Princess: Nuance Of Love Book 1 (10 page)

“There is another thing that I wanted
to talk to you about.” He hesitated for a moment, “When I arrived
home today, I was advised by my Father, that instead of my brother
Hafiz, it’s me that has been appointed by His Majesty Sultan to
marry you.”

“Appointed? You?” She laughed, she
peered over to the guard, she said in a lower voice. “You’re wrong!
Don’t you understand? It was me that was appointed to marry you!
That’s why they dragged me here to this country!”

“What are you talking about?” Ali was
confused.

“I first heard of Ayanda's plan to
acknowledge me as his daughter about two years ago, when I visited
home from college. My mother told me that she and Ayahnda had been
talking about this for many months. This seemed strange to me,
because if my Father wanted to acknowledge me, why not before? Why
wait for so long, adding to that, my Mother told me that he also
decided to find me a husband and have me marry someone of my
“stature”.” her voice sounded cynical. “Obviously I couldn’t refuse
my mother’s insistence, but I also couldn’t accept it without
understanding the circumstances. So I started to find out more
about Jothar, the Royal Family and my father. After back reading so
many newspapers, I found it strange that my Father would delay
marrying off my three half-sisters until after they reached 25
years of age, in-fact in interviews he said that he wanted to give
them a chance to study and work before marrying, and he encouraged
the people of Jothar to do the same” She paused.

“I don’t see anything strange about
that,” Ali said

“Why does he intend to marry me off at
twenty-three, with a much older man?” She refuted.

Ali coughed, this was the first time
somebody ever called him a much older man over a seven year age
gap. He felt a dent in his pride.

“I did very well at school, and I had a
promising future, so why cut my wings? Why me? The daughter he had
forgotten for so long, why acknowledge me and then marry me off in
no time?”

“Maybe he wanted to ensure that you
have a comfortable life.”

“Seriously? Who’s to decide that I need
a comfortable life? Or maybe I can create one for
myself.”

“Okay, what else?”

“So I reviewed the situation from
another angle. What if, acknowledging me wasn’t an act of Fatherly
instinct, but a necessity, to achieve the goal which is a marriage
alliance?”

“Well, this might sound cold, but
that’s not such a big revelation, political marriages are a common
thing in prominent families, in fact, your brothers and sisters are
in arranged political marriages.”

“Will you stop interrupting me, I
haven’t finished my story!” she almost yelled.

“Sorry."

“Thank you! Now, where was I? Oh, so he
needed to have a certain person as his son-in-law, but he doesn’t
have any daughters left, that’s why he turned to his last resort.
His estranged daughter living in England. Soon after I got back to
Cambridge, I received an invitation to go to the embassy. I met
with His Excellency Dato Fahmi Wiadi, he congratulated me and
handed me a new national ID and passport with my new title
beautifully printed in it. So from that day on, I officially had a
father. But when I graduated from college, was he there? No! Okay
maybe because of security reasons or state reasons, or whatever,
but the lack of a phone call or a congratulatory card or even
flowers, was evidence of how much he cared about me. Instead, when
I got home, my mother handed me a one way flight ticket. Two months
ago when I arrived here, after I got introduced to my father, and
settled into my residence, I was given a file containing
information of the family of Raden Hamza, his wife and his two
sons, one of which would be my husband. But the curious thing is
that you were in all the photos. In all the individual reports for
your family members, the photos put there were from events and you
were in the background. But in the report about you, it was a
single official document photo. I find it impossible that my father
couldn’t get a document style photo for Raden Hamza. When I was in
college I participated in an independent research on subliminal
messages, so I know how to search for these things, and this one
popped out like a sore thumb to me.”

Ali digested her story for a while
before asking, “Do you know that you talk like a machine gun? It's
kind of hard to digest your words. But why do you say that you were
appointed to be my wife, and not me that’s appointed to be your
husband?”

“You really can’t figure it out? Don’t
tell me you’re that naive! I was able to understand it within the
first month. My father wasn’t looking for a husband to be for me.
He was looking for a way to bring you into the family. Of course he
couldn’t be so obvious about it, because he needed to protect his
cousin whom he loves like a brother, your father, from having to
take nagging from his wife. The best way to do that was by making
her believe that her son can have the chance to be the second in
line to the throne. Why do you think he waited for the last-minute
to tell your father that he wanted you instead of your brother, and
set the wedding so soon, almost like a shotgun marriage? So it
wouldn’t cause awkwardness in your household.”

“Can I ask you something, please? Don’t
be offended!” Ali said carefully.

“Go ahead!” She replied.

“Are you one of those crazy conspiracy
theory aficionados? Because you certainly sound like
one.”

Chapter Eight

“You idiot!” She replied slapping his
shoulder. Mak Noor looked at her disapprovingly.

“But seriously, that’s a far fetch and
wild theory. How did you come up with that? I mean what did you
base that theory on?” He asked her.

“Because of your popularity with the
younger and higher educated generation of the country. And since
Ayahnda Sultan only has one son who is the Crown Prince, also He
has a bad relationship with Pangeran Bashir, and Pangeran Karim has
no children, this is the kill two birds with one stone
solution.”

“Hmm, okay, that part makes sense!” He
said almost to himself

“Of course it does. With the current
popular call out to form a Parliament, having a reformist in the
throne line, he will gain the support of the younger age group,
which is the majority of the population.” She said reassuringly,
she added, “So now if you came here to cry victim, you’re barking
up the wrong tree. I’m not too excited to be marrying you either,
and for your information, one of the two times that I visited the
Jothar Embassy in London, was to vote for Pro Parliament in the
referendum!”

Ali sat quiet thinking about the
situation, a palace maid came and served some tea. Paramita feeling
her throat dry from all that nonstop talking picked up a cup.
“Please go ahead and drink.” She offered him out of
politeness.

Ali also took a sip of the tea, “To
tell you the truth, I think what you said kind of makes a little
sense, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true. Although
you may find it hard to believe, convenient coincidences do happen
in real life, and not everything is a vile and intricate
conspiracy. Have you spoken about this to anyone else?”

“No, just you. Because I see you as the
other party affected by this.”

“Okay, please let’s keep this between
us. Especially if your theory about the strategy against the Pro
Parliament movement is right, you should be more careful to whom
you tell it to.” He looked at his watch, “I better go now. It’s
getting late. Can we meet again? There are some other things we
need to talk about.”

“We can meet for lunch sometime
tomorrow if you like, I have some errands to do at the bank, and I
can meet you someplace.”

“Okay, that’s a good plan. Here is my
business card, please call me when you finished your business, and
we can arrange it from there.”

“Sounds like a plan, I’ll see you
soon.”

“Goodbye, Puteri.”

“We’re friends now, you can call me
Mita.”

“Mita, see you tomorrow.” He said
gently.

The guard followed him out and escorted
him to his car. He started the engine and drove away.

* * *

The meeting didn’t go as he expected.
He didn’t even get a chance to speak, Paramita kept talking and
talking. She was quite different from he expected, he usually
didn’t like to be around younger women, because they didn’t have
anything to say that would interest him, even with Dewi sometimes,
who was only three years younger than him, he would sometimes, go
into autopilot and say “yes, my love.” during their
conversations.

He thought maybe it’s because they are
stuck in the same situation at this moment, so listening to her
view and thoughts on the situation was interesting.

From the first time he saw her, he
found himself drawn to her. Not only by her physical appearance,
but more so by her personality. She is every bit as insolent as
Hafiz had said she was, but she not at all petty. They had a
considerate age gap between them, but that didn’t intimidate her.
He also loved her sense of humor.

Ali took a right turn arriving at the
front of his Father’s mansion. One of the staff opened the gate to
let him in. He whistled as he entered the mansion.

He crossed Hafiz as he was walking up
the stairs to his bedroom.

“You’re in a good mood, did you go to
see Dewi?”

“No, I haven’t decided how I’m going to
tell her this news.”

“Oh? But you look so happy and you’re
even whistling, I thought Dewi accepted your arranged marriage,
forgave you and was willing to be your second wife.”

Ali suddenly thought of Paramita and
smiled, “I don’t think there’s a slightest chance in the world that
something like that is going to happen.”

“Yeah,” He agreed, and added. “So where
did you go?”

“I went to talk to Mita,” Ali answered
lightly

“Mita?” Hafiz almost fell down the
stairs in shock

“Yes, Rahmat helped me to arrange a
meeting with her at the palace.”

“So you’re happy because, she agreed to
cancel the marriage?”

“I don’t think she can cancel it on her
own account, even though she doesn’t agree to it.”

“And so why are you happy?” Hafiz was
baffled.

“I don’t really know actually, we
talked a bit today, she was actually very funny. But since we
haven’t finished talking, so we’ve agreed to meet again tomorrow.”
Ali explained.

“I don’t understand you! A few hour
ago, you acted like your world had just caved in, because father
told you to marry Puteri Paramita, and now here you are, calling
her by her pet name, you visited her in the palace, and arranging a
date.”

“It’s not a date, Mita and I are going
to resume our conversation from today.”

“Mita and I? Oh, so the two of you are
an item now? Isn’t that a little too fast? Have you really accepted
her? Or are you seeing her as a stepping stone to a better
future?”

“Hafiz! How dare you talk to me like
that? I’m your older brother!”

An older brother who is taking
advantage of a woman because of her position.”

“What’s your problem, it’s not like you
wanted to marry her, I can still remember all your whining and your
childish victory dance today when father told us about the Sultan’s
decision.” Ali was starting to get upset at his brother’s
behavior.

“The problem is not that I want to
marry her or not, the problem is that you had your eye on her, even
though you thought she was going to marry me. And it’s not because
you feel something for her, it’s because you want to take advantage
of her!”

“Who said I had my eye on
her?”

“Oh? Tell me all that whistling and the
grin on your face, wasn’t because of you thinking of your promising
future.”

“Hafiz!”

“See you can’t deny it! I bet there is
no way that you started to be interested in her. You didn’t even
waste time to go and see her. You’re an opportunist!”

“Shut up!” Ali yelled while grabbing
Hafiz’s collar and pushing him against the wall.

He lifted his fist to punch his brother
when there was a sudden shout. “Stop it, please! The both of you,
what’s going on here!”

It was Raden Nabilla who ran out of her
room upon hearing the commotion, Raden Hamza was beside her, and
then with wide strides, he walked over to his sons, and pried them
apart.

“What nonsense is this?” Raden Hamza
shouted at them. “I never raised you to yell and fight with each
other.”

“What happened? Why are the two of you
like this?” Raden Nabilla asked.

“Ask Hafiz, all of a sudden he accused
me of backstabbing him,” Ali replied

“Hafiz, what is this about
backstabbing?” Raden Hamza looked at his younger son.

“Did you know where he came from?”
Hafiz pointed at his brother, “He went to visit Puteri Paramita at
the palace. And now he’s acting all familiar with her, calling her
by her pet name and all, and he told me that they’re going out for
lunch. Father how could it be possible that he suddenly grew
interested in her in the last few hours. He’s obviously got
something up his sleeves.”