by Holly Rayner
“Your father’s the CEO, and—” Majeed stopped himself. “I’m sorry. I apologize. I’m being rude again.”
“No, that time I started it,” Dakota said. “And besides, I owe you an apology too.”
“For what?”
“I was being a rude American last time we got together.”
Majeed laughed. “Well, you seem like a reasonable human being today.”
“I like to think I am.”
“Champagne?”
“Please.”
Majeed poured a bit into each of their glasses, lifted his, and inclined it toward her. “To second chances.”
“To second chances.”
They drank. Majeed set his glass down. “I spoke to my cousin,” he said. “After I went out with you.”
“Oh?”
“Padma is three years older than me, and she had an arranged marriage,” Majeed said. “She and her husband were married two years ago.”
“I thought you said your family didn’t keep that tradition.”
“We don’t. But Padma is from my mother’s side, and many of them do. Anyway, do you know what she told me?”
“What?”
“She said she hated her husband at first. She cried herself to sleep the whole first week of their marriage.”
“Oh no,” Dakota gasped, trying to imagine what kind of cruelty Padma might be living with. “Was he awful to her? He didn’t hurt her, did he?”
“No, no.” To her surprise, Majeed was laughing. “He’s very nice. They’re expecting their second child, actually.”
“What?” Dakota was amazed. “How did that happen?”
“Well, when they met for the first time, she was already fully committed to him,” Majeed explained. “Documents had been signed. Both families had agreed to the arrangement. There was no going back at that point. And then she met him, and she didn’t really like him very much. Imagine if you’d come home from that first date we had, and you were already legally bound to me.”
“I wouldn’t have liked it,” Dakota admitted.
“But they did exactly what we’re doing right now,” Majeed said. “They spent more time together. They worked on the things they didn’t like about each other, and they communicated what they needed. Before we knew it, they were one of the most blissfully married couples we’d ever seen.”
“So you’re saying this can actually work for people?” Dakota asked.
“It worked for Padma,” Majeed said. “She told me not to give up after just one meeting. It’s normal to feel the way we did after the first time you meet someone you have an arrangement with, she said. She told me to meet with you again, and not to put so much pressure on it, but to take my time getting to know you so that our relationship could build more naturally.”
“She sounds pretty smart,” Dakota said.
“She is. She’s a sociology professor at the university.”
Dakota was stunned into silence. She had known, of course, that arranged marriages were common in Baraq, but nobody she knew had ever been involved in one, and somehow she had always subconsciously assumed that the women in such marriages were oppressed in some way. But if Majeed’s cousin was a professor…well, that changed things. Suddenly the prospect of her own arranged marriage seemed a little less dismal.
“All right,” Dakota said, dipping a piece of bread in the hummus. “Let’s get to know each other better, then.”
“Okay. So…you’re from America?”
Dakota laughed. “You know I’m from America.”
“All right,” Majeed conceded, laughing too. “But I don’t know anything about America. I’ve never been. Tell me what it’s like.”
So, over a second glass of champagne, Dakota described life in Seattle. Majeed was fascinated by her descriptions of regular rainstorms, so different from the arid climate of Baraq, and asked lots of questions. It couldn’t have been more different from their first date, when Dakota had felt his objective was merely to impress her with his own wealth and knowledge—today he seemed interested in her and in the details of her life. She found herself opening up to him, bit by bit, sharing stories of her life back in the States.
By the time the appetizers arrived, they had moved on to discussing their families. Dakota learned more about the bin Ayads than she had ever known. Her perception of them had always been filtered through the animosity between their families. But as Majeed served calamari onto two small starter plates, he told her that his brother Nadim was studying to become a surgeon and that his sister Karida was a talented archer. He described them with the same fondness Dakota felt for her own brother, and she realized that Majeed’s family must be as close as her own. His parents, he told her, were considered nontraditional among the rest of the family, having opted out of the custom of arranged marriages, but Majeed still felt they were more strict than he would have liked.
“And the preservation of the family is their highest priority,” he said, popping a piece of calamari into his mouth. “It’s not the idea of losing our wealth that has them upset—although that would be difficult—but the prospect of having to move off the lands that have been in our family for generations.”
For the first time, Dakota felt sympathy for the bin Ayads. “I always assumed all this wasn’t as much of a problem for you as it was for us,” she admitted. “At least you’d be able to stay in the country if the Emir decided to punish us all.”
“I think my family felt exactly the opposite,” Majeed said. “My brother has been saying that you can’t be that upset about having to leave Baraq when you’ve only been here for five years. We’ve been in our home for almost two hundred years.”
Dakota smiled, and Majeed smiled back, and in that moment, she felt a wave of understanding pass between them. They were very different, and their backgrounds had given them contradictory perspectives on almost everything, but their innermost priorities were the same. They loved their families and would do almost anything to protect them. And as she regarded him across the table now, she felt a sort of fondness that had definitely not been present on their first date. He was a nice person, a good man.
She could do a lot worse.
Could this be how Majeed’s cousin Padma had felt, setting out on her own arranged marriage? Was it possible that in a few years’ time she and Majeed would be completely in love and starting a family? Was it possible to arrange something like that, starting from nothing more than two strangers sharing a platter of calamari and a bottle of champagne?
“If we were to go through with this,” Dakota said.
Majeed’s head jerked up.
“If,” she said hastily. “What would be the terms?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never really seen an arranged marriage before. I don’t know what they’re like. Would I be expected to…I don’t know…produce sons or something?”
“What?” Majeed looked startled. “Of course not. Nobody can require such a thing of you. You wouldn’t even be expected to…” He trailed off and fidgeted, and for the first time Dakota thought he seemed uncomfortable with the conversation. “I mean, it would be highly inappropriate for a contract to require us to…”
“To consummate the marriage?” Dakota filled in, amused.
“Yes.”
“But I’m assuming we need to at least look like that’s what’s going on, or it’ll be clear to our adoring public—not to mention the Emir—that the whole thing is a sham,” Dakota said. “You don’t think, when we haven’t had a child after a few years, it’ll become suspicious?”
“We can always have my family doctor publicly declare that one of us is unable to have children,” Majeed said. “I can assure you that he can be trusted. He’s been safeguarding bin Ayad family secrets since before I was born.”
“You have a family doctor?” Dakota shook her head. “I don’t know why that comes as a surprise. Of course, you do.”
“Merely to protect our privacy,” Majeed said.
“Unless, of course, we did decide to have a child,” Majeed said.
Dakota thought of Padma again, happily married, a mother. “I suppose we might decide that,” she said. “Okay. So what would our marriage have to entail, do you think, in order to make the Emir happy?”
“Well, I imagine you’d have to come and live in our family home,” he said thoughtfully.
“With your parents?”
“Generations of bin Ayads have lived there,” Majeed said. “I’ll inherit it from them someday. It’s my home, too.”
Dakota started to protest, but suddenly found, to her surprise, that she didn’t really mind. All right, it was unlikely that her own family would want to visit her there, but would that really bother her? She would still see them every day at the office. And she could go and see them at the house anytime she wanted to, and frankly it might be nice to get a bit of distance from them. It would be hard to feel as though a home that had been owned by the bin Ayad family for over a hundred years was really hers, but Dakota was good at adapting to circumstances. She thought she could probably manage.
“All right,” she said, pouring herself another measure of champagne. “What else?”
Majeed looked surprised that she’d agreed so easily, which gave her a brief moment of triumphant satisfaction. “Well, the party’s the main thing,” he said. “I don’t know if you’ve been to a Baraqi wedding before?”
“I haven’t.”
“Customarily, they’re pretty big, and since this one is intended for public consumption, we wouldn’t be able to cut any corners. We’d have to check every box on the list—the big engagement party, the huge complement of attendants, the seven-course meal. You’re going to need several dresses.”
“My mother says Baraqi brides wear jewel tones.”
“Many brides choose to, nowadays, but white or ivory is traditional, and expected for a royal occasion.”
“I’d better hope she hasn’t already started shopping.” Dakota grinned.
Dinner proceeded very pleasantly. Majeed seemed to share a lot of Dakota’s views on wedding traditions—he found them entertaining and was excited by the idea of a party but didn’t have his heart too set on any particular details. Planning a wedding with him might actually be fun, she thought, and it certainly wouldn’t be as difficult as going through the planning with her mother.
At the end of the night, Majeed hugged her goodbye. “When can I see you again?” he asked.
“This weekend,” Dakota said. “I’m free Saturday. I’ll call you, all right?”
And as he helped her into the car, she was overcome by a very welcome feeling that this had been just like a real date.
Chapter 8
“Did you and your siblings really put on variety shows?” Dakota asked.
She and Majeed were seated side by side in a luxury limousine, driving slowly through the many patches of Baraqi land owned by members of his extended family. It was an exclusive tour to which she would never have been able to gain admittance, even with her father’s high stature in society, and she had been very much enjoying the opportunity.
It was also their seventh date. After the fourth, Majeed and Dakota had agreed that they were tired of eating at restaurants and that it might be time to seek out some one-on-one time together, the better to discuss private wedding plans without being overheard. After all, it was challenging for a member of the royal family to go out in public without being stared at, and as the public face of LeeWay Corp, Dakota was a fairly well-known person too.
But privacy was hard to come by. As members of prominent families, both of whom lived in large estates all together, it wasn’t as if they could just go to one of their own houses. Majeed had finally come up with the idea to commission a family limousine to drive them to various places. They had spent their fifth date touring the countryside, and their sixth on a meandering road that had taken them around the perimeter of a massive and beautiful lake. On both occasions, they had used the calm and quiet the limousine provided to discuss wedding plans.
It had been a pleasure to discover that planning a wedding with Majeed was easy, even fun. He brought her stacks of Baraqi wedding magazines and pored over them with her as eagerly as a best friend would. They quickly agreed on a red and gold color scheme and an assortment of candles for centerpieces. “The candles can double as wedding favors,” Dakota said. At Majeed’s mystified expression, she went on to explain the American custom of giving each wedding guest a small gift to take home. Majeed was delighted by the idea.
Today Dakota had packed them a picnic of American snacks, which Dylan’s girlfriend Rachel often sent over in care packages. She tore open a packet of beef jerky and held it out to Majeed, who took a piece. “Yes,” he said. “It was me and all my siblings and cousins, and I was the master of ceremonies. We wrote skits and performed them.”
“Who was the audience?”
“Our parents. They opened wine and watched our shows in the sitting room before dinners.”
“It’s nice that they took you so seriously,” said Dakota. One of the biggest revelations that had come out of the time she and Majeed had been spending together was what a kind family he seemed to have. She never would have expected it.
“Well, it only went so far,” Majeed said, examining a can. “This is soda?”
“Yes. It isn’t a popular brand, but Dylan and I love it.”
He cracked it open and took a sip. “That’s not bad.”
“It comes in grape, too. What do you mean when you say it only went so far?”
“They were happy to indulge me when I was young, but when it came time to choose a career, there was never any choice at all, really,” Majeed said. “I was expected to go into the family business.”
“You didn’t really want to pursue a career as a variety show MC, did you?”
“No, I didn’t,” he said, grinning ruefully, “but I never wanted to work in aviation.”
“You must have known it was ahead for you though, right? I always knew I would be expected to go to work at my father’s company.”
“I don’t know,” Majeed said. “You can ignore a lot when you’re young, and I’m the oldest in my family, so I didn’t have any other siblings to watch. It came as a surprise to me when my father took me aside after graduation and informed me that the role of chief commercial officer at Ayad Aviation had been opened up for me.”
“Opened up for you?” Dakota flinched. “That makes it sound like he fired someone.”
“He did.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Well, I’m exaggerating a bit,” Majeed admitted. “The CCO wasn’t fired, but he was demoted. He worked for me for about a year after I first came on, but eventually he decided to leave the company.”
“I’m not surprised,” Dakota said. “Talk about nepotism.”
“And you’re telling me there isn’t any at LeeWay Corp? Did you study to be a communications officer or was the job mysteriously available when you came of age?”
“It wasn’t available,” Dakota said. “I was a low-level employee at first.”
“Got promoted awfully quickly,” Majeed said.
“Well, I am the youngest—oh, I see what you did. That’s very clever.”
Majeed was smiling ever so slightly. “Both of our families are empires,” he said, “and in order to be successful, they need to pass things on to the next generation. To tell you the truth, I think that’s one reason my father’s so excited for this marriage. Bringing Ayad Aviation and LeeWay Corp together—that’s the union he really wants.”
The limo was slowing down. Dakota looked around, mystified. They were on a long expanse of concrete. Most of the area around the royal buildings was beautifully landscaped, but this looked like a parking lot. “What is this?
” she asked. “Where are we?”
Majeed opened his door and stepped out of the car. Dakota followed suit, and he led her around the trunk.
“This is my private airstrip,” he said, taking hold of her shoulders and turning her halfway around. “Welcome.”
Dakota stared. Some ways down the concrete stretch—runway, she now realized—a half dozen gleaming white planes sat in a tidy line. “Are those yours?”
“Mine, my brother and sister’s, my parents’, and my uncle’s.” He extended a hand to her, and she took it. “Ready for a trip?”
“We’re flying somewhere?”
“Just more sightseeing,” Majeed said. “The ocean is beautiful at this time of day.” He moved toward one of the planes. “Come on, this one’s mine.”
Dakota looked around. She couldn’t see anyone else on the airstrip. “Don’t we need a pilot?”
“I’m the pilot.”
“You can fly?”
“I got my license a few years ago.” He was pulling down the stairs now and gestured that Dakota should ascend into the plane. She did so, and he followed her up. “My job requires me to do a lot of travel, meeting potential Ayad Aviation clients all over the world.”
“And you have to fly yourself to those meetings?”
“I don’t have to, but sometimes I like to. I always feel like my father’s looking over my shoulder when I take the company plane anywhere. I know he inspects it when I get home from trips, counts how many bottles of wine are gone. When I take my own plane, I don’t have to worry about that.”
“You can’t drink wine when you’re flying,” Dakota pointed out.
“It isn’t about drinking wine. It’s about freedom.”
“I know what you mean,” she admitted. “I feel the same way working in my father’s office building. I feel like he’s giving me funny looks every time I grab a cup of coffee.”
“Would you leave?” Majeed asked. He had taken his seat in the cockpit. Dakota hovered, not sure what to do. “You sit here,” he said, pointing to the copilot’s chair, sensing her hesitation.