at that.
It felt like an eternity. Eventually, she managed to breathe better, slowing each breath and using her nose more than her mouth. Slowly, her heart beat less frantically.
Slowly, slowly, the clench of nausea dissipated.
But she still had to crawl across the floor on her hands and knees. Back into the bathroom, where she had to lie for a while on the cold marble floor. Just to make sure that this time it really wasn’t the sudden onset of a horrible influenza.
As she lay there, staring balefully at the literally palatial toilet before her, it occurred to her that in all the months she’d been imprisoned, she’d never once had one of these attacks. If asked, Anya would have said that her whole life had taken place on a level of intense stress and fear. Especially before she’d begun to learn the language, and had been forced to exist in a swirl of uncomprehending terror.
Stress, fear, and terror, sure. But she hadn’t had one of these vicious little panic attacks, had she?
And in fact, it was only when she thought about the world contained on her mobile—and the inevitable messages she would find from her father—that her heart kicked at her again. And another queasy jolt hit her straight in the belly. She could feel her shoulders seem to tie themselves into dramatic shapes above her head, and apparently, it was here on the bathroom floor of a grand palace in Alzalam that Anya might just have to face the fact that it wasn’t her eight-month imprisonment that really stressed her out.
It was the life she’d put on hold while stuck in that cell.
“That’s ridiculous,” she muttered at herself as she pulled herself up and onto her feet, feeling brittle and significantly older than she had before.
When she staggered back out of the bathroom, she didn’t head for her bag again. Or her mobile, God forbid. She went instead through the far archway and found herself in an expansive dressing room, stocked full of clothing, just as the forbidding and beautiful Tarek had promised.
Anya told herself that she was erring on the side of caution. But she suspected it was more that she didn’t want to be alone any longer, stuck with nothing but her panic, too many voice mail messages she didn’t want to listen to, and the horror of her inbox.
Whatever it was, she went out and called in the servants.
“I am to have dinner with the Sheikh and the American ambassador,” she told the two women who waited for her, both of them smiling as if they’d waited their entire lives for this opportunity.
“Yes, madam,” one of them said. “Such an honor.”
Anya had not considered it an honor. Should she have? When Tarek had made it clear that it was likely damage control? Maybe she really did need to sit down with her mobile, get online, and read the story of what had happened to her as told by people she’d never met. But the thought of picking up that phone again made something cold roll down her spine.
She smiled back at the women. “I’m hoping you can help me. I’ve never attended a formal dinner in your country and I have been...indisposed for so long.”
“Don’t you worry, madam,” said the other woman, smiling even brighter. “We will make you shine.”
And that was what they did.
They spared no detail. They buffed Anya’s fingernails and her toenails, then added polish. They clucked disapprovingly over her brows, and then, as far she could tell, removed every errant piece of hair from her entire body. There was a salt scrub, because they did not feel that her long shower, or deep soak in the bath, was up to par.
Nor were they impressed with her hair, and when they were finished restyling it, she could see why. Anya looked luminous. Soft, pampered, and something like happy.
They had rimmed her eyes with dark mascara. They’d slicked a soft gloss over her lips. And when she looked in the set of full-length mirrors in the dressing room, she found herself resplendent in a bright tunic and matching trousers, flowing and lovely. Topped off with a long scarf with a pretty, jeweled edge that complemented the outfit and made her seem like someone else. The kind of woman who dined with ambassadors and kings, maybe.
“Thank you,” she said to the women when they were done. “You’ve worked miracles here tonight.”
Anya found herself smiling when they led her out of her rooms, then through the