by Sophia Lynn
"Look, I don't know what you think about waitresses, but..."
To Erin's surprise, Askari reached across the booth and placed a finger over her mouth. She was shocked, first by the warm touch of his finger, and then by the strong urge she had to pull that fingertip into her mouth. The urge to do so was so powerful that she nearly thought she had already, and then Erin had to pull back.
"I think I need you to be quiet," he said, amused. "If I have to fend off your wit with every sentence, we will be here all day, and I have a plane to catch in a few hours."
Despite everything else, Erin felt disappointed. Of course he had a plane to catch. A man like this wouldn't be staying in New York.
He was just going to start again when the manager, likely sensing that someone wasn't making as much money for the company as he thought they should, appeared at the table.
"Hello sir, I hope everything is going well," the manager said with an unctuous smile. "If there's anything you need to speak with our Erica about, I'm sure that she'll be happy to speak with you after..."
"As a matter of fact, I am here to speak to Erin, and I do not feel like waiting," Askari said.
Erin shivered at the ice-cold tone in his voice. When he had been speaking with her, his tone was warm, even kind. When he turned to Jeff, it was as if something frigid and inhuman had come up.
Jeff paled a little, and he turned to scuttle away. Before he went, however, he shot Erin a dark look that promised unpleasant things afterward, and she winced.
"Did you have to do that?" she asked. "That guy can get me fired if he works at it."
"I saw him berating the other waitress for having her apron crooked. I doubt he works at all," Askari said with a shrug. "If you end up not taking my offer, I will have a word with him. He should know that you are not his to bully."
"Offer? What offer?"
"That's what I'm trying to get to," Askari said with a smile, and god, it was hard to remember that this man was one who controlled one of the most powerful and wealthy countries in the Arabian Peninsula.
"When I was young, I was taught that a sheikh is judged on two things. He is judged first on the happiness of his people, and then he is judged on how well he secures the future for his country. I believe that the work that I and my forebears have done have made the country very happy, but now a matter of our future has come into play."
The look he gave her was long and considering, and she found her tongue again.
"And the future waits for no man?"
"Indeed. As it turns out, my country needs an heir. They have been worried about the fact for some time now, and I'll admit that there is some superstition involved. My parents died young, and in a certain way, my grandparents did as well. The idea of me dying and leaving the country with no heir... well, it bothers some people."
He paused, and for the first time, there was a trace of nervousness on his face. Then it was gone as quickly as it had appeared, and she wondered if she had imagined it.
"That is what I am there to fix today. I need children, at least, I need a child, and that is where you come in."
Erin was certain that she had just misheard him. She laughed a little.
"What?"
"This is not a laughing matter, Erin," he said, though there was a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth. "I am being quite serious. I need children to serve as the heirs for my throne, and I would like you to be their mother."
"Like... like, I don't know, a queen or...?"
"The term for the wife of the sheikh is the sheikha, and no. We would not be getting married. That is something that I am hoping to put off for a very long time. If my plan with you goes well, perhaps I will never wed."
Erin felt as if she was going crazy. Every time that she thought she had a grasp on the situation, it slipped away from her, and the pictures that kept coming together were ridiculous anyway.
"Look, I am certain that this all makes sense to you, and in your head, this is a totally reasonable conversation to have," she said, sounding more than a little plaintive in her own ears, "but this is entirely new territory for me, so maybe tell me exactly what it is you want from me? What are you saying?"
He laughed a little, and he reached across the table to take her hand. Startled at his touch, she allowed it, and then after a moment, she found her fingers curling around his. Even if he was the one who had sent her into this strange tail-spin of confusion, there was a certain amount of comfort that came from simply touching him.
"All right, fair enough," he said. "The bottom line, as you Americans would say, is that I need children. My country, from minister to clerk to bricklayer, would calm down greatly once they realized that there was a clear succession to the throne."
For a moment, Askari's gaze was distant, as if he was seeing another time and another place.
"In recent times, Hazn has been very peaceful, but that has not always been the case. In ages past, our country has been torn apart by war, and usually from within. There was a question, perhaps, of too many princes or too few. The lack of a clear line of succession makes everyone a little nervous, and that is something that we all remember."
He shook off the mist of the past, and for a moment, Erin wondered at Hazn, a place that was so modern yet still heeded the past so very closely.
"I have decided that I would like to quiet the fears of my people, and that means children. It does not, however, mean marriage. Hazn has had many rulers who came from a sheikh's dalliance with an independent woman. Sometimes those women were great courtesans, and sometimes they were simply women of low birth who the sheikh could not marry. Their children were honored and accepted for the throne. It is our tradition, one that has been honored for centuries.
"That seems to me to be the best situation I could give to my people at the moment, and I have decided that if I were to put this plan into action, you are the woman I want to bear my children."
There were a number of questions swirling through Erin's head, but the one that came out of her mouth was perhaps the most succinct.
"Why?"
He raised his eyebrow as if they were discussing something as mundane as coffee or the price of bread.
"Why what?"
"Why me?" she burst out. "Why do you want me for this mad thing? Wouldn't it better to have a woman from your own country, or hell, to do things through in-vitro fertilization? You certainly have the money. You don't even know anything about me...."
"I know plenty," he said with a shrug. "I know that you have no criminal record, and I know that you are healthy..."
At her confused look, Askari smiled sunnily.
"You'd be surprised how little it takes to bribe record-keepers," he said. "I put some of my people on it, and they found me the information very quickly."
Erin didn't have time to be offended by the invasion of her privacy. Askari was continuing, and she had to keep up.
"As to the rest of your questions, I will say that nationality means little to me in this case. I want a woman who seems vibrant, who is strong and tough, one who will perhaps go out of her way to protect a young boy that she does not know. And as to the question of in-vitro fertilization..."
Askari leaned forward, and this time, the grin on his face was distinctly devilish.
"Well, there are some things that I think are distinctly more enjoyable when they are done the old-fashioned way."
For a moment, Erin had no idea what he meant, but then she blushed, the very tips of her ears turning red.
"Of course, I would not expect you to take the time out of your life to provide me with heirs for nothing," Askari continued. "You would be given enough money to live on for the rest of your life. I would think something like three million as soon as you agree, and then an annuity as we move into the future. It would not be appropriate for the mother of a sheikh to live in poverty, after all."
Erin couldn't help laughing.
"If anyone could lie in poverty after being given three million d
ollars, I would be shocked. But you know that's not what I am asking, right?"
He looked at her, leaned back in his booth, somehow looking even more handsome that he had before. She was slowly getting used to the exoticism of seeing a man like Askari in the mundane environment of her workplace, but she didn't think she would ever get used to how attractive he was.
"What, pray tell, am I forgetting?"
"Well, are you aware that a baby isn't like... a bar of gold or something? After I give birth to a son or a daughter, I am not simply going to hand them over and run off to enjoy a life in the Bahamas."
He looked startled at that.
"There are many who would," he said, "but true enough. You could rear the children for, let's say, three years. After that, you could continue on at the palace if you like, but you need to be aware that the child would begin to be taught the protocols of being the ruler of a country."
She nodded. In some ways, it was an age-old arrangement, a bargain that many women had made. She had just never thought that it was a bargain that she might have opened up in front of her.
"And what about you?" she continued. "What if you meet someone while we're trying to... trying to produce your heir? What if you start falling in love, and there's a child? Are you going to sweep that child aside to go live happily ever after with whatever woman has caught your eye? To go off and live happily with her?"
To Erin's surprise, her completely logical question was met with a genuine laugh.
"I keep forgetting that not everyone in the United States has the same grasp on my life as people in the Middle East do," he said with a smile. "That is truly not a problem."
"Oh?" Erin asked, unable to keep herself from sounding a bit testy. "And why is that?"
"I am not a man who falls in love," he said with a cheerful shrug. "It feels a bit like a fairytale to me. I am slightly envious of my parents' marriage, where there was affection and a certain reliable care, but the passionate love that makes a man do foolish things, that is not something to which I have ever been prone. I might go out and find pleasure in the company of beautiful women, but it has nothing to do with my heart or the future of my throne, let me tell you that."
From the slightly sly look on his face, she could well imagine what he did mean, and she felt her cheeks flame, though it was with an inexplicable anger rather than desire or embarrassment.
"You are not going to find pleasure in the company of any beautiful women while you are trying to have a baby with me, that's for sure," she said, and he smiled.
"So you have decided? You are going to do it as long as I abstain from the company of beautiful women, yourself being the exception?"
She ignored the compliment - Askari seemed to make them as easily as he breathed - and thought for a moment.
"It feels like it is moving too fast," she said softly. "This is something that will change my life and yours, whether you know it or not. This is not something that I can decide on the moment.”
Askari nodded, and she wondered if that would be that, that this moment would simply be a strange moment in time, one that she would never forget but ultimately, one that never affected her afterward.
"Unfortunately, time is not something that I can offer you," he said regretfully. "This plan is one that I would like to put into place as soon as I return to Hazn."
He stood, and for a moment, she wanted to cling to his hand. There was that voice again in the back of her head, the one that told her to hang on to him, to never let him go.
"I can give you until this afternoon. Do you remember the hotel where I brought you?"
"Yes..."
"If this is something that you want, if you want to take the leap with me and change your life, change both our lives, as you say, meet me there before three. After that, I will be gone, and you can resume your life here."
It wasn't very long. It was just a handful of hours, a handful of hours to make what might be the most rash and foolish decision of her life.
"Erin?"
She looked up at him in surprise.
"What?"
"I hope I see you at three."
She started to answer, but then he leaned down to kiss her. She could see this kiss coming, and she had all the time in the world to draw back and pull away, but she couldn't. Or perhaps it was that she wouldn't. Either way, it led to the same place.
For one endless moment, she could relish the sweetness and the heat of their kiss, but soon, too soon, he was pulling away.
She thought he might say something else, but instead, he only touched his forehead, his lips, and then his heart, something that looked to her like an archaic salute, and then he was gone.
Even after Askari left, the air was different, somehow darker and harder to breathe. Everything looked a little grimier, and when Jeff came back out, she couldn't stop herself from being irritated.
"That your boyfriend, O'Reilly?" Jeff sneered. "If he shows up again, you're out, we can't have him disrupting..."
"I quit," Erin said, her voice quiet but clear. "I am leaving now, and you are not my problem anymore.
As her manager sputtered behind her, she collected her coat and walked out the door.
She wasn't quite ready to admit it to herself yet (after all, she had until three), but she was going to change her life. She was going to change both of their lives.
Chapter Four
As the day went on and the idea of leaving the United States became a reality rather than a plan that would happen soon, Askari felt a dark gloom settle over him. He was short on the phone with Basaam, and he barely said five words to the pilot who called to confirm his flight.
The hours ticked on, and he had to finally admit sometime past noon that Erin wasn't coming. He wasn't sure why he was so surprised. It was a mad bargain, one that she didn't have to trust, and he was a man that she didn't know at all. To her, there were probably more ways that this could go wrong than it could go right, and he knew that women needed to be rightfully suspicious of things like this.
However, a part of him didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay and go to her again, to make sure she knew exactly what he could offer her, what she would be missing out on. He also knew that that would be tantamount to bargaining or perhaps even to begging, and that was not something that sheikhs did.
He was a man of pride and honor. He had made his offer to her, and now it was up to her to decide what she wanted to do with it. Women had always enjoyed equal rights in Hazn, and he would be damned if he tried to infringe on it now when he simply wanted his way.
Perhaps Erin was not the woman he thought she was. That was certainly possible. He had known her for a bare handful of moments. Perhaps he had misjudged her. The moment he had laid eyes on her on that corner, before they had touched, before they had any reason in the world to speak, he had thought that she was a woman of passion. Part of it was her red hair and her vivid green eyes, but more than that, it was as if he had recognized her. There was a spirit in her that cried out for adventure, that seemed to need skies that were far different from what she could see from here, in a terrible little diner, wearing her stiff and unattractive waitress's uniform.
He drew his breath in and shook his head.
Askari had been wrong before, certainly. He would be wrong gain. He supposed, however, that the problem was that he did not think that he had been wrong this time.
He knew that there was a foul mood brewing when he took the elevator down to the lobby. He could see the people peering at him and pretending not to. When they looked at him, they saw a foreigner, a rich one, but a man who was not from this place, not of their own people. Suddenly Askari missed the blue skies of Hazn so badly that it ached.
No, it would be good to get home.
He walked down the stairs of the hotel outside, and the dark limousine was waiting for him. He saw the dark car, and then almost as if some benevolent hand had reached down to turn his head, he glanced to one side.
Askari could not stop
a wide smile from spreading across his face.
Standing on the sidewalk, walking towards him with a shy smile on her face, was Erin.
Instead of wearing the stiff waitress's uniform, she wore a pair of dark jeans that hugged her generous hips and a chocolate brown suede jacket that made her look a bit like a college student.
“Hi, I'm glad I caught you,” she said, her voice a little breathy and wholly adorable.
“Why is that?” he asked, devouring her with his eyes.
“Because I gave up my room and quit my job. I want to see what else the world has to offer.”
Gravely, he offered her his arm.
“Well, that I can help you with...”
***
Less than an hour later, Askari's jet - his jet, her mind gibbered, he has a jet! - leveled out and the captain announced that they could move around the cabin as they wished. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Askari stretched, taking in the height of him, the fact that he reminded her of a panther at rest, some magnificent beast that had paused long enough for her to look at him, to long to touch him.
Now that they had cut their bond with the earth, she felt unaccountably shy. It was one thing to announce her departure to her roommates, sounding as confident as she could, and quite another to be here in front of this man, the one who had made it all possible. Now she had to contemplate the reality of what their bargain meant and how it might play out.
She realized that he was watching her, and there was definitely something hungry there. It made her think of panthers again, and with a soft gulp, she realized without a shadow of a doubt that she was the prey.
“You look a little afraid,” he said, his voice a velvet rumble. “Tell me, how can I help?”
It was something that a kind doctor might say, not the gorgeous, menacing man who was sitting next to her, and for a moment, she couldn't concentrate enough to speak.