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want the woman I love to be about that. I didn’t want my wife to be no more than the next political test I have to pass or the next alliance I have to woo. What kind of a life is that?”
    “That’s the life of a sheikh,” she said. “It’s the life you’ve been born to. I know that if Fareed were the oldest, he’d accept responsibility with no question. You’re almost thirty-five and yet you’ve dallied and dallied and dallied. Now we might lose everything . Do you know what that would do to us?”
    “Mother, I’m sure that Haddid will still let us live in the palace and you can buy your jewelry and Birkin bags forever.”
    “No, I mean to your father. He’s served this country for decades and he doesn’t deserve to die knowing that his legacy could be undone by any whim of Haddid’s.”
    He winced. Mother had struck a serious nerve there. His cousin wasn’t a bad man, but he wasn’t smart and he was definitely prone to knee-jerk reactions. Haddid was the last person Yemen needed as a ruler.
    “I understand. Fareed and I will be home tonight, and we’ll find a suitable woman then,” he said, his voice as hollow as his limbs as he ended the video call.
    “So I caught the tail end of quite the fight,” his brother said as he entered the room, stroking his beard. Unlike Bahan, his younger brother had a long beard, much more in the traditional style. Bahan figured he mostly kept it because he loved to stroke the damn thing as if it were a cat. “Were you and Mother at it yet again?”
    “Father’s ill,” he pointed out. “Dr. Hassan says his heart’s getting far worse. We need to get home.”
    Fareed nodded and swallowed hard. “And you need to marry any available female you can find. That much I know.”
    “Mother wants that girl from Lebanon.”
    “She has a unibrow and some nasty psoriasis. Not exactly your sort, old chap,” Fareed said, grimacing.
    “Well, I need an answer and I need it fast.”
    “Then marry that girl you’ve been seeing since you slipped out to The Wild Orchid. What’s her name? The one who scurried out of here in record time after brunch.”
    “Jennifer…um, I don’t know her last name.”
    “Might need to work on that,” his brother said. “Of course, if she does marry you, it would be ‘Munir.’”
    “I doubt she wants to be the sheikha of a faraway land she hadn’t heard of until about two days ago, and it’s a bit early to propose.”
    “Not if Father dies and we’re out of a kingdom,” he said, stroking that damn beard again. “Besides, the law technically says you need to be married at the time of the old ruler’s death and that the union must last at least one year. It doesn’t say anything about you needing to stay together any longer than that. If she’s nervous about the idea, treat it as a business arrangement. Everyone can always use extra money, but if Father is so sick, then you just stayed married as long as you have to in order to screw Cousin Haddid out of any claims. That’s all. Besides, she’s far more delightful—at least she was at brunch—than Lady Unibrow over in Lebanon.”
    “You shouldn’t call her that,” Bahan objected. “It’s rude.”
    His brother shuddered again. “But you wouldn’t want to wake up next to that every day forever since you couldn’t just dissolve that union on account of ugly. That would lead to war.”
    “I…well no. I’m not sure that the sheikha of Lebanon and I are exactly compatible.”
    “She’s more someone who might fit with the Swamp Thing or Frankenstein,” his brother quipped. “I’m serious. Go and call your American, set up a date, and explain the situation. The worst thing that happens it that for a year or two, she has loud sex with you that I can hear in my part of the suite, damn it, and ends up with some thank-you money at the end. It could be a far worse deal. I mean, it could be better. I am the more attractive brother.”
    “You wish.”
    “Oh I am,” Fareed