Lucia's apartment overlooked downtown Los Angeles, all glass and steel and carefully curated emptiness. She sat curled on her couch at midnight, phone pressed to her ear, listening to Khalid talk about a book he'd read in Cambridge.
"The translation ruined it," he was saying. "Persian poetry loses everything in English. The rhythm, the double meanings, the way words shift depending on context."
"So learn Persian," Lucia said. "You speak five languages already. What's one more?"
"Six, actually. I learned Mandarin last year."
"Show-off
Khalid laughed, and the sound made something warm settle in Lucia's chest. This was their third call in four days. Each one longer than the last, each one straying further from business into actual conversation.
Dangerous. Absolutely dangerous.
"What about you?" Khalid asked. "What did you study at Stanford besides economics?"
"Philosophy. Specifically ethics and power structures."
"That's an unusual combination."
"I had questions about how systems of control operate. Academia seemed like a good place to find answers." Lucia tucked her feet under her. "Turns out the real answers aren't in books."
"No. They're in watching how people actually behave when they think no one's looking."
"Exactly."
They were quiet for a moment, a comfortable silence that felt rare and precious.
"Tell me about your mother," Khalid said suddenly. "Elena. She seems... formidable."
Lucia tensed automatically. "What makes you say that?"
"I saw photographs from the engagement announcement your father made. She stood slightly apart, watching everything. Like she was evaluating rather than celebrating."
"Perceptive," Lucia thought. Too perceptive.
"My mother is complicated. She's brilliant and trapped and has made peace with things I'm not sure I ever could."
"Like what?"
"Like marrying a man she doesn't love. Like watching her intelligence get dismissed for forty years. Like..." Lucia stopped herself. She was revealing too much, letting the conversation strip away defenses she'd spent years building.
"Like what?" Khalid's voice was gentle.
"Like watching her daughter become exactly what she was. Just better at hiding it."
"My mother taught me that women in our world survive by being underestimated," Lucia said quietly. "She taught me how to be invisible while building empires. How to smile while calculating. How to be the smartest person in a room while pretending to be decorative."
"My mother taught me the same thing," Khalid replied. "Different version, same principle. She was royal, educated, and politically savvy. But she had to operate through my father, through male relatives. And then she was killed for knowing too much, for being too close to palace politics that didn't want her involvement."
Lucia heard something raw in his voice. "You loved her."
"I was twelve. She was everything. And then she was gone because powerful men felt threatened by a woman who understood their games too well."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I." Khalid exhaled slowly. "But it taught me something. Power doesn't care about gender or bloodline or education. It cares about who's willing to do what needs doing. My mother wasn't willing. I am."
I've manipulated dozens of men, Lucia thought, listening to him speak. Made them feel understood, special, and powerful. It's currency in my world. But this? Talking to him about poetry and politics and nothing that matters? This feels dangerous because it feels real.
"You don't strike me as someone who does what her family tells her," Khalid said, shifting topics.
"And you don't strike me as someone who believes his own PR. So we're even."
"Fair point." He paused. "Speaking of business—I'm coordinating a shipment through Aqaba next month. Complex logistics, multiple checkpoints. The kind of operation that requires perfect timing."
Lucia's mind immediately identified what he was really saying: arms shipment, probably to Yemen or Syria. He was testing whether she understood his real business, whether she'd react.
"Sounds similar to a tech merger I'm coordinating," she replied smoothly. "Multiple regulatory approvals, international complications. Timing is everything."
Translation: I know you're moving weapons, and I'm running similar operations. We're both criminals playing at legitimacy.
She could almost hear Khalid smile through the phone.
"We should compare notes sometime," he said. "About... logistics."
"I'd like that."
They talked for another hour about everything—favorite foods, the worst diplomatic dinner they'd endured, and the exhausting performance of being public figures. Lucia made him laugh describing her brother Marco's attempt to negotiate with a tech CEO who'd outsmarted him in thirty seconds.
"Your brother sounds..." Khalid searched for diplomatic phrasing.
"Incompetent? Resentful? Dangerous when he feels threatened?"
"I was going to say ambitious."
"That too." Lucia checked the time: 2 AM. "We should probably sleep. Some of us have actual work in the morning."
"This call never happened, as far as our families are concerned," Khalid said.
"Agreed. Some things should stay between scorpions."
After hanging up, Lucia sat in darkness, phone still warm in her hand. She was smiling—actually smiling, not the practiced expression she wore for cameras and board meetings. Real, genuine happiness.
Dangerous, she reminded herself. Feeling anything real is dangerous.
"You're falling for him."
Lucia jumped. Her mother materialized from the hallway, elegant in silk pajamas, looking completely unsurprised to be there.
"Jesus, Mama. How did you get in?"
"I have keys. Always have." Elena sat in the chair opposite, studying her daughter with clinical precision. "You're falling for him."
"I'm not—"
"Lucia. I've watched you perform for thirty-two years. I know every mask you wear. That smile?" Elena gestured at her daughter's face. "That's not a mask. That's real."
"It's a phone call. We're establishing communication parameters."
"For two hours? At midnight?" Elena's expression was unreadable. "I was in the next room. I heard everything."
Cold shock ran through Lucia. "You were listening?"
"I came to discuss the engagement timeline. Your father is pushing for acceleration. But then I heard you laughing—actually laughing—and I waited." Elena leaned forward. "Do you know the last time I heard you laugh like that? You were sixteen before you understood what our world required."
"I'm not falling for him."
"Then why are you smiling like that for the first time in ten years?"
Lucia opened her mouth to deny it, to explain it was strategy, calculation, and building necessary rapport. But the words died in her throat because they would be lies, and her mother would see through them instantly.
"It's complicated," she finally said.
"It always is." Elena stood and moved to the window. "When I was your age, I thought love and power couldn't coexist. I chose power, or perhaps it chose me. I've spent forty years wondering if that was the right choice."
"Was it?"
"I survived. I built something. I raised you to be stronger than I was." Elena turned back to her daughter. "But Lucia, if you're going to marry this prince, decide now what you want from it. Power or connection. Strategy or love. Because trying to have both will destroy you."
"What if I want both?"
"Then you're braver than I ever was. Or more foolish." Elena moved toward the door and paused. "He seems intelligent. Careful. That's either very good or very bad. Time will tell which."
After her mother left, Lucia returned to the window, looking out at Los Angeles sprawled below. Somewhere across the world, Khalid was probably still awake, probably thinking about the same conversation, and probably calculating the same risks.
Power or connection, her mother had said. You can't have both.
But maybe—maybe—two people equally trapped, equally performing, and equally desperate for something real could build something that was both a strategic alliance and a genuine partnership.
Or maybe they'd destroy each other trying.
Lucia picked up her phone and typed a message to Khalid's private number: Thank you for tonight. It was... unexpected.
His reply came thirty seconds later: Unexpectedly good or unexpectedly dangerous?
"Both," she typed. Definitely both.
"Then we're doing it right," he responded.
Lucia smiled at the screen, and this time she didn't try to stop herself.