by Holly Rayner
“Summer. Who is this woman?” she asked, hating how hurt she sounded. She’d never been great at hiding her emotions.
“Babe, I’m so sorry!” Summer said, almost shrieking. “I have no idea what happened. I sent the photos over yesterday, after our lunch, but something must have gotten switched around. They still ran your photo, but it’s been all mixed up with another article, somewhere in the gossip section.”
“What?” Willow exclaimed. She clicked through to the next page, her fingers flying. Sure enough, at the top of the page was a photograph of her in her bright purple running gear, her hands on her hips and her blond bob shining. “Ah. There I am. I look like such a dork!”
“Stop it,” Summer commanded. “You see which article you’re in? It’s all so messy. I don’t know how they could have—”
“This is prime-time gossip, isn’t it?” Willow said, scrunching her nose. “Playboy Sheikh Gives Up Lifestyle for Houston Model,” she read out loud. “I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous in my life.”
“Well, some people in Houston are a bit more tuned into gossip than you are,” Summer sighed. “You’re out there fundraising while most people are on social media, swapping rumors about Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Deban.”
“Ibrahim Al-Deban?” Willow echoed. “Am I supposed to know who this guy is?”
“I did a few pieces on him last year, before I got the heck out of the gossip section,” Summer said. “He’s probably one of the most famous people in Houston. Although, for you, I guess that doesn’t mean much.”
“Ha. It’s not like I live under a rock, Summer,” Willow sighed.
“He’s from some tiny Middle Eastern country…Rebai, I think it’s called? But he’s not directly in line to the throne, and he moved here a few years ago to start his business. We saw him when we were in college, actually, at some sports bar. He was making out with that redhead friend of yours. What was her name?”
“Cynthia?” Willow asked, frowning. “Why don’t I have any memory of this at all?”
“Anyway, since his hotel business went stratospheric, he’s mostly been partying and making his way through our great nation’s hottest celebrities. I’m surprised he’s settling down. And, apparently, the rest of the world is going to think he’s settling down with you!”
“Ha. Imagine that,” Willow said softly.
She leaned closer, eyeing the photograph of the Sheikh, alongside the one of her at the park. Ibrahim was pictured in what looked like his penthouse suite, a glass of what looked like Scotch in his hand and a smirk on his lips. He was broad-shouldered, handsome and wearing an immaculate suit, perfectly cut to highlight the strength of his body.
He was standing in the photo, showing his height—at least 6’2. He seemed the right level of careless, and suave. Entirely rich. Entirely arrogant. Entirely someone Willow had absolutely no respect for.
“There’s no way anyone would think this was anything but a mistake,” Willow said, comparing the two photographs. “He’s, well. He’s probably the most handsome person in Houston. And I’m very clearly a twenty-five-year-old loser who works at a call center.”
“Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” Summer said sternly. “They mixed up the photos for a reason. Someone in the editing department clearly thought you two belonged together.”
Declining to dignify her friend’s comment with a response, Willow began to chew at her bottom lip, apprehension filling her.
Suddenly, it all felt like too much. Foolish, even, that she was preparing to run twenty-six miles the following morning. And now, she’d been mistaken for the Sheikh’s fiancée. Was her life really filled with purpose? Or was it more of a joke than she could possibly realize?
“Listen, I’ll get this cleared up,” Summer promised. “The mistake will be corrected before the end of the day. In the meantime, enjoy your status as future wife of the Playboy Sheikh. It’s not every day you’re poised to be a billionaire!”
“Sure,” Willow grimaced. “Whatever you say.”
After hanging up, Willow read the gossip piece more closely. According to the article, Sheikh Ibrahim was supposed to marry the gorgeous Texan underwear model, Eva Brooks-Hernandez, in his home country of Rebai in just a few months.
Apparently, Eva had announced the engagement just the previous day, despite the world knowing nothing of the Sheikh’s “incredibly private, yet fiery affair with the model.”
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t hold it in any longer,” Eva had explained to the press. “It’s just that Ibrahim and I are in love, and I’m tired of keeping it a secret. We’re getting married. And I want to scream it from the rooftops.”
Willow tilted her head at the words, surprised at how insincere they sounded. She scanned back to Summer’s fundraising article, glaring at the photo of Eva which had taken her spot.
With this backstory, Willow considered the woman with fresh eyes. A gold-digger, perhaps, at the tail-end of her modeling career? Or a woman completely in love, without the literary words to describe it?
Sunlight had begun to stream in through the window, alerting Willow to the lateness of the morning. Jumping out of bed, she dressed quickly in her running clothes and then raced out the door, attempting to loosen up. With only twenty-four hours left until the race, she knew she had to forget about the newspaper flub-up and focus on the task at hand.
So what if her photograph was alongside that of the Playboy Sheikh? It was a humorous mistake. One easily rectified, in just a few hours.
Once out the door, she began a slow jog, feeling her muscles awaken. On either side of her, Houston had begun to awaken, too: mothers opening car doors and placing their babies in car seats; fathers donning baseball hats and leaping into pickup trucks, ready to face the day ahead. Young children bounced backpacks on their shoulders, attending the last few weeks of school before summer break.
Everything around her was filled with memories, the world in which she and Paul had grown up.
That last summer with Paul, Willow had spent nearly every afternoon at his hospital bed. The air conditioning had been turned off, since Paul had had trouble retaining heat. This had left Willow sweating copiously beside him, flipping through comic books and reading to him when his eyes had grown too fatigued.
She remembered that often. She’d awaken him when he’d begun to drift off—telling him they were nearly done with the story. “Don’t sleep now. We’re so close.”
But her parents had told her, each and every time, that he needed his rest. That it was going to help him get better.
As thoughts of Paul spun through her brain, Willow sped up: faster and faster, until she had to screech to a halt at the next stoplight.
Panting, she leaned her hands heavily on her knees, staring up at the shining high-rises that made up the Houston skyline. She wondered, somewhere in the back of her mind, if Sheikh Ibrahim lived in one of those luxury penthouse suites.
Certainly, he’d had no tale of misfortune. He’d had years of money, of cocktails and good luck. And now, it was coming to the penultimate moment: the arrival of his drop-dead gorgeous, underwear-model fiancée.
He wanted for nothing. But Willow was left missing everything, knowing only that she could remedy other people’s pain, if she fought hard enough. If she ran fast enough.
Chapter 3
Ibrahim
On the highest floor of the downtown Houston high-rise, Sheikh Ibrahim sat on his balcony, his legs stretched out and his white button-up splayed open, revealing his six-pack abdomen. The early morning sun beat down upon his brown skin, glinting on his two-thousand-dollar sunglasses.
He sipped his coffee slowly, savoring the intense flavor. He’d had the coffee beans shipped in from South America—a tiny beanery in rural Argentina, which he’d discovered on vacation three years before. It was important to him to have things in life that no one else knew about.
Money wasn’t everything, no. But the niche things he could buy with it? Perhaps they were the “eve
rything” that life was truly about.
Back inside the penthouse apartment, Eva Brooks-Hernandez was destroying his bedroom, trying to find the last of her things. She tore at the closet doors, reaching inside and muddling his shirts as she brought the last of her dresses from their hangers. She was sobbing loudly, a sound that gave Ibrahim chills.
He knew that Eva didn’t care about him. He knew this was all an act, one meant to draw him back to her. One meant to reignite their “engagement.” Ibrahim couldn’t allow himself to fall for it.
Eva appeared in the doorway to the balcony, wearing only a robe that fluttered around her expensive bra and underwear. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, and her lower lip bounced up and down, making her look like a petulant child. She held a suitcase in her hand, gripping it tight.
“That’s it, then,” she said, her voice hard and angry. “I’ve collected my things. And, now, I will ask you again. Are you really going to end what we have, all because—”
“Eva. Eva, Eva,” Ibrahim sighed, standing up from his balcony chair. He flashed his white teeth in a sad smile at her. “You know as well as I do that you never loved me.”
Eva pressed her lips together tightly, scowling at him.
“Darling, that’s simply not true.”
“You mean that after we’d slept together only once, and I asked you to marry me to solve the issue of my mother’s meddling in my life, you actually decided to fall in love with me?” Ibrahim asked, pausing to take a sip of his coffee.
Eva had no answer to that.
Ibrahim shrugged, continuing. “Or did you decide to fall in love with me after you demanded that I pay you four million dollars in return for marrying you? And I agreed to it, like an idiot?”
Eva slammed her suitcase to the ground, looking haughty.
“Why would I have married you for free?” she demanded. “You’re not even in line for the throne.”
“Ah. So it comes down to that, does it?” Ibrahim asked. He felt almost like laughing, but wanted to proceed delicately. The woman was clearly a loose cannon. One he had been foolish enough to trust.
“And yet, when I asked you to keep our engagement to yourself, at least for the time being, you were unable to. You call the newspapers, airing our apparent love to the world…”
It was true. He’d heard her just the day before, whispering conspiratorially with a journalist when she’d thought he couldn’t hear.
Rage had flown through him, along with a realization that he’d bungled up this chance. His plan—to fool his mother that he was getting married, and then part ways with Eva forever—was officially scuppered. Eva wanted more than just the four million dollars. She wanted the fame and recognition that went with being his bride.
“What will you do without me, huh?” Eva asked, sniffing. She tossed her head, making her long, dark locks fall over her scantily-clad breasts. “What are you going to tell your mother when you arrive in Rebai without a bride? Isn’t she preparing everything for your big, fancy wedding? Bet you didn’t think of that, did you?”
Ibrahim had thought of this. It angered him to the core, knowing that his plan couldn’t go through. But he placed his hand lightly on Eva’s bony shoulder, tilting his head calmly.
“Eva. Baby. Please.”
“What is it?” Eva asked, blinking wildly.
The Sheikh sensed that her gold-digging mind was attempting to patch up the pieces of her mistake. She yearned to be his fiancée again, in any sense. If only for the tabloids. If only so people would never forget her name.
“Please, get out of my house,” Ibrahim said coldly. “I don’t want to hear from you again.”
Eva stormed from the balcony doorway, taking her suitcase with her. Without bothering to don a shirt, dress, or even a pair of pants, she shoved the stilettos she’d left by the door onto her feet.
“You’re going to be alone forever, Ibrahim,” she yelled from the doorway. “Don’t think for a minute that anyone will ever marry you, if not for your cash. You’re a cold, arrogant jerk. And you never meant a thing to me!”
Even after the door slammed, Ibrahim remained at the center of his apartment, his arms crossed over his chest. After a pause, the elevator dinged in the hallway, sending Eva off into the ether, and Ibrahim took a deep breath, consigning his one-time fiancée to a bad memory.
“You’re going to be alone forever!” The words echoed through his mind.
But that wasn’t true, now, was it? Ibrahim hadn’t been alone since he’d been a teenager. Women had chased after him for years, spellbound by his good looks, his royal title, his muscles, and—especially now that he’d built up a hotel empire in the United States—his money.
In fact, the very reason he hadn’t wanted news of his engagement to leak was to ensure that his playboy lifestyle could continue, even after the “marriage” had gone through back home. He would marry because that’s what his mother wanted for him, and because he would do almost anything to make her happy. But he wasn’t prepared to give up on a life he loved. The women. The raucous parties. The fact that he was the most eligible bachelor in all of Texas.
But this had created a serious issue. Eva had been correct in this assumption. His mother expected him to bring his bride home in only a month: in time to marry before his thirtieth birthday. Already, she’d begun the preparations for the wedding, sending him a list of the many, many guests she’d already invited, along with ideas for flowers, menus, and the very best seamstresses who could produce the wedding dress.
Ibrahim couldn’t imagine something less appealing than telling his entire country that the marriage was being called off. Slipping his fingers through his thick black hair, he stared down at his phone on the countertop, knowing that a phone call to his mother was a necessity.
“It just didn’t work out,” he tried out, speaking aloud. “She and I just couldn’t see eye to eye, Mother. You know? Sometimes these things just don’t pan out the way we think…”
But the thought of letting her down like that sent a stabbing pain through his heart. Pacing back toward his balcony, he stared out over Houston, taking stock of the streets, the skyline.
Someone, somewhere must be willing to take my money, marry me, and then keep her pretty mouth shut… he thought. Perhaps an actress. Someone prime and ready for her breakout role as “wife of the Sheikh.” He’d teach her the right things to say. He’d inform her about his customs, ensure that she got along well with his mother. In many respects, this would be far better than bringing that airhead model back. Like sculpting a bride from thin air…
As if on cue, his phone began to buzz on the counter. Ibrahim reached for it and noted that his mother, Amira, was dialing from across the ocean. At ten hours ahead, it was already six in the evening in Rebai.
Probably, Amira had been itching all day to call him about one particular of the wedding or another. Flowers, maybe, or how many cousins she would demand to be in his wedding party. Out of the twenty-eight cousins he had, he was sure she would include at least ten.
“Mother!” Ibrahim said into the phone, sounding lighthearted and alive: very unlike the man who’d just kicked his potential fiancée out the door. “What a lovely surprise, so early in the morning.”
“Early? Darling, you must work on waking up at a reasonable hour,” Amira said. “If you’re going to be a married man, you can’t very well laze about all day. Especially when you have children…”
“Mom, you know we’re not just going to rush out and get pregnant the minute we’re married,” Ibrahim said, scrunching up his nose. Already, he was beginning to chicken out on telling her the truth.
“You know, darling. I didn’t imagine that I would see my future daughter-in-law’s photo in the newspaper before I actually got to meet her in person. My, what a beauty she is,” Amira said, sighing into the phone.
Ibrahim concealed a shocked gasp with a coughing fit. Bolting upright, he moved toward his laptop, his fingers flicking nervously against the keys. �
��Oh? What have you seen?”
“Just the gossip section of the Houston Star, darling. We didn’t speak for so long, I was reduced to checking what the papers were saying about you.”
“I didn’t realize you were stalking me so religiously, Mother,” Ibrahim said, his heartbeat speeding in his chest.
“The gossip column, Ibrahim. I didn’t imagine one of my sons would ever wind up there. Although, I suppose, in America, you must be something of a celebrity. Certainly a self-made man, in your own right. Is that not so?”
Ibrahim couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t comprehend the stupidity of it: that already, hours after Eva had blurted out the news of their “engagement,” the local paper had run a story on it. Soon, the entire world would know the truth.
Once one paper got a hold of the story, it would spread like wildfire. “Ibrahim, the ‘Playboy Sheikh,’ engaged!” the world’s press would cry out. And, slowly, surely, his playboy name—and life—would die out.
He shuddered, typing his own name into the search engine and seeing page after page of headlines spring up. “Sheikh Ibrahim Engaged to Model.” Shoot.
“I suppose the gossip column will write about anything,” Ibrahim sighed, his nostrils flaring. Inwardly, he was growing more and more horrified. Life as he knew it was slipping through his fingers. “You know how they love to exaggerate—and how a juicy story trumps anything based on fact.”
“Well, I should hope that the ‘playboy’ stuff is a bit overdone,” Amira replied. “But I’ll come back to that later. You didn’t tell me your fiancée was a beautiful blonde—we’ll have to totally rethink the color scheme!”
Blonde?
Ibrahim blinked several times, wondering if he’d heard his mother correctly. Eva was a dark brunette, with cat-like eyes and a severe expression.
But, after a few clicks on the website of the Houston Star, the Sheikh found himself staring at a bright-eyed blonde posing awkwardly in running gear, the Houston skyline glinting behind her.