by Holly Rayner
Having Ahmad around had made for an amazing distraction from everything that had been on her mind while she had been at home. But the distraction was over, and now, once again, it was time to think.
And somehow, unbelievably, Joanna’s situation had gotten even more complicated.
Before she had gone to Al-Yara, she had only had to wrestle with the emotional ramifications of losing the option of becoming a mother.
But now, the option is back.
It was so strange that Joanna hardly knew what to make of it. If she believed in such things, she would have said it was fate. A handsome, charming, wealthy man who wanted to have a child, who just happened to want that child right away, skipping over all the usual time-consuming parts?
He didn’t want to date her. He didn’t want to get to know her. He just wanted to knock her up as quickly as possible.
And that’s honestly kind of perfect.
She thought again of what Dr. Franco had said, about the window of opportunity that was closing. That window was still on its way closed, but suddenly the opening that remained was enough for Joanna to do something with. She had six months of fertility left. Ahmad wanted a baby right now, as quickly as possible.
They were perfect for each other.
And then, there was the matter of the money.
I’m not going to do it for the money, Joanna told herself sternly. Money is no reason to have a baby.
That was certainly true. But she knew firsthand that money could be a reason not to do something. If Joanna was going to have a baby, she would want them to be well provided for. She would want them to have the best of everything available. The best medical care. The best education. Every opportunity that money could buy.
With Ahmad’s five hundred thousand, Joanna knew her child would want for nothing.
She would be able to buy herself a house. Any house she might want could be hers. She would be able to buy a house for her mother.
And she would be able to travel.
Ahmad had been right. She would want that, too.
Money would open doors.
The life he was offering was a good one. She would have the child she wanted, and she would have the money to give that child the life they deserved. What more could she really ask for? What more was there?
But a child? A child with a virtual stranger?
She thought of her mother asking her what she had envisioned when she had imagined being a mother, asking her what the dream had looked like. It had never looked like this—part-time custody of the child of a sheikh of a country she barely knew anything about.
And what about that? If she had his child, that would mean her baby would belong to the royal family. What sort of expectations would be placed upon the child? What expectations would be placed upon her?
But what opportunities would open up to them?
There was so much to consider, and Joanna didn’t even know where to begin.
I should call Mom and talk to her about this when we land.
But Joanna knew intuitively what her mother would say. She would say that the whole idea was reckless and ridiculous, that Joanna was being impulsive because she was so heartbroken about the bad news she had gotten. Her mother would be against the whole idea.
Joanna herself wasn’t so willing to write it off.
The seat belt sign turned off, and Joanna rose to her feet automatically, moving toward the drink cart to begin setting up the service.
Chris elbowed her out of the way.
“You take the left side,” he said. “I always take the right.”
“Okay, whatever,” Joanna said, moving to the other cart.
She checked the stock of cups and sodas and pulled it out into the aisle, making her way down the plane’s length and beginning to take orders.
“Do you have any ginger ale?” one woman asked.
“Of course,” Joanna said.
Ginger ale was a staple on planes, since ginger was so effective at combating nausea.
But when she bent to examine her cart, there was no ginger ale to be found. Was it possible this plane didn’t stock it? That seemed unlikely—it was the same airline, after all.
“Chris?” she called.
He reacted slightly, his head turning a little at the sound of his name, so she knew he had heard her. But he didn’t look up.
“Chris,” she tried again.
He gave an exasperated sigh and turned to look at her.
“We don’t have ginger ale?” she asked.
“Of course we do.”
“There’s none in my cart…”
“Then you must not have filled it all the way.”
He was right, Joanna realized, her cheeks burning. It had been years since she had made such a rookie error. And, to compound her humiliation, she had preceded the drink cart out into the aisle, which meant that instead of just running back for a can of ginger ale, she had to push the whole cart all the way back.
Her hands were shaking by the time she reached the galley. Chris had retreated, meeting her there.
“What’s up with you?” he asked, and the hostility in his voice had faded a little. “They told us you were experienced.”
“I am,” she said. “I’ve been on the job for years. I swear, I have no idea what my problem is today.”
But she did know what her problem was. Of course she did. There was only one thing it could be.
Ahmad. His offer. I’m letting it distract me.
But how could she not be distracted by it? How could she possibly pay attention to things like ginger ale and walking down the plane aisle the right way when she had just a few hours ago been offered five hundred thousand dollars and a child?
Chris pulled up a few cans of ginger ale and added them to her cart, eyeing her with concern.
“You’re not sick, are you?” he asked.
“No,” she said, remembering her ill-fated flight home from Bolivia. Not this time.
“That’s good,” Chris said. “You never know what you’re going to pick up in a foreign country.
You might even pick up an offer of a pregnancy from a rich sheikh, she thought, but all she said was, “I know what you mean.”
Joanna managed to get through the rest of the flight without any mistakes, although she felt as if she was walking on thin ice the entire time. As the plane began its descent into London Heathrow, she returned to her seat, thinking only of the moment she would finally be able to be on her own.
I need to make a decision quickly, she thought. My closing fertility window isn’t the only thing rushing the timeline. There’s also the fact that I can’t seem to pay attention to anything while this is going on. As long as this possibility exists, I won’t be able to focus on anything else.
And as the wheels touched down, Joanna realized with a jolt that she already knew what she was going to do.
She couldn’t pass this up. To do so would be insane. It would be the biggest regret of her life.
She had let too many opportunities go by already. She had chosen to wait instead of act too many times. That was how she had ended up in this situation in the first place. Now, she was facing down the last chance she would ever get to have a child.
She couldn’t let that chance slip away.
The plane taxied to the gate. Joanna went through her routine of preparing the cabin for the next flight robotically, her mind a million miles away. She ached to get to a hotel. Now that she had made a decision, she wanted to act quickly. She didn’t want to allow herself the opportunity to change her mind or question herself.
She left the plane, finally, and hurried through the airport, towing her roller suitcase behind her. She followed the signs for transportation and found a cab that could take her to the airport hotel a mile away. Once there, she used her airline ID to check in, went up to the room she had been assigned, and closed the door.
I’m doing this, she thought wildly. I’m really doing this.
She pulled out
the cocktail napkin that Ahmad had given her, removed her phone from her purse, and typed in his email address.
Ahmad,
Please contact me ASAP at the phone number listed below. I would like to discuss your proposal via telephone. I will be available for the next four hours, or all day tomorrow.
She entered her phone number and pressed send. Then, she set the phone down and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, knowing that there was very little chance she would hear from him tonight. It was the middle of the night in Al-Yara by now.
The phone rang.
Joanna dropped her toothbrush in surprise.
The phone rang again.
Answer it!
She bolted out of the bathroom and into the hotel bedroom, grabbing for her phone.
“Hello?”
“Joanna.”
His voice was so warm. It was like being wrapped in a blanket. Had his voice always been so warm? Had she just failed to notice that about him when they had been face-to-face?
“I wasn’t expecting you to call me back tonight,” she admitted. “It’s so late there.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted. “I hoped you might email me when you landed. I was trying not to hope too hard. But now, I see I was right to think it.”
“You were,” she admitted.
“And do I dare hope that means you’ve come to a decision about my proposal?”
She hesitated. If she said the words aloud, there would be no turning back. She would be committed.
But I have to take a leap sometime. No one ever has a child without deciding to leap. You have to commit to it at some point.
She closed her eyes and steeled herself.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve decided to accept your offer.”
“Oh, Joanna!” he said. “That’s wonderful news.”
“I’m actually pretty excited about it myself,” she said.
“I knew you were the right choice,” he said. “I knew it. From the moment I met you, I knew there was something special about you. And I was right. I’m so glad we took the time to get to know each other.”
“What happens now?” Joanna asked, feeling giddy with a mixture of relief and surrealism. “You said something about a lawyer?”
“Of course. We’ll want to make sure that we agree on all the terms before we go into this,” Ahmad said. “The last thing either of us wants is some messy battle down the line about custody or the way the child will be raised, I’m sure.”
“I agree,” Joanna said. “I don’t want that.” She paused. “I’ll be able to have custody, right?”
“Shared custody,” Ahmad said. “We can work out the finer points with the lawyer, of course. But of course, I want my child to have his mother in his life.”
“And I don’t want to do this if the child won’t be considered mine,” Joanna said firmly. “I’m not here to be a baby factory for the royal family. I want a child of my own.”
“I think we’ll be able to come to an agreement that works for both of us,” Ahmad said.
“Good,” Joanna said.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” he said with a laugh.
“What is?”
“Talking to each other on the phone and knowing that we’re going to become parents of the same child together. We’ve only just met, and we’re going to be a part of each other’s lives forever. It’s a strange thought.”
“It’s a very strange thought,” Joanna agreed. “A week ago, I didn’t know you.”
“And now you’ll know me for the rest of your life.”
It was a difficult thing to imagine. But as Joanna settled into her hotel room armchair, the thought came to her that having Ahmad in her life forever sounded pretty nice.
Chapter 8
Ahmad
Ahmad would have liked to stay on the phone with Joanna all night, getting to know her better and planning for their child’s future. There were so many questions to be answered. Where would the baby be raised? What kind of education did she favor? What would she want to name their child?
But the lateness of the hour seemed to hit him all at once, leaving him staggeringly aware of his own exhaustion. They ended the call, with a promise from Ahmad that he would reach out to Joanna in the morning to finalize their plans, and he hung up.
Exhausted though he was, he barely slept.
It would have been difficult for him to say what he was more excited about—becoming a father or the opportunity to inherit his Uncle Hakim’s money. He had been looking forward to starting his airline for a long time. Having a rental property on the beach was certainly nice, and the extra income from it did enrich his life. But it had never been his dream to own real estate.
No, Ahmad wanted to reform the skies. He wanted to change the way people traveled. Everyone in airports was always so unhappy, so tired and uncomfortable. Ahmad’s luxury planes would make air travel a part of the vacation experience. People would actually look forward to flying once he got his planes off the ground.
And he would finally be able to show his parents that his dream hadn’t been silly, that he was capable of managing a large-scale business. That they should have believed in him all along.
It was more than a little exciting.
But there was also the thought of the child.
It was strange, Ahmad thought, that the idea of having a child was taking up so much of his attention. It wasn’t as though he had ever wanted one before. And even when he had hatched his plan to find a woman to carry his baby, he hadn’t really given much thought to fatherhood. He had assumed that the child would be given to one of the royal nurses to raise, and that he would be a father in little more than name.
But he was beginning to question that thought.
Maybe it had been the memory of sledding down the sand dunes with his family as a child. Maybe that was why the thought of having a child of his own suddenly appealed to him so strongly.
Or maybe it was something about Joanna.
He had to admit, it would be interesting to see how their genes would combine. They were so different. She was slightly built, and he was tall and muscular. She was fair, and he was dark. What features would emerge in their child?
He finally drifted off to sleep as the sun was coming up. When he woke a few hours later, one of his staff members was readying a breakfast tray at the foot of the bed.
“Apologies, sir,” the man said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Not at all,” Ahmad said, sitting up. “Tell me, what time is it in London right now?”
“Nine in the morning, sir.”
That was late enough. He picked up his phone and dialed Joanna.
She picked up after one ring. “Ahmad?”
He couldn’t suppress a grin. She must have been waiting by her phone.
“I hope I didn’t wake you,” he said, knowing full well that he hadn’t.
“Not at all,” she said.
“I’m purchasing a plane ticket to fly you back to Al-Yara,” he said. “Can you come right away?”
“Yes,” she said. “They’re going to be angry with me at work, but that’s probably inevitable now.”
“I’ll book an appointment with the royal doctor,” Ahmad said.
Joanna paused. “I’d envisioned doing this with my own doctor…”
“I’m afraid I have to insist,” Ahmad said. “But I promise you, the royal doctor is the finest money can buy. He’s well educated and very good at what he does. He got my mother through all three of her pregnancies.”
“All right,” Joanna said dubiously. “How are we going to actually… you know?”
“We’ll have an IVF procedure,” Ahmad said. “We do want to keep things professional, after all. This is a business arrangement.”
“Of course.”
“Can you make a noon flight?”
“Yes,” Joanna said.
“The ticket will be waiting for you at the counter, then,” Ahmad said. “I look forwa
rd to seeing you again.”
“Your Highness?” The doctor stepped out of the examination room and closed the door behind him.
Ahmad jumped to his feet. He had been waiting outside, feeling as anxious as if his child were already being born.
“How is she?” he asked. “Did everything go all right?”
The doctor paused. “Perhaps we should take a seat,” he suggested.
“What’s wrong?” Ahmad asked.
“How long have you known this young woman?” the doctor asked.
“That’s hardly your concern.” Ahmad feigned offense at the question.
The truth was that he didn’t want to let the doctor know that he had been planning to conceive with a woman he had just met. This man was the family doctor, after all. Ahmad knew he wasn’t allowed to discuss their health with anyone, but he also knew he might slip. Best to keep it a secret.
“She has a fertility issue,” the doctor said.
“What kind of fertility issue?”
“Her reproductive system is shutting down at a highly unusual rate. If I were to guess, I would say she would be fully infertile within months,” the doctor said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
Ahmad was staggered. “Does she know?” he asked.
“I think she must,” the doctor said. “I don’t see how any woman could be going through something like that and not know.”
“So… so she’s not going to be able to get pregnant?”
“I would say that her chances are lower than a healthy woman’s would be,” the doctor said.
Ahmad saw everything he had been fantasizing about suddenly slipping away. No baby. No money. No airline. Umar would inherit instead of him.
And to think, he had almost paid her to try to conceive!
Anger boiled up inside him. Of course she had known she wouldn’t be able to give him a child. She must have been thinking about that the whole flight from Al-Yara to London. She hadn’t called him because she had decided to agree to his offer. She had called him because she had known she could get away with taking his money.
Oh, she would allow the IVF procedure. She would accept the payment. And then, when nothing happened, when she didn’t become pregnant, she would blame it on bad luck.