Zelda pressed her lips together and decided on a chicken dish, with poached asparagus and truffle oil potatoes.
She sipped her water, telling her parents that she would skip the wine for the moment, and tried to fight back the rising sense of anxiety she felt as her parents and Zayed exchanged small talk, waiting for their dishes to arrive.
“There’s one thing I want to know,” her mother said finally, looking at Zelda. “I can see that you have a great deal of wealth at your disposal now, so the question of what you’ll do with your life is on a whole new spectrum.”
Zelda smiled slightly at that observation.
“Technically, you’re right there: Zelda doesn’t have to work a day in her life if she doesn’t want to,” Zayed agreed. “She could easily stay at home, socialize, do the things she enjoys doing.” His hand on hers under the table tightened, and Zelda gave him a squeeze in return, silently telling her husband to hold on a little longer.
“I would really like to know, though—are you planning on working? Or finishing your education?”
Zelda grinned more broadly as the first of their dishes came to the table. Her mother and father both exclaimed over the novel combinations, tasting and comparing, and Zelda waited for them to finish taking in their first impressions before she spoke.
“In fact,” Zelda said, “to answer your question: yes. This restaurant is a new venture that I put together with Zayed.” Her parents’ eyes widened in shock. “Zayed took over this restaurant as part of his competitor’s properties, along with the hotel it’s attached to. So we have made a little joint venture out of overhauling the restaurant. The menu was entirely designed by me.”
“Wow, Zel. I always knew you had talent,” her father remarked, snagging another of the bitesize morsels from his wife’s plate. “But this…”
“It’s what I wanted to do, but on a much larger scale,” Zelda said. “Of course, there’s a good chance I’m going to need to back off a bit in the near future.”
Her parents didn’t say anything to that, but it was obvious to Zelda that they were now much more at ease with her situation in life, knowing that she had a passion to follow. The atmosphere at the table eased with each passing course, and by the time they came to dessert, her mother was trying to convince her to at least join her in a toast to celebrate her new life.
“It’s just a shame I didn’t have a chance to toast your marriage when it happened,” her mother said, shaking her head slowly. “You had two weddings without me!”
The waiter came and her mother tried to get Zelda to have a cocktail with her to finish off the meal; Zelda demurred once more, saying she was perfectly happy.
“Actually,” she said, once the waiter had left, “I think that I might have a way to make it up to you both.”
“What’s that?”
Zelda had both of her parents’ attention. She reached out and Zayed took her hand in his. “Well, other than me and Zayed,” she began, “you two are the first to know that we are going to be having a baby.”
For a long moment, both of her parents were utterly silent. Then, before Zelda could react, her mother had left her chair, hurrying around the table to hug her tightly, swiftly followed by her father, who held the two of them in an emotional brace, before reaching out to bring Zayed into the fold.
The new family spent the rest of the evening discussing the future, and planning for Zelda’s parents’ first trip to Murindhi. Finally, Zelda was sure that even if she had made her deal to marry Zayed under strange circumstances, it was the best deal she would ever make in her life.
The End
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