Secret: The Maid And The Sheikh

by Lara Hunter

  The sunset off the canals of Florence was an incredible sight. The light turned the water to glass when it hit it, shattering into a thousand shards of ruby and gold, bright pinks and shy lavenders. The fresh breeze carried the scent of the sea and the warmth of the sun and lifted Tracey's hair off her shoulders as she leaned against the warm sandstone balcony of the terrace. From every window box and roof, greenery flourished. Hardy ivy and moss climbed and flowered, even in this late season, casting their leaves down on the people who crowded the narrow, winding cobbled streets below. Together, they created a harmony of nature and architecture that Tracey had seen in few other places.

  "I told you this place was beautiful," Matt murmured in her ear, his arms around her waist and his chin on her shoulder, keeping her warm against the slight November chill.

  "You didn't tell me the half of it," she said, laughing. "I've never seen anything so gorgeous in my life."

  "Me either," Matt said, looking pointedly at her. She blushed.

  "You're so cheesy," she teased.

  "Only because you love it," he said, squeezing her tighter. "And I love how red you get."

  She giggled and squirmed as he tickled her. Her flailing turned her around, her back to the railing, and Matt pressed close against her, leaning over her. Her heart, already racing from the tickling, beat a little faster. He bent slowly to press a kiss to Tracey's throat, and her breath caught as his lips grazed the sensitive skin.

  She put a hand on his shoulder to stop him, flustered.

  "Charlie could be back from the bathroom any minute," she said, though she was smiling. He pouted, kissed her on the lips briefly, and pulled away.

  "That's fine," he said. "There's something I wanted to talk to you about while he’s gone, anyway."

  He led her back to the table where they'd had their dinner. He'd reserved every table in the small local restaurant for the night so that they would have it to themselves. Matt was already trying to convince her to quit working as a maid so he could pay for her to go back to school and finish her veterinary science degree.

  "You started working for me a little more than a year and a half ago, yes?" he asked.

  "Just about," she said, thinking back. "It's hard to believe so much happened at the beginning of this year. And this past summer till now has been incredible."

  "It really has," he said, looking at her with fond nostalgia. "You've changed my life, Tracey."

  "You would have come out with the truth eventually on your own," she said, shaking her head.

  "No.” Matt shook his head. “I don't think I would have. Not before it was found out by someone else and I was forced to. Thanks to you, I can now not only live the truth about who I am but be praised for it. And I've been able to reconnect with my mother and the rest of my family, which never would have happened if the secret had been revealed unwillingly."

  "Your mother is something else," Tracey said with a small laugh. "After what you'd told me about her, I knew she'd be amazing, but she really was beyond anything I could have imagined. It was almost like having my own mom back for a moment."

  "She liked you too," Matt said, smiling. "A lot, in fact. I don't have any sisters, but if I did I know she would have wanted them to be as driven and intelligent as you."

  "If they were anything like you," she said, grinning, "I know they would have been."

  "Anyway." Matt took her hand, his thumb grazing the tops of her fingers in a slow rhythm, like the beating of a patient heart. "It's more than just that. Before you came, I was losing sight of why I wanted to be successful in the first place. I was still working to make a better place, but I'd lost touch with my family, with the community. I was trying to help from the top of a mountain, leaning down like I was a benevolent god rather than a man like any of them. I was forgetting that the Sheikh was a disguise.

  “Then you came to me with that broken vase, holding it like it was your life that was in pieces. I couldn't understand why you were so upset, even though not so many years ago I would have been in the same place. From my mountain, I couldn't see how the consequences of a single shattered vase could destroy a life. But through spending time with you and with Charlie, I found myself again. You brought me down from the mountain every time you smiled at me, reminding me that there was no difference between us. I just need you to know how much I appreciate that. I'll never be able to express the immeasurable good you have done for me."

  "You're not about to break up with me, are you?" Tracey asked, laughing despite the thread of genuine nervousness that made her heart beat faster.

  Matt shook his head with a small laugh, but he didn't answer the question, leaving Tracey to feel slightly unstable, like the terrace might drop away beneath her and leave her falling. Matt was looking away, like he was considering his words or building up the courage for something.

  "What are your thoughts about the future?" he asked.

  "Well, I hope you're in it," Tracey said lightly. He smiled and squeezed her hand.

  "No, seriously," he said. "What do you want to do, going forward?"

  She thought about it for a moment, having a little trouble focusing past her worry.

  "I'm not sure," she said. "I mean, I've been planning to go back to school eventually since before I met you. I always hoped to open my own practice one day. But honestly, things have been so wonderful these past few months that I kind of just want to go on like this forever."

  Matt chuckled, looking down at her hand in his with a tender smile. "I know the feeling. That's what I want as well."

  They looked up as the door to the terrace opened, Charlie returning from the bathroom with Andre behind him. Since he had been left behind on the trip to Hawaii, Andre had insisted on accompanying them on these little trips, though recently he'd become more Charlie's personal bodyguard than Matt's.

  "There you two are!" Tracey said, relieved. "I was starting to wonder if you had fallen in."

  "The owner of the restaurant stopped us," Andre said. "Apparently there was a delivery for us."

  "Here?" Tracey wrinkled her nose in confusion.

  "Ah, it's something very special," Matt said. "I arranged to have it brought straight to me as soon as it arrived. I had it driven overnight from Venice. Do you have it, Charlie?"

  Charlie nodded, his grin wide and mischievous. Tracey raised an eyebrow, and Charlie revealed what he'd been holding behind his back, handing it to her.

  It was a Murano glass vase, just like the one she'd broken the first day she'd spoken to the Sheikh. Vibrantly colored and masterfully crafted, the Venetian glass sparkled dazzlingly in the sunlight, casting rainbow patterns across the table and Tracey's face.

  "Oh, Matt, it's beautiful!" she said, a little stunned. "You didn't get this for me, did you? It’s way too much!"

  "It's for both of us," Matt said, smiling. "I wanted something to remember the day my life changed. I won't be hiding it in an unused sitting room on the third floor this time. I want to remember how important that day was, every day of my life."

  Tracey held the vase up to the light and heard a scrape as something moved inside it. Curious, she set the vase down on the table and reached in. She felt cool metal against her fingertips and lifted the small object out, recognizing the shape a second before she saw it, her heart jumping into her throat. The engagement ring glittered as she brought it into the light, and tears leaped to her eyes immediately.

  "Oh," she said, her voice failing her.

  "I want you to go on changing my life forever," Matt said, shifting out of his chair and down to one knee, taking her hand and the ring from her stunned, unresisting fingers. "I want to be a father to Charlie. And more than anything else, I want to love and support you until the day I die. Will you marry me, Tracey Anderson?"

  Happy tears streamed down Tracey's cheeks, and she sobbed, half laughing, as she tried to bring herself back under control.

  "Of course," she said as soon as she could speak past the emotion choking her. "Of course
! I love you!"

  He slid the ring onto her finger and stood, sweeping her into a tight embrace and kissing her powerfully as he spun her around, both of them feeling light as air with joy. When Tracey landed, her hip bumped the table. Her heart stopped for a moment as the vase tipped toward the edge, but Charlie dove forward, catching it and setting it safely back in the center of the table. She put a hand to her forehead, laughing at the absurdity of almost breaking another vase. Matt was laughing too, squeezing her tighter.

  "I love you too, Tracey," he said tenderly as they parted. "More than I will ever have words to say."

  "And me too!" Charlie said, wedging himself between them. Tracey laughed and picked him up. Matt put his arms around both of them, pressing a kiss to the top of Charlie's head and then to Tracey's cheek.

  "Yes, and you too," he said. "I love both of you, forever."

  "Me too," Tracey said, holding them both tightly. "Both of you. Forever."

  The new family stood wrapped in each other’s arms, and for a moment they forgot the world around them entirely. What did their surroundings matter anymore? For all three of them, their entire world was already right there in their arms.

  The End

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  I hope you enjoyed the story. As an added treat, here are the first few chapters of my previous novel, Stranded With The Prince

  ONE

  Kate teased long fingers through her red hair, her pale skin baking in the Miami sun. Standing near the snack table in her skimpy bikini, she slumped her shoulders, waiting to be called to the photo shoot.

  The photography director was bickering with the set designer, waving his black hat through the air, beads of sweat gliding down his cheeks. She’d worked with him several times before, and each job had been disastrous, requiring over ten hours on set. After each shoot, her agent had called her, proclaiming that the director just loved her work and wanted to work with her again. But each time she’d hesitated, wishing for a better option. At twenty-four, though, she was getting rather old for the modeling world. Being called at all was a blessing for her bank account.

  Kate eyed the snack table, tempted. Ever since she’d chosen to pursue a modeling career, at the age of fifteen, she’d watched her diet with eagle eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a piece of cheese, one of her favorite foods, and something she’d scarfed down as a twelve-year-old kid without a care in the world.

  One of the camera operators sauntered toward the table, gave her a once-over, and then snuck a large donut into his mouth. He gestured toward the bickering director, rolling his eyes. “You were at the last shoot, weren’t you?” he asked, icing sugar coating his lips. “The time when he threw the chair?”

  Kate smiled knowingly, her stomach growling. “I sure was,” she said, her eyebrows high. “I see that particular set designer isn’t on set today.”

  “No way,” the man said. “Bob would never call him again. He basically had him kicked out of Miami. He had to relocate to Atlanta, apparently. Can’t find work.”

  “Wow,” Kate said, feeling the poison of her own industry. “Looks like this guy might have to start looking outside Miami as well.”

  “Yeah,” the man agreed, scarfing down another donut. “But Bob seems to like you. He’s used you for almost all of the sets I’ve worked on. You were on that makeup ad, and that other—”

  “The moisturizer. And the surfboards,” Kate said, remembering how she’d straddled that surfboard for hours, sweat diving between her shoulder blades. “Not the most glamorous times. The humidity nearly destroyed me.”

  “Well, whatever pays the bills, right?” the man said, ogling her once more. Then he spun on his heel and crept back to his station, leaving Kate to shift her weight on her heels and hum with boredom. Just another strange man on a strange set at the twilight of her career. How many times was she going to allow herself to be looked at like that?

  At that moment, the director flipped off the set designer and screamed something in Spanish. He spun back toward his trailer, halting work for the next hour. Kate watched as the camera operators rolled their eyes and dipped their fingers into cigarette cartons. They looked sad and tired, so unlike the set workers from her first few years of modeling.

  Kate had moved to New York as an eighteen-year-old, finding a teensy apartment in Queens before slowly but surely moving up in her career. For a while, she’d worked for top-tier people in the industry, modeling for some big names, and even a few French magazines. She’d been young, vibrant, and eager to grab as much money and fame as she could. Then, at the age of twenty-two—not long after many of her peers graduated from college—the modeling offers had dwindled, her expenditures had started to outweigh what she was making, and she’d realized that she needed to find something else.

  She’d relocated to Miami, Florida, feeling like a broken toy at the bottom of the chest, and begun taking smaller jobs, knowing she was becoming more and more irrelevant. When she’d been a teenager, bright and bubbly and able to tilt her body in that perfect “model way,” her parents had warned her. Her mother had clicked her tongue, telling Kate she should find something, anything else to do. Modeling wouldn’t pay the bills forever, she said. But Kate had been naïve, and arrogant.

  With the director safely in his trailer, and cigarette smoke spinning around the camera operators, Kate lifted her hand to the Chex Mix bowl and crunched on a pretzel. Instantly, her brain felt calmer; her muscles loosened. Was hunger really so powerful?

  She gave a brief smile to a woman with a clipboard. The woman approached her, her graying hair tucked beneath a baseball hat.

  “Hey there,” the woman said cheerfully. “You look bored as hell.”

  Kate smiled. “It’s just a part of the job,” she said. “Just another day on another set.”

  “Ha, I know,” the woman replied, pulling a glossy magazine from her purse. “Do you want to look at this while you wait? I’ve already read it four times today. Getting tired of looking at pretty people living better lives than I ever will.” She winked and passed the magazine to Kate. “At least it’ll keep your mind off things, right?”

  Kate accepted it gratefully, staring down at the cover of the celebrity magazine.

  “In the meantime,” the woman said, “I think they want you back in makeup. Looks like it’s melting off you. Florida heat never stops, does it?”

  Kate walked gingerly in her heels toward the makeup chair. Safe in the shade of the makeup tent, she flipped through the magazine, taking in the countless celebrity shots and reading about who was aging poorly, who was getting divorced, and who seemed “blissfully in love.” She scoffed, disdain building inside her. Not so long ago, she’d partied with rock stars and had even spotted herself in these magazines—photographed moments after taking too many shots, looking like a loose and wild teenager. The very portrait of a model.

  In the center of the magazine was a feature about notorious European playboy Prince Francesco of Monaco, with the title: “MANHATTAN CLUBBING WITH ROYALTY.” Kate tilted her head, realizing that the people in the photos were partying in one of her old favorite New York clubs, a place in which she’d once kissed a famous movie star with abandon.

  The man in the feature was one she’d seen often in the tabloids: a gorgeous, exiled prince with wild black hair, a perpetual five o’clock shadow, and a muscled, six-pack abdomen. The twenty-seven-year-old was reputed to be an arrogant womanizer, and he was the favorite “bad boy prince” of the tabloids.

  In these photographs, Francesco leered at the photographer, taking shee
r pleasure in being looked at. Ella, Kate’s writer friend who often wrote for gossip sites, had told her repeatedly that these types of celebrities thrived off the flash of lights, off the drama that unfolded on the pages of these magazines. Kate shivered despite the Florida heat.

  As she flipped through the pages, eyeing the Prince, who seemed to have a model on each arm in every image—models who burned bright with the same energy and enthusiasm she had had as a twenty-year-old at the peak of her career—Kate felt a rising wave of jealousy. Sweat poured from her forehead, mussing her makeup even more.

  This man had all the money in the world: money to escape from his home in Panama to any high-class party in Manhattan or Europe without a care. And the models on his arm? They’d surely fade away, never allowing themselves so much as a pretzel, scraping away at their bank accounts, just hoping to pay rent. He’d have another round just like them the next time he returned to Manhattan, and they’d be just like her. Kate gazed at the photographs from her makeup chair, wishing for another time. A time when she’d mattered.