SHEIKH'S SURPRISE BABY: A Sheikh Romance

by Knight, Kylie

  Still, he had the feeling that his siblings admired him. He was working for Bahrain’s UN office by this point, and with the money from the flat rental in London, and Melinda’s catering business, they were able to live quite well. He began to learn how to cook, telling Melinda that she spent her whole day cooking for other people, so it was only fair that he cook for her. It made her blush so prettily when he could have something nice to serve her, though he never told her about the times he’d screwed up and had had to order something from the restaurant down the street. He was fairly certain that she could tell, but she was too polite to criticize, and anyway she seemed more amused than anything else on the days when that happened. She was a happy presence in his life, and he tried very hard to reciprocate.

  And every now and then, when he stepped outside of his office to get lunch or a cup of tea, he thought he saw a tall blond Russian watching him. He was always too far away for Bashir to tell if it was Misha, but Bashir had his suspicions. On a whim he called the passport office one day and asked about Russians entering or leaving the country—there were a few oil tycoons and some real estate developers who’d put up money for the mansions in the south of the island, but none of them matched Misha’s description. He thought about sending Misha an invitation to come over, but the man was probably still on his father’s payroll. It was strange, too, that of all the people in his former life, Misha was the one he missed most. They’d never been more than courteous to each other, but even now, three months after he left and started his new life, he’d wake up wondering why Misha wasn’t snoring in the next room. The man had shadowed him for eight years; for all the trouble he’d given his former bodyguard, he had the feeling that Misha felt the same brotherly affection for him as he did for Misha. Why else would the man be following him around?

  When they first moved together, he bought a ring for her, intending to propose to her in their new house—a new house, a new life. It had a nice symmetry to it. But the move took longer and was harder than either of them thought it would be, and he didn’t realize that she’d color-coded the boxes and she didn’t realize that his shirts needed to be kept folded in a certain way and they ended the day fuming at each other. It took three days before they were able to speak to each other civilly again. They were able to get over it, and move past it, but something changed between them during that time—they were together, but more so, in a way. Or maybe it was less so. He couldn’t decide. The things he’d learned about her during that time were not things that he could unlearn—there was no return to the blissful ignorance with brought them together anymore. And yet, at night, after a long day at work, he found that he wanted nothing more than to sit on the couch with her, holding her and being held.

  What does it mean? He didn’t know. He kept the ring in the inside pocket of his windbreaker, where he tucked his cell phone. Most of the time he forgot it was there.

  Melinda called him one day at his office, asking him to come home early. “I suppose I could manage,” he said. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” she said. “I know it’s a few days early, but today was the only day your brothers and sisters could all be here for your birthday.”

  “You asked them to come?” He couldn’t keep the delight out of his voice.

  “And that big Russian bear you miss so much,” she said, and he could hear the joy in her voice.

  “Misha? How did you manage to get a hold of him?”

  “I have my ways. So will you come home early?”

  He looked around his office. He’d spent all day correcting the translation of a French proposal into Arabic, and he still had eight more pages to go. It can wait, he decided. The French weren’t like Americans or the British, always pressing for things to be done yesterday. They had a sense of decorum about these things. “Let me get another two pages of this god-awful translation done,” he said, “and I can be home at around four.”

  She sighed. “Does that mean I should make dinner?”

  “You’re never going to let that go, are you?” he asked. One of their biggest fights had been halfway through their second month of living together, when he’d said that he going on a job interview and would be home “at around three”. For him, that meant anywhere between three and five. It wouldn’t have been a big deal except that that afternoon Melinda had brought some potential investors to their house, and she’d expected him to be home, have the house clean, tea made, sweets arranged.

  “Not until I land an investor,” she said. She’d been looking for someone to help her buy industrial cooking equipment and lease a bigger space that wasn’t on the wrong end of Manama. Bashir was still sorry about it—in the six weeks since that had happened she still hadn’t managed to land another investor.

  He sighed. She’d forgiven him for being late, but that didn’t mean she’d forgotten it—or would ever forget it. “You know this is going to get old at some point,” he said. “I said I’m sorry.”

  “At some point, sure. But not yet.”

  “I’ll be home at four,” he said. “Okay?”

  “All right.”

  He sighed and went back to his translation, but found that his mind was wandering—he was too excited at the prospect of seeing his brothers and sisters together, and Misha. Miriam and Adaal, his other sister, would undoubtedly have their share of family gossip—there were whispers of some kind of scandal involving Alya and an old groom, so they would probably know the whole, real story. Strangely, though, he felt no joy in Alya’s shame—his new distance from his family gave him a new appreciation for what Alya was going through. He had not gone so far as to call her and offer to talk to her, but the thought of sharing in her misery (if she was capable of it) no longer appealed to him. As for his brothers, Malakar might have finally managed to purchase that Dodge Viper he’d been going on about for almost five years, and Salamin had been to Siberia, so there would probably be interesting stories from all sides.

  He tried to focus on the edits for another thirty minutes but gave up. He stood up and packed his laptop away. “I’m heading home early,” he told the office manager as he walked by the man’s office. “Something came up.”

  The office manager didn’t even look up from his computer—he was playing solitaire. He just nodded and waved Bashir away. Bashir had sometimes wondered how long it would take the man to notice if he’d stopped coming to work.

  On his way home, Bashir bought a bouquet of flowers. If his brothers and sisters were coming it was the sort of thing they’d expect a man to bring to the woman he was living-with-but-not-married-to. And one thing he would not give them was more fodder for the family gossip mill. He and Melinda were making things work. That was all there was to it.

  He was a little early when he pulled up into their driveway—but right away he could tell that nobody was there. What’s this? Did they all park their cars somewhere else? There was no reason for that. Maybe Melinda had asked them to go somewhere. He was fifteen minutes early, after all. Or maybe they weren’t there, yet. But he knew Melinda—she’d have had them all there by three-thirty, if she told him to be at home at four.

  It would give him a little time to make the tea, he decided as he parked his car and went inside. “Melinda?” he called.

  The house was silent. Odd, he thought. Would she be out as well?

  He put on a pot of water on to boil and went through the house. There was nobody there. That’s odd, he thought again. What could possibly be going on?

  He put the bouquet in a vase and set it on the table in the living room. Not knowing what else to do, he opened the refrigerator, thinking about what he’d want to make for his siblings when they got here. Melinda had left a platter of stuffed dates in the refrigerator, so he got those out and set them out. Then the water boiled—and as he made the tea there was still no sign of Melinda or his siblings.

  Now he was beginning to get nervous. Melinda was not the kind of person to lie to him about his siblings coming over. She knew what they m
eant to him, being the last connection to his former life. But just as he began to wonder if he should call the police, he heard her car pull up to their house. He looked out their bedroom window, and saw her get out of her car, swearing and cursing.

  “Melinda,” he called, as came down the stairs. “What’s going on? Are my brothers and sisters coming over or not?”

  She froze for a moment. Fear—real, genuine fear—crossed her face, making her skin go pale and her freckles stand out even more. “Melinda? What’s going on?”

  She blinked, and then she put her bag down and took a small box from it—it was a velvet jeweler’s box. “It took me forever to find this,” she said. “That’s why I’m late. I’m sorry I lied about your brothers and sisters coming.”

  “Why would you do that?” he demanded, irritated now. Bad enough that he’d been in a panic about her being missing. Now he had to find out that she’d lied to get him to come home. What was going on here? Was this the start of the lies and deceit that people were always talking about?

  “Because,” she said, “I wanted to give you this,” she said, holding out the box.

  Anger went to surprise as he took the box. It wasn’t like her to get something expensive for him, and a piece of jewelry, no less. He didn’t wear jewelry as a general rule, but perhaps it was something ceremonious—though there was nothing special about his twenty-ninth birthday that was in a few days.

  The box was heavy, the kind meant for a watch, and Bashir couldn’t help but wonder why she’d bought him a new one at such great expense (it was covered in velvet, with a silver omega stamped on one side, one of the fancier watch brands) when the one he’d had for nearly a decade was still working. Surely she didn’t sacrifice getting a better van for a watch?

  He opened it. Inside the box, much to his surprise, was a flat white stick with a purple cap on one end It looked like a pen, but then he realized that there were two little depressions in it, one with a cross and one with a line on it. He frowned, wondering what the hell this was, and then just as he realized what it was she jumped and said, “Yes!”

  He was going to be a father. The idea seemed too big to hold—it was bursting out of him, in the tears that he was somehow crying. “Is this real?” he asked, finally. She nodded, her hand splayed on her belly. Suddenly she was no longer the woman he loved, but the mother of his child. They were going to be one in a way that he’d never realized was possible, and the flood of delight and love he felt for her made him go weak and he sat down on the floor, his heart breaking from the joy.

  He hugged her—never until that moment had he realized that he could love someone so much, that it was possible for joy to hurt with the intensity of it all. “I have something for you, too,” he murmured, as he let her go.

  He knelt and kissed her belly, whispering, “Hello, Ariel.” He felt almost certain that it was a girl. “I can’t wait to meet you.”

  Above him, Melinda laughed, wiping away tears as she did so. “You know we still have nine months to go, right?” she said.

  “Then it will be plenty of time for you to consider this,” he said, pulling his ring box out of his pocket. If there was ever a right moment to do this, it was now. “Melinda Doyle, will you do me the honor of marrying—”

  “Oh Bashir, yes!” she cried.

  It was strange, how everything had changed in five minutes—suddenly they were no longer man and woman, but husband and wife (to be), a father and a mother—and yet, as he stared into her eyes, he saw that nothing had changed. She was still the woman he loved.

  THE END

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

  There’s nothing I love more than writing romantic stories that inspire readers to live and enjoy life. From penning those first words to releasing a book into the world, I honestly love what I do. As a hopeless romantic with an overflowing zest for life, I truly believe in the beauty of love and the power it has to overcome challenges and I always try to incorporate that reality into my stories. Stand-alone HEA books like my Billionaire Bachelors Club series are some of my most favorites to write. I am passionate about strong women who fall in love with electrifying alpha males and of course you can’t go wrong a with a happily ever after!

  When I’m not writing passionate stories, you can find me spending time with my husband and little girl out here in the West. I also love a relaxing massage—who doesn’t?—or reading a great book while curled up on sandy shores as waves crash in the background. Anything romantic or inspiring is pretty much the heart of who I am and what I enjoy writing the most. I invite you to sit back, relax and enjoy reading about your favorite billionaires!

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