by Lia Lee
Laine stared at him for a moment, wondering what she would say to a man who had just essentially called her a dirty whore, in the stuffiest way possible.
Amin spotted her and looked on with a frown. Laine pinched her lips together and pulled the scarf Hadiya had arranged halfway over her hair that morning a little tighter. She gave him a gracious nod, almost bowing forward.
“If you have suggestions for the redesign of the palace, I would be happy to receive them,” Laine said, with a subarctic smile.
She turned and left. In the end she really didn’t have anything to say to him, and she didn’t want to get in the middle of a family fight.
***
Hadiya rolled her eyes and helped lay out samples in Laine’s office. “He is angry that Father didn’t put him in charge. It was never going to happen. He does well enough at his job in Manama, but Amin just doesn’t have the vision to manage our family’s holdings.”
“I haven’t gotten Aziz in trouble, have I? We’ve barely been out since we got here. Just to a restaurant or two, and shopping…oh, and the museum.” Laine sighed. Aziz was getting busy again, and that meant she would be deprived of his company soon. It shouldn’t matter, since she needed to plan how she would finish the work from home, but still…
“You are not the first woman he has taken to dinner,” Hadiya said. She walked over and stroked her hand over Laine’s head. “Do not worry about their arguments. Men can be excessive.”
“I’ve just not seen Aziz get so angry before.”
Hadiya looked surprised. “Did he? Hm.”
“What?”
Hadiya leaned back against the desk and shrugged. “Aziz can be temperamental. He’s definitely passionate.” Two fingers touched her lips. “And he always fights with Amin. It’s natural. He’s the middle child and was given the privilege and responsibility of a firstborn. Still. I don’t often see him get truly angry. Perhaps you mistook it. They can yell quite loudly.”
“No, I’ve seen him yell in the marketplace, or at people he felt weren’t giving him his due. He didn’t sound the way he did with Amin, before he stormed out,” Laine protested.
“Amin must have gone too far. It can happen, even with Aziz. And if he does get angry…Amin will need to be careful.”
With that ominous warning, Laine found herself treated that evening to one of the most awkward dinners she’d ever experienced. The four of them sat at the end of the long dining table, amidst the scent of fresh paint. Amin didn’t seem to be willing to say much of anything, so Hadiya asked him questions about his wife (pregnant again) and his children (three so far, and all doing well). She also chatted on about her own schooling, although she was on break now, which was why she was able to spend time at the palace.
“I love the new colors in here, don’t you, Amin?” Hadiya said, passing a meat and rice dish to Laine. “I cannot wait until we get the lamps up. It will be lovely.”
“I’m sure,” Amin said demurely.
His large eyes moved toward Laine. They were darker than Hadiya and Aziz’s eyes. But that wasn’t what made Laine uncomfortable when she looked into them. It was the fact that they held such hostility, whereas Aziz and Hadiya’s eyes, no matter the circumstance, always held kindness.
“We spent a lot of time discussing the needs for the dining room. In the end, we’ll have a lot of traditional accents, as well as several paintings from Bahraini artists,” Laine said. She looked to Aziz and smiled knowingly.
They had spent one afternoon at a local museum and had the opportunity to speak to an artist about his work. Laine had felt so energized afterward that she’d let Aziz take her out to see the rest of the city. They had ended up at a restaurant where they had flirted in a private room and Aziz had made her close her eyes while he fed her delicacies.
Aziz sipped his drink and smiled across the table coyly. Laine met his eye and slowly licked her lips. Amin glowered.
After dinner, Aziz excused them on the pretense that he and Laine would need to discuss a few things related to the renovations. Hadiya bid them goodnight and gave Aziz a little swat and a knowing look before she sashayed out of the room, taking her other brother’s arm as she went.
“Forgive my brother’s behavior tonight,” Aziz said as they walked together down a hallway that led towards the northern exit. “Do this for me. He does not deserve your consideration, but I am asking.”
“I understand he may be jealous of you. He’s the older brother, after all.”
“Perhaps a bit. He thinks, at least to a degree, that he is protecting me. But that does not excuse his rudeness toward you.”
Laine wondered if she should mention what she’d heard earlier. “I’ve experienced worse. There are plenty of people in the world willing to look down on me.”
“I would suggest your Mr. Brandt doesn’t deserve your forgiveness, either,” Aziz said.
“No. And I won’t forget what happened, but for now, I’m not ready to cut that tie. You have to have good connections if you want to make it in business. I’ve done good work here so far, and he’ll have me back at the office soon enough. It has to get better.”
“It doesn’t, actually. History doesn’t progress in a beautiful climb toward the better. We have to fight for it to be so.” Aziz approached a large pair of double doors. Laine remembered them leading out into the grounds that surrounded the palace.
“Where are we going?” she wondered aloud.
“Just through here.”
Laine walked through the offered door.
The scent struck Laine first. The almost overwhelming aroma filled her senses, before she could even register what she was looking at. Roses. Roses, everywhere. The previously barren space now hosted circles of rose bushes of different colors, radiating outward from a sparkling white fountain.
“Roses?” Laine stepped out to get a closer look. “How can roses survive here?”
“Roses are tougher than they are given credit for. If given enough water and nourishment, they can thrive, even in merciless temperatures.” Aziz walked up behind her and placed a hand on her back. “When I spoke to my gardener, it turns out that the ‘double delight’ is actually one of the hardier roses one can plant. So I brought them in.”
Laine leaned over and looked closer. All of the roses were two colors. In the first row, they were pink and yellow, but in another row, they were purple with white stripes. Each row changed the colors, but every one of them was bicolored.
“Tiger roses,” Laine murmured, touching one of the purple and white ones.
Aziz brushed his fingers through her hair. “Some beauty for my foreign flower.”
“For me? But I’ll be leaving soon,” Laine protested.
“You’ll have to come back occasionally to check that work is being completed to your standards, yes?” Aziz trailed his fingers down her neck. “You may even want to come back just to visit. This garden is yours, either way. I hope you like it. I don’t know if our country has given you the inspiration you needed, but you have certainly inspired me.”
Laine scoffed. She looked at the gorgeous sight surrounding her. She’d never seen this many striped roses in one place. They had talked idly about bringing more greenery to the outside of the palace, but her focus had been on the interior. That he would do this…
“Aziz, it’s beautiful,” she said, touching his arm.
He took her hand and walked with her down a path through the roses. “The smile on your face is all the reason I needed. That they will always remind me of you, if you leave me, will also be a reward.”
“I have to. Once the job is over…” Laine felt her resolve waning. “Maybe I could send an email saying I need another week…two weeks is such a short time for such large plans.”
“Yes, you should do this.”
“But I’m on thin ice as it is.”
“I will speak to him,” Aziz declared. When Laine opened her mouth to protest, he touched her cheek and shook his head. “Some men cannot hear
you. It isn’t ideal, but it is true. He will listen to what I have to say, and he will take the additional stipend that I send to secure your services, and he will not complain.”
Laine said nothing. She felt odd about letting Aziz be her protector. She’d had to be her own advocate for so long that it felt strange to have someone nearby who had the power to protect her. To defend her. To hold up her value to others who would diminish it.
“If you can do that, I thank you.” Laine thought for a moment. “And thank you for defending me to Amin this morning. I overheard. I would have left, but you two were going at it so loudly.”
Aziz turned his head, almost seeming embarrassed. “We are passionate.”
“So Hadiya tells me. Passion I’ve seen from you. This was different, and I just thought you should know that I appreciate it. I could be just someone who works for you. I could be just another fling. Maybe that’s true. But you kept your brother from talking badly about me. Not everyone would do that.”
Aziz stopped walking and sighed. “My brother…”
He took her hand and led her to the fountain to sit on the edge. Laine looked up at him curiously. The light of day was beginning to diminish around them, and the shadows grew long.
“Aziz?”
“I am the head of my family. This you know.” Aziz pushed his fingers through both sides of his hair and looked up at the sky, as though seeking strength. “It was not meant to be so,” he said finally. He let his hands drop into his lap. “It should have been Amin. I should not have even had the chance to take this from him.”
Laine reached over and took his hand in both of her own.
“When I was just barely out of boyhood, I grew very, very ill. The treatment was brutal. I felt as though my death were upon me every moment. If not for my family’s resources, I would not have had access to these doctors with their treatments. I know that I am lucky, both to have had the chance to survive and to actually do so, despite the odds.”
He looked at her with a smile. “I should not live, but I do. And as it became clear that despite my expectations, I would live to have a future, I knew that I must take every moment, every opportunity. I must not be afraid to live, because this is what Allah gave to me.”
Laine looked down, feeling her cheeks burn. He didn’t mean to highlight her utter failure to embrace her life, but his words did so anyway.
“I am not a small man. And I will not be made small.” Aziz shrugged. “However, I was very…unfocused. It is true—I have enjoyed time with many women. I have spent my life as an adventure waiting, and my father knew that I could be more.”
“So he put you in charge of the estate,” Laine said.
“Indeed. I thought he had lost his faculties. Amin still does. But our father is a cunning man.” Aziz shook his head and smirked. “You would like him. He is crafty, like you, with your missing tile.”
Laine laughed. “Sometimes you just have to work what you have to your advantage!”
“You are wise. And like your fellows,” Aziz said gesturing toward the roses, “you are stronger than people think.”
“Did you plant this just to tell me that I can survive? That’s a bit over the top.”
“I had them planted just to make you smile, really.” Aziz laughed. “Hardly anything more. You are so serious when you work! I just cannot resist comparing you to them. You have your thorns, too.”
“And you like my thorns?” Laine teased.
“I like that you have kept them from stabbing me,” he said. “I have told you, I’ve had a hard life!”
“So that’s all you want? To live. Is that enough?”
“For a while…it seemed to be.” Aziz leaned over and kissed Laine’s neck. “Now that Father has pushed me to do more, I’m not sure. We contain multitudes, Laine. We can want more than one thing. Like you. You want your design job. You want to be close to your family. You want to create.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Laine pointed out.
“Hm.” Aziz stroked Laine’s neck and kissed it twice more.
She knew he was trying to deter her with kisses, but this was the first time she’d really been able to scratch the charming surface with Aziz. And she wanted more than his surface, if he would ever allow her to have it. Tenaciously, she pursued the question again.
“What do you want, Aziz?” Laine turned and put her hand over her neck as she met his eyes. “You have your life. You have all of the Amirmoez estate. What’s missing?”
Aziz held her gaze for a moment, then took her hand and kissed it. “You need more than another week to complete this job. Stay another two. Three. You can watch your roses bloom.”
Laine cupped his face in both hands and shook her head. “You want something to play with,” she accused lightly.
“I am not playing with you, Laine,” Aziz vowed.
Laine kissed his lips as she moved her hand up his bicep. “I don’t believe you,” she murmured.
Aziz rested his hands on her hips, holding them gently as she leaned into him and pressed kiss after kiss onto his eagerly waiting lips.
Chapter Ten
“You must taste me.”
Laine looked up from the bowl in front of her and blinked.
Aziz grinned toothily and held up a spatula.
“Mine,” she corrected, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.
Aziz raised his brows and came across the kitchen to her. She had been stirring what Hadiya said would become a spiced cake called gers ogaily, and she tilted her head back to look into his eyes.
“You mean, I must taste yours. You must taste mine,” Laine said.
“Oh, yes. I misspoke.” Aziz just smiled and waved his hand vaguely. “My English, it is a work in progress.”
“Sometimes,” she said, wagging her spoon at him, “I don’t really believe you are misspeaking. I think you know exactly what you are saying.”
“I do?” Aziz reached down to caress her thigh and leaned over to take her fingers into his mouth.
“You…you must.”
His tongue swirled around her finger before he gave it a wet suck. Laine felt her cheeks growing warmer. The way he looked at her while he did it…it was just how he looked at her across the table, or when they passed in the hallway.
“Hadiya will be back soon,” she muttered.
“You haven’t tasted mine yet,” Aziz said with a pout. “Fair is fair, darling.”
Laine set her bowl down and took his large hand in both of hers. She took in two of his fingers at once up to his knuckle, tasting the sweetness of the batter and the salt of his skin. Now Aziz started to laugh. His eyes widened as he watched her suckle on him.
“Ew,” Hadiya protested as she walked into the kitchen. “I hope you washed your hands, Aziz!”
Laine giggled and turned away.
“I washed before we began,” Aziz said defensively.
“You’d better get out of here before my friends arrive.” Hadiya shook her head and rolled up her sleeves to wash up. “Laine can stay.”
“This is unfair to me,” Aziz said.
“You are a man. It isn’t proper for you to spend the afternoon with a party of young women. Go away.” Hadiya made a shooing motion with her hand.
Aziz sighed dramatically and headed for the kitchen door, but paused for a moment to catch Laine’s eye. His twinkled mischievously until Laine came over to give him a shove.
“One can hardly pry him from you,” Hadiya said as she took over the bowl Aziz had abandoned. She had a lot to prepare before her friends came, and Aziz had been the opposite of helpful. “Is he more than your client now?”
“I don’t really know.” Laine shrugged and then said something Emma had told her once. “They say the best way to kill a relationship is to take its temperature.”
“How grim!” Hadiya laughed and continued on with her work in the kitchen. Laine stayed close to offer a hand wherever Hadiya needed, since she’d turned down Aziz’s offer to have his chef do
the work. Hadiya liked to do things for others with a personal touch.
Laine thought back on her own sister’s words as she cooked. She loved the little flirty moments with Aziz, but they came less often now that his brother was visiting. Yet, the two of them continued to have their stolen glances, their furtive touches. She might look up in the middle of her work on a room to see Aziz’s eyes on her, and she would simply know that his eyes were picturing her body naked and finding it a beautiful sight. If Amin had noticed their silent repartee, he held his tongue.
Still, with all this flirtation, Laine had to wonder. Amin had mentioned marriage, but that seemed to be the furthest thing from Aziz’s mind. Laine understood now that Aziz could not grab her passionately whenever he liked in his own country, where interaction between unmarried men and women was much more restricted—especially with family visiting. But as intense as their passion was, Aziz continued to treat their relationship as one long, ongoing fling. Laine hated to be the one getting so invested, while it seemed like for him their interlude was just another extravagant way to seize the day and take pleasure while they both had life in them. While his gifts and gestures were sweet, whenever pressed to speak of their relationship on more intimate terms, he tended to try to undress her with more than his eyes, or he grew quiet and left the room on “business” he needed to take care of. And it hurt.
Laine knew she could open up more. She’d tried, but not knowing where he stood on these things, and being unable to reliably get him to put away his capricious persona, she found it very hard to spill her soul to him, even if he’d told her something very important about himself.
Hadiya grabbed Laine’s hand just before she dumped salt into a cake instead of sugar. With a click of her tongue, Hadiya took over the bowl.
“You must learn to cook someday,” she chastised.
“I can cook,” Laine argued. “I made dinner for our family practically every day for six years. Baking? Not really in my wheelhouse.”
“It is the same,” Hadiya scolded. “How can you do one but not the other?”
“Cooking is art. Baking is science. And I got a C in chemistry.”