Page 3 of Sheikh's Quarantine Triplet Baby Daughters

Samyar

Samyar hadn't slept more than twenty hours in the past week. The moment the news had come down from the World Health Organization, he had known in his heart that everything was going to go wrong, and he would be only person who could fix it.

It was what he had been born to do, and he had acted immediately. It quickly became apparent that he and his staff would be fighting not only a virus about which terrifyingly little was still understood but also the people who refused to believe that something that terrible could happen to them.

"You know that if this turns out not to be necessary it's going to be a huge blow to your legacy," said his chief of staff two days in. "You'll be seen as a tyrant or worse, a fool for all of this."

"I would rather see my name burned from the royal accounts than let one person die because I wasn't taking things seriously enough," Samyar snapped. "Do as I say."

That was three days ago, and he had spent most of the last twenty hours closeted with the foremost scientists and epidemiologists the country had to offer, hammering out a policy that would keep them as safe as possible.

That was his excuse, anyway, for coming out of the office spouting policy before he had even seen who was talking.

The first thing that crossed his mind was that she had changed very little in the last five years. Diane was still curvy with a determined set to her frame that said she was going to do what she needed to do and to hell with the world. When he had known her in Paris, her dark red hair had curled in loose profusion around her shoulders, and now it was tamed back into a braid, but he could still feel how it would slide through his fingers, how she would whimper if he tugged on it even a little. It was unmistakably Diane, but all of that could have been erased and he would still have known her by her enormous nearly-black eyes, deep as a starless night, capable of taking a man's heart straight out of his chest.

The second thing he thought was no way in the world is she leaving.

"Diane," he said, and it wasn't a question.

Her eyes, oh yes, he remembered those eyes, staring up at him in the half-light of her apartment, dark with need and love and so very clear that he thought he could see to the very core of her.

For a moment, it was all he could see, the beautiful girl who had stolen his heart, the one he had left in tears she was too proud to shed. Then Diane straightened, tilting her chin proudly and dipped her head to him in a cold nod.

"King Samyar," she said, her voice soft and formal.

The coldness of her voice hit him like a blow, and it was only five years of correct behavior in the eyes of Alraed media and in front of his people that kept him from reeling back.

"Ms. Warner," he said, and his voice sounded faraway.

"I understand the need for security and for safety, but I cannot stay in Alraed, and I certainly cannot stay in the palace."

It helped, in a way, that he had been dealing with a version of this argument for most of the last week. He offered her a sharp look while all the time there was a siren going off in his head, telling him that this was Diane, what in the world was he doing if not kissing her, if not touching her and being with her and figuring out a way to keep her?

"The window to travel domestically or internationally has closed," he said. "There were exemptions made days ago for those who needed to travel to be with their families or to cross borders."

"I didn't hear about them," Diane said, a flash of her temper coming out. "I've been working in the museum offices for weeks—"

"You've what?"

"I've been here working on the Al Ruarin tapestry," she said. "For the last seven weeks."

She had been at the palace for seven weeks. She had been a short walk away in the museum wing, and he had never known. Something in him howled at having her so close the entire time without his knowledge, and he had to shake it off because the receptionist at the desk was already watching them with a fascinated expression in her eyes.

"You must have seen the messages," he said, shaking off the feelings of twinned longing and rage. "You must have gotten some word."

"Emails that I had turned off," she said reluctantly, and Samyar was already shaking his head.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "It is not my fault or the fault of the palace that you were not able to heed the messages in time. We are not dealing with a matter of bureaucratic oversight. This is a matter of public health, and that is the end of it."

That at least made her clamp her jaw shut, and Samyar ran his hands over his face. He needed sleep, and he needed food, but more than that, he needed to put some distance between himself and Diane before something drastic happened.

Her life's been turned upside down,he thought. I've been dealing with this health crisis for days, but she just had it dropped on her head.

He saw with a strange topsy-turvy feeling that she had a small chrome-gray suitcase at her side. It was so strange that he recognized it from a weekend trip they had taken up to Alsace. It was a strange survivor from the wreckage of their relationship, and he realized with a wince that it was all she had with her.

"You'll be given quarters," he said. "If you have been staying in the palace without interruption for weeks, I assume you have been staying in the dormitory for visiting academics. We can move you into a more permanent location. Your needs will be provided for, but you are not leaving."

Diane swallowed, shaking her head, but it looked like some of the fight had gone out of her. He reminded himself that Diane did not give up easily, and that sometimes she only paused to rest before she sailed right back in. The softness of her tone when she replied startled him.

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