by Holly Rayner
She was engaged to the man of her dreams. She would be married in two weeks!
TWELVE
Time passed so quickly after the Sheikh’s proposal, Hallie had a hard time keeping track of the days. Sadiq had taken her to check out several venues, but Hallie knew that the place she wanted to marry him was at the greenhouse—the first place he’d taken her to in his country. They would marry in the botanical garden there; it ran the length of the greenhouse and was completely loaded up with gorgeously exotic purple-tinged, peach-pastel roses that were unique to Al Shayam. It was the most beautiful, deliciously fragrant place Hallie had ever been to.
Hallie took one last deep breath before they exited the building, but not before Sadiq had plucked a rose and handed it to her with a bow.
“For my lady,” he said, and Hallie accepted it gratefully.
“You are ever the gentleman, Sheikh.”
“I do try,” he said.
That afternoon, they attended a taster session for their wedding cake, sampling a series of delicious, moist sponges that were all equally sublime. Hallie and Sadiq finally agreed on a peach-flavored batter that tasted like heaven itself, and would match the coloring of the roses.
As they drove back to the palace in the back of a stretch limo, Hallie nestled into the crook of Sadiq’s arm. “This is too wonderful,” she sighed.
Sadiq pulled her a little closer, wrapping himself around her. She loved how he did that. The pair of them fit perfectly together, like a pair of puzzle pieces that had finally found their place.
“Not too wonderful, I hope. If need be, I can dial down the perfectness a bit for you.”
Hallie could hear the smile in his voice, even though she couldn’t see his face. She nuzzled her chin into his warm chest, and grinned. “I don’t think I’ve quite hit my full quota yet, my love, but I appreciate the offer nonetheless.”
“Good,” he said. “Because I will never stop trying to make your life the biggest fairy tale that ever was.”
Hallie thought about that. She hadn’t really considered her life a fairy tale. She’d been slapped with some harsh reality more than once, and had stopped believing in the concept altogether. But then she’d met Sadiq, from across the ocean, and somehow her faith in the beauty of life had been restored. She held him tight all the way home, relishing in the feeling of mutual love.
“You’ll be trying on dresses tomorrow morning, right?” Sadiq said as they exited the car and entered through the main entryway. He walked her to her room, where she would rest for a while before meeting him in the dining room for dinner. It was something she looked forward to each and every night.
“I will, yes,” she answered.
They reached her doorway, and Sadiq wrapped his arms around her waist as he leaned back to look at her.
“I want you to get any dress you want. Don’t even look at the price tag. It doesn’t matter. Whatever makes you feel absolutely beautiful.”
“You make me feel like that no matter what I’m wearing,” she said, her tone sincere.
Somehow the two of them had been unable to stop grinning at each other like complete fools for the weeks since that candlelit dinner. Hallie couldn’t be happier about that fact.
The Sheikh grinned. “Still, a woman should get the exact dress she desires for her wedding, and you deserve the very best of everything, Hallie.”
“You spoil me,” she said.
“Absolutely,” he agreed.
He kissed her then, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as she indulged in the deep and passionate embrace just outside her bedroom door. They hadn’t slept together yet, and while Hallie didn’t mind waiting…too much, she would be very glad when their wedding night arrived. Sadiq was irresistible, and she wanted to embrace everything that he was, body and soul.
He ended their embrace when they were both breathing a little too hard and bid her farewell, walking quickly down the hallway, lest he change his mind and make love to her then and there.
When Hallie closed her door behind her, she still couldn’t catch her breath. It would be one of many cold showers before they could finally be one together. And Hallie needed to jump in, quick!
THIRTEEN
“Let’s try on this one, shall we?”
The dress store was upscale and chic. Dresses were displayed in cases along the walls, and the saleswoman had had to use her key to unlock each one—that’s how precious they were. A few weeks prior to this, Hallie had been eating ramen noodles until her next paycheck could go through.
She pinched her arm. Nope, not a dream.
Hallie obediently held out her arms as the woman deftly unlaced the gown she’d just tried on, then helped her step into the next. The gowns were a sea of white and lace and sparkling crystals. To pick one would be like picking a favorite star in the sky, and yet the ones she’d tried on up to that point didn’t quite fit what she was looking for.
The woman finished lacing her back up, and she guided Hallie to the center podium, surrounded by mirrors. When she looked at her reflection, Hallie gasped.
This was it. This was the one.
The dress had thin straps and a narrow V-shaped neckline that dove past her sternum, revealing a healthy amount of cleavage, but not so much that it was risqué. The dress flowed down to her bare feet and stretched out past her back, the train making a laced oval behind her.
“I think we’ve found the one, yes?” the saleswoman said.
A tear fell from Hallie’s eye, and she rushed her fingers to her cheek to wipe it away. The truth was, she’d really believed that her happy ending had been taken from her. The world looked at her like she was some kind of evil pocketbook stealer. What man would ever want her after that?
Sadiq did. Sadiq wanted her very much, and she wanted him, too. Hallie started as a tissue floated before her.
The saleswoman grinned. “We keep them on hand, just for these occasions. It is a powerful experience, seeing yourself as a future bride, isn’t it?”
Hallie sniffed, taking the proffered tissue and delicately dabbing her eyes and nose with it. “Yes, it is,” she agreed.
The woman reached for her pins and pulled at tucked at the fabric of the dress, making sure to get the fit exactly right for Hallie’s body. They tried on a couple of veils, some tiaras, and some shoes until Hallie had the perfect combination. She looked like a princess—exactly like she had always dreamed.
“It is a shame you are here by yourself. Do you have any female friends who will join you for things such as this?”
Hallie thought about reaching out to Gemma and inviting her out. With her parents gone, and no siblings to speak of, there was no one else. She didn’t want to burden Gemma with the financial cost of flying out to the Middle East, however, and she didn’t want to ask Sadiq for the money to bring her over.
No, she was quite on her own.
“It’s a bit rushed, you see. There really isn’t time…”
“Say no more,” she woman said with a knowing glint in her eyes. She glanced pointedly at Hallie’s belly. “These things happen, yes?”
The woman wiggled her eyebrows, and Hallie laughed.
“No, no. Nothing like that. We’re just excited to wed, that’s all.”
The woman lifted an eyebrow. “Well, from what I know of the Sheikh, you should be commended. He is really quite the catch, and has proved impossible to pin down for many women who have tried.”
Hallie mumbled some kind of agreement, not wanting to hear about all the other women Sadiq had been courting before she came along. He had been honest about that, really. And he had been clear that none of them were what he really wanted.
She was.
The woman set aside Hallie’s items and told her they would all be sent to the Winter Palace in a few days’ time, ready for the ceremony.
“Just a few small adjustments, and it will fit like a dream. I will charge it all to the Sheikh, yes?”
Hallie nodded, feeling a little uncomfo
rtable. She had never been given a price for anything she purchased or tried on. It was the kind of place where you didn’t go in if you weren’t rich enough not to ask about such things.
The Sheikh’s limo was sitting out front, the driver, Jal, playing on his phone in the front seat. When Hallie opened the back door and slid in, the phone instantly disappeared.
“Hello, miss. Where to?”
“Home, please,” she said, relishing the thought. Her home was a palace that she was in the process of redecorating with her fiancé. She could tell herself that fact a hundred times, and there was still a part of her that believed it was too good to be true.
Jal nodded and set off down the city streets, taking a highway she hadn’t yet been on during her adventures with Sadiq. Hallie gazed out the window, daydreaming about her wedding day, when the strangest sight met her eyes.
It was her picture, on a giant billboard.
Hallie pressed her face against the window, reading the billboard, which was written in Arabic and English.
Find your American bride today! Try LoveMatch, Al Shayam’s most popular app!
Hallie’s eyes bored into the billboard image until the car drove past, leaving her numb. Find your American bride? What the hell?
Pulling out her phone, Hallie googled her name. She hated doing it. The articles that came up were usually cruel at best, but she scanned through, looking for anything that might pin her to the app. When nothing came up, she added Sadiq’s name, and began to scroll.
There were several articles about Sadiq, but the first few were all about his new app, LoveMatch. Hallie tapped one open, and began to read.
Sheikh Sadiq bin Haled Al Halam has always been known for his business sense, but he has far and away outdone himself with his new app, LoveMatch. After using the app to find his own, stunning mail-order bride from America, he was able to prove just how effective his new application can be. In the past week alone, LoveMatch has been downloaded thousands of times. The men of Al Shayam are gunning to find their next lady love, and who wouldn’t want a sassy American for a wife?
Hallie nearly threw her phone across the car. Instead, she tossed it against the seat, where it plopped softly onto the decadent cushioning, as though to mock her. Nothing could hurt the Sheikh—he was rich and powerful, right?
After all this time, it was all fake. He’d used her as an advertisement. He’d let her believe that he loved her, just so he could make more money—like he needed it anyway!
“Can you please hurry, Jal?” she asked, and he cast a curious glance in the rearview mirror before he pressed his foot down on the accelerator, speeding them toward the palace, and the conniving beast Hallie had been stupid enough to fall in love with.
When the car pulled up outside the front doors, Hallie burst from the vehicle and stormed up the stairs, heading straight to where she knew Sadiq would be—his home office.
He had shown her where he worked a couple of times, always telling her that he welcomed her distraction and putting aside anything he was working on the moment she walked into the room.
What a joke.
When she reached his office, the door was open. She felt a pang of displeasure at not being able to throw it open. She wanted to throw things. She wanted to express her rage somehow. Instead, all she could do was storm in and toss her cellphone on his desk.
When Sadiq looked up, his expression was confused. “Hallie, what on earth…?”
She gestured at her phone screen, which was pulled open to the article.
After a concerned look at her, Sadiq palmed her phone and scrolled up to the top of the article. As he read, his face paled. When he looked up, his eyes were pleading. “Hallie, you don’t understand…”
“Understand what?” she spat. “That my fiancé wined and dined me, sent me halfway across the world under false pretenses of seeking a loving marriage?”
Sadiq winced at the anger in her words. “I understand why you would think that, reading this article. I know it looks terrible…”
“Yes it does. Especially since I wouldn’t have found the article if it weren’t for a huge billboard with my face on it, promising the same thing!”
Hallie was seeing red. She had never been so infuriated in all her life. Sadiq was sputtering like a fish, which did not help his case, though Hallie had a hard time thinking of anything he could say at that moment that would.
Finally, after a tense moment of silence, he heaved a breath. “Hallie, I’ll be honest with you. When I got on LoveMatch that night, I might have been looking for a bride just to prove a friend wrong. I wanted to find a woman I could use as an example for all the other folks who might be seeking the same thing. When we started talking, I did look you up, and I knew who you were. Based on the articles I figured you’d be easy to entice, because they painted you as someone who valued material things more than much else.”
Hallie’s eyes narrowed, and Sadiq sat back a little further in his chair.
“That’s how it started, and I’m ashamed of that. Really, I am. Because when I met you, and you showed me the vibrant, unique, wonderful person you really are, I started falling for you immediately. Then I didn’t want to tell you the truth, because, well, because I was afraid this would happen.”
Hallie couldn’t believe her ears. She had been duped from the beginning, all because of her reputation, invented by tabloid journalists with nothing better to do with their time.
“You used my photograph on a billboard without my permission. The one thing I asked for in all of this was your honesty, and you couldn’t give that to me. Maybe if you’d told me this before, things might have been different, but how can I trust you now?”
She choked back a sob, realizing that her dream was crashing down—that it really was too good to be true. Sadiq was just like every other man she’d been with—selfish and cruel. He’d played with her emotions, pampering her, telling her just the right things, kissing her in a way she’d never been kissed before, all so he could increase his popularity and revenue. Tears began to run freely down her face.
Sadiq stood, moving to comfort her. She put up a hand.
“No, don’t. I don’t want to see you, ever again.”
“Hallie, please! I love you! I can’t live without you. I’m sorry, just…”
He reached out as though to take her hand, but she stepped back until she was in the doorway. When she looked up at him from beneath watery lashes, she tried not to be fooled by his handsome face or the sincerity in his eyes. Hadn’t he seemed sincere before? Hadn’t they all?
“Don’t follow me. I am leaving on the first flight home, and I want you to leave me in peace. Just…leave me alone!”
Hallie grabbed her phone from the desk and ran from the room, dashing through the hallways she had finally learned, and come to love in their own special way.
When she got to her room she threw everything she could find in her suitcases and marched right out the front door. She didn’t think about how she’d get to the airport, but, to her surprise, there was already a car waiting for her.
At least he was respecting her wishes now, she thought. Not that it mattered. Any love they might have built had been shattered the minute he lied. She glanced up at the palace, towering above her, iridescent against the desert sun. She’d thought she would be calling this place home.
She’d been wrong.
She thought she saw Sadiq looking down at her from one of the high windows, but she refused to stare, instead sliding into the car while Jal loaded her suitcases. When he sat in the driver’s seat, Hallie asked him where they were headed.
“To the private airport, miss,” he said.
He looked sad. She wondered what Sadiq had or hadn’t told him. She shook her head.
“We’re not going there. Just take me to the nearest international airport, and I can make my way from there.”
“But, miss…”
“Please, just do as I say,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes aga
in.
Jal nodded, and pulled away.
Hallie did her best not to look back at the palace that once could have been hers, and the man she’d thought she loved.
FOURTEEN
Sadiq sat at his desk, staring out his window at the towering cityscape before him. In his fingers, he passed an enormous diamond ring from one hand to the other, gazing out into nothing, thinking only about Hallie.