by Holly Rayner
“That’s pretty abundantly clear to me now,” Zelda said flatly. “Is there anything I can do?”
Zayed licked his lips and took another sip of coffee. “There may be something,” he said finally. “Obviously, you recall that I told those officials at the port that we were engaged.”
“I figured that was just a story, something you came up with to justify…”
Zayed smiled again, half-shrugging. “It was,” he said. “And you will never know how grateful I am that neither of those two men asked me your name or any details about you.”
“Me too,” Zelda admitted.
“What is your name, by the way?” Zayed tilted his head to the side slightly, his eyes glinting with interest.
“Zelda Barnes-Scott,” she replied.
“A very beautiful name,” the Sheikh told her. “In any case, it occurs to me that we each have a problem that the other could help solve, and that me telling those officials you were my fiancée might be part of that solution.”
“What?” Zelda set her coffee cup down, scared to drop it.
Without missing a beat, the Sheikh picked up the carafe and poured her more of the thick, dark brew. “I have a proposition for you,” he said, gesturing for her to have more of the coffee.
Zelda felt as if she had somehow managed to plunge herself into waters so far out of her depth that they might as well have been the middle of the ocean. “Go ahead,” she said, dabbing at her lips with a cloth napkin.
“You could marry me,” Zayed said.
FIVE
Zelda was glad she’d managed to swallow both food and drink completely before the Sheikh had spoken, otherwise she almost certainly would have choked.
“It would solve your immigration problems—because as my wife you would of course be granted citizenship—and it would solve a certain problem that I’m having.”
“The problem of not having a wife?” Zelda stared at him, thinking that her dread of what he was about to tell her was not far off, no matter how politely he was phrasing his demand.
“Yes and no,” Zayed said, smiling again. “There’s a company based here in Murindhi that I want to buy. I am being prevented from doing so by an arcane law which states that single men—and single women for that matter—cannot buy companies. We can start them, and we can sell them, but we cannot buy them.” Zayed shook his head, looking exasperated. “You would not believe how much I’ve already paid my lawyers to try and find a way around it.”
“I can imagine,” Zelda said quietly.
“In any case, if I can get married to a willing party, I can circumvent the law. I’ve been considering finding someone to arrange a marriage for me, but here you conveniently are.” The Sheikh selected another pastry, with a green-tinged filling, and ate it with the same quick grace that he had with the previous one. “And it would keep you out of prison.”
Zelda looked down at her hands, trembling as she held her coffee cup. The idea of marrying someone she had only just met, without having feelings for him, was staggering. People do it every day, she thought wryly, thinking of Zayed’s comment about an arranged marriage. Even still, this had certainly been the last thing she had expected when she’d stowed away on his yacht. Oh God, are there laws about consummating marriages? Zelda’s anxiety intensified.
“I don’t think I can do it,” she said quickly, shaking her head even as her heart pounded. “I don’t know if I can make myself marry someone I don’t have feelings for, or act as a wife to a stranger. Even if it’s a sham marriage just to get my citizenship, I don’t think I can do it.”
Zelda worked up the courage to meet Zayed’s gaze, and steeled herself for a threat, or worse.
Instead, Zayed was smiling slightly, looking no different than he had the last moment she’d looked at him. “I promise you, there won’t be any need for you to act as my wife in private,” he said, inclining his head towards her. “This will strictly be a business transaction. You would appear with me in public, and for all anyone will know, we will be truly married. But you will have your own life, and you will be able to come and go just as you please.”
Zelda pressed her lips together again, thinking that the coffee was stronger than she’d thought.
“I’m not expecting you to fulfill any romantic role in my life,” the Sheikh said.
“You’re sure about that? You just mentioned looking into an arranged marriage before.”
Zayed shrugged. “It seemed at the time to be expedient,” he told her. “The arrangement would be largely the same with a wife I married by arrangement; she would not be romantically obligated to me in any way. I would, however, insist that she conduct any outside romances very, very discreetly, and she would have the same liberties that I’m promising you.”
“Are you sure that it wouldn’t be better worth your while to get the law changed?”
Zayed shook his head. “I looked into it, believe me,” he explained. “It’s just not possible. If I want to buy out my competitor, then I must first have a wife.” He held her gaze for a few moments. “I know you do not know me well enough to be sure that I mean what I say when I tell you this is strictly business, but I hope that you can trust me.”
Zelda smiled weakly at that. “You’re right about not knowing you well enough,” she said.
“Let me point something out to you, and forgive me if this sounds like bragging: if I wanted to simply buy a woman to be my wife, I wouldn’t have to look very hard to find volunteers,” the Sheikh said. “Plenty of women both here and in the US would be happy to marry me for my money. But I don’t want that.”
“How do you know I wouldn’t be marrying you for your money, too?” Zelda wasn’t sure why she felt so contrary, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking.
“A woman who stows away on a boat with nothing more than a backpack and goes to work in the kitchen is not the type of woman who marries a man for his money,” Zayed said. He smiled slowly. “You are an adventurer; it’s just that you’ve run into a snag on this occasion. Allow me to help you, and we can both profit from this.”
Zelda thought about it for a long moment, plucking one of the few remaining pastries from the tray and sipping contemplatively at her coffee.
She considered the impressions she’d gotten of the Sheikh while they’d been en route to Murindhi; she’d noticed him, of course, and he had always seemed to be surrounded by his guests on the boat, almost fawned on by them.
In some respect, Zelda thought, the Sheikh was a demanding man—almost every night, he had insisted on huge, exotic banquets for himself and his guests. In other ways, though, she thought that he was clearly a generous person; the guests had all been extremely well looked after, and despite the long hours, the crew all seemed very happy, and well-paid for their work.
Of course, Zelda thought, that was the way that he acted with people who he was already connected to; he had no real connection to her. He knew all along that you were an impostor, she thought. He could just as easily have let port authority handle you. He could have let them cart you off and throw you in jail to either end up in prison or get deported. He had to come to her rescue, and even if his motives were somewhat selfish—even if he’d done it mostly to indebt her to him—Zelda didn’t think it spoke poorly of a man to think quickly, and to be that up front.
“How would this work?” Zelda asked, finishing off her pastry and meeting Zayed’s gaze.
“You will be with me in public,” the Sheikh explained. “As soon as possible I will issue an announcement to the press about my recent engagement, and setting the date for our wedding. I think you’ll agree that two weeks from now is a good idea, since that’s what we told the authorities.” Zayed smiled. “Of course, as my wife, you’ll need to have an appropriate wardrobe and quarters, which we can see to quickly. We will have to plan a wedding; fortunately, I have enough staff at my home here to take care of that.”
“So we’re going to have a wedding? An actual wedding wedding?” Zelda st
ared at the Sheikh. “Not just like...go to the courthouse or something?”
Zayed shook his head. “I’m a very wealthy man, Zelda, and it would raise suspicion if my wedding weren’t a very public affair,” he explained, his voice gentle. “We have to be seen to be truly man and wife by the media, by the people, and by those who will determine whether or not I can buy the company I’m interested in.” He poured her another half-cup of coffee.
“So two weeks, and we get married, with a huge ceremony for everyone to see,” Zelda said. “And then what?”
“You make some appearances as my wife, and we hold out long enough for the purchase of the company—and the determination of your citizenship—to go through, after which you can do whatever you like.”
“And I could leave whenever I wanted?”
Zayed nodded. “I travel often, and of course everyone will know that you are an American woman,” he said. “So, you leaving the country once your immigration status is settled will be nothing. Boring news to everyone. In fact, I’m sure many people will catch onto the fact that it’s a marriage of convenience, but as long as we don’t give them proof, there’s no reason for them to say anything.” The Sheikh extended his hand across the table. “Do we have a deal, Zelda?” his lips twitched in the start of an amused smile. “The press will certainly enjoy the alliteration in our names.”
“We have a deal,” Zelda said calmly, reaching across the table to shake his hand. She was surprised at how soft his palms were, and reminded herself that he was a monied man, and that he’d probably grown up wealthy. He had probably never worked in a kitchen in his life; he probably didn’t even know the first thing about doing his own laundry.
“We will have to get you a wardrobe, and a suitable token of my esteem to mark our engagement,” Zayed said, thinking out loud.
Zelda watched as the Sheikh took out his phone and began sending messages, making arrangements. He was clearly a man who liked to strike while the iron was hot; he hadn’t planned on making the offer to her, but he wasn’t about to give her time to change her mind about it.
Just as she had more than a few times in the previous two weeks, Zelda wondered if she had overplayed her luck. She felt outside of her depth, in territory where the bottom was so far away that the water around her was dark, her feet impossible to see.
What could possibly go wrong? She didn’t doubt for an instant that if Zayed were dating someone, he would have just proposed to his girlfriend and be done with it. Now that they’d agreed on the plan, he was every bit as implicated in fraud as she was. Yeah, but he’s rich and you’re poor. They’ll throw you in jail and invite him to speak to a group of policy-makers.
It wasn’t bad; that much Zelda had to acknowledge to herself. If she could trust Zayed to keep his word, she would be able to stay in the country for as long as she wanted to, and once she wanted to go back to the States, it would be easy—or at least, she hoped it would. And once she was in the US once more, she could probably file for divorce without too much trouble.
Would a marriage in Murindhi even be acknowledged in the US? Zelda filed the question away in the back of her mind to research later; she thought it would, but that shouldn’t stop her from being able to get a divorce, particularly if she tried for it after Zayed had completed his plans.
“Okay,” she said, finally. “So how are we going to pull this off?”
The Sheikh, who had been just as busy thinking as she had, stirred and smiled slightly. “First we have to establish who you are, create an image for you. Of course, we’ll have to get you a new wardrobe—in fact, that should be one of our first priorities. We’ll sort out the engagement ring, and you will come and live in my home for the time being.”
Hearing this, Zelda shot Zayed a distrusting glance.
“In your own quarters,” he specified, just a hint of a smile touching his lips.
“So we create an identity for me, show ourselves to the public, and get married,” Zelda said. “And then what?”
Zayed shrugged. “And then I move forward with my plans to purchase the company I want, and our lives go forward. If and when you want to go back to the US, you can do so.” He looked her up and down slowly. “Of course, you’ll have input on the wedding itself: your dress, the flowers you want, and so on.”
Zelda chuckled, shaking her head at the absurdity of it all. “I’m pretty sure my sham wedding to you is going to be a bigger, grander affair than any actual wedding I could ever have,” she observed.
The Sheikh grinned. “Well, there is a certain standard to be upheld. In this country, even the most normal people go all out for their weddings. And so the more money you have, the more they expect you to put on a show.”
“Give it to me straight:” Zelda said, her voice dry with amusement, “just how many bridesmaids am I going to have to deal with?”
Zayed laughed. “For the sake of appearances, I think you can get away with four,” he told her. “I have some extended family I can call upon for this; fear not, you will be adequately attended to.”
“Appearance is everything,” Zelda said.
Zayed gave her a quick look—a mixture of amusement and something like sympathy—and nodded. “I have to convince the country of my great and abiding passion for you, Zelda,” he told her. “That being the case, the wedding will certainly be a very grand, very expensive affair.”
Zelda finished off her coffee and set the delicate porcelain down carefully. “No one just goes off and elopes here, do they?”
Zayed shrugged. “There are some that do,” he said. “But in the higher orders of society, it would cause more problems for us to do it that way than to stage a huge wedding with all the trappings.”
Zelda took a quick, deep breath, while she silently and mentally accepted the course the Sheikh had outlined.
“If you feel up to it, I think we should make a start right now,” Zayed suggested. “First things first, we will need to make sure that you’re adequately clothed.”
Zelda looked down at her simple outfit; while it certainly wasn’t pricey, she had thought it looked all right. But then, she’d been basing that opinion on her old identity. “It’s going to be a long day, isn’t it?”
The Sheikh half-smiled. “It shouldn’t be too grueling. The major retailers in the city all know me very well, and will be happy to provide us with some help. I’ll have to think of what to tell them to explain your current outfit.”
Zelda half-cringed at that. “Let’s just tell them that there was some kind of accident with my luggage,” she suggested. “I don’t want to have to remember too many lies at the same time.”
Zayed gave her a respectful look, and then reached into his jacket pocket once more, taking out his wallet and laying a few bills on the table to pay for their food and drink.
“Then let’s get started, shall we?”
SIX
The driver hadn’t so much as blinked at the piles of shopping bags Zayed had brought to the curb when they finished their shopping excursion. Zelda wondered if the man was someone on permanent retainer—a member of the Sheikh’s staff, paid to sit around and wait for him—or if he merely worked for Zayed so often that the sight of so many purchases didn’t faze him.
“He doesn’t speak English,” Zayed murmured to her as they settled in the backseat, waiting for the man to load the last of the packages into the trunk of the limo. “So we can discuss things without any worries.”
“I’m still not sure I needed that many handbags,” Zelda said, shaking her head slightly. She had never owned more than three bags at a time: a black one, a brown one, and one in a color that she could coordinate with other outfits. More to the point, her choices had always been strictly utilitarian, with an emphasis on low cost and durability. Zayed, however, had insisted on buying her five purses in different sizes, with matching wallets to tuck inside of them, to go with ten pairs of shoes and seven belts.
“I thought that most women enjoyed shopping,” Zayed said
, looking at her with amusement.
“I’ve just never really had that kind of money to devote to it,” Zelda admitted. “I guess the allure of spending money for the sake of spending money just hasn’t occurred to me yet.”
The Sheikh chuckled. “It’s not just for the sake of spending money,” he told her. “It’s to establish who you are to the people you’re going to be meeting in the coming weeks. You’re a woman of fashion now, Zelda.”
Zelda couldn’t help but laugh at that idea, shaking her head at the bizarreness of it as the driver took his seat and started the car.
In spite of her lingering qualms, she had agreed that it made more sense for her to take up residence at the Sheikh’s house rather than to stay in a hotel. If they only had two weeks to establish their great love for each other, everything they could do to demonstrate it counted, and Zelda had to admit that living under the same roof would help to sell the idea of impulsive lovers. It was as if Zayed was intent on buying her an entire new life, and Zelda had carefully avoided looking at price tags, knowing that if she discovered the cost of everything he was buying her, she would lose her nerve entirely.