so?” I frowned.
“I raised him since he was a little baby. I breastfed him along with my own daughter, as well as Prince Fahd, when his servant got sick or whatever. In Islam, I take the title of his Nursery Mother just by having done so a certain number of times.” There was undeniable pride in her words.
“Oh, I see,” I said, “That’s – nice,” was all I could say. I really needed lots of time alone to be able to process all of this.
Right at the same minute, I heard a buzz that I hadn’t heard before, and Mona stood up right away. “That would be one of the queen’s servants bringing breakfast, I have to get that.”
I nodded. “Yeah, sure, thanks again,” I smiled, getting up this time and heading back to the sunroom and then to the bedroom.
While I lay awake on my bed, I couldn’t help but think about all of the things Mona had told me. I was glad to learn that Janna was okay, I just hated that she was so depressed that she thought about ending her life. The poor girl had dealt with so much since she’d gotten pregnant, I couldn’t even imagine what she’d gone through. She believed that one of her brothers wanted to kill her, and the other didn’t want anything to do with her. They were really upset with her choices and they made her believe that they were mad, to the point of not wanting to deal with her at all. I’d seen it with my own eyes just the day before: the last time she’d come here with Joseph, the prince wouldn’t even look at her.
Their culture was really complicated. I knew that in old Europe it was really bad to get pregnant outside of marriage–heck, it’s still not very acceptable now in some Eastern countries or even in some states in America–but I don’t think they ever kill for it. Or maybe I didn’t know…truth was, I’d never really given it that much thought.
My thoughts drifted to the prince, and what he himself had gone through: it was a lot, and devastating to even think about it. It seemed that he hadn’t taken a breather since everything happened with Janna, and because of her. And now with my escape attempt…
I didn’t think he would ever hurt me. He’d promised. I didn’t know why I’d ever thought he would. After all, he’d only been kind to me and had never made any move that spoke of bad intentions.
I found myself thinking of how I wanted things to get back to how they were just a day ago, or like those few hours we spent in the royal stable. I sighed, my thoughts really confusing and annoying me. Certain thoughts of what he’d done to defend me made me smile a goofy smile, despite everything that was going on inside of my head. But when I remembered his reply, and how he’d said that he only did it to keep his promise of keeping me safe, my smile dropped and I started having weird and stupid–oh, so stupid–feelings.
Before I thanked him, I’d kept thinking that maybe he had feelings for me, and that was why he’d done all of that; but when I asked him, he said it was only to keep a promise. And now, I was upset that it didn’t mean he had feelings for me, and even more upset at myself. No...I was actually mad at myself for being upset that he didn’t have feelings for me. Why on earth did I want him to have feelings for me? It was really crazy. I was going crazy.
Not too much later, Mona knocked. When she came in, she held the tray with our breakfasts on it. She set it on the round table in the middle of the room as usual, smiling and telling me she would be informing the prince that breakfast was ready.
Though I still didn’t feel much like eating, I still got excited that he was finally coming back to our room. Maybe when he got here and we had breakfast together, I’d figure out how he truly felt about all of what happened, and if he was very upset with me because of it...or not much...or hopefully not at all.
My hopes dropped when Mona came back to tell me that the prince would only have some tea for breakfast…in the living room.
He still doesn’t want to see me, I thought. But