by Holly Rayner
“See you at home, my love,” he called.
“Yes, you will,” Lily replied, sliding back into her car and following him as they made their way to the private garage.
Together they prepared an exquisite meal, Atnan preparing the main course as Lily worked on a flaky pastry dessert. When the bell rang, Atnan wiped his hands on a towel and walked over, opening the door.
“Father!” he greeted, leaning in to embrace him.
The old Sheikh stepped inside, followed by two burly bodyguards, who stood silently by the door.
Sheikh Amman was a tall man with dark, gray-flecked hair and his son’s dark eyes. When he saw Lily, his smile warmed.
“Lily, it’s good to see you,” he said, holding out a hand for her to take.
She quickly dusted some flour off her hands before grasping his outstretched one and giving him a welcoming grin.
“It’s good to see you, too. Are you excited to meet your future daughter-in-law?” she teased.
Amman grinned. It hadn’t taken long for Lily to learn that he was a spry old man with a great sense of humor.
“We shall see. If all goes well tonight, he will introduce her to his mother next. Once that happens, all bets are off.”
“I was wondering where she was tonight,” Lily said, heading back toward the kitchen to place the pastry in the oven.
“According to tradition, a man must introduce the girl he intends to marry to his family first, but his mother will always get the final say. I imagine it will be quite stressful for them both. Kaveh’s mother is very protective of her boy.”
Lily smiled, thinking that Kaveh was anything but a boy. As Atnan guided his father to a chair at the table, the two hosts continued to prepare the meal. The doorbell rang again as they set the hot meat and veggies on the table.
“Here we go,” Lily said, feeling excited. Part of her relished in being the settled couple and hosting the family. As she considered Atnan’s words, though, she realized she had met every one of Atnan’s family members, but would never get his mother’s final approval. How did that factor into their future?
Before she had time to think about it, Atnan opened the door for Kaveh and his guest, a lovely-looking woman with dark brown hair and caramel-colored eyes. She introduced herself as Kaya, and Lily shook her hand with a supportive squeeze.
They sat together at the table, Kaya and Kaveh particularly shifty in their seats.
“So, what are your intentions with my son?” the eldest Sheikh asked without preamble.
Lily nearly choked on her wine. Kaveh looked mortified, but Kaya sat tall, her gaze confident.
“I intend to love him for the rest of my life, Your Highness.”
“Ah, well then. If that is the case, you may call me Amman.”
Lily and Atnan laughed, and Kaveh grinned shyly at his partner. Lily watched them closely, intrigued to see the hardened police chief’s softer side. With his relationship with Atnan patched up, the man had let up a bit on his crime and punishment agenda, but everyone knew that breaking a law in Al Yibri was still going to be met with consequences. Crime had never been lower.
As they sat around the table together, Lily had never felt more at home. They laughed as the Sheikh told joke after joke, putting them all at ease. It didn’t feel like she was sitting with a table of princes and kings. It simply felt like she had a family that loved her, and Lily felt nothing but pure joy as she continued to laugh at Amman’s wonderfully dry humor.
As the evening passed, Amman declared Kaya a delight, and the table cheered as the new couple cast private glances at one another. After dessert, Kaya helped Lily clean everything up before they said their good-byes and spoke about their next meeting, which might involve Kaveh’s mother.
“I wish you the best of luck,” Lily said, hugging them both.
Lily always packed two boxes of leftovers for Amman’s guards, and they always refused to take any. She held out a bag to one of them, who looked down at it with a stern expression.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ouahu. Just take the bag. You’ll never have a more delicious meal in your life,” the Sheikh demanded as he headed out the door.
Lily thought she caught a small smile as the guards followed him out, leaving Atnan and Lily in the peace and quiet of their home once again.
“Well, that was nice,” Lily said, turning to find Atnan with an impish look in his eyes.
“Uh-oh. What are you up to, Sheikh?”
He approached her and wrapped his arms around her waist until his fingers linked behind her back.
“It’s a surprise. Grab your bag. It’s time to go.”
“What?” she asked.
Glancing in the direction of the bedroom, she noticed then that he had packed a small suitcase for her. She looked back up at Atnan curiously.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” he said, grabbing a set of keys and pulling a bag for himself out from behind the coffee table.
Lily’s heart beat with excitement. Atnan was always full of wonderful surprises; would they be taking a weekend trip away, perhaps to somewhere she hadn’t yet been?
They made quick work of turning off the lights and locking the door before heading down to Atnan’s car and tossing their suitcases into the trunk. He sped off into the night, the stars shimmering above them as they drove on and on, the foliage thinning as Lily realized just where they were headed.
“Are we having a trip down memory lane?” Lily asked, and Atnan chuckled.
“Something like that. I’ve had the palace renovated over the past year to get it back to its former glory, with my father’s blessing, of course. Tomorrow he will be joining us for brunch there, for the first time since my mother’s death.”
Lily was shocked at that bit of news.
“How did you get him to agree to it?” she asked.
Atnan stared ahead, remaining elusive.
“I have my ways. Look, there it is!”
The old palace appeared on the horizon, bathed in starlight. In the dark, it was hard to see many changes, but once Atnan had parked in the front, Lily could smell fresh paint as she opened her door. The moisture had been sucked completely out of the air. The feel of the world around them was totally different as Atnan led the way into the main hall.
There was a small light on, and in that light, Lily saw that the covered furniture had been moved, leaving the hall wide and spacious.
“Wow, Atnan!” she exclaimed.
He glanced around as though it was nothing he hadn’t seen before and grabbed her hand, pulling her suitcase along with the other.
“I’m sure it will look much nicer in the light of day. For now, why don’t we head back to where the real magic started?” he said, his tone suggestive.
Lily liked the sound of that. They trekked down the familiar hallway until they reached Atnan’s former sleeping quarters. When they arrived, Lily was happy to see that it had been freshly painted and the floors retiled to give it an entirely new look.
“I love it,” she said.
Not wasting any time, Atnan pulled her into his arms.
“I’m glad. Now, let’s christen it properly, shall we?”
As daylight poured into the room, Lily awoke, feeling a stark emptiness. As she opened an eye, she realized that for the first time, Atnan wasn’t beside her. Finding that strange, she quickly found some clothing and padded out into the hallway, making her way to the kitchen. She heard voices as she walked along, and her curiosity increased.
When she reached the kitchen, she was shocked to see her parents enjoying a cup of tea with Atnan, Amman sitting alongside them. When Atnan caught her eye, he grinned.
“Surprise,” he said, and the whole room turned to see Lily’s stunned and delighted expression.
She greeted her parents warmly, happy to see them. With breakfast already prepared, Atnan proposed that they carry their food out to the garden, where a table had been set the night before. Lily chatted happil
y with her parents and Amman, who had a slightly sad look about him due to being back in the palace. Lily wondered again at his presence there, after so much time had passed.
When they stepped out into the garden, Lily gasped. Instead of rotted old plants, flowers bloomed all around them as they headed toward a large table in the center. Lily had a flashback of running from that very spot, though the memory was old enough that it no longer hurt to think about. They placed their food down and enjoyed a breakfast beneath the sweet-scented flowers.
After they finished their meal, Atnan cleared his throat.
“I would like to thank all of you for coming out here today. As you know, the palace was a very special place to my mother, and I am happy to preserve her memory here.”
He gazed at Lily, his eyes filled with love.
“As she cannot meet Lily, this was the best place I could think of to bring you all here today, so that her presence could be felt when I do this.”
He pulled a black box out of his pocket, and Lily’s eyes grew wide as he knelt before her.
“Lily Hawthorne, you have changed my life for the better since the day you crashed into it. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you, caring for you, and sharing new adventures together. Here in the palace of my mother, I ask if you would consider becoming my wife, the future Sheikha of Al Yibri.”
Lily’s eyes filled with tears, and she nodded, unable to speak. She grinned as their assembled parents erupted in cheers, congratulating the happy couple as they embraced, Atnan twirling his future bride in a joyful circle.
Lily sent out a silent prayer of gratitude to Atnan’s mother for her blessing, and she felt a warm breeze float over them. She promised that she would make a good life for them, that her son would always be loved and well cared for, as long as they lived.
It was a promise she would keep for the rest of her life.
The End
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The Sheikh’s Scheming Sweetheart
Holly Rayner
Time for a tease!
Up next is a sneak preview of the next book in my Desert Princes series, The Sheikh’s Scheming Sweetheart
Happy reading!
Copyright 2017 by Holly Rayner
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.
All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.
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Chapter One
The wind screamed over the dunes of the Nubian Desert, whipping stinging sand into the eyes of the expedition party. Men struggled with panicking horses and recalcitrant camels as they rushed to pack up.
A single woman stood apart, standing at the top of the dune, her auburn hair catching the last of the sunlight as it was choked out by the encroaching sandstorm. Petite and academic, she stood with her back to the others, ignoring the rush of people preparing to leave. She scanned the orange sky with tireless, green-blue eyes, even as the wind caught the white linen of her skirt and tried to carry her off.
An older man, round and heavily mustached, struggled up the sand to her side.
“Vanessa, we have to go!”
The man had to shout to be heard over the wind, one hand holding his hat to his head, the other reaching for his companion.
“The porters are ready to leave without us!”
“Just a few minutes longer!” Vanessa begged, scanning the horizon with desperation. “The wind may reveal something!”
“If there was anything to be revealed, we would have seen it already!” the older man shouted back, taking her arm. “It’s time to face the facts, girl. There is nothing here!”
“The tomb has to be here somewhere!” Vanessa said, taking a map from her bag to squint at it through the obscuring sand, searching frantically for some last-minute revelation. “I’ve spent years on this, Abraham! I know it’s here!”
A sudden gust of wind snatched the map out of her hand and whipped it away across the sand. Vanessa shouted in surprise and stumbled after it, but it had vanished into the storm within a blink. Abraham caught her and pulled her back towards the horses.
“I’m sorry, Vanessa,” he said with genuine sympathy. “The tomb of Amanirenas is out there somewhere, but it’s not here. It’s time to go home, girl.”
Vanessa hung on to him as they made their way towards the horses, crushed.
“This was supposed to be it, Abraham,” she said. “All that work! This was meant to be my moment.”
“Hold it together, girl,” Abraham said with a sigh, patting her shoulder. “You’re young yet, and the search for Amanirenas has caused greater disappointments than this. Once you’re my age, such failures will hardly even faze you. You’ll go out expecting them, and so you’ll never be disappointed when all there is to find is dust and sand…”
Three years later, Vanessa sat on the edge of the fountain in the center of the Low Plaza at Columbia University, listening to a young man pontificate at length on the relative virtues of the different actors who had played his favorite character in movies. She was twenty-seven and working towards her doctorate in Middle Eastern Archeology, and she still couldn’t understand how people had conversations like this.
She stared up at the rounded bronze centerpiece of the fountain, surrounded by a prismatic halo as the late spring sunlight shimmered on the water which sprayed directly from its tip.
She supposed this was what she got for dating a film studies major. She just wasn’t that interested in movies. It was a basic incompatibility that she really should have considered before agreeing to go to dinner with him. She sighed and glanced at her watch, wondering if she could end this early and return to the library.
“You aren’t listening.”
Vanessa looked up as Sean’s tone changed abruptly. He was frowning at her, clearly hurt.
“I’m sorry,” she said at once, knowing it was pointless to pretend she’d been paying attention. “As soon as you start talking about actors, I just tune out.”
“You know, popular movies are generally a pretty safe topic to talk about with anyone,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “Except you. If there isn’t a million-year-old pyramid involved, you’re just not interested.”
“You’re not much better,” Vanessa said with a frown. “I can’t mention anything about my work without you launching into a sermon about some action movie that botches the history it attempts to include.”
“Only because if I didn’t, you’d spend the next two hours describing the royal family of Sheba all the way back to the flood,” Sean pointed out. “At least I’m capable of talking about something besides movies. I haven’t had a single conversation with you that wasn’t about your work.”
“It’s important to me,” Vanessa said defensively.
“It’s all that’s important to you,” he replied, exasperated. “I’m sorry, Vanessa. I just don’t think this is going to work out.”
Sean stood up and Vanessa felt a sudden rush of regret.
“Wait,” she said. “I can—we can—”
“Listen,” Sean said. “You’re a great person. You’re gorgeous and I don’t need to tell you that you’re brilliant. But I don’t think you’re ever going to love anyone more than your work. And I really don’t feel like competing with a bunch of thousand-year-old mummies. Goodbye, Vanessa.”
He turned and left, and Vanessa dropped back down onto the rim of the fountain, feeling her spirits sink down into her shoes. It
was hardly the first time a relationship had ended this way.
After a long moment, she stood up, shaking off the clinging mantle of moroseness. Who cared if she wasn’t dating anyone? Her work was what really mattered. She’d happily die alone if it meant the realization of her dream of being a successful and renowned archeologist. She tried to tell herself that she believed this as she gathered her things and marched, chin high, back towards the library.
She hadn’t been exactly excited for this date anyway, to be perfectly honest. She was caught up in her work and taking her thoughts off of it for even a moment was a struggle. Her thesis had been consuming all of her time and energy lately.
It was on the same topic as all of her independent research. Kandake Amanirenas had fascinated her since she’d first started looking for her specialty. She had been planning to enter Egyptology when she’d glanced over Near Eastern Anthropology and discovered Amanirenas. Warrior queen of the Kushite, she’d stopped the Roman advance into Africa cold, and brokered a peace that had lasted hundreds of years.
The image of this woman, one-eyed and ferocious, gold gleaming on her dark skin, leading her armies into what must have seemed an impossible battle, only to snatch victory against all odds, had captured Vanessa’s imagination entirely. And when she’d learned that the system of hieroglyphs used during Amanirenas’s reign had never been translated and thus the tomb of Amanirenas herself never located, she’d been seized with the desire to do this magnificent empress justice.
She was known only through Greek and Roman writings about their encounters with the Kushite. Vanessa wanted to see Amanirenas described in her own words, in her own tongue. Her life, unaltered by frequently less-than glowing Roman opinions. Vanessa wanted to know her without others’ biases.