Page 6 of His Princess Brat
I was a little startled when I saw an Asian group with cameras and then, a little further along, a white couple taking selfies with a local man. “Are these tourists?”
Mazi nodded. “Our economy is actually heavily dependent on tourism. Fortunately, we’ve implemented a few policies geared toward bringing people to visit our little paradise. Norah is awesome with that sort of promotion, plus it’s something she can do from the palace without it taking too much of her time away from our son.”
At the reminder that Mazi was now a father, and I a godparent, I turned my attention away from the scenery. “How old is he now?”
“Four months.”
“Already?”
“I know!” Mazi softly exclaimed. “And already a charmer. I haven’t been this thoroughly wrapped around anyone’s finger since I met Norah. Turn right up here at the gate house.”
I obediently turned, both slowing and rolling down the window for the guard to see who we were. The gate swung open to admit us and we continued up the winding driveway, passing beneath a veritable jungle of trees, palms, and flowering plants. I let myself be honest. With both of us. “I’m happy for you, man. I really am. Maybe a little envious too. And not of the whole ‘ruler of a country’ thing. It’s the other stuff. The wife, the son, the place to call home, all of it.”
Mazi frowned, pursing his lips as his brows furrowed together. “It will happen for you too, man. I know it.”
I shook my head. “Not at this rate.”
“Still not seeing anyone?”
“Not with all my clothes on.”
Grunting, a soft noncommittal sound, Mazi faced the window. “It’ll happen. When you least expect it, you’ll find someone who stops you in your tracks and just... I don’t know, corny as it is to say, completes you all the way to your soul.”
I had my doubts, but I didn’t argue. If it was going to happen, I figured it would have happened long before now. And there was no sense raining on his speech. After all, he’d already found it. He was entitled to his optimism.
The trees gave way to a huge lawn, showing me stables in the distance, a tennis court, a pond with flamingos. The real ones. I was way out of my element here. There were statues too, fountains, and, rising up in the quickly approaching distance, a massive three-story palace made of clay and stone, with towers and turrets, domed rooftops, and God if I wasn’t strongly reminded of a book report I’d done in school once on the Taj Mahal.
“My boy done moved up in the world,” I said, stunned.
“You should see the inside,” Mazi said with a laugh. “It’s like living in a museum.”
“Your poor kid.”
“No, it’s good. We put up velvet ropes.”
I glared. “You’re joking.”
Mazi grinned.
“Idiot,” I said fondly, as we pulled up to the roundabout in front of the steps where a man was already waiting to valet for us. Grabbing my luggage from the back, I followed him inside where a reed-thin elderly butler with short white hair separated himself from amongst the many small groups of people already sociably gathered in the hall and came to meet us.
“Azid,” Mazi announced, “this is my friend Jax, the best and yet most aggravating assistant any monarch could hope for.”
Jax tipped himself into the barest of bows. “Likewise,” he told Mazi, before fixing me with an incredibly polite and yet assessing stare. That look put me instantly back in high school, standing awkwardly in front of my prom date’s policeman father. Like meeting a girl’s father wasn’t hard enough without giving him a badge and police-issued firearm.
“Sir,” I said, offering my hand.
He looked at it, then me and tipped into another formal bow. “The pleasure is, perhaps, mine. Shall I take your luggage?”
I’d have been fine carrying my duffel myself, but... when in Rome, I guess. I held it out, but instead of taking it, Jax snapped his fingers and another butler fellow melted out of the crowd to take it instead.
Hands clasped behind his back, Jax became all business. “The ambassador from Liberia is here for your meeting in twenty minutes, and Miss Pita has just arrived.”
“I’ll be on time for Mr. Doha. Where did you put my cousin?”
“In the White Room.” Jax indulged in one of his infamously disapproving silences, before adding, “She brought her horse.”
“Oh, that’s all right. Just put it in the stable next to Azid’s elephant.”
