by Holly Rayner
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The Sheikh’s Bride Bet
Holly Rayner
Contents
The Sheikh’s Bride Bet
Want More?
1. Angie
2. Rami
3. Angie
4. Rami
5. Angie
6. Rami
7. Angie
8. Rami
9. Angie
10. Rami
11. Angie
12. Rami
13. Angie
14. Angie
15. Angie
16. Rami
17. Angie
Epilogue
The Prince’s Secret Baby
Introduction
1. Raffaele
2. Maggie
3. Maggie
4. Raffaele
5. Maggie
6. Maggie
7. Raffaele
8. Maggie
9. Raffaele
10. Maggie
11. Raffaele
12. Maggie
13. Maggie
Also by Holly Rayner
The Sheikh’s Bride Bet
Sign up to Holly’s newsletter and get THREE FREE BOOKS!
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Copyright 2017 by Holly Rayner
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.
All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Angie
The phone blared in my ear as I gazed across the classroom. The students were feeling boisterous after two hours of testing, tossing their toys and puzzle pieces out onto the carpet. It was their free period, and I was giving them a bit of extra time. At just eight years old, the children of Al-Jarra needed this opportunity to be unruly and loud.
When she answered the phone, my mother’s voice was music to my ears. Despite her illness, her voice was still a stronghold for me. Something I needed to feel alive.
“Mom? Oh gosh. It’s so good to hear you,” I said, turning away from the children for a moment. It felt almost too intimate, speaking to my mother in front of them. Revealing so much of myself.
“Angie.” My mother’s voice croaked slightly, showing her fatigue. It was only six in the morning all the way in South Dakota. “How are the kids today?”
Sweeping my hand through my raven-black hair, I flashed a smile at one of my smaller students, who tossed a pile of markers from the shoebox, letting them roll across the ground.
“Chaotic, as usual,” I said, chuckling. “They just finished their testing. Can you believe they need two hours of testing at eight years old?”
“They would never have kept you in a chair that long as a kid, Angie,” my mother said, growing warmer. “You always had such a fire about you.”
My heart hammered in my chest, beating up toward my throat. I felt the tears begin to form in my eyes, blurring my eyesight.
“How are you feeling, Mom?” I finally asked her, the dreaded words that I so often tried to avoid, if I could. The words that so often had a horrible answer. “You had that doctor’s appointment the other day…”
“Oh, honey, I’m fine,” my mother said, trying to gloss over the fact of the tumor, of the diagnosis that had left us stricken for months.
At the back of the room, two students began to scuffle over a toy. I watched as one of them, Jamar, yanked at the plastic truck, falling back into the trash can. The other kid throttled forward, gripping the truck and trying to nab it back as Jamar began to kick his feet in the air.
I rushed forward, pointing my finger at them. I heard the strain in my voice, the fear from speaking with my mother.
“Hey! The two of you need to cut it out and learn to share,” I told them, my eyes gleaming with the kind of anger that only comes when it’s coupled with intense, internal emotion. “If you don’t, you’ll need to sit at your desks for the rest of free period. Do you want that?”
Slowly, they shook their heads and stumbled back onto their feet. They gave me wounded looks, and then began to vroom the trucks around the carpet. I took several steps back, lifting the phone back to my ear. I heard my mother’s chuckle on the other end.
“You’ve really put your foot down, haven’t you?” she asked, joking.
“I don’t know what else to do with them,” I laughed, rolling my eyes.
I stepped back toward the chalkboard, giving the class space once more. On the other end, my mother’s voice waned.
“How are you doing, baby?” she asked. “Have you tried dating anyone lately? Have you found some new friends?”
She was anxious about my recent move to a new location in Al-Jarra, knowing I’d left people behind. I’d only been in the new city for a few weeks, and, it was true, I felt the aching loneliness that comes with a new scene, a new start.
In the back of my mind, I reminded myself that this was necessary. That each day, I fought for a paycheck for my mother. That each day, the scholarship program provided me with room and board, keeping me alive, and always contributing.
I would be one of the reasons my mother remained alive. I had to be.
“I’m working on it,” I told her, trying to smile through the tears that glimmered down my cheeks. “But as far as dating, who on earth has time for that?”
“You should make time, honey,” my mother continued, her voice waning even more.
“Mom.” I felt my throat catch. I knew I was about to give into a wave of pain and horrible sadness. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m sending another check over to you at the end of this week. I get paid on Thursday night—”
“Oh, honey, stop it,” my mother whispered, rasping. “You need that money. You work hard for it. I don’t want you to—”
“Mom, don’t be silly,” I said, feeling exasperated. “It’s part of the reason I’m here. I can live off the scholarship and—”
“Tell me you’re there for reasons besides me, baby. Otherwise, I want you to come home,” my mother murmured, making my throat tighten.
My gaze wandered toward the window and I stared out at the gorgeous Middle Eastern landscape. The mountains in the distance, shimmering with sunlight. Beyond that, the ocean churned on in all its turquoise and white caps, a sight I’d grown accustomed to on weekend hikes. The people were warm, alive in ways that the people in my South Dakotan town were not. They simply couldn’t be; times were hard, and smiles were hard to come by.
“I do like it here, Momma. I just miss you.”
“I miss you, too.�
��
I swallowed sharply, closing my eyes. In the background, I could hear the grumbling voice of my father—deeper, darker, from years of cigarette smoking, a habit he’d promptly quit after my mother’s diagnosis.
“Can I talk to her?” I heard him say.
Soon, the phone was passed to him. I could visualize it clearly: my parents, Sarah and Joe Peretti, poised at the kitchen table, watching as the sun rose over the bright green grass in the front yard. I’d seen it countless times before.
“Hey, baby girl,” my father said, his voice still gravelly, filled with something ominous. I felt the unrest within him. I knew, somehow, that the wave was about to crash down around me. In the back of the classroom, two girls began to bicker over a doll, but I held back, feeling latched into another world.
“Daddy,” I whispered. “Is Mom really okay? She sounds weaker than she did last week. And I know you had that appointment. You can’t keep things like this from me.”
I could hear my father’s footsteps as he moved away from the kitchen. I heard the click of the door, telling me that he was locking himself away in his study. After clearing his throat again, he said, “It’s true that we didn’t get good news, Angie. But I don’t want you to panic about it.”
Shooting down into the chair beneath me, I felt my knees begin to quiver. “Please, Dad. Don’t keep this from me.”
“We found out that the tumor is growing larger, Angie. And the doctors are fearful that the cancer will spread if they don’t do the surgery soon.”
“But Dad, we can’t afford the surgery yet…” I rasped, trailing off. “Can’t they do something? Do the surgery first, have us pay for it later? It seems like time is really important. Why can’t they see that?”
My dad grunted, sounding aghast. “You try to tell these guys that you can’t pay. They just wave you out the door, telling you to get better insurance.”
“And the checks I’ve been sending? Still not enough?” I asked, knowing the weight of the truth. It was never going to be enough. The type of surgery she needed was in the hundreds of thousands, far more than my paltry teaching paycheck.
“It’s helping, baby,” my dad told me. “It’s just not quite enough right now. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe I can take on another job,” I stuttered, my mind racing. I didn’t yet speak Arabic, but I could stagger through anything at a side job. I could work at the grocery store, or as a waitress. With enough fumbling and hand gestures, I saw no reason this couldn’t be my life. A life devoted to sending money home.
I would strive as long as I could to keep my mother alive.
“Let’s talk about something else,” my father said, his voice gritty and tinged with tears. “How are you doing, all the way over there? Your mother won’t stop talking about how you need to date. You’re 25 now, baby. You should start looking for someone. Even if it has to be someone from across the planet.”
Snickering, I drew my fingers beneath my eyes, mopping up the tears. “Yeah right.”
“Just think about it, will you? If these are your mother’s last few months on earth, then just know she wants you to be living your life the way you want to. Not just struggling to make us comfortable over here.”
“Ha.”
“I know. Selfishness was never one of your strong suits,” my dad said, chortling. “You were always giving the kids at school your toys. You gave them away right and left. Couldn’t keep anything in the house.”
“I wasn’t that good,” I sighed, frustration brimming. “I was never as good as you thought I was.”
“You’re right. You were better.”
The call ended a few minutes later, with my father having to leave and help my mother brew a pot of coffee. Apparently, she was now too weak to hold up a pot of water, to pour it into the top of the machine.
I shuddered as I said goodbye, feeling the tears rally once more. A sob escaped my throat, and then another one. Before long, I was a crumpled mess on my desk chair, mopping at my eyes with a pile of Kleenex.
When I finally blinked my eyes open, I realized the entire second grade class—all nineteen of them—were gathered around me. One of them, a little girl named Aya, had her hand across my shoulder, patting it softly. Many of the kids looked self-assured, certain that if they could just be there for me, I would be all right.
“What happened, Miss Peretti?” one of them whispered, his accent erring on the side of British, despite being raised in Al-Jarra. His parents were English, and spoke in that accent at home. Yet he’d taken on a few of my American slang words, dipping into one dialect after another. One culture after the next.
“Just a bit of trouble at home,” I told him, sniffing. “Sometimes it feels very far away. But you must know that.”
He nodded, his eyes growing wide, like saucers. “I know it,” he murmured. “But it’s going to be okay.”
After a while, I gathered myself together, asking the students to return to their seats. Lifting the textbook from the shelf, I asked them to turn to chapter three. And, as we staggered forward together, we began to learn more English vocabulary, more phrases. But they looked at me with large, understanding eyes, telling me, over and over again: I wasn’t alone.
Chapter 2
Rami
“You just think you’re so charming, don’t you?” This was the voice of Alim, my best friend since we were children. He traipsed behind me, his kebab dripping in his hand, the sauce dribbling across his pants.
“You look like a mess, Alim,” I told him, swiping my napkin across his suit. “You can’t expect me to be out in public with you, looking like that.”
Behind us, the girls I’d just made eye contact with snickered at us, their eyes glittering. They were tall and slender, with long hair that gleamed in the sunlight. One of them held a kebab with thin fingers, nibbling at it daintily.
She was the antithesis of Alim, like a graceful gazelle, poised. Alim hankered for her, or for someone like her. I could feel him, trying to mimic the swagger I had. But he was lost, still with that dripping kebab. An attractive man, sure. But he had nothing compared to me. And we both knew it.
“You have to stop it,” Alim sighed, swiping his hand across his lower lip, trying to mop up the grease. “Just because we aren’t all tall, dark, and handsome doesn’t mean…”
“What? I’m sorry. You think I don’t deserve the women I get?” I chuckled, tossing my head back. My dark hair caught in the breeze, and my dark eyes twinkled against the sun. With rippling muscles, firm biceps and a six-pack abdomen, I felt volatile and alive as we walked along, a veritable Adonis beside the shorter, stockier Alim. I could feel other people’s eyes upon me as we walked down the road.
Another woman made eye contact with me as we walked, causing me to stop. As I paused, the girl blushed, lowering her eyes. Her long eyelashes fluttered.
“How are you doing?” I asked her.
“Oh, fine,” she murmured, her voice shy. “I see you out here often, you know that?”
“So you’re telling me I’ve missed so many opportunities to speak with you?” I asked her, a small frown across my forehead. “That’s a tragedy, isn't it?”
“Quite,” she said, flipping her hair behind her ears. Her eyes gleamed with excitement. I could almost sense the story she’d tell her friends after meeting me there. “Sheikh Rami Waheed,” she’d murmur, excitement causing her voice to waver. “He was walking down the road, and he spotted me. He stopped me, dead in the street. He couldn’t resist.”
“We’d better be going to that meeting, hey?” Alim said, yanking at my elbow and giving me a stern expression. “No time to dilly-dally.”
“Come on, now. There’s time,” I said to him, giving him a soft, eager smile. “There’s always time for… I’m sorry, what was your name?”
The girl opened her lips, prepared to tell me. But Alim tugged at my arm a final time, pulling me to the other side of the road. Exasperated, he tapped his hand on my back, watching as the girl pou
ted, clearly disappointed.
“She was just going to flirt with you for the next 15 minutes, ignoring me the entire time. As usual,” Alim sighed. “I just can’t hack it anymore, man. It’s too much.”
“We can get you someone to love, my boy,” I told him, clapping him on the shoulder as we continued walking. More and more women gave me coy smiles as we walked, but I let them pass by, humoring my friend.
Above us, the afternoon sun had begun to beat down with ferocity. A bead of sweat swept down Alim’s forehead, along his temple. I swiped at it, teasing him. “You’ll never get someone sweating like a pig, though.”
“Lay off,” Alim sighed, his nostrils flared. “What the hell are we doing today, anyway? I thought you had that meeting with your father…”
“About the women he’s prepared to match me up with?” I laughed, tossing my hand through the air. “As if he believes I can’t find a suitable mate for myself.”
Alim’s eyebrows were raised now. “You really think any woman would go for you?” he asked.
“Alim, Alim,” I cackled. “You’ve known me nearly your entire life. Have you ever known a woman to resist me, if I gave her eyes?”
“Sure. Last weekend at the bar. That Indian girl, with the cinched waist and the tight little—”
“Come now, Alim. Don’t talk about women this way,” I said, winking at another attractive one who walked past us, her heels clacking on the ground.
Alim rolled his eyes, protesting. “You talk about them this way all the time—”
“Alim, Alim. If you ever want to find a woman to settle down with, you have to learn to woo them,” I told him.
“Woo? What is woo?” Alim asked, his eyebrows stitching together above his nose. “Don’t just make up English words for the fun of it, Rami.”
“I would never,” I told him, grinning slyly. “Due to my ability to ‘woo,’ as I said, I know that I can have any woman I want in the world.”