Which is strange in itself. As strained as my marriage has been from the start, I take my vows seriously and have never cheated.
And even before entering into marriage with the woman of my grandfather’s choosing, I hadn’t been a fan of sweet. In fact, I’d preferred the services of women I paid to keep me company due to my particular tastes. Dark tastes, that I couldn’t imagine bringing up, much less inflicting on my wife.
But what would that be like with Mika? How would it feel to bind this angel up and take her until she screamed?
An image of me doing just that flashes across my mind before I can stop it, and I grit my jaw against the wave of arousal that ripples up my stomach at the imagined thought.
“I’m sorry I can’t accept your offer,” she says with a sympathetic tone, mistaking my dark look. “I know how hard it is to find good childcare.”
“Yes, it is.”
I play along with the illusion that I’m upset because I’ve failed to procure a nanny for my daughter. What else can I do? Confess to a woman I only met a few minutes ago that she’s awakened something inside me. A dark desire that has been dormant for so long, it might as well have been dead?
No, of course, I can’t do that. And it’s for the best that she turned down my job offer; I decide in that moment.
Previous to this encounter, I believed myself to be an honorable man, disciplined and immune to distractions. But standing across from this American in my study I realize without a shadow of a doubt that she would do more than distract me if she lived under my roof. She would tempt me and eventually make me break.
Would that be so bad? a deceptively purring voice asks inside of me. The same voice that used to organize back entrance visits to the elite and highly specific brothel Stone’s crime family ran in New York.
I ignore the voice. And the dark hunger churning inside my chest.
“Thank you for your service tonight,” I say, keeping my tone warm. “I am truly grateful.”
“It was seriously no problem. Aisha’s a great kid,” she answers. But then she peeps up at me and says, “If you really want to thank me, do you have a piece of paper or something else you could sign? Ender, Holt’s and Sylvie’s oldest son will be so upset with me if he finds out I talked to you and didn’t get your autograph. Apparently, he’s a big fan of your exoskeleton work.”
I jolt. It’s been so long since anyone mentioned my work with Future Bionics, it almost feels out of context. “Holt’s son…is this the child prodigy who’s studying Computational Biology at the Connecticut Institute of Technology?”
She smiles, once again piercing my chest with those dimples. “That’s him. He’s got this bioHelmet thingie he’s trying to get to work with prosthetics. So he’s obsessed with landing an internship with GoBionics.” Her smile goes wry and apologetic. “He confused poor Aisha to death with all his questions. I guess she had no idea her dad was a tech genius.”
“She was still very young when we moved here.” I go over to my desk and pull open a long-closed drawer, filled with the now defunct Future Bionics swag. “I doubt she remembers much about our time in the States. But here…”
I pull out a scratch pad with Future Bionics stamped across the front in a simple font. Most tech companies with my level of funding would have commissioned a serious logo, but I’d been too superstitious to do so. Every week, it seemed, came the news of another company with a well-designed logo folding before its products even had the chance to go to market.
I didn’t want Future Bionics to go out the same way. Every extra dime we had went into research and development, graphics be damned.
At least that’s what I told myself.
Perhaps, even back then, I’d known on some subconscious level that Future Bionics was a toy I was playing with while I could. Something to keep me occupied until my grandfather called me home. The less I invested in it, the better.
I scrawl my name across the scratch pad’s top sheet. “Please, give this to Ender, and tell him how much I admire his drive and ingenuity.”
She turned down my money, but she takes the pad and clutches it to her chest as if I’ve bestowed a great gift upon her. “You have no idea what this will mean to him. And hearing those compliments is going to make him so happy. Thank you.”
I make a mental note to mention her gifted charge, the next time I speak to Go Rodriguez. Then I answer, “No, thank you. An autograph is the least I can do.”
This is the moment…the moment when we should be saying our goodbyes.
Instead, our eyes catch, and a new heat descends over the conversation. Thick and sizzling.
A see-saw tilts back and forth inside my chest. My principles and my desires battling to stay on top.
But no…
I’m not free. And I can’t risk letting myself become consumed by whatever this unknown fire is burning between us.
“I’ll have my attendant escort you back to the palace.”
I move past her, open the door to my study and call for Faizan.
We exchange good-byes and more thank yous. This time she keeps her gaze lowered. Meekness? Shyness? Or perhaps, like me, she realizes how dangerous it would be to let our eyes connect again?
The question rings in my head as I watch her walk away with Faizan. I do not want to stand in the hallway. I know I should return to my study, text my grandfather, and finish my nightcap before returning to my rooms adjacent to but not connected to my wife’s.
But I don’t. I stand there, my heart thundering in my chest, unable to look away.
Look at me, I silently beg her back. Look at me one last time, so that I can remember you.
She doesn’t turn around, though. Of course, she doesn’t. It’s not as if she can hear my silent plea. I let the hope to see her face one last time wither in my chest.
But then, just as she reaches the end of the hallway and is about to descend the servant stairs, she turns back. A sunny smile lights across her face and she gives me a little wave.
I am a distinguished businessman. A future CEO destined to lead a company worth tens of billions. Yet, I wave back before I can stop myself. Like a schoolboy instantly besotted by a girl he has spotted playing on the female side of the playground.
This is the first and last time I will ever see her, but I have a feeling the memory of her waving to me from the end of the hallway will haunt me. For a very long time.
7
MIKA
I keep wanting to turn back. Even when I’m far, far away from the castle.
Had he felt the same thing I had? I wonder as his nameless servant walks me away. Like there was some kind of magnetized cord between us tugging on him, making him want to move toward something dangerous as opposed to away?
No, Hayes. My inner drill sergeant cuts that thought right off. Of course, he didn’t feel that way too.
He was just being nice and polite. Like all the other parents who had tried to poach me from Sylvie and Holt when they saw how well I did with Wes.
Just being nice and incredibly handsome.
My heart quickens again, remembering how strong and elegant his hands had seemed while signing that autograph. I wonder what those hands would feel like…touching my face…caressing my body –
The drill sergeant cuts me off again, and this time she’s not as nice about it. Mika, what are you thinking? He’s married! And perfect. Not a total mess, like you.
She’s right. I don’t turn back and I give the nameless servant a polite goodbye when we reach the side entrance of the palace. The servants’ entrance, I note, as I walk past a guard through the simple white door. I feel like a ghost that no one notices or sees as I walk up to another set of back stairs to the quarters the boys and I have been given.
And that’s a good thing, I remind myself. I like it in the background where no one can see me. It’s better that way. Safer.
“Mom, what took you so long?” Albie asks when I return to the connecting room we were assigned next to the o
ne the Calson brothers are sharing.
“Sorry, baby.” I climb into the bottom queen-sized bunk, deciding not to bother with taking off my comfortable jersey dress. “Did I worry you?”
“No, I just missed you,” he answers, his voice floating down to me from up above.
My heart squeezes with love. Albie’s sweet when Wes and Ender aren’t around, even sweeter when he’s sleepy.
It’s nice to be missed. Nice to have even one person to love more than I love myself. That’s why I have to do whatever it takes to keep him safe. Anything and everything. Even if it means never finding that special love I sometimes dream about.
RASHID
“Habibi, would you mind terribly if I accompanied you to the palace for your meeting with Sheikh Zahir today?” Mahirah asks over breakfast the morning I’m due to meet with Zahir about a few leftover projects from his time at The Tourmaline Group.
Habibi...I pause in the middle of reaching for another piece of date stuffed kaek bread. I don’t ask how she knew about my schedule. I’m aware the servants and wives have a gossip network even more accurate than the calendar my assistants use to manage my day. However, I can’t remember the last time Mahirah called me darling in Arabic.
“Why do you wish to go to the palace?” I ask, instantly suspicious.
“Do not worry. I have come to my senses and there will be no more...inappropriate discussions with servants.”
I arch an eyebrow, both annoyed and impressed by her ability to affix such a dismissive label to her affair with the British guard, who is most likely still recovering from his injuries.
“Your grandfather would like for me to talk with that Princess Jones person.” Mahirah grimaces as if the mention of Zahir’s temporary wife is a particularly foul piece of food she’s been forced to put in her mouth and swallow down. “Word amongst the servants is that the sheikh has become quite obsessed with her. There is some belief that she might have his ear. Grandfather needs all the leverage he can acquire to make Sheikh Zahir come to his senses, and he’s asked me to invite her to the photo opportunity at the Kingdom Mall.”
Oh, so this sweetly worded request is about pandering to my grandfather. I should have guessed. Suddenly I remember all too well the last time she called me Habibi. It was the last time she wanted something. I should store that knowledge away in my brain’s firmware as an if-then algorithm. If my wife calls me Habibi, then she must want something from me.
Still, I can see no harm in it. I doubt Mahirah will get far with the former reality star I met briefly at Zahir’s unexpected wedding nearly three months ago. They have nothing in common, and like many UAK princesses who were raised in the lap of luxury without much exposure to the world beyond palaces and five-star vacations, Mahirah has a bad habit of looking down her nose at any woman who doesn’t share her background.
“Bring Aisha,” I advise. “It might make her more amenable to your suggestions.”
“Aisha has violin instruction, followed by tennis with me this morning.”
“Let her skip the violin lesson. This is more important.”
In truth, I don’t care much about Mahirah’s mission to get Princess Jones on board with the Kingdom Mall photo opportunity. It’s a silly piece of showmanship that I’m only playing along with to appease my grandfather. I highly doubt our family pretending to shop in Kingdom Mall for a supposed soft opening will sway Zahir from his current stance.
But I do care that Mahirah has overscheduled Aisha almost to the point of exhaustion—her version of appearing the perfect mother without ever having to spend any true quality time with her daughter.
“Why doesn’t Mama like me?” Aisha once asked me. She’d just finished a mother-daughter tennis lesson with Mahirah in the courts behind our palace, and her mother had spent the entire walk home lambasting her for not trying hard enough and becoming too sweaty.
Aisha had found me in my study afterward. “How can I both try harder and not become sweaty?” she asked her eyes, brimming with tears. “How can I make her stop hating me?”
I had wanted to assure my little girl that Mahirah did, in fact, love her. But that would have been…if not a lie, even more confusing for Aisha than her mother’s constant criticism.
So I’d gently explained Mahirah’s actions not for my wife’s sake, but for our daughter’s. “Your mother was raised to be a good wife and a beautiful daughter at all costs. I don’t think there was much love in her household. I believe this is the only way she knows how to be with her own daughter.”
Aisha’s expression had brightened at the explanation. “Maybe I can teach her how to love and not always be so cross with me.”
I highly doubted it. But to Aisha, I’d said, “That is a kind mission.”
Aisha has everything a child could ask for, but only half of what a child truly needs. To make up for that missing fifty percent, I try to ensure she gets what she truly wants. And she’s asked me several times to take her to visit Zahir’s temporary wife. So I’m glad when Mahirah agrees to my suggestion and Faizan drives us all over in the golf cart.
We are, if not a happy family, one that is making it work.
After leaving my wife and daughter downstairs in one of the receiving rooms, I take a gold-plated escalator to Zahir’s suite of offices on the palace’s fourth floor.
My cousin is dressed in a western business suit, like me, when I follow one of his assistants into his office, not his usual kandura robe and headdress. But though he’s dressed for business, he seems distracted as we go over the projects he ran point on at TTG before his unexpectedly early ascension to the throne.
“Do you have somewhere you need to be?” I ask him with a teasing smile when he checks his watch for the fourth time during our meeting.
Zahir lowers his wrist with an apologetic wince. “I am sorry. I did not mean any insult.”
Zahir is my king now, but for most of my life, he has been the cousin I grew up with and thought of almost like a brother, due to us both living on palace grounds, then overlapping when we attended the same American boarding school.
So, ignoring our new hierarchy, I ask him cousin-to-cousin, “Does this sudden preoccupation with the time have anything to do with a certain reality star slash temporary wife you are rumored to be quite obsessed with?”
Zahir’s usually cold and polite mask tightens. “Is that what people are saying?”
“That is what the servant gossip network is reporting,” I answer, knowing he wouldn’t want me to sugarcoat my words. “Grandfather even believes she might be able to convince you to resume the Kingdom Mall project.”
“So that is why your wife requested to meet with her for tea.” Irritation wrinkles Zahir’s brow. “As I’ve said many times, I will not resume that project until I find a new provider for the construction materials.”
I hold up my hands. “I am well aware of your boundaries, Cousin. Unfortunately, grandfather has never been one to respect boundaries.”
“No, he isn’t.” Zahir drums his fingers on the glass conference table, glowers, then admits. “I don’t like that he believes she has so much influence over me.”
Zahir is my king and owed a certain amount of respect, but I once again find myself addressing him as I would a friend when I ask, “Are you angry because of what he believes or because what he believes is true?”
“Both,” Zahir confesses, his polite mask crumbling. “It feels like I’m going crazy.”
Unfortunately, I, as a few of my American female engineers used to say, overstand.
The image of Mika walking away hits me…along with a fresh wave of sadness that I’ll never see her again. As if it’s been three minutes and not nearly three months since the night I met her for the first and last time.
The American is obviously driving my cousin out of his mind. He’s overly distracted and unable to concentrate on the business at hand. Even worse, as soon as his temporary marriage is over, he’ll be forced to enter into another round of matrimony�
��this time permanently to one of Mahirah’s older nieces, yet another Ardu Alzuhuwr princess.
But despite his doomed current marriage, envy courses through me as I sit diagonal from him at his conference table. At least he gets this time with a woman of his own choosing. A whole six months to do with her whatever he wants whenever he pleases.
My mind sizzles with the possibilities of what I might’ve done with Mika if I had met her before my marriage began...what I still could do if I would just get over myself and take her on as a mistress.
“Zahir…?” His name slips out of my mouth before I even realize I want to ask a question.
“Yes?” he asks when I don’t continue right away.
“Mika, Holt Calson’s nanny…” The favor I’ve been thinking about ever since his unexpected wedding night rises to the top of my throat. Call your friend Holt on my behalf. Ask him how much it will take to send his nanny to me. Tell him I will pay any price. Do that for me, Cousin. Please.
But the words clog in my voice box. I am an honorable man. One who keeps his promises and his vows no matter how miserable they make me. Also, Aisha…she is my life. I can’t hurt her. Could never risk hurting her. And that’s what might happen if I allow myself to follow this rope of carnal curiosity over a cliff. Aisha is the best thing I’ve ever made. Her respect, her happiness—it’s worth more to me than any amount of money or fantasy on this earth. More even in my own happiness.
“Nothing,” I answer Zahir. “I merely wondered where he acquired her. Mahirah still hasn’t found a suitable replacement for Aisha’s last nanny.”
“Ah, I see.” Zahir nods. “I will ask Holt the next time we speak.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course.” Zahir checks his watch, then puts his polite mask firmly back in place.
I assure myself this is only a temporary madness on my part. A few weeks, a couple of months, tops, is all it will take for her memory to stop haunting me. My thumbs will stop itching to trace those dimples by the time Zahir’s temporary marriage is done. And I probably won’t even remember what she looks like a year from now.
RASHID: HER RUTHLESS BOSS: 50 Loving States, Hawaii Page 5