The Sheikh's Secret Child - A Single Dad Romance (The Sheikh's New Bride Book 7)

by Holly Rayner

  “Oh, no,” Kate said dramatically. “You can’t do that to them!”

  “What?”

  “A person’s first time visiting the U.S. should be fun,” Kate said wryly. “California or Florida or something. You bring them to Utah, and they’ll never want to come back again.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Alex said with a chuckle. “That’s your cabin fever talking again. Did you ever set the kids up at a daycare?”

  “I got the paperwork,” Kate said morosely. “I just haven’t filled it out yet.”

  “Well, start filling! You need to shake off the momminess and rediscover the Kateness.”

  “Kateness? Sounds like a fantasy heroine.”

  “You’ve been binge-reading again.”

  “Wouldn’t you? I swear, if these walls could talk, they would say, ‘welcome to eternal oatmeal.’”

  Alex laughed, and this time, Kate laughed with her.

  “Seriously,” Alex said as she recovered. “Get yourself into a class before you combust. Poor Charlie must have the worst relationship anxiety right now.”

  “Nah,” Kate said defensively. “I don’t tell him this stuff. That’s what sisters are for. If he knew how absolutely stir-crazy I was, he would—oh, hi, honey! How long have you been home? Yeah, Alex, I gotta go.”

  “Be nice,” Alex told her. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  In the few seconds before Kate ended the call, Alex heard her launch into a tangle of reassurances peppered with questions. Alex chuckled and shook her head, sympathizing with Charlie. He wouldn’t get a word in edgewise for an hour, and she would thoroughly expose herself in that time.

  I wonder what that would be like, Alex thought as she watched the stars burn through the deep purple fabric of the sky. To be so close to a lover for so long that you know exactly what they will do and say when they’re upset and irrational.

  Zaiman was returning, and the view was even better than before. His formal shirt was cut in a deep “V” that displayed his rippling muscles in a tantalizing golden frame. He felt her eyes on him and looked up. She smiled and waved, emboldened by the dim twilight and the distance, confident that he was too far away to see the red blush creep hotly over her cheeks.

  He grinned and returned her greeting, then walked out of sight beneath her. She sighed against the flutter of butterflies beating in her chest.

  “Off limits,” she told herself firmly. “But there’s no reason I can’t look.”

  Chapter 4

  Zaiman

  A shriek woke Zaiman from a sound sleep, and he bounded out of bed, frantic until he realized that the sound had been a happy one. Shaking his head at his own nerves, he flopped back into bed.

  “Alex O’Hare,” he reminded himself. “The porcelain dream with the scarlet hair. Oh, Zaiman, what have you done?”

  Coming home to see her casually draped across the couch on her balcony, her bare toes propped up on the railing, had given him an entire night of deeply disturbing dreams. The way the shadows of her loose pajamas fell across her most tantalizing areas, obscuring her shape like a present to be unwrapped, filled his imagination with unnerving images which had come to life and seduced him in his sleep.

  He’d known, the moment he laid eyes on her, that offering her this position would be risky. Not just because of the cultural differences, but because she was so grippingly attractive. He had followed her out of the agency without a plan, dazzled by her, and had only presented the job to her as an excuse to get her to talk to him.

  He’d tried to convince himself that if her credentials had not been so stellar, he would have withdrawn his offer, but he wasn’t so sure. There was something about her which captured his awareness and held it hostage. Perhaps it was the fact that she was American, young, and beautiful—but no. Zaiman refused to believe that he was shallow enough to be enraptured by someone on as flimsy a basis as simple similarity.

  “It’s a mystery,” he told himself. “And you won’t solve it by lying in bed alone.”

  Not that he was planning on lying in bed with anyone else, but that would certainly clear up the mystery for him. Or, confuse it further, he considered. Either way, it didn’t matter. She was strictly his employee, and he was determined to keep it that way.

  That is, as determined as a lonesome, healthy young man could be about these things.

  As he dressed, he allowed his mind to wander through a series of fantasies, collecting them all in the forefront of his mind. Then, he firmly stowed them away, burying them beneath his family name and his strong sense of duty. He had purposefully cultivated these two anchors, and he would be an idiot not to use them now.

  He exited his room just in time to see Alex and Amia racing down the hall to the stairs. Alex, still wearing her bedroom slippers, skidded and slipped enough for Amia to win naturally.

  “I’ll catch up,” Alex laughed. “I have to do something about these.”

  “Don’t blame your shoes just ’cause you’re slow,” Amia teased with a wicked grin.

  “You just wait,” Alex said, shaking a finger playfully. “When I get my super-sporty sneakers on, you’ll be eating my dust.”

  Amia cackled and Alex turned around with a grin. She froze when she saw him, but relaxed again almost immediately.

  “She’s better at this whole morning routine than I am just yet,” she admitted with a little laugh, gesturing to her slippers. “I’ll be right down.”

  “Take your time,” Zaiman told her, tipping his head. She walked away into her room, and Zaiman turned to Amia. “Good morning, darling,” he said affectionately, stroking her ruffled hair smooth. “How did you sleep?”

  “Perfect,” Amia said, wiggling her body in a restless sort of dance. “Alex is real nice, too.”

  “Oh?”

  “Uh-huh, she didn’t shout or take the blankets or anything,” Amia said, beaming. “She said that it was get-up time and opened the curtains and kept talking and talking till I had to wake up to answer her!”

  Zaiman laughed. “She seems to understand you very well already,” he said, surprised and pleased.

  “She says I’m like her,” Amia told him as she hopped from one stair to the other and back again. “Am I like her, Papa?”

  “I’m not sure,” he confessed with a thoughtful frown. “I don’t really know what she’s like, yet.”

  “She’s super amazing,” Amia told him seriously. “Super-duper.”

  “And you are also super-duper amazing,” Zaiman told her with an affectionate nudge. “So, I suppose she’s right; you are like her.”

  “Good,” Amia said, nodding her head. “I like her.”

  “Thanks, Amia! I like you too,” Alex said from behind Zaiman. He turned, startled, and she grinned.

  “Don’t worry, I wasn’t eavesdropping; it really took me that long to find my shoes. You would think after two dozen trips I would learn how to pack in a comprehensible way.”

  “You have a lot of degrees for a slow learner,” Zaiman pointed out lightly.

  “That’s different,” Alex told him, her eyes sparkling. “If I’m passionately interested in something, I can learn it like that.”

  She snapped her fingers to illustrate, and tossed her vibrant hair. The scent of her flowery, fruity shampoo wafted up toward Zaiman, who suddenly felt weak in the knees.

  “The problem is,” she continued, “I’m not at all interested in packing, except as a means to an end. I love traveling, but packing is a chore.”

  “I don’t like chores,” Amia said, wrinkling her nose as the three of them sat at the table.

  “There are ways to make them fun,” Alex told her with a grin.

  “Don’t tell me to whistle while I work, because I can’t whistle,” Amia said solemnly.

  “Ah, I’d better add that to my list of things to teach you,” Alex said with a nod. “What chores do you have?”

  Zaiman winced, realizing that he had neglected to mention that detail the day
before. Chores were such a battleground that he had been reluctant to bring them up at all, but it should have been done.

  “I have to clean my rooms,” Amia said with a huge sigh. “All of them! Five whole rooms, and I’m just a little girl.” She turned big pitiful eyes up at Alex, who glanced across the table at Zaiman.

  “It sounds like a lot,” he said. “I admit that. She isn’t expected to clean thoroughly; just to keep things neat. Picking up after oneself is a necessary habit.”

  “Why?” Amia demanded, opening up the discussion for the hundredth time. “You hire people to clean sometimes—why not all the time?”

  “Because their job is to scrub away the dirt, not pick up your toys,” Zaiman told her firmly. “You are responsible for your own messes, missy.”

  “But it’s hard,” Amia whined. “You don’t do things that are hard!”

  “I don’t? Who told you that?” Zaiman asked with a disbelieving scoff.

  “You think cooking is hard,” Amia pointed out. “That’s why you hired Dabir.”

  “Ah, but I do know how to cook,” Zaiman told her. “And if Dabir ever decides he doesn’t want to work for us anymore, I will be fully capable of filling your tummy until we get a replacement.”

  “I know how to clean my rooms,” Amia argued. “So why can’t we hire a maid to do it when I don’t want to?”

  Zaiman sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked across the table helplessly, to find Alex silently asking for permission to interject. He nodded slightly.

  “Because then you wouldn’t have any fun,” Alex said.

  Amia squinted suspiciously at her. “Chores aren’t fun,” she said.

  “That’s because you’re doing them wrong,” Alex said sagely. “Anything can be fun if you do it right.”

  “Like packing?” Amia said smugly.

  Alex laughed. “Yes, even packing. I really should learn to do it properly.”

  “Why? You won’t be leaving soon,” Amia pointed out.

  “Because, like cooking and cleaning, it’s a good skill to have. And I won’t be leaving soon, but my future still has some travels left in it, I’m sure.”

  “But not for a long, long time, right?” Amia said, sounding nervous.

  “Not for a while, anyway. And if I did leave, it would just be for a vacation or something. I have family back in the States who I enjoy visiting. My little nephew would like you, I think. Maybe the next time I visit home, you could come, too.”

  Zaiman shot her a warning look, and she snapped her mouth shut, but the words were already out. Amia excitedly turned to her father, but instantly and accurately read the look on his face. She slumped, and Alex quickly took the situation in hand.

  “So, when was the last time you cleaned your rooms?” she asked.

  “Yesterday,” Amia said adamantly. She paused, then put a hand over her mouth to whisper only to Alex.

  “I really just hid stuff behind other stuff,” she said. “It looks clean, though.”

  Zaiman’s lips twisted in wry amusement; Amia hadn’t quite learned the art of whispering yet, and he caught every word.

  “Hmm,” Alex said thoughtfully. “You know, I did something like that one time. I was working for this woman in Russia, and she gave me a parting gift. It was a beautiful, tiny, blown-glass reproduction of one of my favorite buildings, all candy-colored balls and spires. It was my absolute favorite possession.”

  “And you hid it behind a stuffed animal?” Amia asked incredulously.

  “No,” Alex chuckled. “Worse. See, I was getting packed up to fly to Australia the next day. I took my time wrapping it up in bubble wrap, then taped it inside a shoebox which I stuffed full of socks. I figured it would be safe enough that way, and I tossed it into my duffel bag along with everything else.”

  “Did it stay safe?” Amia asked around a bite of food.

  “No, it didn’t stay safe, because I didn’t take the time to do it right. By the time I landed in Sydney, my treasure was smashed to pieces.” She slumped, much like Amia had, and blew out a sigh. “You’d think that would have taught me to pack properly, but it didn’t. Instead, I just turned down any fragile presents I was offered.”

  “You said no to presents so you wouldn’t have to pack?” Amia asked, her jaw dropping in shock.

  “Isn’t that silly?” Alex said with a self-deprecating shake of her head. “You see, when you don’t take the time to do something the right way, you cheat yourself out of some really good things.”

  Amia looked like she was about to argue, but took a bite of her breakfast instead. Zaiman was impressed by Alex’s adept redirection as well as her ability to talk to Amia in a way which made sense to her peculiar brand of logic. After a long moment, Amia looked up at Alex again.

  “I broke my favorite doll one time,” she said quietly. “She was under some stuff and I stepped on her. Her arm came off.”

  “That happened to me a lot when I was a kid,” Alex said with a sympathetic nod. “It’s always the favorites, isn’t it? I think that’s because they’re the ones we play with the most, so they’re the ones that get left out.”

  Amia nodded ruefully, and sighed. Zaiman hated to see her looking sad, and groped around for a way to make her feel better without undermining Alex’s work. Alex spoke before he could come up with anything decent.

  “Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. I will buy some decent luggage and learn how to pack it if you promise to take control of your rooms.”

  Amia looked up at her helplessly. “It’s so much,” she said with a watery quiver in her voice. “I can’t do it all by myself.”

  “You can,” Alex said firmly. “I don’t like the word ‘can’t’, and we’re going to try not to use it while we’re together. But,” she continued quickly as Amia’s little face crumpled, “even though you can do it by yourself, I’m not going to make you do that. We’re going to figure out how to conquer those beasts together, okay?”

  “Okay,” Amia sniffed. “You’ll help me?”

  “You bet I will,” Alex said with a grin. “As long as you help me figure out how to pack.”

  “Deal,” Amia said, sunny once more.

  “Finish your breakfast,” Zaiman instructed gently. “Rashad is due any moment.”

  As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Zaiman rose from his seat, only to be waved down again by Bassam, who was passing by in the hallway.

  “When does Bassam eat?” Alex asked. “I sort of expected him to join us.”

  “He usually does,” Zaiman explained, “but he and I had a bit of a late night last night, and that makes a difference to his morning routine.”

  “Because he’s old?” Amia interjected.

  “Amia, hush,” Zaiman admonished her. “He isn’t old.”

  “His hair is gray,” Amia argued.

  “Whose hair is gray?” Rashad entered the room, his eyes twinkling over the edges of his half-moon glasses. “This, my dear, is not gray. It is brilliantly white, like the sand under a full moon.”

  He ran a dramatic hand through his hair, then noticed Alex.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said with a slight bow. He sent a questioning glance to Zaiman.

  “So sorry, Rashad. This is Alex, our new nanny.”

  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Alex. I am Rashad, Amia’s tutor.”

  “I am very pleased to meet you as well, Rashad. Maybe if you aren’t too busy after her lessons, you and I could have a little chat?”

  “It would be my honor,” Rashad said with a surprised smile. “To discuss our mutual vocational focus, I assume?”

  “Papa?” Amia whispered. “What does that mean?”

  “I have no idea,” he lied. “I think Rashad is trying to impress us with his vocabulary.”

  Alex confirmed Rashad’s supposition with an amused laugh, and they made plans to talk by the pool while Amia swam that afternoon.

  “I’m finished, Rashad!” Amia told him, bouncing up from the t
able.

  “Excellent! Now, where were we? I believe we were attempting to count to three hundred?”

  “Yes,” Amia affirmed, her shoulders drooping. “Do we have to?”

  “Of course! Otherwise you will never know if you’re being cheated if you happen to buy more than two hundred of anything.”

  Rashad winked over his shoulder at Alex and Zaiman as he led the giggling Amia up to her sitting room.

  “I remember having to count in school,” Alex sighed. “It was awful.”

  “Counting? Why?” Zaiman asked.

  “Oh, it was so hard for me! It wasn’t that I didn’t know the numbers or understand the sequence, but it was so repetitive and boring that I would lose focus and start daydreaming, and I’d end up counting the same seven numbers over again until my teacher stopped me. It was aggravating for everybody involved.”

  She began clearing dishes from the table, prompting Zaiman to do the same.

  “Amia seems to have similar trouble,” Zaiman admitted. “The two of you appear to have much in common.”

  “We do,” Alex said with an affectionate smile. “Do you have the same sort of trouble?”

  “Oh, no,” Zaiman said. “I find repetitive tasks dull, but not to the point of drifting off or bursting into tears. Amia reaches that point on occasion.”

  “Does she get it from her mother, then?” Alex asked.

  They brought the dishes into the kitchen, where Dabir was busy tidying up. He took the dishes from them without a word and stacked them beside the sink, silently shooing them out of the kitchen as he worked.

  Zaiman used the momentary distraction in his favor, changing the subject as they left the kitchen.

  “You grow bored quickly, then?” he asked. “Is that why you have changed jobs so frequently?”

  “Oh, no,” Alex said quickly. They walked out onto the patio, which was decorated with potted plants and glittering fountains. “It was all very circumstantial. I almost never get bored with my job—children provide their own entertainment.”

  “They do,” Zaiman chuckled. “So, how did you come to be in Abyamar?”

  “Oh, where to start? The beginning, I suppose. A friend of mine, an international student from Russia, had twins the summer before her senior year. She didn’t want to abandon her degree, so I offered to watch her babies while she was in class. She liked me so much that it opened up a whole world for me.”