The Sheikh's Scheming Sweetheart

by Holly Rayner

  Tehar scooped the snake up safely in the blanket as Kathy guided the horse to continue backing up. Its eyes were still wild, its ears flicking, its nose huffing and blustering with distress, but she spoke gently to it, stroking its nose as it gradually calmed down. After a few more minutes, it stopped pulling against the bit and seemed to settle.

  Kathy's tense shoulders dropped in relief, and she began to really notice the throbbing pain in her arm.

  At the same moment, Tehar all but collided with her, throwing his arms around her and dragging her away from the horse. Khalila was behind him to take the reins.

  "What in God's name were you doing?" he shouted, taking her by the shoulders to shake her before pulling her so tightly against him it almost knocked the breath from her lungs. "If you ever do something so stupid again I'll—"

  "What, ground me?" Kathy asked, laughing.

  "Maybe!" Tehar threatened, not at all amused.

  He was distracted from his scolding by Basira shoving him aside. Kathy was worried for a moment that the woman was about to hit her, but instead, she hugged Kathy even tighter than her son had.

  "Thank you," Basira sobbed. "You saved her! You saved my daughter's life!"

  Ihab was behind her, looking battered but grateful, and soon joined the group hug.

  "I was so scared," she said. "How did you know what to do?"

  "I grew up with horses," Kathy said dismissively. "I'm just glad you're okay. Thank you for the quick thinking with the snake, Khalila."

  "I didn't know what else to do," Khalila said with a shrug, still looking a bit shell-shocked. "I would never have thrown myself at the horse like that. How did you manage not to get hit?"

  "Well, I didn't completely." Kathy laughed a little breathlessly, beginning to look pale. Her arm really hurt. "Do you think we could call the doctor?"

  Ihab had been hit by a couple of glancing blows from the horse's hooves, but escaped with only some bruises and a twisted ankle from falling. Kathy had fractured her arm and spent the next six weeks in a cast.

  Shadaf apologized till he was blue in the face, blaming himself since horseback riding had been his idea, but Kathy was almost grateful for the dangerous encounter. It had finally won Basira over to her. She was still as stiff and remote as ever (it was no mystery where Tehar had gotten his tendency for being overly formal from), but the hostility was gone, and they even talked on occasion like civil adults. Kathy didn't think Basira would ever fully approve of her, but she at least wasn't actively against Kathy being there anymore.

  As August became September and the air began to cool, Kathy sat in the garden, listening to Shadaf recite a poem he was working on. She felt like a whale, swollen up to a comical size. Just moving around had become an absurd effort, so she was reclining in a chair near Shadaf's lounge, resting.

  It was a cool evening, insects humming in the air. Khalila was sitting near Shadaf, enraptured by the poem. Basira, Fairuz, and Ihab were nearby. The two older women were working on weaving. Ihab was immersed in a book. They'd all three started visiting the garden more often now that they weren't shunning Kathy. Tehar was leaning against the door frame, pretending not to be involved, or maybe just enjoying watching the scene.

  "A fragrant rose that white petaled grows through gold wire bars, untouched and unknown, binds its bars in briar and thorn and devours its cage to blossom before the world, or else withers, its beauty wasted. Know me, and see my power. Was I not planted by God with a purpose and a will of my own, beyond your petty desires? The cage bends and groans but the rose must grow and he must open his door or strangle them both."

  "Beautiful," Khalila said with a sigh.

  "Too pretentious," Basira countered. "Speak more plainly. If your words can only be understood by scholars, then what is the point of it?"

  "I could understand it fine," Kathy said, her voice heavy with drowsiness, picking at her cast.

  "And this is not even her first language," Shadaf said defensively. "Maybe you just need to try harder, Basira."

  Basira huffed and began to lecture Shadaf on respecting his elders. Kathy couldn't help a chuckle, glancing at Tehar where he still lingered in the door. He smiled at her, and Kathy felt a warm glow in her chest. Was this what it felt like to be part of a family? This serene and easy peace? She’d never felt it before. Her mother hadn’t been a terrible parent, but it had just been the two of them most of Kathy’s life, and her mother had stayed busy working just to keep them afloat. She’d never had much time to spend with Kathy.

  Later, as the evening cooled and fireflies began to move among the green garden stems, Kathy went to help Basira with her weaving. Ihab and Fairuz had gone in to make dinner, and Khalila had taken Shadaf upstairs to rest. Even Tehar had vanished off on some secret errand.

  She sat beside the older woman in front of the traditional loom arranged on the floor and helped her sorting and separating and twining strand after endless strand. It was simple, meditative work that made it easy for the mind to wander.

  “So,” Basira said after they’d worked for a while. It was only the second time she’d spoken directly to Kathy since she’d arrived, the first being after the incident with the horses. “Do you love my son?”

  Kathy dropped a thread in surprise and had to scramble to find it again.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “It should not be a difficult question,” Basira said mildly. “If you do not know the answer, then it is probably no.”

  Kathy thought about it for a long moment, considering her strange, fluctuating relationship with Tehar.

  “I do,” she said at last, regretfully. “Just not enough.”

  “Not enough for what?”

  “Not enough to give up my life for him,” she answered. “Not enough to give up my home and my career and my life and move here with him. And he doesn’t love me enough to leave his home or family here to come back with me. We’re stuck, just trying to enjoy ourselves before it ends.”

  “What grim resignation,” Basira muttered with a snort. “I think you are looking at this wrong.”

  “Oh?” Kathy frowned.

  “I have been married most of my life,” Basira said. “Since I was fifteen. I’ve known girls married younger. Ihab was only sixteen when her husband went off to war and died, and she begged me not to let her marry again, so afraid of the uncertainty of it. Fairuz was ten when she told me she would never marry. Ten years old, but I looked in her eyes and I knew she was telling the truth.

  “I don’t know the ways of the West. I have never worked a man’s job or held a thing in my hands that belonged only to me. But every woman who’s ever lived has a limit, a line she would not cross, a thing she would never give up for any man, not even God himself. For me, it is my children. I would rather leave my husband to other younger women and live here than see him sell them off to lives of misery. Fairuz has her line and though I don’t understand it, I would never ask her to cross it. Ihab’s line may shift as she grows, but I know she will never marry again unless it’s for love. You have your line as well, your work and your life, and no one who loved you would ask you to cross that line. The problem is not that you don’t love him enough. Love is not a thing so easily quantified. You need to stop asking yourself what you can’t give up for the sake of being with him and start asking what you can. What’s worth giving up to be with him? What’s most important to you, Kathy Burgess? What do you want?”

  Kathy had no answer. She frowned down at the weaving and worked in silence as she thought, searching for an answer. What was most important to her? Her job. Tessa. The baby. Tehar. As long as she had her work and the people who mattered to her, she’d be happy anywhere. But she needed both in her life. Tehar and Tessa. The baby and her career. So, what was she willing to give up to have them? Well, just about anything.

  That night, she left her abaya in her room and slipped through the halls of the slumbering palace in a silk robe, the color of a pearl and translucent as mist before the moon. S
he climbed the high, tiled stairs and passed down the long paneled halls through the moonlight that created intricate puzzle pieces through the golden grates. She slipped through the quiet courtyards with only the sound of her bare feet on the stone and the rush of the wind through the leaves, carrying the scent of sweet jasmine. And at the end of the hall, she found the largest pair of great, engraved wooden doors, and she pushed them open.

  Tehar was awake, sitting on the edge of his bed, stripped to his waist and staring out the window, as though he’d been preparing for bed and become distracted by the sight of the high, full moon, pale and round as her own stomach. He turned when he heard the door, and his eyes widened at the sight of her.

  “Kathy,” he started to say, but she slipped inside and shut the door behind her, smiling.

  “I know what I want now,” she said, and fell into his arms. He pulled her against him, every kiss as desperate with need for her as the first had been.

  “I’ll marry you,” she said as he turned to lay her on the bed and she saw his eyes widen. “I’ll even live in this country if you want me to, as long as I can still work. That’s all I want. You, and my work. What about you?”

  She touched his face and he took her hand, kissing her palm.

  “I’ll marry you,” he said. “I’ve wanted it for so long it’s embarrassing to say. I’ve wanted you since I first saw you. I don’t care about my work. But I can’t leave my family.”

  “So, you want me, and your family,” Kathy said, smiling up at him. “And nothing else matters. Now we know where to start from.”

  He kissed her again and for a time they forgot words, speaking a more basic language which conveyed their feelings with far more accuracy.

  After, as she lay in his arms, making plans, she traced the lines of his hands and made a decision.

  “I want to go back to America,” she said. “Not forever. But it’s time we stopped avoiding this issue with Mitchell. It’s time to deal with him.”

  He nodded in understanding.

  “The lawyers are at a dead end,” he admitted. “They have been for a while. We need proof that he has the video of us or they can do nothing.”

  “So, we go back and get it,” Kathy said.

  “How?”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Kathy insisted. “The man is not that smart. He’s probably keeping it in his office. “

  Tehar frowned, thinking.

  “You know,” he said. “I think you might be on to something.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The plane ride back to America was vastly preferable to the one into Abu Sadah. Tehar chartered a private jet with only a brief stopover in Paris, more because he wanted to take her out to dinner there than because it was strictly necessary.

  They waited only a few days before leaving, just long enough to arrange things with his family and get their approval on the plan. Then, what seemed like such a short time later, they were landing in Miami.

  The doctor had at first disapproved of Kathy flying when she was so close to her due date. It was November now, and she was a very rotund nine months along. Tehar had agreed, wanting her to stay where it was safe, but she insisted on coming along. This wasn’t going to end without her.

  Tessa met them at the airport, wearing a sweater. The cold caught Kathy by surprise. In the desert, it was still summer warm, but here, winter had almost arrived.

  “I took care of everything you asked,” Tessa said as they climbed into a rented car. “I got the hotel in my name and everything, but he probably still knows you’re coming.”

  “Good,” Tehar said, unworried. “He should be terrified.”

  They got settled in the hotel room to wait until the evening, and Kathy was glad for the chance to catch up with Tessa.

  “You’re huge,” Tessa said, making her laugh, as they ate room service’s luxurious snacks, lying on the huge bed while Tehar worked on the computer at the desk across from them. “How are you even moving around?”

  “Well, I don’t know. How do you do it?” Kathy teased, and Tessa flicked caviar at her. “Honestly though, the answer is I am moving as little as possible. My feet feel like balloons. Really painful balloons.”

  “Will you be all right going tonight?” Tessa asked with a frown.

  “If everything goes according to plan,” Kathy said. “I won’t have to do much but push a few buttons.”

  “Still, I’m worried about you,” Tessa said with a frown. “This Mitchell guy has a temper. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Don’t worry,” Kathy said with a smile, glancing at Tehar. “I’ll be well protected. “

  They left late that evening once everything but the clubs and bars were shut down for the night.

  "The door is around this way," Kathy whispered, keeping clear of the security cameras as she led Tehar around the side of the building. "They always forget to lock it. Someone is going to break in and steal all the cameras eventually."

  "And if by chance the door is locked?" Tehar asked.

  Kathy hefted the crowbar she'd brought along.

  "Well, then we open a window," she said with a grin.

  In the studio's side parking lot, she led him to the heavy steel security door through which she'd taken her breaks.

  "We usually keep this jammed open with a brick," she explained to Tehar, kicking the nearby bit of brick they used. "So that we can come in and out on breaks. You're not supposed to be able to open it from the outside. No handle, even. But if you get locked out enough times, you figure out…"

  She paused for effect as she, with some difficulty, eased herself down to her knees and slid the crowbar under the edge of the door.

  "It's pretty useless if you don't lock it."

  She pushed down on the bar and the door popped open effortlessly, the metal creaking. Tehar helped her to her feet and they slipped inside.

  The halls of the studio were pitch black, but Kathy knew them like the back of her hand.

  "This way," she whispered. "His office is just down this hall, through the main sound stage."

  His office door was locked, but some careful fiddling with the lock and a bent bobby pin had it open.

  "You pick that up from being locked out as well?" Tehar asked, amused.

  "Yes, actually," Kathy said with a prim little huff. "I used to lose my keys all the time."

  "And being the person that you are, you learned to pick locks rather than remember your keys."

  "These kinds of skills come in handy in my line of work."

  Inside the dark, silent office, Tehar made a beeline for the computer, using his administrator account to override Mitchell's password. He began sorting through files while Kathy searched the shelves and drawers for hard copies.

  "Take it easy," Tehar urged her as Kathy lifted a nearly hidden box from the top of Mitchell's bookshelf. "This would be a very bad time for you to hurt yourself."

  "I'm fine," Kathy said impatiently, putting the box down on the desk to look through it. It was full of rewritable CDs, their cases hand labeled. Kathy lifted one out to examine it curiously. It had the name of one of the studio's employees, plus a date.

  "No wonder this computer moves so slowly," Tehar said. "His hard drive is full of video files. What are these? Cassandra Bree, March 3rd. Emma Delisle, December 12th. They're all labeled like that."

  "So are these," Kathy said, showing him the CDs. "Play one."

  Tehar clicked the one labeled Cassandra and the video began to play. It was angled low, partially obscured. It looked like the camera was hidden in a potted plant. It was in Cassandra's office, recording her as she sat at her computer. She was looking at a job offer from a rival company. Tehar clicked the Emma video, then shut it quickly as they realized it was from a camera hidden in a bathroom where the intern was changing clothes.

  "There's months’ worth of this," Tehar said, scrolling back through the files.

  "And more on these CDs," Kathy added. "They go back to last year at
least. He's been recording everyone. Christ, does that one say Henry Alan?"

  It did. Mitchell had recorded secret blackmail footage of the very founder of QIC Media.

  "There are files here labeled with my name from January and February," Tehar said. "He must have planted cameras in my office when he heard I was coming to monitor him. That's how he got the footage of us together."

  "There it is," Kathy said, spotting the file labeled Tehar, February 14th.

  "I never expected there to be this much," Tehar said. "I had no idea he was recording everyone. Even Henry Alan! We can't let him keep any of these."

  "They're not all going to fit on the flash drive we brought," Kathy said with a frown.

  "Then we'll take the hard drive," Tehar said. "I'll have it overnighted to my lawyers. This is more than enough to win our case against him. This will have him put away for good. He'll be arrested before he even notices it's missing."

  "All right," Kathy said with a nod. "Let's do it."

  They opened the computer tower and removed the hard drive quickly. Kathy tucked it into her bag while Tehar picked up the box of CDs. They checked the office one last time for any sign of more blackmail material, then headed for the door.

  As they were passing through the main sound stage, a light suddenly flashed on in their faces. Kathy threw a hand up to shield her eyes, and as her eyes adjusted, she saw Mitchell, looking smug as he caught them in the beam of a flashlight.

  "You two find everything you were looking for?" he asked sarcastically. "Really, did you think I wouldn’t know you were back in town? I figured it was a matter of time before you tried to break in here. It’s a good thing I have it under surveillance."

  "You creep," Kathy spat. "You weren't just recording us—you were recording everyone! You have cameras in the women's bathroom too, you monster!"

  "Listen, that's just part of doing business in this industry," Mitchell said with a shrug. "Your buddy there made that very clear when he tried to get me fired last year just for chasing some tail."