Princess: Nuance Of Love Book 1 (17 page)

“Are you feeling alright?” He suddenly
asked, catching her off guard.

“Yes, I am. Why?”

“Your face is all red, I thought you
might have a fever or something.”

“Uhm, that? It’s that I’m feeling
somewhat……., nervous.” She replied.

“Don’t worry, I won’t drop
you.”

“It’s not that. I’ve never been this
close to a man before.” She blushed again.

“Well, now you have.” He smiled,
without saying anything else. They felt drops of water falling on
their skin. The rain had arrived.

The cave turned out to be small and
very narrow inside, they had to squeeze in tightly to be able to
fit in there together.

“It’s tight, but at least it can
protect us from the rain until help comes.” Said Ali.

“My shoulder is hurting being pressed
against the rock wall,” Paramita complained.

“Maybe we should change sitting
positions. Let’s do this, why don’t you turn around and sit facing
the wall, and I’ll sit behind you with my back to the other
wall.”

“Okay, let’s try.”

They moved around to sit as Ali
suggested. “You’re sitting there all comfortable with your legs
crossed, there’s hardly enough space for me. I’m squished against
the wall.” Paramita said.

“Don’t be such a Princess. Look, I’ll
open my legs and you can move backward, you can lean against me.”
He said.

Paramita turned her head slightly, “I
don’t think that’s an appropriate position for a man and woman to
be in.”

“I know it’s not, but do you have a
better idea? Besides, nobody’s here to judge us, and we’re not
doing anything immoral.”

“You’re right.” She shifted her body
backward, feeling his body against her back, her heart started
beating out of control again.

“Don’t worry, there’s no need to be
nervous around me.” He said softly.

She could feel his warm breath against
her neck as he was talking, giving her goose bumps.

“Are you cold?” he asked seeing her
shiver. He placed his arm around her.

“Abang, what if somebody sees us?” She
barely managed to let her voice out.

“Who would be out here in this hard
rain? If somebody were here to see us, we can actually follow them
back to the village, and we’ll be safe.”

“Hah, you’re right!”

That didn’t lessen her awkwardness, she
sat there in silence, only moving a little bit to make herself
comfortable from time to time.

“Abang…”

“Hmmm?”

“Can you please move your wallet to
your back pocket, it’s making me uncomfortable.” She said while
shrugging her body backward to make him understand her
point.

“My wallet is in my back pocket.” Ali
responded, “Don’t move like that, please. Keep still.”

“But something solid is pressing
against my behind, can you see what it is and move it
away?”

“Be quiet and stay still, it’ll go away
by itself. If you keep moving like that, it will just get worse” He
said with a strained voice.

“Okay,” She agreed immediately without
even one word of protest. He couldn’t see her ears were ready to
burst into flames. The thought of their awkward situation made her
too embarrassed to say a single word.

He felt a wave of relief when Paramita
decided to obey him and stop moving. This time, it was his turn to
turn red. He tried to empty his mind by controlling his breathing.
Her skin emitted the soft scent of jasmine causing his blood to
rush away from his head. The warmth of her back pressed against his
chest was making him even dizzier. He frantically tried to come up
with other things to think about in order to distract himself from
his invading thoughts.

Outside the sky, was becoming dark, but
the rain didn’t show any sign of stopping. Ali felt restless and
uneasy, he didn’t know how long he could keep calm and in control
in this situation.

“Mita, what did you and Hafiz talk
about at the night of our engagement?” He asked, partly curious,
partly to distract himself.

She took a deep breath, “At first we
talked about our misunderstanding and the fight that we had. I do
admit, I had no business judging him. He also asked me to be
friends again with him, which I think is a good thing, you know. We
used to be so close, and we used to hang out often when we were
studying. He would bale me out a lot of times money wise, when I
was stubbornly insistent to not use my allowance from my mother. So
decided to tell him you know, how I felt about him back then” She
paused.

“Then what happened? How did he end up
confessing to you?”

“I was about to go back to the hall,
when he suddenly told me that he had always known about my feelings
and that he felt the same way, it’s that, at that time, I was weird
and ugly. Maybe you don’t know this, but I spent the first two
years of college, going around campus in flower printed clothes,
but not the good type, it was a disaster.” She laughed remembering
that time, “Oh well anyway, he told me that he kept changing
girlfriends because, none of them hit it off with him like I did,
but he was embarrassed to be seen dating me. So basically to him
all the other girls, including my best friend Laila, were to
fill-in his void. That’s the back story. Now, when your parents
told him that he might have to marry me, he said he was upset
because, as a good friend of his, it felt somewhat gay for him.”
She paused.

“I remember him mentioning that to me,”
Ali said.

“But he told me, that as soon as he
heard that I was going to marry you instead, it flipped a switch in
his mind, because that means I’m going to belong to someone else.
Something that never worried him before, because he was confident
that no man will look at me.”

“What? Did he say that? How could he
disrespect you like that?” Ali responded angrily.

“No, don’t be upset, I made the last
part up.” She corrected herself. “But anyway in my opinion, he sees
me as interesting now, because of my status as a Puteri here in
Jothar.”

“Mita, Hafiz is my only little brother,
and I've known him since he was born, he might be many things, but
he’s not the kind of person to take advantage of other people for
personal gain. He sometimes does things that are irresponsible, but
he would never intentionally hurt people. Besides, he’s not an
ambitious person.”

“What are you implying?”

“I think that he really believes that
he has feelings for you.”

“Do you think so?” She asked doubting
him.

“I know so!” He affirmed.

“Well, there’s nothing that I can do
about it. He missed his train with me. I've passed through the pain
of getting over him, and I’m not crawling back into that hole
again. Besides, it’s not like I'm marrying you because I choose
to.” She said.

"I'll have a talk with him as soon as
he gets over his capricious phase." Ali assured her.

"By the way, why did you agree to marry
me?"

"There are three valid reasons to marry
a woman, first her beauty, which you definitely have, the second is
her fortune and position, and the last is her religion." He paused,
"You have two and the third remains to be seen. So why
not?"

"Don't try to run in circles with me!
Tell me the truth" She said.

"Because I want to be a part of the
ruling family, I want to be one of the governing prince's and
eventually be the Finance Minister. My father was able to get his
position as the Minister of Foreign Affairs because of the
closeness to the Sultan, but when your brother takes over the
throne, I will be too far away from the inner family circle to be
even considered for the position. At first when I heard that you
were going to marry Hafiz, I thought I could use his position to
bring me into the circle, but this marriage gives me more political
weight." He reasoned.

"So you're using me as a stepping stone
for power and position?" Paramita asked.

"Honestly, Yes. Just like you used me
to get three million dollars." He said.

"Well, being ambitious is normal, I
guess." She whispered.

"Mine is not ambition. Look, Jothar
relies on petroleum for the government expenditures, like subsidies
for the general population and the building of infrastructure. But
remember our country is small and so is our petroleum source. What
happens when in the next fifteen or twenty years, we exhaust that
resource? Or the price of petroleum drops in the international
market? We have no significant national production besides
petroleum, we don't export anything that can be a national source
of income, and most of our people rely on subsidies for food, gas,
electricity, education, and medical benefits. What happens when the
government can longer subsidies? The economy will collapse, the
government will collapse and eventually our country will collapse.
I always planned to get involved into politics, but now with this
marriage arrangement, I can reach my goal faster. As the Sultan's
son-in-law, people will listen to me, and we can get to work on an
economic reformation."

"Ah....now I understand why my father
wanted you as his son-in-law. So maybe my theory wasn't so off
after all."

"Could be, I've discussed this with my
father so many times, maybe he spoke to the Sultan about
it."

"That's not such a bad cause. You’re
quite noble" Paramita praised. "And what about Dewi?"

"I feel sad for her. The thought of
breaking her heart, tears me up inside. But if I have to put on a
scale between my future with her, and the future of my people,
there's no doubt which one I'll choose."

"Well you can count on me to help you
in your cause, until we divorce, of course." She glanced at
him.

"Who said I'm going to divorce you that
easily?"

"What are you saying?"

"To strengthen my position, I must have
a child with you first. After you give birth to my child, then we
can talk about divorce. That's if you have the heart to abandon
your own baby and husband."

"You! I take back all the good thoughts
I had about you, you're a horrible and conniving human being!" The
thought of having a baby with him made her blush.

They sat in silence for a while, lost
in their own chain of thoughts

Paramita began to shrug again, her body
felt stiff, she took a deep breath, “I wish, they’d found out a way
to compress objects and fit them in a capsule. Then we can carry a
helicopter in our pockets, put water on it to make it big and get
out of here.”

“You mean like what they do in Capsule
Corps?” Ali replied.

“Oh? Did you read that comic book too?”
She asked in surprise.

“I have a complete collection of Dragon
Ball comic in the library at home, among others, I love reading
comic books.”

“That’s funny, you never strike me as
the comic reading type.”

“What type do I strike you
as?”

“I don’t know, you’re a company
director, aspiring to be a minister, have a stable girlfriend, and
from a noble family. I would have thought that you’re the elegant,
stuck up, and high-class type.”

“Well, you don’t strike me as the comic
book reading type.”

“I don’t?”

“Just kidding, you do, it’s written all
over your face,” Ali laughed, “So what else have you
read?”

They spent hours talking and laughing
about their favorite books, movies, and television series. They
found out that they had many things in common. Ali never felt this
comfortable before, how many years had it been since he could show
his true side, and not hide in a façade of being a responsible
public figure.

“I didn’t know we had some much in
common!” Paramita said.

There was no answer.

“Abang, what are you
thinking?”

“I suddenly remembered what Dewi said
to me today.” He finally answered.

“What did she say?” She said while
yawning.

“Nothing important. Mita, it’s already
dark outside, and there is no sign of the rain stopping. I don’t
think they will be coming for us tonight, for safety reasons. It
would be a good idea if we try to get some sleep to conserve
energy.”

“Try to sleep? Here? In this
position?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to do
anything weird to you.”

“I know, I didn’t mean to accuse you of
that, I’m sorry. I know your feelings are only for
Dewi.”

“Be careful of the way you think, men
can easily be tempted to do perverted things to woman. What keeps
him from doing those things are high moral values.” He
said.

“I understand.” She replied
softly.

“You know, once in a man’s life, he
meets someone who confuses him and turns his world upside down,
forgetting everything that he planned, felt and dreamed before he
met her. Forcing him to a crossroad without knowing which way to
choose, to continue on his planned journey, or to change his
course. Someone very special who completely bewitched his mind and
soul without even realizing it.”