Acting Royal #Wattys2017

25

ZAYN

He didn't really care anymore that the evening was not yet officially over. He'd stayed long enough and now he wanted to be alone with the woman that he was falling in love with- for the first time in his entire life. He took Jenny by the hand and started walking her out the ballroom, as he exited though, he saw Amir standing there waiting for them.

"Lovely evening." Amir said to them both with a tightlipped, fake looking smile.

"Indeed." Zayn forced a smile and clutched onto Jenny protectively. He didn't know what is was about Amir, but standing here opposite him, he felt like he needed to keep Jenny away from him.

"I haven't had a chance to wish you happy birthday... cousin." Amir leaned in and hugged him, planting two kisses on his cheeks. Amir felt cold. Icy. He was up to something. Zayn could sense it.

He pulled out of his grip and thanked him as sincerely as he could muster and walked away with Jenny. He turned the corner and glanced back to find him standing staring at them with a smile across his face that Zayn didn't like at all.

JENNY

Jenny had been expecting that the two of them would rush straight back to the room and rip each other's clothes off, but they didn't. Instead Zayn wanted to show her something.

Zayn led her through the maze of corridors once more until they reached a small door at the end of one of the many passaged. He pushed the door open and Jenny stepped into what looked like a massive, and very old library. She gasped. There were books and old looking scrolls as far as the eye could see. They were lined up on ornate dark wooden shelves that reached all the way up to the ceiling. There were ladders reaching up to the top shelves. A massive painted dome hovered directly above their heads.

"It's amazing." Jenny tried to take it all in, but there was so much to see. Zayn took her by the hand and led her through the books until they arrived in a massive lounge area, full of tables and chairs and old sofas. One of the walls was completely covered in paintings and this is what Zayn had wanted to show her.

She looked up at the numerous portraits, some of them looked like they dated back a hundred years. This was the history of the royal family- Zayn's history. She moved her eyes over them until she saw him.

"I wanted to show you my family." Sadness wracked his voice. He pointed at one of the rows of paintings. "That was my aunt and uncle and my cousins."

He stared up at the paintings with a sense of longing so palpable that it made her want to cry. "They died in a plane crash, that's the only reason I'm in line to take the thrown next."

Jenny didn't know what to say to that. He was sharing something so intimate and sacred with her. All she could do was lace her fingers through his as he looked up at his family. And then a painting of Rana caught Jenny's her eye and she moved closer to it. A much younger version of her was standing next to the most beautiful, black horse. It must have been–

"That was Rana's horse. She was an avid rider and loved it so much, until...there was an accident. The stables caught on fire. It was lucky I was there to save her otherwise, I don't even want to think about it."

The conversation with Amir came flooding back to her. The way he'd told her about it... there had been something so threatening in his tone.

"Sometimes I think this family is cursed." Zayn said softly looking up at all the painting. "Accidents seem to follow us around."

Jenny's blood ran cold. She couldn't say why or how, but she just knew. In that moment she somehow sensed beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was Amir. He had been responsible for all these accidents. She felt it so strongly and wondered if Zayn had ever considered it before, or Rafiq? Someone must have asked these questions?

She was overcome with this desire to tell him what she thought. But it wasn't her place and it was based on a hunch. No, it was based on a chilling feeling she had gotten the very first moment she'd seen him looking at her from the palace window the day she'd arrived.

But Zayn was not in the right frame of mind right now to talk about this. His sadness ran deep and he'd brought her here to show her another side of himself. So she moved closer to him and wrapper her arms around him...

But she promised herself that she was going to ask Rafiq about this, tomorrow.