The Duke's Runaway Princess Page 0,9

about five minutes before they were scheduled to board.

Suzanne gave Zarah’s hand a squeeze of encouragement. She knew what Zarah was going to do and understood it was going to be a difficult phone conversation.

Zarah took out her cell phone and dialed her brother’s private cell phone number, praying he wasn’t in a meeting so he could take her call. She could just imagine calling him now and he was in an important meeting. It would be hard to pull her courage back up to make the phone call once again. When he answered, she brightened, but her stomach was in knots.

“Why have you missed so many meetings?” he asked as soon as he answered. No greeting, no questions about her day, just the question in an angry tone of voice that didn’t bode well.

Zarah bit her lip and closed her eyes. “I’m not meeting any more men.”

“Then you’ve chosen one already?” he asked, the surprise evident in his voice. And was there a hint of relief?

Zarah closed her eyes and moved to a different location as more people swarmed around the airport terminal, preparing to board their flight. “No. None of them piqued my interest.”

There was a slight pause as her brother absorbed her reply. She imagined seeing his face, the look in his eyes confused at first, then turning hard and impatient when the answer didn’t immediately come to him. “Perhaps you should explain yourself, Zarah,” he said sternly.

She took a deep breath, then dove into her plan. “I’m not marrying any of them Rashid. I’m going to be fine and I don’t want you to worry, but I’m taking a year off to work. I want a bit of professional experience so I’m going to go out into the world and live on my own for a while. I’m sorry and please don’t worry about me.”

“Zarah…” Rashid started off, but she interrupted him once again.

“No, Rashid. I’m not going to follow the expected path. I don’t want to get married yet. I want to live my life on my own terms. That’s not unheard of and people do it all the time. I know you’ll try and find me, but please don’t. I’m going to be perfectly safe. I’ll check in with you weekly so you know that I’m okay. I’ve also formed a backup plan, just in case something does happen to me. A friend of mine has your contact information in case anything goes wrong or if I don’t check in with her daily. She’ll contact you immediately and give you location information if I find myself in any trouble. Goodbye.”

“Don’t you dare hang up,” she heard her brother say but she didn’t hear the next sentence, she simply pressed the end button, then turned off her phone and took out the battery so he couldn’t track her with the GPS located in the phone.

Boarding for her flight was announced and she took a deep breath, linked her arms with Suzanne and walked onto the flight which would take her into a new life. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be allowed to live this life, but she was going to learn as much from it as possible.

“What did your brother say when you gave him the news?” Suzanne asked as the plane took off.

Zarah cringed at the memory of her conversation with Rashid. “He’s probably pretty furious right now. But I didn’t give him a chance to talk. I was too afraid he’d say something that would scare me and I’d come running home with my tail between my legs so I hung up on him. People just don’t do that to Rashid so no matter what, even if I came home right now, he’d still be livid. Hopefully he’ll be calmer next week when I touch base with him, but probably not.”

Suzanne nodded knowingly. “That’s probably the best move, but I agree that he will be furious when you call him next weekend to reassure him.”

“Hopefully I’ll be fully engaged in my new life and he won’t have as much influence on me. Right now, I’m pretty terrified of what’s to come.”

Suzanne shook her head and squeezed her friend’s arm. “Don’t think of it like that. I’ll be with you the whole time. What you need to focus on is finding the kind of guy you want to marry, or more specifically, the fun you’ll have working with Mary.” She settled back in her seat and pushed her chair back so it was