laughing at something a taller, older man beside him had said, his whole face transformed by it. The dying sun caught the gold in his skin.
His eyes found hers across the distance. The laugh softened into a smile of recognition. It was not a diplomatic smile. It was specific. For her.
Her heart performed a sudden, hard rhythm against her ribs. She kept her face a serene mask, nodding with glacial grace at the welcoming bureaucrat bowing before her. The formalities were a blur of murmured pleasantries and garlands of tuberoses so fragrant they made her head swim. Wali never moved more than three feet from her left shoulder.
As she was guided toward the official convoy, Amartya stepped forward. The older man—his brother, King Dev, she realized—hung back, watching with an amused, kind expression.
“Your Highness,” Amartya said, his voice exactly as she remembered, a warm baritone that seemed to speak directly to her nerve endings. He offered a polite, correct bow. “Welcome to India. I hope your journey was comfortable.”
“It was, thank you, Your Highness,” she replied, her own voice thankfully steady. Her chaperones’ eyes were lasers on her profile.
He kept his gaze on hers, and in that crowded, public space, he did something extraordinary. He let his eyes flicker down to her hands, clasped demurely in front of her, then back up. A question lived in that glance. Did you bring it?
She gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head, her lips barely moving. Not here.
He understood. He didn’t nod. Just a slight deepening of the smile in his eyes. “The opening reception is at the summit hall tonight. It can be… overwhelming. Full of photographers and ambassadors giving rehearsed speeches.” He spoke lightly, conversationally, as Wali’s presence grew more rigid beside her. “I’ve asked the security to clear the southern garden terrace for delegates only after the first hour. Fewer people. The jasmine is in bloom. It’s a better place to actually talk.”
It was an invitation. A loophole he’d engineered.
“That sounds agreeable,” Zahira said, forcing diplomatic blandness into her tone even as her mind seized on the words. A better place to actually talk.
“Until then,” he said, and with another correct bow, he melted back toward his brother and their car.
The drive to the palace-turned-hotel was a symphony of chaotic noise. Her heart was still hammering. He remembered. He made a plan.
The summit hall was a monument to gilded excess. Crystal chandeliers dripped light onto marble inlaid with semi-precious stones. The air hummed with a dozen languages, the clink of glasses, and the rustle of extravagant fabrics. Zahira moved through it like a ghost in her dark blue ensemble, Laila and Fatima her silent, shadows.
She saw kings and sheikhs she knew from her father’s scowling portraits. She saw celebrities and tech billionaires who seemed to treat the whole event as a glamorous party. And then she saw the other women.
They were like tropical birds amidst a flock of crows. European dignitaries in sleek dresses, African ministers in vibrant prints that wrapped like sculpture. And then, near a colossal arrangement of orchids, she saw her.
The woman was a vision in emerald green, a dress that clung and flowed all at once, leaving her shoulders bare. Her hair was a cascade of dark waves, and she held a champagne flute like it was a natural extension of her hand. She was laughing, surrounded by a captivated circle of men, but her eyes—sharp, intelligent, and slightly weary—scanned the room. They landed on Zahira for a moment. There was a flicker of assessment, a quiet acknowledgment of another outlier, before she turned back to her audience.
“Who is that?” Zahira asked Laila quietly, against her better judgment.
Laila’s mouth pinched. “Nadia al-Baghdawi. The Iraqi princess. Her father’s regime is a disgrace. And she is no better. A shame to her people.”
A kindred spirit, then, Zahira thought, the jealousy arriving hot and sudden. Because Nadia was here alone. No chaperones. No Wali. She could stand bare-shouldered, laughing, holding a drink. She existed in a different world of oppression, one that perhaps allowed for this specific, visible freedom.
Zahira’s gaze instinctively searched for Amartya. She found him across the hall, not far from Nadia. He was with his brother, King Dev, and a beautiful, serene woman in a saffron sari—Queen Rukmini. They were a picture of easy familial affection. Dev was saying something, mimicking a stern expression, and Rukmini swatted his arm, laughing. Amartya leaned into them, his laugh open and unguarded, throwing his head back. The sight pierced Zahira with a longing so acute it felt like nausea. That casual touch. That shared joke. The complete absence of fear.
She watched as Nadia, now detached from her group, glided toward them. She touched Amartya’s arm in greeting, a familiar, easy gesture. He turned, his smile widening in genuine welcome. He said something. Nadia threw her head back and laughed, a rich, unselfconscious sound. She replied, her hand still resting lightly on his linen sleeve.
Zahira’s fingers tightened around the small, beaded clutch in her hands. The green polish inside felt like a burning coal. A stupid, childish secret. Nadia wouldn’t need secret polish. Nadia would wear it openly, on fingers that could touch a prince’s arm whenever they liked.
“The garden terrace is now open for delegates,” a uniformed attendant announced softly nearby.
Zahira took a breath, forcing the heat from her face. This was the plan. Her chance. She moved, her chaperones following, a dark island cutting through the sea of color. She stepped through the arched doorway into the night.
The garden was another world. The city’s roar was muffled. The air was soft, saturated with the narcotic perfume of night-blooming jasmine. Fairy lights twined in the branches of ancient banyan trees. A handful of other delegates mingled, speaking in lower, more earnest tones away from the main spectacle.
And he was there. Waiting near a stone bench, alone. He held two glasses of sparkling water with lime.
He handed one to her as she approached. “Escape achieved,” he said, his voice low.
“Temporarily,” she said, glancing back at Laila and Fatima, who stationed themselves at a polite distance beneath an archway, their eyes never leaving her.
“They’re very thorough,” he observed, not unkindly.
“My father’s sentinels.”
A moment of quiet settled between them, filled with the buzz of cicadas. The tension from the hall began to leach away, replaced by something more vulnerable.
“Your brother and his wife seem very close,” she ventured.
Amartya’s face lit up. “Dev and Ruku? They’re the best. Annoying, sometimes. She still tries to pack my lunch if I’m going out for the day.” He took a sip of water. “It’s just us, you know. Since our parents passed. They’ve been… everything.”
The simple confession laid bare the chasm between their lives. She had a father, a living, suffocating presence. He had a family.
“It sounds… warm,” she said, the word feeling inadequate.
“It is.” He looked at her closely. “Your journey here was difficult.”
It wasn’t a question. “The journey was fine. The negotiations to take it were… complex.”
He nodded, understanding the euphemism. His eyes dropped to her clutch. “No green yet, I see.”
“The conditions for its debut were not met,” she said, a faint, real smile touching her lips for the first time.
“We’ll have to work on the conditions,” he said, and his tone was light, but his eyes were serious.
From the doorway to the hall, a ripple of laughter spilled out. Nadia’s laugh. Amartya’s gaze flicked toward the sound instinctively, a polite smile already forming.
Zahira saw it. The easy connection. The world they shared that she could only visit under guard.
Before he could look back, she spoke, the words leaving her in a quiet rush. “The princess of Iraq seems very engaged with the summit’s social calendar.”
Amartya’s attention snapped fully back to her. He studied her face, and for a horrible, thrilling second, she thought he saw right through her—saw the jealous, possessive knot in her chest. His cheerful expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes deepened, intensifying his focus solely on her.
“Nadia’s always engaged. She has to be.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “Her father’s regime is… brutal. Her visibility here is a calculated shield. A different kind of prison, I think.”
He was defending her. Explaining her. The knot tightened.
He took a small step closer, the jasmine scent swirling between them. “But she’s not the one who told me about aquifer depletion in the Dasht-e-Margo using satellite thermal imaging. That was you.” He held her gaze. “And she’s definitely not the one who memorized the chemical formula for a forbidden nail polish just to have a secret in a suitcase.”
The world shrank to the space between them. The music from the hall, the distant chatter, her chaperones’ watchful silence—all of it faded into a dull hum. He saw her. Not just the princess, not just a potential ally or a diplomatic novelty. He saw the engineer and the secret keeper.
The momentum of the evening shifted, tipping from public performance into something fragile and private. She was about to reply, to risk something, when Wali’s solid form appeared at the garden archway, a silent, grim clock.
“Your Highness,” Laila called, her voice cutting through the night. “It is time to retire.”
The spell snapped. The noise of the world rushed back in.
Amartya’s shoulders dropped a fraction, but he maintained his easy smile. “Of course. Rest well. The first plenary on urban water security is at nine. I believe you have some thoughts on the subject.”
She nodded, unable to speak. As she turned to follow her shadows back into the golden cage of the hall, she glanced over her shoulder.
He was still watching her, his glass of water forgotten in his hand. And behind him, stepping out onto the terrace, was Nadia. Her bright eyes found Amartya, then followed his gaze to Zahira’s retreating back.
The connection was severed. The competition, just recognized, was now quietly, definitively, on.