by Sophia Lynn
“So tell me,” she said, striving to keep her voice casual. “How many women have you had here?”
“None,” he said immediately, and then he hesitated, as if afraid that he had revealed too much. “You are the first to come here.”
Emily didn't understand the surge of pleasure and relief inside her, while at the same time understanding it far too well. She supposed that it was natural for a woman to want to be special; it was only that with a man like Adnan, it seemed the height of folly to expect it. He was a man with the world in the palm of his hand, and she had already seen the way that women looked at him when they were out in the world.
As she was thinking, Adnan rose from his seat and planted a gentle kiss on her forehead as he passed by.
“Never doubt how special you are to me,” he whispered, as he left the penthouse.
Emily wished that she could be sure of anything. The end of the month was coming up faster than she would have thought, and at the end of it, the two of them had a decision to make. What would happen then? Did they know each other well enough? What had they learned?
All Emily had learned was that with every passing day, she was growing to love Adnan more and more. It was more than just the passion between them that could be ignited at the briefest touch. It was more than his good looks or his generosity. There was a primal pull between them. It was the way that no matter how crowded the venue, she could look up and know exactly where Adnan was in the room. It was the way he touched her, sweet and gentle even when they were too worn out to continue their play.
Emily put it out of her mind. The doubt and the fear was going to be there no matter what, and if she focused on them too much, she would simply ruin the time she had to spend with him. Deep in her heart, she knew that there was no way he would choose to stay with a little nobody from Queens. She needed to enjoy this strange time in her life while she could, cherishing the moments that she had with Adnan. For the moment, for the precious moment, he was her man, and that was enough.
***
That night, Adnan came in and found Emily carefully cutting out the newspaper picture.
“If you want a better print of it, I'm sure we can get one,” he mentioned, and she smiled at him, a thing that still managed to make his heart beat faster.
“No, there's no need,” she said. “There's always the digital archive if I want to make a better print when I get home. I…just wanted something solid, something real, that I could keep for now.”
He nodded as if he understood, but her words stuck with him that entire evening, through the dinner they shared and the play they went to see. When she rose up on tiptoes to kiss him, he returned the kiss, but pulled back. It felt strange in the extreme to pull back from her, and he could tell from the confusion in her eyes that she wasn't sure what was going on.
“Things have been fraught at parliament,” he explained. “I have a little too much on my mind to be much use to you right now.”
The smile she gave him was wry and understanding. “You could be wrapped up in work for the next fifteen years and I would still have plenty of use for you,” she said, “But I understand. Let's turn in early, okay?”
When she slept, she looked like an angel, curled up so trustingly in his arms. He should be sleeping as well, but something kept him from it. He couldn't get her words—“when I get home”—out of his head.
No matter what he did or what he offered, Nahr would never be her home, not really. She was still looking forward to returning to Queens at the end of the month.
He told himself that it didn't matter, that it had been likely that this was exactly how things were going to turn out from the beginning. They would discover that they were incompatible in every way, or perhaps they would simply grow tired of each other.
He had not expected his life to change so much upon having her in it, though. Everything looked brighter, and everything was somehow more vivid when she was around. The fact that she didn’t feel the same way was more devastating than he would have believed.
He’d told himself at the beginning that no matter what, more time with Emily could never be wasted, but now that it seemed that time was drawing to a close, he could feel despair lurking around the corner, waiting to pounce.
Chapter Fifteen
Emily would have had to be a fool not to realize the change that had come over Adnan. He was away more than ever, and when he did deign to appear, he was often absent minded, as if he wished he were anywhere but here with her. While part of her was saddened by this development, the rest of her was merely resigned.
It was natural that he would lose interest, that he would realize that even spending a month with her as his sole companion would be too long. However, a prideful part of her resented him showing it so obviously.
If he truly wanted this to be over, he could just send me home early, she thought mutinously. There's nothing stopping him.
Once or twice, she toyed with the idea of asking to be sent home, money or no. It would spare her the last few weeks of lingering doubt and anxiety. It would show him that she was not someone who could be toyed with, strung along until he felt like coming to play with her.
No matter how much her heart hurt, though, she could not take the step to end things, not when her spirits still leapt when she saw him. Instead, she tried to ignore the sinking in her soul and focused on the pleasure they still took in each other, the smiles and the touches even when it felt as if he was drawing away.
The problem was that it didn't always feel as if he were drawing away.
Sometimes, when he came home, he would be absent and preoccupied, but other times, he would seize her up in his arms, kissing her as if he hadn't seen her for years. The passion running through him then made her heart beat like mad and she would think, no, she could never do without it.
Sometimes, after being absent for most of the night, he would suddenly come to her, pulling her up in a storm of passion that left her sobbing with need and pleasure. It was something that she could never predict, never quite anticipate, but whenever it happened, she gave herself up to it entirely, needing him in a way that went deeper than her skin, deeper than her heart.
It hurt so much to think of a time when she would no longer have him; the pleasure was becoming its own strange source of pain. There was nothing better in all the world than being in his arms, but she knew in her heart that sooner or later it would end.
One night, when they were getting their breath back, Emily couldn't stop herself from bursting into tears. Alarmed, Adnan gathered her into his arms, soothing her with sweet words and gentle kisses, but it was almost an hour before she could calm herself.
“What's the matter?” he asked while she was drinking some water. “What's troubling you, little one?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him, to beg him to either let her go or keep her, but something held her back. She felt as if she were caught between a whirlpool and a dangerous cliff side—no matter which direction she went, she would be destroyed.
Instead, she only shook her head, coming to rest against his side. He gathered her against his body as if they would sleep that way every single night after that, and Emily had to fight another pang that went through her.
“I think I'm just tired,” she said softly. “I feel as if I've not been getting much rest lately.”
She could tell that Adnan was still troubled. A subtle tension ran through him that she could now read as clear as day. He only nodded, however, planting another kiss on her forehead.
“You should sleep in tomorrow,” he decided. “Perhaps I will take a half day and come back to check on you.”
“I would like that,” she said honestly.
Neither of them talked about how few days there were left in the month, or what would come after that.
***
Emily could tell that Adnan was tense the moment she walked into the dining room. He only glanced at her for a moment before returning his attention to the files
in front of him.
The oppressive silence persisted even as the servants brought in the first course, and Emily had to take a deep breath before she could broach it.
“You don't look happy,” she said, and she was struck by how surprised he looked when he glanced at her. It was as if he had forgotten her very presence.
“I am very concerned with some things going on at parliament,” he replied, but instead of expounding on those things, he sank into silence again.
“If you told me about those things, perhaps I could help you,” she said patiently, and this time, there was a flicker of irritation in his eyes as he glanced at her again.
“This is a fairly complicated matter,” he responded, and Emily felt a prickle of irritation run through her.
“Is it an emergency?” she asked, and he didn't even look up when he said no.
“All right then, it's time to put it down,” Emily said, putting a great deal of firmness into her voice. “At the very least, stop and really taste your food. We're meant to be going to the museum gala this evening, and I do not think that it will feed us more than hors d’oeuvres.”
The look he shot her was positively withering. “Do you know how much like a nagging wife you sound?” he sneered. “There are things that are much more important than dinner or some damned gala.”
Emily stood up from the table so fast that her silverware rattled against the china. It startled Adnan, who looked up at her with shock and surprise.
Good, she thought. I should at least be able to surprise him from time to time.
“You are a fool with your head screwed on backwards,” she told him, “and I don't know what part of the bargain gives you the right to treat me like the help, but I am telling you right now that I did not agree to that.
“I am going to eat in my room. At seven, the car will pull around to take me to the gala, and you are certainly welcome. However, if you are not interested, then by all means simply stay here and brood, if you think that is the best course. I certainly won't miss you, not if you are like this.”
Before she could hear what kind of cutting response he might make to that, she swept out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Her heart raced, and she felt her face flame.
It didn't matter what Adnan did or didn't do, she decided. The important thing was that she told him what was on her mind.
If he thinks that I was going to be a cowering little slave who allowed him to lead in all things, he is very, very wrong, she thought to herself.
In the resounding silence after Emily made her exit, Adnan finally shook his head and began to laugh.
When he had come home from the parliament building, he had been walking under a dark cloud, feeling as if the world was a shut door. With just a few carefully placed words, however, Emily had drawn him out and put him soundly in his place.
For a girl from another country who had been bought and sold, her spirit was incomparable, and Adnan realized that if he didn't enjoy it, he would be missing out.
He’d had every intention of skipping the gala this evening. As it was, there were still a few things he wanted to take care of before he left. If his charming Emily was going to be there, however, he couldn't bring himself to deprive her of an escort.
No, he would go. At the very least, it should prove interesting.
Chapter Sixteen
The museum gala was a star-studded event, and when Emily stepped out of the car onto the red carpet, a dozen photographers' bulbs flashed in her direction. It left her dazzled, and after her rather grim ride to the event, oddly giddy.
She had hoped against hope that Adnan would come, even holding the car for an extra fifteen minutes, but as the minutes ticked by and he still hadn't appeared, she had finally had to concede defeat and head to the museum alone.
It doesn't matter, Emily thought, tossing her head. I knew how to have a good time all on my own before. Surely I haven't lost it all along the way.
She was determined to have a good time at the gala, even when half of her conversations were about her relationship with Adnan and where he was this evening.
“Indisposed,” she kept repeating with a merry smile. “I decided I wanted to come and have a good time, and he agreed.”
She knew that the museum’s gala was all about a figure from Nahr's medieval era. What she hadn't expected was for it to be about one of Nahr's great sheikhas—a woman leader. As she walked from display to display, she learned about Sheikha Tamar's life, from her humble beginnings as a shepherdess to her rise as a state power.
To Emily's shock, Tamar had been kidnapped from her home when she was only a girl, rescued by a sheikh who rode with an army that was little more than a band of raiders. Tamar had grown to embrace her husband and her place in her new land, driving it towards greatness. She had founded the first university in Nahr, and it was due to her intervention that the women of Nahr had so many rights compared to their sisters in other parts of the Middle East.
Emily looked at the rich robes the sheikha had worn, and she wondered what the long-dead woman would have thought of her situation. She wondered if the first days of Tamar living with her husband had been as fraught as her first days with Adnan. She wondered when the sheikha had decided to stay. Whether she had known peace or joy.
“She was a remarkable woman.”
Emily looked up into the dark eyes of a man just a few years older than her, dressed in the classic black tuxedo that was so common among the Nahr nobility. She didn't recognize this man, but she had been to enough social functions to recognize him as a member of one of the noble houses, a man who likely had more money than some countries and who served on parliament.
“Are you familiar with her history?” Emily asked, trying to figure out if she knew this man. She had been introduced to so many people over the past few weeks that it was impossible to keep them all straight.
“Well, we are taught a version of it in school,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. There was something slightly conspiratorial about him, as if he were deigning to let her in on a great joke.
“A version?”
“Yes. As young children in Nahr, we are taught that she was one of the great mothers of our country, that she overcame great hardship to become a woman who would raise Nahr up among the other great powers of the day. This is all of course true. But…”
“But…?”
The man leaned closer to her, close enough that she could smell his cologne. It was something musky, slightly cloying. Something about it made her want to take a step back.
“But what the schoolbooks never told us was that she was a woman of great passion,” he murmured. “For men and women both. She was faithful to her husband until the day he died, but after that, she took her lovers from the court, setting them up in lavish apartments where their only occupation was to amuse her. In a time when women throughout the world were made to be silent, she proudly proclaimed her needs and took what she wished.”
“Oh,” Emily said faintly, aware that a prickle of panic was rising up through her belly. “That's…that is…that's very interesting. I don't know much about Nahr history…”
“I could teach you,” the man suggested. “it is a fascinating subject, one that offers a great deal of reward to those who study it carefully.”
Emily noticed two things at once. The first was that somehow, they were alone in the small alcove that displayed the sheikha's clothing. The second was that her back was to a corner and that the man who wanted to give her an impromptu history lesson was closing the already small space between them.
“I don't think I'm really up for a history lesson right now,” she said. “If you'll excuse me—”
“Perhaps you'll stay for just a little longer…”
To her shock, his hand came out to curl around hers. His grip was loose, but he didn't look as if he was going to be shaken off.
Emily acted entirely on instinct. She tore her wrist away, and at the same time, she brought the sharp heel of h
er shoe down on his foot, causing him to pull away and groan with pain.
The moment that she pulled away from him, she spun towards the entrance, aware that he was only a few moments behind her.
Get to other people, she thought, her mind startlingly clear. Get to other people, pretend none of this ever happened…
That was the plan, anyway, or at least it was until she smacked straight into Adnan. She looked up at him, and she saw his face go from neutral bemusement to a dark frown.
“What's the matter?” he asked, his voice taut, and she shook her head.
“Ah, Adnan…”
The man who had accosted her stepped out of the alcove now, and despite the slight crease of pain in his eyes, he was altogether calm.
“Samir,” Adnan said, his voice utterly devoid of pleasure. “What a surprise to see you here.”
“Ah well, we must all do our part to support the arts,” Samir said with an easy shrug. “And what a lovely piece of art your companion is.”
Emily felt herself blush hard as Samir took his leave, and then she glanced up anxiously at Adnan. In his crisp black tuxedo, he was almost breathtakingly handsome, and when she leaned in close, she could smell that same cologne that she loved.
“I didn't think you would be here.”
He raised an eyebrow, raking her with scathing glance.
“I can see that.”
For a moment, she had no idea what he was talking about, and then she stared at him in shock.
“What are you—”
“It seems that you work very fast, darling,” he said, his voice light but somehow menacing. “Was Samir showing you a good time?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to deny everything. He had no right to question her like this, especially when she had done nothing wrong. To be blamed for Samir's poor behavior stung, and she had never done well with being unjustly accused.
“What if I said yes?” she asked, her voice pitched to reach only his ears. “At the very least, Samir could get himself away to attend.”