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Of course it did. She couldn’t rule her country and lose herself in the wonderfully complex, fascinating problems of hydrogen liquefaction, to say nothing about the carbon sequestering programs she was planning in the desert.

They had the potential to completely neutralise all of Africa’s emissions—and half of Europe’s.

She wanted to dive into that potential and push it to its limits. She wanted to—

She knew she was treating the work as a kind of penance—she wasn’t blind to that.

She’d been away in Europe pursuing her freedom when both her mother and then her older brother had died.

She’d rushed home to find her father heartbroken and her family, the bedrock she’d always believed would be there for her, destroyed.

She worked to save her country even if she couldn’t salvage what was left of her family.

She was torn.

“What am I supposed to do?” she sighed.

“You know what you’re supposed to do,” Sami replied, his gaze steady over his glass. “Step up.”

“We’ve been over this.”

“And we’ll keep going over it until you listen.

” Sami gestured broadly to the garden, the thriving capital below, the flicker of turbines in the foothills of the mountains.

“This is all you, Zynara. You’ve been leading for years—your father knows it.

The country knows it. He’s pushed back his abdication date because he knows Malik isn’t ready.

He’s hoping you will change your mind. Laws can be rewritten. ”

“Just for me? Again? That’s peak entitlement. I would never ask for that,” she whispered.

“Oh, don’t be so humble. That’s not the attitude that’s driven you to the top of your field.

Stop lying to yourself. You’re smarter than that.

” Sami’s voice was firm now. “You gave Malik the chance to prove himself and he failed. He’s going to tear down everything you’ve built and party on the ruins.

Your people depend on you. Malik will bleed them dry. ”

Zynara turned her head. Stubbornness was a family trait. She drilled her fingers on the table. “I wanted freedom, Sami. I still do. I don’t want to be Q’sar.”

“You call this freedom?” He waved his tea at the schematics, the endless work that consumed her. “You’re already doing the job.”

For a long moment she didn’t respond. He was right.

Freedom had meant running away from the strictures of royal life, but she’d matured since then.

She’d been shielding her father’s illness from the country for years.

He’d chosen an abdication date when his multiple sclerosis diagnosis was first handed down.

That deadline had approached faster than any of them anticipated and he’d extended it another twelve months.

She knew her younger brother was the wrong person for the crown.

“Malik is the heir. End of discussion.”

Sami sighed. “You’re as stubborn as your father.”

“He still has time.”

“You’re pretending he’s not as bad as he is because it’s easier than admitting you’ll have to make a choice soon. Hmm?”

Zynara’s phone buzzed, saving her from answering that pass-agg shit. She glanced at the screen and her lips curved in a faint smirk. She tapped out a response.

“That doesn’t look like work.” Sami raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not. Just considering tonight’s distraction.”

They both looked over at Malik’s house.

“Really?” Sami pulled a face. “Another of Malik’s guests ? Why do you do it, Niz?”

“Why not? They’re convenient. My little brother is rubbish at many things, but he does have good taste in women.”

“Shallow, vacant, money grabbing party girls from the UK? They’re here with only one thing in mind.”

“Exactly. No complications.”

Sami seemed to accept that. “He’s got some newbies arriving in a few days.”

“And you’ve already vetted them?”

He shrugged. Sami wasn’t into women, but he always made sure Zynara was safe.

They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of the past and the burden of the future hanging heavy in the air with the scent of jasmine. Zynara missed her mother. She missed her older brother. She wished her father was well. She wished her younger brother wasn’t such a fool.

Sami stood and brushed imaginary dust from his trousers. He was a stylish bastard. A casual, white linen suit, far more expensive than it looked. “Why don’t you come down to the club instead?”

Zynara snorted. Sami owned a club in the old quarter—the medina—and he fashioned it after the gin joints and cafes of time gone by.

His heart was locked in the 1930s, and he channelled Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca with every pore of his body.

Secretly Zynara loved the place, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Because you’ll ply me with your cheap gin and play jazz at me on that rattletrap old piano you love. You always try to set me up with someone’s sister.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

“I have fifty international delegations flying in tomorrow for the Green Futures Alliance, I have the CEO of British Aerospace on the hook for a 400 billion pound green fuels deal, I have the British Energy Minister to pin down in a long term electricity purchase contract, and” —her eyes flicked back to the file Sami had covered with the tea tray— “and I’m so close to mathing out this liquid hydrogen problem—”

“But you can fit in one of Malik’s party girls.”

Zynara glared. “Fuck off, Sami.” She said it gently. She knew he cared.

He bowed. “As you wish, Qasira.” He softened. “But you’re playing a dangerous game. If you burn out, Malik wins by default. He’s out there planning the fossil fuel party of the century. None of us can afford that.”

“I know,” she whispered.

Sami smiled faintly. “Good. Now, are you going to actually drink the tea?”

“Tea will not solve the energy crisis.”

“No, but it might keep you human.” He strolled away, hands in his pockets.

Zynara rolled her eyes at his back, but reached for the tea anyway. Her fingers lingered on the rim of the glass as her eyes fell on the schematics. Sami was right—she was spending too much time saving the world and not enough time living in it.

Her phone buzzed again. The blonde thing she’d chosen for the evening sent a selfie taken beside Malik’s infinity pool, cocktail in hand, bikini leaving nothing to the imagination. She could see the woman’s eagerness through the phone.

She’d do.

Zynara grimaced. She had a reputation in Malik’s party house.

She didn’t mind living up to it. Zynara liked her women compliant and happy to do whatever she asked—because the look in their eyes that said they knew exactly how big their payout would be at the end of their stay stung like hell.

Maybe she took that bitterness out on them.

Maybe it hurt just as much that they seemed to enjoy it.

She was a princess—as much as the term didn’t suit her—and she was wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams. She’d never had a single liaison where those simple truths didn’t colour any affection her conquests might have had for her.

Oh, they primped and smiled whenever they saw the Qasira, but it was never clear to Zynara if it was her they wanted or her money.

Luckily, in almost every case, Zynara found it easy to leave her side of the bed cold and return to the science and the politics of ruling in her father’s stead. Perhaps that was the best her heart could hope for.

Shagging her way through her younger brother’s harem passed the time but it could hardly be called living.

She ignored the message and returned to the work.