CHAPTER 2 — THE GHOSTS OF THE FIRST TWO WIVES
The following morning, palace gossip exploded.
Everyone expected delivery trucks full of diamonds.
Luxury sports cars.
Designer dresses.
Private yachts.
Instead...
Layla left the palace carrying nothing except a notebook.
She drove herself through the capital city in an ordinary SUV.
No security convoy.
No photographers.
No assistants.
Only curiosity.
Inside the palace, servants couldn't understand.
"What is she doing?"
"Has she already lost her mind?"
Meanwhile, Kareem ordered his chief of security, Omar, to follow her.
"But do not let her know."
For three weeks, Omar submitted detailed reports every evening.
Day One.
She visited an old public library.
She spent nothing.
Day Three.
She met economists at a university.
Still nothing.
Day Six.
She interviewed architects.
Nothing.
Day Nine.
She visited farms suffering from drought.
Again...
No purchases.
Kareem frowned.
"She's wasting time."
Then Omar handed him another folder.
"There is something unusual."
Inside were copies of old photographs.
Pictures of Kareem's first two wives.
Layla had secretly met both of them.
The Sheikh's expression hardened.
"Why?"
No answer.
Only photographs.
The first wife, Nadia, now lived quietly in Greece.
She still owned the seaside mansion that had cost her marriage.
When Layla asked what happened, Nadia laughed sadly.
"I thought he wanted intelligence."
"He wanted obedience."
The second wife, Miriam, lived in Morocco running a children's clinic.
She smiled warmly.
"I believed generosity would impress him."
"It didn't."
Before leaving, Layla asked each woman exactly the same question.
"What do you think the Sheikh was truly testing?"
Neither woman knew.
That night Layla sat in her hotel room surrounded by pages of handwritten notes.
She drew one word in the center of the page.
CHARACTER.
Around it she wrote:
Greed.
Kindness.
Power.
Trust.
Control.
Responsibility.
Then she crossed them all out.
"There has to be something deeper."
Back inside the palace, Kareem looked increasingly irritated.
Twenty-one days had passed.
Nearly one million dollars still sat untouched.
His advisers laughed.
"This one will fail worse than the others."
Kareem almost agreed.
Until Omar quietly added one final sentence.
"Your Majesty..."
"She has spent more time asking questions about you... than buying anything."
May you like
For reasons he couldn't explain...
That unsettled him.
