Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) - Rose B. Mashal Page 0,32
He’s a doctor, so…I had to listen. So we ended up eating at the round table in the middle of the room, after Mona placed two chairs there for us to sit on.
Yes, I actually said ‘we’ and ‘us’.
I figured there was no reason for me to make this harder on myself. I wanted to know more about him: maybe it would help me with my escape plan, maybe through his talks I’d know more about the palace and its exits. After all, I’d had no idea this room had a sunroom linked to it, or a walk-in closet; there were just too many things I didn’t know.
“Coffee is not all right, either.” He shook his head disapprovingly.
Ugh!
I nodded, putting the cup back down.
“How long have you been a doctor?”
The left corner of the prince’s mouth turned up in a crooked smile before he replied, “I graduated and came back here right away, just a few months ago.”
Oh!
“Here?” I wondered.
“To the kingdom, I mean. I studied medicine in London,” he explained.
That explains the accent…
“That’s great. I’ve heard that the medical schools are pretty good in the UK.”
“They are the best,” he confirmed with a nod. “You majored in English, right?”
He told him …
“Yeah, but I never got the chance to finish college. The company…I have no time to brush my hair, let alone study,” I sighed heavily.
“Well, you have Mona now to do that for you, so you just got yourself some spare time. You can go back to studying,” he grinned.
Such a beautiful sight!
The grin was gone a moment after it was born and he continued, “For the next six months, I mean.” His eyes gazed away somewhere between his cup of tea and the plate that held the cup while he muttered the words.
“Yeah,” was all I said.
I won’t be here for six months, Prince dear, so…
We lapsed into silence for a few minutes after that, while he sipped his tea and I ate the rest of my sandwich. When I was finished, he asked me whether or not I liked peppermint. He wanted me to have it as a hot drink, which he explained was made the same way you make tea. He told me how it comforted troubled stomachs and all that. I wasn’t so sure, so I declined.
“I don’t like it,” I said.
“Have you ever had any?”
“Um, no, but it just sounds wrong,” I shrugged.
“But you have to taste it first, and maybe you’ll like it,” he insisted.
“I’m sure I won’t like it. I don’t want to taste it and decide it’s awful, then spend the rest of the day with a bad taste in my mouth.”
“You can’t keep on judging peppermint without trying it first, Princess.”
Something told me we weren’t talking about peppermint anymore.
After Mona took the tray away, we talked a little bit more about nothing in particular: just a few words here and there about the room and all of the hidden doors – there were a lot, I might add. Turns out that this room was the main room of ‘our’ place. It was connected to more than one room, besides the bathroom, sunroom and walk-in closet. There were also the dining room, the formal sitting room, living room, kitchen and…the kids’ rooms.
Kids …
He also told me about another room that stood alone with no other doors connected to it–a males-only meeting room. As in, just for guys. Don’t even get me started…
“So the whole floor is just for us?” I asked.
“No, we share it with my brother and his wife, but you will never stumble on anyone else, I assure you. It’s completely separate.”
“Wait, you have a brother?” I frowned.
“Yes, Fahd is his name; he’s four months younger than me.”
“But your mother said you were her only child. I thought she meant her only son since there is Janna, but with the language and all…did you just say four months?” My confusion was hitting the fancy roof above us.
How is that even possible?
“It’s true that I’m her only child, Princess. My mother is Fahd and Janna’s stepmother,” he answered.
Oh!
Wait, wait, what?
“How come he’s only four months younger than you, and your father was still married to your mother when he had children with another woman?” I quizzed. “Oh! The king had a mistress!” I figured.
“Excuse me, Princess, but the term ‘Mistress’ is highly offensive for you to use to describe my stepmother, let alone accuse my father of having one,” he said, instantly making me feel like garbage.