by Lynn, Sophia
She came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her forehead against his back.
“I’m being foolish, aren’t I?” he asked, and she shook her head.
“No. You are being protective. But they’re safe. They are. Let them sleep.”
With a sigh, he closed the door behind him.
Myriah felt her heart beat faster when her eyes met his. They’d both showered after their experiences on the mountain, and she was aware that in her nightgown, she was hardly the world’s most alluring woman. However, it wasn’t allure that put that light in Halil’s eyes. There was something perfect between them in that moment, a kind of gorgeous regard that she knew in her heart would never be matched by anyone else, that would burn as long as they both allowed it to.
There was nothing but truth between them in that moment, nothing but a sweetness that would make her cry if she wasn’t careful. There was no mention of saying goodnight or of Halil returning to his own townhouse.
Instead, she took him by the hand and led him to her bedroom, closing the door behind them with a final click.
Chapter Eighteen
Myriah
Two weeks later, Myriah was dressing in her formal work clothes again and wondering why they felt like a costume. It felt as though she had been living in her most comfortable clothes ever since she and Halil came back from Ealim, and this entire time, work had been content to do video conferences with her and to keep in contact through email and texts.
“You don’t have to go at all,” Halil said lazily from the bed. “You know that, right? Stay here. Sleep in. I have the jet on call. Tomorrow we could be in Ealim, you, me, the girls, even Rose if she wants to go.”
“Rose just finished her finals. She would probably go to the South Pole if we could promise her that she did not need to do any equations or scholarly summaries while she was there.”
“And you?”
Myriah hesitated. It was the closest they had come to discussing the fact that at some point, Halil would need to return to his home country, not to visit as he had for a few days a week ago, but to stay. If she were honest with herself, she was dodging the topic, and she suspected that the peace between them felt so very good that neither of them were interested in disrupting it at the moment.
“I . . . I’ll think about it.”
Halil raised an eyebrow.
“Really?”
“Yes. I promise. I know.. I know that things need to change. And that’s good. And important.”
Halil looked at her for a long moment, and she wondered if she could feel him fighting a certain impatience. She wondered what would happen if that impatience reached its limit, and what he might do then.
She shook off the ludicrous worry. She meant what she said. They would figure it out.
“All right,” Halil said with a slight smile. “When you get back, we can have Kamala take the girls overnight. Maybe venture into the country and take some time for ourselves.”
Kamala was another compromise that had worked out brilliantly. The young au pair was brilliant, studying early child development, and unlike Rose’s classmate, actually well suited for it. She had been cleared by every security measure that Halil could come up with, and the moment she met her, Myriah was pleased to have such a kind young woman looking after her children.
Halil came up to stand close to Myriah, and it struck her with a rather delicious shiver that all he was wearing was a pair of drawstring pants while she was fully dressed. She couldn’t stop herself from running a gentle hand across his chest, relishing the feel of his skin, the difference between their bodies.
“You shouldn’t hold out on me, Myriah,” he murmured, his voice little more than a growl. “You may not like what happens when I reach my limit.”
“Oh really?” she asked, feeling greatly daring. “I think I’ve liked it just fine in the past.”
In one quick motion, Halil scooped her into his arms, pulling her against him and dragging her right off her feet. Even after all this time with him, she continued to be surprised by how fast he was, and how strong. Now his lips were inches from hers, and oh, his teeth were so sharp and white.
“You are a little brat sometimes, Myriah,” he murmured. “Maybe I should teach you a little lesson before the car gets here.”
“And what would that look like?” Myriah whispered, her breath suddenly high and fast. She was already doing the calculations, how rumpled she could get before she couldn’t fix it at all, how much she could take off and still get on quickly . . .
“Fast,” Halil murmured, dragging her close so that she could feel his erection. “Hard. Perhaps only fun for me, but you like that sometimes, don’t you, darling?”
God, she did. The times when Halil simply took his pleasure from her were always followed by hours spent making her feel exactly as good as he did, but there was something incredibly hot about this gorgeous man using her as his personal toy. It only felt so good because it wasn’t real, but as a game it was one of her favorites.
Myriah was a hair away from tipping over under his spell, but then there was a quick rap at the door.
“Hey, car’s here,” Rose said, and the slight giggle in her voice told Myriah that she knew exactly what they were doing.
“Damn,” Myriah murmured. “Damn, damn, damn!”
Halil laughed, letting her go with obvious reluctance.
“We’ll make up for it when you get back, darling. Be safe.”
“Of course. Halil . . . well. I’ll see you when I get back. Thank you so much for . . . well, everything.”
As she scurried out into the predawn light, too early for even her three little monsters to be up, she wondered why she still couldn’t say it.
I love him. I know I do. I love him so much, and I never thought that I would stop myself from telling someone that if I really felt it.
She supposed it was because there was so much up in the air between them, and no resolution yet.
I’ll tell him when I get back, she thought. I will. It’s past time, and it’s a part of what we’re going to be working with anyone. So he should know.
Deep in her heart, there was a steady flame that she sometimes thought had been lit three years ago, before everything had become so very complicated. It burned with a vivid light, and even if it was hard for her to see it sometimes, even if she couldn’t feel its warmth for so long, it was there. It was a light that was as sure as time, and it told her that just as she loved Halil, he loved her.
In the car that Halil had sent for her, and then in the first-class seat that he had gotten for her after she had declined the jet (She still couldn’t quite understand it. Real people didn’t have jets at their disposal.), she cupped her hand over that flame, and thought of what the future should look like.
***
Halil
Halil was always shocked by how comfortable he had grown in the little townhouse on the outskirts of Boston. The entire townhouse could just barely fit in his bedroom in the penthouse in Ealim. He had lived in so many of the finest hotels and estates in the world, but none of them had ever been a home, not like this one.
The townhouse was crowded and space was occasionally scarce, but there was a kind of magic to it that made all of the inconveniences worth it.
Or, he thought ruefully, it was the people in it who made it worthwhile.
After he saw Myriah off, he was far too awake to go back to sleep, so he went out to have a coffee with Rose, who was still on her school schedule.
She nodded her appreciation when he made up some coffee, but when he handed it to her, she looked up at him with her candid gaze and a mischievous grin on her face.
“So when are you going to make an honest woman of my sister?”
He blinked at her, and she narrowed her eyes.
“You better not be thinking of some kind of mistress in the backroom situation for her, no matter how well off you are, you know. We’re Americans, we don’t tolerate that
crap very well . . .”
“Ealimi women don’t either,” Halil said with a slight smile. “I have a feeling that you’ll get along very well there.”
“Me?”
“You don’t expect us to leave you here, do you? Myriah and the girls would miss you far too much.”
“And you’ve gotten used to me too?”
“I like you when you’re not trying to surprise me into spilling my coffee all over myself,” Halil said dryly. “And as to the question of when I’m going to make an honest woman of your sister . . .”
“It’s complicated?”
“Not at all. But first we need to make sure we are of one mind when it comes to the girls.”
“Yeah, seems like every day, I catch her making pro and con lists, reading up on Ealim, figuring out how her girls will fit and what she can expect.”
“Does she?” Halil asked, because he hadn’t noticed that. Rose grinned at him.
“Big Sister likes to be prepared, you know? She doesn’t want to go into anything blind. That’s how she keeps herself and the girls safe.”
Rose shrugged, taking a sip from her coffee.
“Mm. Good coffee. But you say it’s complicated, and she says it’s complicated, but in the end, it’s very easy. You two are crazy about each other. You should be together.”
Halil laughed, because he supposed it was that simple, wasn’t it? “Would you like the traditional matchmaker’s fee for working with a member of the royal family?”
“I’m pretty comfortable if you keep buying the good coffee. Myriah never cared beyond getting the cheapest decaf, and this is great.”
“Fine. The traditional fee is a lake house and a man to look after the property, but coffee it is.”
“You’re rich, give me both,” Rose said with a grin.
Halil started to respond, but then there was a giggle from the girls’ room.
“Ah, that’s a ‘I’m getting ready to break something’ giggle,” Rose said with a wince, and Halil stood up.
“I thought it was more of a ‘I’m going to smack my sleeping sister,’ myself,” he said. “Finish your coffee. I was going to get them up in a minute anyway.”
Halil opened the door to find Mina halfway out of her crib, and he caught her around the middle, dragging her close to his chest. She looked up at him in annoyance, and he nuzzled her fluffy head. She had more of a curl in her hair than her sisters did, and it gave her a slightly gamine look.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, darling, did I stop you from breaking your neck or embarking on a life of crime? Poor sweetheart . . .”
A coo from Leah and a crow from Katie reminded him that he had two other daughters, and he turned toward them as well, grinning.
“Well, your mother isn’t around today, so you’re stuck with me. Let’s see what we can get into, shall we, ladies?” He had switched to Arabic to speak with them, and he could almost see their clever minds soaking it in. He hoped that when they were talking properly, they would be bilingual.
Before he could say more, however, his phone chirped, and Leah, who never liked loud noises, squalled in displeasure. Halil didn’t blame her; that notification sound was so unpleasant so that he couldn’t ignore it. Only a few people had access to that line, and one of them was the head of his security in Ealim.
He looked at his phone, already feeling his adrenaline climb higher, and what he saw made him freeze for just a moment. Then he was reaching for the drawers of clothing and shouting for Rose.
Rose appeared in the door in a split second, and from the frightened look in her eyes, he could see that she had heard the panic in his voice.
“Halil? What’s the matter, are the girls all right?”
“Fine,” he said, shoving their clothes and shoes at Rose. “Just get them dressed. We need to go.”
Chapter Nineteen
Myriah
It seemed as though Myriah’s luck meter had hit empty the moment she set foot in New York. Somehow, her phone had ended up in the toilet at La Guardia, and then her hotel room assignment was rendered defunct because some Hollywood big shot had taken the whole thing over.
There was a moment when she wanted nothing more than to call Halil and to see if he could help her, but she stiffened, lifting her chin proudly. She had been an independent woman before she met him and after, and that hadn’t changed.
Her employers moved her to a new hotel entirely, but the phone was going to have to wait because she needed to be in meetings with the foreign investors from Kyoto. They were a boisterous bunch, and somehow, she and two of her co-workers were snatched out of the company boardrooms to accompany the investors on a tour of New York, starting at one of the best sushi restaurants she had ever been to.
“Okay, I can see why they wanted me here and not on a video conference call,” she said to Ben, her partner on this jaunt.
“Better than being at home with the kids, right?” he grinned, but she wasn’t sure about that.
As the investors dragged them over what felt like most of Manhattan, Myriah felt a down-deep ache in her bones for the people she had left behind. No, she realized, it wasn’t better.
I never took this job because I had an intense passion for it. I never looked at Metcalfe and Warner and thought, yes, this is where I want to spend my time. It was always a means to an end.
At some point, she thought, she had forgotten that fact. Metcalfe and Warner treated her very well. They were a good company, most of the time, and the fact that they had allowed her to work out of the office was integral to the fact that she was able to be as much at home with the girls as she had been when they were very small.
But they’re still just a company. I don’t want to work with them if there’s a way for me to be at home with my girls.
With Halil.
She shook her head ruefully over how little her employers would like it if she said she was done. This night out with the investors was going to be the last night she was properly available. It should only take her a short while to finish up her work remotely, and then . . . then they could be at home.
The word home struck a sweet note that rang through her body.
I can go home.
Then she got back to her hotel and found two grim-faced Ealimi men in dark suits waiting for her. They weren’t the men who she had caught guarding her that morning in the penthouse, but she knew that they did the same thing. They rose from their seats in the lobby, and approached her, making her heart beat faster.
“Ms. Boone? You are to come with us.”
She stared. It felt like something out of a movie or a bad dream, and she could feel herself going pale.
“Why? What’s the matter? Are Halil and the girls all right? Is it my sister?”
One of the men shook his head.
“We are not allowed to disclose any further information to you at this time. Come with us.”
For a moment, Myriah seriously thought that she was going to fight both of them. She had no idea what her chances were, but she would have bet some money that she could make their job difficult, if not impossible for them, screaming her head off in a hotel lobby. Then she realized that she wouldn’t find out what had happened at home if she didn’t go with them, and she nodded tightly.
“Wait, my things . . .”
“You won’t need them, Ms. Boone. Come with us.”
She shivered a little at the taut note in the man’s cold tone and she allowed them to flank her as they escorted her to a black car that was idling illegally at the curb. When one man held the door to the back open to her, she saw that the door was far thicker than it should have been.
Bulletproofed, she thought with a shiver.
There was a driver behind the wheel, and one of the men who had confronted her climbed in with him. The other sat next to her, and when he shifted, she saw a bulge under his jacket and the strap of his holster for just a moment.
Oh God, what’s going on?
***
No matter
how often she asked for information or how she asked—begging, demanding, being polite, being as rude as she knew how to be, threatening their jobs—the men who accompanied Myriah on the long flight to Ealim refused to tell her what was going on. All they would tell her, over and over again, was the fact that they were acting on Sheikh Halil’s orders, and those orders were not to be countermanded at any point.
In other circumstances, she would have been very impressed with the plane that Halil had sent for her. It wasn’t even the private jet he had mentioned before, but instead a chartered jet that had been substituted. Once they were in the sky, she paced along its length, shaking her head silently whenever the flight attendant tried to offer her a drink or food or some kind of entertainment. At last the woman gave up, and Myriah was soaring through the sky over the dark and silent ocean, alone with her thoughts.
She thought she was holding herself together admirably before she wondered what the girls had made of their own flight.
God, they’re so small. Could someone convince them to try to depressurize their ears? Did they cry for me? Were they upset or afraid?
Suddenly the thin veneer of anger fell away to reveal pure fear underneath it, and Myriah collapsed into one of the couch-like seats. She suddenly felt very small and very helpless in the face of what had happened, in the face of what Halil had done.
He could have done this at any time he wanted, she realized, a chill running along her spine. At any point, he could have taken the girls. This was always a possibility.
Her thoughts chased each other around in circles. It felt as if there were no end to the questions that she needed answered, and with her thoughts rattling like grains of rice in a tight box, she couldn’t fall asleep. Every time she tried, she wondered if something had gone wrong, if there had been some kind of injury.
It took her hours before she could drift off into a light and unsatisfying sleep, and in her dreams, she was searching for her girls while on the phone with Halil. He was trying to give her directions to find them, but his voice was garbled, and she couldn’t understand him, couldn’t make him speak up or speak more clearly . . .