“I brought you breakfast in bed, but it seems I’m too late,” he said as he moved across the suite.

“Too early,” she replied in a gravelly voice. Her hands stopped moving, and then reached up into the air as she performed a stretch that shifted the blanket completely off of her. She wore a robe made of thick, warm flannel, and the curves of her breasts and the bend of her back were silhouetted against the weak predawn light filtering into the large window in front of her. Seeing her displayed in such a way was a moving sight, but it didn’t inspire lust in Thabiso; instead, he felt a pang of sadness. The palace gardens and Thesolo’s mountain range served as a backdrop to her beauty, but, if everything went to plan, soon she’d never look upon them again, or he upon her. Was the desperate urge to go to her that struck Thabiso what Ledi had felt that night when she opened herself to him in her apartment?

No, not to him. To Jamal. Thabiso was simply the man who had crushed the fragile sprout of trust she’d been kind enough to offer. She would not have him. That didn’t stop him from savoring the memory of her in his arms after she’d fallen asleep during the welcome dinner. He’d had a preposterous thought as he’d carried her.

This is what our wedding night could be like. What kind of nonsense was that? Sentimental and as unlikely as him crawling back to Omega Corp. He’d compromised any future negotiations between he and Ledi, and they were simply fulfilling a temporary contract now.

He put the tray down on the bed and realized the sheets were still smooth and crisp, and the single eng flower the housekeepers laid on the palace pillows to induce prosperous dreaming hadn’t been moved away or flattened.

Now that he was closer, he could see that her eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark circles.

“You haven’t slept?”

“Sleep is for the weak,” Ledi said, then yawned again. “And for people not trying to help figure out a possible epidemic.”

He carried over the bowl of mealy pap and the cup of coffee and placed them on the desk. “We should reschedule today’s event at the temple so you can rest. I didn’t bring you here for you to work yourself sick.”

Ledi scoffed and grabbed for her coffee. She popped some kind of vitamin supplement into her mouth and washed it down with a sip of coffee. “I’m a grad student. Sleep is a bonus, but far from necessary. Don’t worry about me.”

Thabiso wanted to argue that she had been running on fumes from the moment he’d met her, but she wasn’t the type of woman to be tucked into bed and given a glass of warm milk. He hoped that after their meeting with the priestesses of Ingoka he could convince her to at least take a nap, but rest didn’t seem to be her style.

“Please eat. I can bring something else if this isn’t to your taste. And I’d love to know how your day was yesterday, if you don’t mind sharing that. I know seeing your grandparents must have been difficult.”

“Why don’t you tell me about your day, while I eat and caffeinate,” she said. Thabiso doubted she was really interested—she was a master at changing the conversation away from herself—but she picked up a spoon and tucked into the porridge and that was good enough for him.

“Well, after you and Likotsi left to begin your research, I was called into an emergency meeting with the finance ministers. Very unhappy finance ministers.”

“What were they mad about?” She spun her office chair around and leaned back, still annoyed but at least actually engaging in conversation. “Did you blow your allowance sending Mrs. Garcia to Puerto Rico?”

She took another bite, and Thabiso’s gaze followed the path of the spoon into her mouth, the way her lips pressed against the smooth metal and her tongue slipped over her lips afterward.

He lifted his gaze back to her eyes.

“No, that was a humanitarian mission, although Mrs. Garcia did quite enjoy the mini bar at the Ritz,” he said. That pulled a grin from her. “While I was in New York, I decided against finalizing a multimillion-dollar investment deal with a powerful company,” he said.

“Is that all? I mean, what’s several million dollars?” She chewed sarcastically, which Thabiso hadn’t even known was possible until that moment.

“Thesolo is wealthy nation, but hundreds of millions is still a lot,” he said. “I could buy many Italian special sandwiches with that.”

“Then why’d you tank the deal?” she asked, ignoring his reference. Her gaze dropped to her food, lashes fluttering down and hiding her eyes from him.

“Because even though I was told that this deal would usher Thesolo into the future, it felt like I was ensuring the destruction of our kingdom if I said yes. I decided against letting a company come to Thesolo, dig up our resources, and destroy our land, but the ministers see it as impertinence and overstepping my bounds.”

Thabiso thought of the raised voices and the accusations of incompetence that had been hurled at him. “It’s like they look at the other nations being robbed of their resources and think ‘Oh, they’re just stupid. That’s why they were fooled.’ These men are intelligent, but they ignore economic history, colonization, and globalization. They can only think in the moment, when we need to be thinking a hundred years ahead, and beyond for that matter.”

Naledi was looking at him now, staring at him like one of the large spiders that inhabited the dusty corners of the palace had just rappelled down from the ceiling onto him. He ran a hand over his head to the back of his neck. “What?”