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The ravenous world—hungry for stories that ended happily ever after in castles with good-looking princes or kings or even sultans gazing adoringly at ordinary girls froery assured her—ate it all up with a spoon

“You look so sophisticated!” Jessie had cried one night a feeeks before the wedding They’d been on a Skype call after a charity ball in Paris that Khaled had wanted to attend for the press attention alone, and if her best friend’s expression wasn’t quite as thrilled as her tone of voice, Cleo told herself it was si hours Jessie had been putting in at her law fir more “Like a movie star!”

“I’ve never felt more beautiful,” Cleo had told her, and it was true

Because when she looked in theWith happiness With disbelief that this was happening to her With excitehtly as the jewels Khaled lavished upon her or the sifts

With that happily ever after that the whole world was suddenly as invested in as she was That she was certain she’d earned

And she was the only one who knew that Khaled hadn’t touched her again as he had that night in his courtyard, or in that hall outside the suite of rooms she still inhabited

“We will save soe bed, I think,” he’d told her when she’d tried to ht in Paris, after spending soin his arms in front of all the cameras

“What if I don’t want to wait?” she’d asked, wild and very nearly furious anting hi him

He’d run his finger down her nose and se in it

“You will do it anyway,” he’d told her softly

“Because you say so?”

“Because I wish it,” he’d replied, which she’d thought was pretty h?”