Page 34 of Her Royal Daddy
Chapter Twelve
Mazi
On the morning of my engagement ball, I woke up in Norah’s bed alone and from there, the day pretty much went straight to shit, although I’d be the first to admit that not seeing her straight off the bat wasn’t that unusual for us. Hell, I’d gone for three long days in the beginning without catching sight of her at all. On this of all days, however, when I was about to throw my father’s traditions and hand-picked Nigerian fiancée straight out the nearest window, I wouldn’t have minded sharing breakfast with her. Just having her close was a comforting balm on my soul. Not having her nearby put me instantly on edge. Especially when, as I was dressing for the morning, I realized she’d never really answered my question last night.
‘I love you’ and ‘Harder, Daddy, harder’ was fun, but not the same thing as ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’
My girl was not in the dining hall when I went for breakfast. Neither was there an empty place in her spot that might hint I’d just missed her. Again, not unusual. The palace staff were nothing if not efficient. But then, she wasn’t in the library. She wasn’t in the conference room, or in the foyer on the telephone, checking on the status of a story or looking for new papers in which to submit one. I was starting to get nervous.
She wasn’t in the garden. No one had seen her leave the palace or walk down to the village. But while that should have helped to calm me some, I stopped two servants and neither claimed to have seen her anywhere inside the palace either. Again, not unusual. The palace had literally dozens of servants, I only talked to two, and yet the certainty that something was wrong would not be dislodged. It planted itself in the pit of my stomach and from there, grew like a weed.
I kept wandering back to her room, but she was never there and eventually, because it was the only place I could think of that I hadn’t checked and where I might find her, I burst into my father’s bedchambers.
“Where the hell is Norah?” I erupted at both him and Jax when I found she wasn’t there.
Both men had been asleep. My father on his mountain of pillows, and Jax in the chair at his bedside. I was immediately ashamed for startling them both awake. I don’t know if it was because my father had had a rough night or if they were only just resting up for tonight. Both were in their seventies, after all. It’s not like they were my age.
“Wh-what?” my father stammered, thrashing in his blankets until Jax erupted from his chair to catch his hand.
“Rest easy,” he said, gently tucking my father back in. “Allow me, I’ll take care of this.”
The look he gave me was anything but gentle and neither was his grip on my arm when he grabbed me, thrust me out into the hall, and carefully closed the door between us and the sickly king.
“You have all the manners of a drunken ox,” he whispered, just as soon as we were alone.
Probably, but I wasn’t about to be distracted. “Where’s Norah?”
“On a plane,” he snapped, and for a moment I thought my legs knocked out from under me.
I couldn’t breathe. “What?”
Frowning, Jax pulled his temper back under tight control and said again, “Your Ms. Baxter was bundled onto a plane first thing this morning. She is being flown to the mainland to be outfitted for a dress. She is to have her hair and her nails both done. Do not expect for it to take less than all day. You will not likely see her until sometime during the event. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can’t coax His Highness back to sleep so he is not too weary to attend tonight’s festivities. As for you, young sir, may I suggest you find yourself a computer and Google manners!”
Scowling, he retreated back into his room and softly slammed the door. The lock clicked over, leaving me standing in the hallway, staring at the wood panel, and wondering why I didn’t instantly feel better.
I must have made a bigger impression on my father last night than I’d first thought. He’d relented, it seemed. Norah was coming to the ball, but so then too was this Princess Zahra. Nothing else had changed. By the end of tonight, I had every expectation that I was going to be engaged. But Norah hadn’t told me yes, so the question was still: To whom?
* * *
Royal people had their own doors to ballroom events for a reason and during that forty minutes while I paced the private hall, alternately adjusting my black formal suit and cracking open the door to see if Norah had made it yet, I came to understand why. My nerves were frayed. So far I was doing a fan-fucking-tastic job of keeping it all under tight control, but my shirt was chafing me, I was one yank more on the knot away from reclassifying my tie as a hangman’s noose, and I still couldn’t find Norah anywhere.
Zahra, on the other hand, was smack in the middle of the room, and she was a stunningly beautiful woman. A true Nigerian princess in more than just title, it was easy to see why my father had chosen her. She was well-spoken, well-read, and well-traveled. She had a beautiful smile and sense of humor. I hadn’t met her yet, but after forty minutes of hiding in the hallway and watching her circle the ballroom, mingling with the other guests, it wasn’t hard to see that some man was going to get very lucky with her as a wife.
I just hoped it wasn’t me.
