Son of the Sheik

by Ryshia Kennie

  She watched as the floors ticked away. Seventh floor, eighth. It was at the ninth that the elevator doors opened. The corridor was wider and more open than the standard hotel. There wasn’t door after door, as there were in what she thought of as a normal hotel. They walked along a plush carpet edged in gleaming marble. Finally, they reached a door twice as wide as anything that she was accustomed to, and that shone from polish or just from the rich wood itself.

  Inside, she was too overwhelmed to speak. Light flooded from a bank of windows in front of her. The ceiling soared at least twenty feet above her and the marble floor continued through the suite.

  The bellhop showed her what was available and how to contact him. He took the most time going over the contents of a well-stocked bar, which, he assured her, had snacks appropriate for both her and her son. There was not just a minifridge, but a minikitchen set up to provide whatever she needed. Her mind flashed to Talib. She was both grateful and astonished that in the short time since her arrival, he’d made sure they had everything they needed. She noticed there was milk, juice and a small box of animal crackers—she had no idea where those could have been found, but they had.

  As they finished the walk-through, she noted the large bathroom, the luxurious tub and the generous space so unlike any hotel room she’d ever stayed in. This wasn’t a room but a small suite of rooms.

  “Wait,” she said as the man prepared to leave with a respectful bob in her direction. “I’ll tip...”

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am, you take care of the little one. The tip is handled.”

  “Handled?”

  “Yes. If you need anything, you call me immediately.” He bowed. “Sheik Talib Al-Nassar wants me to remind you that you are safe here. You are to order supper up and not worry about the cost. He will cover it. Stay in your room.” He bowed again. “That is all.”

  He shut the door. She sank onto the soft leather couch, her son by her side. The opulence was lost in the feeling of despair she felt. Her son would be safe, but Everett would no longer be hers, he would be his, Talib’s. Already, the process had started.

  She closed her eyes. Everett was safe.

  That was all that mattered.

  * * *

  TALIB HADN’T EXPECTED to be that long at the Desert Sands Hotel. But after going through the employee records with Ian, they were able to pinpoint one woman. Unfortunately, she was part-time and the address she listed turned out to belong to a cousin who hadn’t seen her in weeks. Despite that glitch, he had one of the office staff tracking her.

  It was dark, suppertime had come and gone. Hours had passed since he’d put Sara in the car with Assad. He hadn’t had time to think of why she was here, and with a baby. None of it made sense to him, at least not the fact that she was here. She’d had a fear of traveling overseas. During the four months they’d been together and as his time in the States was waning, he’d half-jokingly said she should visit him here. She’d bluntly told him that that would never happen. She was quite comfortable never leaving the States or even Wyoming.

  He stepped into the BMW, the earlier thrill of driving the incredible vehicle long gone. Around him Marrakech was lit up in its nighttime glory. It was a beautiful sight that inspired him every time he saw it. He never tired of it, yet tonight it didn’t wow him as usual—he could have been anywhere. He could only think of Sara and why she was here, of what it might mean. Sara and the boy and the mystery of what had brought her to Marrakech. As well as the unlikely coincidence of finding her in that hotel in the midst of a catastrophic event. None of it added up. The hotel, he could get that. Ian had been running a blowout promotional sale that many of the tourist companies, as well as independent travelers, had picked up on. Sara undoubtedly realized she wasn’t likely to get a better deal in the city, as far as location and convenience. That is, until the explosion.

  In fact, he’d already checked. She’d gone through a travel agent, whose go-to hotel in the last two weeks had been the Desert Sands. There was a good chance that the hotel hadn’t been picked by Sara, she’d only agreed on a choice. Her being there was more than likely coincidental. But the question was—why was she here in Morocco?

  And why now? The more cynical side of him considered that it might be about the money. Why else? And yet that had never been Sara. But that was years ago. She had a kid now and he had no doubt that had impacted her career. She needed money and he had a lot of it. That fact had tempted more than one woman he’d known. They’d wanted him for superficial reasons, for the good time he could show them, for his unlimited resources. But Sara had never been the type to use people. She hadn’t gone out with him for the money or the fine time he was capable of showing her. In fact, she’d begged off a number of times when he’d wanted to take her out for an exquisite dinner at an expensive restaurant. Instead she insisted on cooking for him at home, in her apartment. She’d refused to take anything but the smallest gifts from him, and even those she balked at. At the time, she’d seemed to truly be interested in him, in his company.

  Was she capable of extortion or just plain begging for funds? Even if she was, she could have done that more easily than coming to Morocco. But that wasn’t the Sara he knew. The Sara he knew had been hardworking—determined to learn everything she could about the hotel industry and eventually open the bed-and-breakfast. She’d been passionate about that. But that was single Sara—unencumbered, sexually adventurous...fun. That wasn’t the Sara he’d seen now.

  This Sara had a son and her priorities had changed. He’d gotten the search results back on her. She hadn’t held a job of any importance in quite a while. Something had radically changed. And the only one who had the answers was Sara.

  It was time they talked about why she was really here.

  Chapter Eight

  When Sara opened the door, her gray eyes were sleep-clouded and Talib was brought back to another time, and another place. But she didn’t smile when she saw him, nor did she look at him with eyes rich with passion. Those days were long gone. Instead, she frowned, and then, as if to compensate for not immediately welcoming him, offered him a shaky smile.

  “Come in,” she said quietly and stepped back. “The baby’s sleeping,” she warned. The way she said it gave the disconcerting and very real reminder that she was a woman who’d been at mothering for a while.

  “How much do you need?” he asked as he moved into the room. He gazed at the boy sound asleep on the bed in the bedroom just ahead of him, his profile dimly lit by the soft glow of a nightlight, saw the impression where she had obviously just been lying beside him before he’d arrived. Probably asleep, too, he imagined. And at that thought, guilt ran through him at the blunt and potentially unfair question that he’d just thrown at her. He hadn’t meant to do it, to say those words, at least not in that manner. He wished that he could pull them back, as he felt the unfamiliar bitter tang of remorse.

  “What do you mean?” She frowned at him, her lips pursed, her eyes still clouded with the vestiges of sleep, and something else that he couldn’t quite name.

  “What are you suggesting?” Her voice was tight, contained, as if she was used to hiding her emotion.

  He wasn’t sure why he’d said it the way he had—raw, invasive, accusatory. But he knew that in doing so he’d opened Pandora’s box and there was no going back.

  “You haven’t had a job in almost a year, not one of any worth, and you have a child. I can only assume you’re broke and that’s why you’re here.” They were fighting words and he couldn’t stop himself.

  “You...” Her voice shook and her face flushed, as it had in the past, when she was angry.

  “I might not be in love with you, Sara, but I never stopped caring about you. How much do you need?” In fact, he’d wanted to compensate her when they’d broken up and he’d told her that. His brother, Zafir had later pointed out that offeri
ng money was pretty much the most insulting thing you could suggest to a woman. In fact, it was only then that he’d seen why she’d felt angry enough, that it justified scratching his car’s paint with the heel of her shoe. She’d been furious and it had been weeks before he’d known exactly why. He had to admit that he’d grown a lot since then. Now he looked into eyes, which were deeper and so much older than they’d been three years ago, and waited for her reply.

  Silence.

  She’d traveled a long way but obviously lost her courage at the critical moment. He needed to step up and step in, and with that in mind, he offered her enough for her to live on and raise the baby, at least for a while.

  Her lips tightened when she heard the generous sum he offered. He wasn’t sure why—it was enough to keep her and the boy for the next five years in middle-class comfort. And plenty of time for her to get on her feet. He didn’t think about all the reasons why he was so concerned about her, about another man’s child.

  “I...” She wrinkled her small, slightly freckled nose.

  It was a habit he’d found both adorable and mildly annoying when they’d been together. He didn’t like hesitation in anyone. Make up your mind and move forward. It was how he lived his life and what he demanded of others. The Sara he remembered had been a bit whimsical and, oddly enough, that had attracted him.

  There were a lot of things going on here. He felt a twinge of guilt over the fact that someone had tried to take her son and she didn’t know. The guilt was over the fact that he wasn’t sure if he was going to mention it to her—at least not now, not right away. He wasn’t sure what the motive was and he’d like to have more information before he told her. At this point he didn’t know what had motivated the attempted snatching. For all he knew it might just have been a case of right age, right sex, right race. A chance to make money in the underground market, selling the child off to others desperate for a child of their own. He frowned at the idea.

  The silence stretched between them.

  “Where’s his father?” He finally asked the burning question when she had yet to respond one way or the other to his offer. This was the question that had risen from the first moment he’d seen her and it was the question that circumstances had given him no chance to ask. Or the right, logic reminded him. But right or not, it didn’t matter. He’d asked. It was out there, irretrievable.

  “His father,” she said and the words seemed to draw out as she backed away from him into the bedroom. There, she pulled a blanket over the boy and gently pulled his thumb out of his mouth. When she faced him in the doorway, her gray eyes were stormy as they locked with his. The connection broke swiftly as she looked away and back to her son, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him for any length of time. But as he thought that, she whirled around to him, with her lips tight and her eyes sparking with a passion he couldn’t identify.

  “You tell me.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sara took a mental step back, away from the anger building within her and that he’d-done-her-wrong feeling. She’d been baiting him and she had no right. It wasn’t his fault that he had not participated in his son’s life to date, that fell on her. But everything else was his fault. By default...

  Sara yanked herself back from the pointless blame game. He wasn’t psychic and yet she was treating him like he was. She should never have said what she had. She should never have set him up in a situation where he was clearly unable to defend himself. It hadn’t been right and she knew she could do better. But she didn’t have time to rectify any of it. They could only go on from this moment.

  He’d always been insightful, slightly intuitive about everything, except, in the end, their relationship. Ironically, now, when he’d suggested that she was here for money—the thought grated, even though, for all the reasons he had yet to understand, it was true.

  A knock on the door echoed sharply through the room and made her jump. She stumbled against the couch and caught herself with one hand.

  “Who is it?” Talib said in a voice that was more of a demand than a question. He moved toward the door as if there was a threat, as if he knew what she had yet to tell him.

  Sara’s heart pounded wildly—was there danger?

  She gave herself a mental shake. She was seeing shadows and demons everywhere, but considering what had happened earlier, she was justified.

  Even here they weren’t safe. It had been proven. Unpredictable, undefinable things were threatening her everywhere and she wasn’t sure why. Although the explosion must have been a horrible coincidence. She knew that. But so much had happened that she was seeing danger lurking everywhere. She had to quit it. She needed a clear mind to protect her son and she needed Talib. He was why she was here. No, she corrected herself, it was because of Tad that she was here, that she even needed Talib.

  Tad?

  Had he found her? That was an outrageous thought. There were thousands of miles separating them. She shivered. Impossible, she told herself. It was more than likely a hotel employee. And yet the shadow of him finding her hung around her like a cloaking veil. Her imagination kept taking her back to that possibility. The fear had followed her on the long flight across the Atlantic and it hadn’t gone away since their arrival. Her heart beat wildly and her first instinct was to move back to the bed and put her body between whoever was at that door and her son.

  She looked at Talib. He was physically intimidating, intelligent and a member of the powerful Al-Nassar family. They contracted to protect and their resources were astonishing and that was one of the reasons she was here. She had to trust him.

  “Emir,” Talib said as he opened the door.

  Her heart seemed to skip a beat at the acknowledgement the fear could be set aside. It wasn’t Tad.

  Talib gestured his oldest brother inside, as if his arrival was expected.

  “What are you doing here?” Talib asked as he looked back at Sara and seemed to almost deliberately place himself between her and Emir.

  “I was in the area. I got your message, so rather than a phone call I thought I’d—”

  “Right,” Talib interrupted and it was clear from his tone that he didn’t believe his brother’s reason for being here.

  Sara moved around Talib and put out her hand. “Sara Elliott. I used to—”

  “Date Talib,” he said with a smile. “I know. It was a poorly kept secret.”

  “No secret at all,” Talib said defensively.

  Sara looked at him with a frown. She’d never heard Talib speak like that. It made her wonder what he’d told his brother. But it didn’t matter. She had bigger things to worry about than the fact that he might have fudged the truth of their relationship, possibly made it less than it was. But what had it been? She looked back to the bedroom door, to Everett. Definitely more than either of them had expected. She brought her attention quickly back to Emir.

  “Nothing bad,” Emir said with a smile. “In fact we thought for sure Talib was a goner.” He looked laughingly over at his brother and received a weak smile in return.

  Emir took her hand and shook it warmly. The expression in his eyes matched his handshake, as if he approved of her. Yet, that was impossible, he didn’t know her. They’d never met. She was an ex, and she imagined in Emir’s mind, immediately bad news. She couldn’t imagine what he’d think when he knew about the baby.

  Everett began to cry, breaking into her thoughts as he so often did. But this time he had her full attention, for he was beginning with that soft snuffle that would escalate into a full-scale demand if she didn’t stop him now.

  Emir turned and walked to the doorway of the bedroom.

  “And who is this?” Emir asked, interrupting her instinctive thought to go to her son.

  She didn’t answer him immediately, as he seemed to not want an answer. Instead, Emir was focused completely on Eve
rett’s crying.

  The nightlight glowed in the room as Emir went over to her son. He talked softly to the boy and seemed completely at ease with a cranky toddler.

  She frowned. He was not like the man she’d heard of in stories that Talib had told her. In those stories he had been almost legendary. There was something softer about him. Maybe love did that. She’d heard that there was love in the air between him and one of the Wyoming agents. She’d also heard that a marriage was planned. She wasn’t sure if that was what had changed the man Talib had described, or if his perception of his brother was different from what hers might be. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. She didn’t need Emir guessing what she had yet to tell Talib. That would only make a bad situation so much worse. But there was no stopping him. For a moment Sara’s heart seemed to stop. Please, no, she thought. Just give me this one break and I’ll tell him. Seconds felt like minutes as she waited for Emir to blurt out what, to her, seemed so glaringly obvious.

  “You don’t mind if I pick him up?” Emir smiled at her over his shoulder. “Good practice for me. Not that we have any children yet but Kate and I both...” He shrugged. “Someday.”

  She blew out a quiet breath as Everett smiled at him and actually chuckled when he picked him up.

  “You might as well bring him out where we are. He’s not going back to sleep for a while,” she said as she turned and left the room. She glanced over her shoulder to see Emir following her with Everett in his arms. It was strange and the odd thought hit her that Emir, under different circumstances, could easily be a favorite uncle.

  “You need a wedding first,” Talib said interrupting her thoughts and Sara inwardly cringed at the words.

  First comes love, then comes marriage... It was an old saying, but it was one that underlined the values she’d grown up with. The values that she’d found herself so far on the other side of. It was why she hadn’t gone back to her family for help. While they wouldn’t turn her away, their disapproval would be a dark shadow to raise Everett under. She wouldn’t do that, because it would mark the man he would eventually become. She hoped eventually that her family would come around, become more open-minded. Now, it didn’t matter. Since she’d run, she had kept in touch with them via private messaging on social media. Because, no matter what their feelings were about the situation, they’d come to accept it. Ironically, in the past months of long-distance communication, it was clear that while they might not like that their daughter had given birth to their grandson as a single woman, in the end they loved both she and Everett and, because of that, they worried.