Prince & Prejudice

1 | the moment of weakness

one | the moment of weakness

It was precisely 14:30 PM London Time when I touched down at Heathrow Airport, completely exhausted, both physically and mentally. I trudged through security with heavy footsteps and went through baggage claims feeling like I would collapse at any moment. The flight from Seattle to London had been a long one and the fact that the lady next to me had a three year old that wouldn't stop crying for hours end on made it the most horrible experience of my life.

I walked out with my bags piled on top of each other on a trolley and scanned the lounge for some indication of where I was to go from here.

There were a hundred different things happening at the same time, people rushing around, eating, and even sleeping. And tears, lots of tears, happy ones as they greeted their loved ones and sad ones as they departed from them.

I watched a family next to me as they said their goodbyes to a girl around my age; the mother wept in who I assumed was her husband's arms as the girl waved at them, trying to hold back her own tears as she checked in. They were sending her off to college.

I averted my eyes feeling like I was intruding on a private moment as a pang went through my chest and tears began to sting my eyes. I bit my bottom lip and curled my hands into fists, shaking my head and willing the tears not to fall.

Once I had gotten myself together once again, I scanned the lounge once more and my eyes landed on a sign with my name on it. Alessandra Amal Makhdoom.

I looked up to see a man in his forties, dressed in a black suit with sunglasses covering his eyes and a headset attached to his ear holding up the sign. His face was mostly covered by the shades but I could tell he was of Arab descent.

I smiled to myself bitterly. It was foolish of me to think that my father would come to pick me up himself. I hadn't been expecting it but it still stung regardless.

I quickly maneuvered my way through the crowd, pushing my trolley in the direction of the man and stopped a feet away from him, greeting him.

"I'm Alessandra." I said pointing towards the sign. "Alessandra Amal."

"Can I see any identification?" He asked and I rolled my eyes before taking my passport out from my purse and handing it to him.

He took it from me and scanned it quickly before returning it to me.

"Very well," he said, looking at me, "Welcome to London Miss Makhdoom, I am Mohammad Salah, your father's head of security; I will be escorting you to him, he has a reservation made at The Esquire, Miss Aylin will be joining you both as well and then I will drop you off at your university."

I cursed under my breath upon hearing my sister, well half-sister's name.

I had never met Aylin Makhdoom ever in my life before but from what I had seen and heard it wasn't something I was looking forward to.

Aylin Noor-Kaya Makhdoom was my half-sister, daughter to my father - Sheikh Ahmad Makhdoom and Hayat Noor-Kaya - a Turk heiress. According to the little research I had done on the plane, she was the typical heiress slash socialite who flaunted her wealth and got wasted with the rich and famous.

Aside from that I didn't know much about her apart from the little things my grandmother used to tell me whenever she visited me.

She was careful not to say too much as she didn't want me to hurt my feelings but I could tell from her stories that Aylin wasn't extremely fond of me.

I remember how my my father used to visit me just once a year, on my birthday. I had become accustomed to his absence, I used to loathe him year around but the one day of the year he used to come visit I would put aside all my bitterness and tried to spend the day to the fullest with him. But all that stopped when I turned 11.