A younger man stood near the window with his back toward me.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a dark suit.
“Zayd,” his mother said, “come and meet Layla.”
He turned.
For one terrible second, the room seemed to tilt beneath my feet.
I stopped breathing.
The man standing in front of me was Amir.
The same eyes.
The same confident posture.
The same small scar near his left eyebrow that I had noticed the previous night.
But he wasn’t Amir.
He was Zayd Al-Haddad, the wealthy man my parents wanted me to marry.
My fingers went numb.
He looked at me politely, then nodded.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Layla.”
His voice was calm.
There was no recognition in his expression.
The veil covered most of my face, and my voice was different when I spoke in the presence of my family. Perhaps he hadn’t recognized me.
