The Sheikh's Stolen Lover - A Second Chance Sweet Romance (The Sheikh's New Bride Book 5)

by Holly Rayner

  Stop doing that.

  Vince had approached the doorway of her office and stood there, leaning against it, a single piece of paper in his hand. “We’ve got a proposal.”

  “For what?”

  “For NorMo. Some company wants to invest.”

  “You’re kidding me.” Ellie looked up. “Who?”

  “Some company in Al Fahad. I guess Mark didn’t scare off all the friends we made at the convention.”

  “Hey!” Mark yelped from his desk.

  “It’s a really decent offer, too,” Vince said.

  Ellie sighed. “Too little, too late.”

  “You don’t think we could convince the suits to reverse their decision? With an offer on the table?”

  “It’s not an offer, it’s a proposal. Let me guess, they want to fly out here and meet with us?”

  Vince scanned the sheet. “Yeah.”

  “That’s a power move. They’d get here and we’d have to pitch it all over again, convince them that they want to invest. And Harris made it really clear he’s through with fighting for this thing. No, I don’t think we could get him to use any more company resources on NorMo. He’s decided it’s a flop. If we actually had the offer sewn up, it would be a different story.”

  Vince sighed. “Yeah.”

  Mark joined them in the doorway. “At least I didn’t ruin everything, though, right? Silver lining?”

  Ellie wanted to be annoyed with him for making this moment about his own absolution, but she couldn’t sustain her anger. “It isn’t your fault, Mark. It’s mine.”

  “How?”

  “I didn’t have a proposal when I stayed behind in Al Fahad. I didn’t even have interest. It wasn’t about the app at all.”

  “I thought you said you were taking extra meetings with potential investors,” Vince said.

  “I lied.”

  “Why?”

  “Ugh, I can’t believe I’m about to tell you this.” Their interest piqued, the guys came into the office and she motioned for them to close the door behind them. “I met a guy.”

  A moment of silence. Then both Mark and Vince broke out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?!” Ellie demanded, indignant.

  Mark flapped an apologetic hand her way, but couldn’t speak.

  Vince recovered himself. “I’m sorry. It isn’t funny. It’s just…you’re Ellie.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t think you’ve been on a date in the three years we’ve worked together. Have you?”

  She hadn’t. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Because you’re always here. You’re here on weekends. And when one of us is telling some Saturday night horror story, you look at us like we’re space aliens.”

  “I could date.”

  “And now you meet a guy in Al Fahad, of all places, and you go skipping out on life to spend a week with him.”

  She couldn’t argue. That was exactly what she’d done.

  “He must really be something,” Vince concluded.

  “He is,” Ellie said, unable to keep the wistfulness out of her voice.

  “So…” Mark grasped for the next correct thing to say. “Are you going to see him again?”

  “No,” Ellie said. “I don’t think so.”

  She waited for the inevitable protest, the clamor of “You should give love a chance!” but it didn’t come. Instead, Vince and Mark looked at each other and shrugged, as if to say, “That figures”.

  And it did figure. Mahmoud was in Al Fahad. She was here. He was a sheikh, and she was a programmer. And then there was the little matter of him having ruined dating for her all those years ago. Obstacles couldn’t get much more insurmountable than that.

  With a sigh, she turned back to her inbox, a problem she was at least capable of overcoming.

  Chapter 36

  Mahmoud

  Never in all his life had he experienced the feeling that the palace wasn’t big enough. The problem was that Ellie had changed it. She had filled every room, in a way Mahmoud never could.

  When he had lived here with his father, the place had always seemed much bigger than they were. He would have said it felt like home, but the truth was, it hadn’t. He just hadn’t known what a home was supposed to feel like. But when Ellie was here, they had occupied it together and it had conformed to them like a glove.

  The Lemon Tree Room was no longer a place that belonged mostly to Mahmoud’s gardeners. Now it belonged to the memory of himself and Ellie drinking tea on that first day. The library had ceased to be a home for artifacts. Now, every time he wandered by, he wondered what books Ellie would have wanted to read next, and whether they had more titles in common than the one he’d watched her choose.

  He even went up to the guest suite and sat on the balcony that had been hers, taking in the view and pondering the fact that this had been what she’d seen every night while she’d been with him. It made him look at his own city with fresh eyes. What had Ellie thought of this view? They had never discussed it.

  Another missed opportunity.

  Nowhere was safe. Even the kitchens, which he never visited on his own, had become a place full of memories. He sat and inhaled the aromas of his kitchen staff’s work and thought of Ellie’s Swedish meatballs, of how easily she had prepared a delicious meal for them. There must be so many things that she had learned to do in the course of an average life that he had never been required to know. She could have expanded his world just as much as he’d tried to expand hers.

  But they’d run out of time.

  His own suite was, of course, worst of all. He tossed and turned every night, unable to sleep, unable to get the images from the night they’d spent together out of his head. His bedspread looked wrong and empty when it wasn’t tangled around her.

  How could she have left him?

  You left her.

  That was different. I didn’t want to.

  It didn’t feel any different to her.

  He spent much of his free time in his own pool, one of the few places Ellie had never been. It wasn’t a perfect distraction. He was often reminded of the evening he’d accidentally walked in on her swimming. It shamed him that he had invaded her privacy, and that he had developed such an attitude of entitlement that he’d never even thought to knock. He knew he was lucky to have been forgiven for that. She was remarkable, he thought now, lying on his raft and letting the sun dry him. She saw my intentions, not just my actions.

  “Your Highness?”

  Mahmoud squinted into the glare of the sun. A valet stood at the edge of the water. “What is it?”

  “You have a visitor in the entrance hall.”

  Ellie was his first thought, but it couldn’t be her, could it?

  He paddled to the edge of the pool, climbed out, and wrapped a robe around himself. “Thank you.”

  The valet nodded and withdrew.

  It wasn’t Ellie. Instead, Saad stood in the hall. It was only his second visit to the palace, and he still looked around as if he was on a cloud. He had dressed immaculately, in what Mahmoud knew to be one of his most formal outfits.

  He walked over, conscious of the fact that he was dripping on the floor. “Hello.”

  Saad stared openly. “Are you wet?”

  “I was swimming. Come out to the pool.”

  “I’m not really dressed for that.”

  “We can provide a swimsuit.”

  Saad shook his head. “I’m fine.”

  “Come and sit in the garden, then. I’ll have some tea brought out.”

  Saad nodded, and Mahmoud led him into the Lemon Tree Room. Deliberately, he chose the opposite seat from the one he usually took at the table. If he sat in his usual place, he would be picturing Ellie’s face the whole time they spoke.

  “You have an indoor room for growing lemon trees.” Saad shook his head. “This is really something.”

  “The climate is a bit too arid for them. In here, we control temperature and how much wat
er they get, so they can thrive.”

  Saad handled one as if it were made of glass.

  “You can take it,” Mahmoud said. “That one’s ripe. Go ahead.” He plucked one of his own and sliced it. “They’re wonderful in the tea.”

  “You’re probably a genius,” Saad said, rather glumly.

  Mahmoud frowned. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m worried about the company. I’m not running it as well as you did.”

  “I’m sure you’re doing fine, Saad.”

  “I don’t think so. My proposal was rejected.”

  “What?” They’d worked on that proposal for hours. Mahmoud knew he couldn’t have put together a better one himself. “I don’t understand. What did they say?”

  “They said the app in question was no longer on the market.”

  “Well, that’s hardly your fault.”

  “Except that I’ve been chasing up a dead end. I thought NorMo was a surefire hit, but apparently it’s a failure. And I’ve wasted weeks on it.”

  “There will be another one,” Mahmoud said, trying to sound reassuring. “Setbacks happen.”

  “Not to you.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “Would I?”

  “I was.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mahmoud sighed. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been involved with someone.”

  Saad practically spit out his tea. “Involved with someone? What does that mean? Do you mean a girl?”

  “Of course a girl.”

  “A princess?”

  “An American, actually.”

  “How did you meet an American?”

  “We were in college together, and we reconnected recently. But I think it’s over.”

  “No!” Saad was clearly incredulous. “What girl could resist all this!”

  “She could. That was part of what made her so special. She didn’t like me just because of all this.” He shook his head. “But maybe she didn’t like me at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s gone now. She went home.”

  “Why?”

  “She didn’t say. She left a note and took off in the night.”

  “How odd.”

  “Yes, well.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Probably back in San Francisco. That’s where she lives.”

  “Why don’t you call her?”

  “I don’t have her number.”

  “How could you not have gotten her number? That’s basic dating protocol.”

  Mahmoud smiled wryly. “How many women do you think I’ve dated, Saad?”

  “There must have been some.”

  “I’ve had formal courtships arranged with titled women. None of those led to anything serious. And they were never people who would have been difficult for me to contact, should I have decided to pursue something with them. If I want to see Princess Yara again—”

  “You dated her?”

  “I can just send a messenger to her father requesting that they come to dinner. It isn’t like that with Ellie.”

  “Ellie…”

  “Ellie Mills.”

  Saad brightened. “You know her last name!”

  “So?”

  “So, we can look her up.” He pulled out his phone, hit a few buttons, and held it out. “Is this her?”

  Mahmoud found himself looking at a social media profile that could belong to none other than Ellie. She had uploaded a few pictures from her trip to Al Fahad, but none that included him or the palace. “That’s her,” he said quietly.

  “Well, we can narrow it down from this,” Saad said, taking the phone back. “She doesn’t list any contact information, but… Hmm. There are a lot of photos of her at this cafe.”

  “How does that help?”

  “It’s probably in her neighborhood. If we can establish roughly where she lives, we can do a search for Ellie Mills in San Francisco and isolate which one is most likely to be her.”

  “And what are we supposed to do with that information?”

  “You really aren’t good at this, are you?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Go after her! Find her address, go to her house with a bunch of flowers, and tell her you still have feelings for her and you want to give it another try.”

  “It’s not as if I haven’t thought about it. But what if she doesn’t want that?”

  “Then at least you’ll know. No harm done.”

  Mahmoud shook his head. “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “It’s cruel. I can’t just show up at her house after she chose to leave. It’s disrespectful.”

  “What if it’s what she wants?”

  “She’s given no sign that she wants anything like that.”

  “Mahmoud, you’re letting her walk away.”

  Was he?

  Was it possible she wanted him to follow her?

  No. That wasn’t Ellie. He remembered again how offended she had been when he’d entered her room without knocking. This, really, was no different. By leaving the palace, Ellie had closed a door between the two of them, and now Mahmoud had no right to open that door again. He knew her well enough, he thought, to understand that.

  “Thank you,” he told Saad, “but I truly don’t believe it’s what she would want. I have to respect that.”

  Saad shook his head sadly. “This is why you’re alone, Mahmoud.”

  “Then I suppose I’m going to have to live with that.”

  Chapter 37

  Ellie

  STANFORD CLASS OF 2012

  Join us as we celebrate our

  5 YEAR REUNION

  You are cordially invited to join us at the Two Cedars Hotel in Palo Alto, California

  Saturday, March 7th at 7 PM

  RSVP

  Ellie sat staring at her computer screen. There was something about seeing it in print like that. Five years. Who would be there? Lia? Claire? She had to admit she’d been lonely lately, with only Mark and Vince for company. Maybe she should go. It could be an opportunity to connect with the last true friends she’d had.

  A reunion, though? she thought. Wouldn’t it be easier to just call them? The reunion was bound to be full of people one-upping each other with tales of their successes since college, and Ellie was certainly not feeling very successful these days. True, she had a good job, but her love life was a joke, she spend nights and weekends watching reality TV, and now NorMo—the one thing she was truly proud of—had gone up in smoke.

  Ellie opened her online photo album and scrolled back a few years. God, she had been so carefree. The smile she wore in most of these photos looked like it belonged to a different person, someone without a care in the world.

  I should go. It will be good for me.

  Besides, a break in routine was likely to take her mind off Mahmoud, at least for an evening.

  She clicked open her calendar. There was a meeting scheduled on Saturday night. That was typical. Tech investors seemed to love pretending they were cool. No doubt they’d be meeting at a bar and discussing Noralli’s potential over cocktails. And as soon as the second round of drinks had been poured, productive conversation would be impossible. Ellie knew her colleagues sometimes saw her as a stick in the mud. It annoyed her. What was wrong with wanting to keep business professional?

  Besides, they wouldn’t think I was lame if they knew I’d had an affair with a sheikh!

  She couldn’t tell them. Even though she’d confided in Mark and Vince, she knew she could never tell them who her mysterious Al Fahadi lover had actually been. For one thing, she had never discussed that with Mahmoud. He was a public figure, and it would be vastly inappropriate for her to spread gossip about his private life.

  Also, no one would ever believe her.

  She couldn’t tell anyone about Mahmoud, but she could tell Harris about this reunion. Maybe he’d excuse her from Saturday’s meeting if he knew. She was no longer
on the fence about attending. If it got her out of an investor meeting on a Saturday night? Absolutely.

  She dialed the phone extension for Liam’s desk. “It’s Ellie Mills. Can you put me through to Mr. Harris?”

  “Is this about Monday’s meeting? People have been calling all day asking about it. He’s not taking questions.”

  “Monday’s meeting?” She clicked back over to her calendar. Sure enough, there was a meeting scheduled for Monday in the boardroom. “First I’m hearing of that. What is this meeting?”

  Liam lowered his voice. “You did not hear it from me.”

  “Noted.”

  “Mr. Harris is talking about downsizing. He’s going to ask everyone at the meeting for their best idea for the company and make his decisions based on that.”

  Ellie was floored. “Seriously? With no warning?”

  “Seriously. Don’t spread it around. No one’s supposed to know.”

  “Who’s on the chopping block?” Was her job in danger, she wondered.

  “I have no idea. Prepare something for that meeting, though.”

  “Yeah, you bet.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not what I was calling about, actually. I have to ask him about the investor meeting on Saturday night.”

  “Ah.” Liam paused for a moment. “Yeah, he’s free. I’ll put you through.”

  “Thanks.”

  She heard the muted sound of dead air, and then Harris’ voice. “Mills?”

  “Hi, Mr. Harris.”

  “What’s the issue?” He sounded irritated. This didn’t bode well.

  Ellie considered hanging up and calling the whole thing off, but then she steeled herself. There was no reason she shouldn’t ask. “I was wondering if I could be excused from Saturday night’s event?”

  Harris laughed mirthlessly. “More wild hares to chase?”

  “No, sir. It’s my college reunion, and I’d really like to attend.” She hesitated. “It would be a great opportunity to get the word out about Noralli projects. All my old classmates will be there, and many of them have risen to powerful positions or founded companies of their own. So in a way, it would still be like I was working.”