by Holly Rayner
leaning heavy to one side before finding her balance. She heard the warm, honey notes of Aziz’s voice as he launched into another story, and she felt her laughter belt from her. Had she ever met anyone funnier?
She leaned back on the couch beside him, no longer listening to his words, instead assessing the way his facial muscles moved, the way his lips swept into a smile. And, before she could think another moment more, she placed her wine glass to the coffee table and pressed her own lips over his in a wide, singular kiss.
No sooner had she realized what she was doing, her eyes opened wide and she sprang back, shaking her head. The Sheikh had stopped speaking, and he looked at her with wide, cartoonish eyes. Beyond them, the TV was screeching with a mad racecar scene. Amity began to stutter, then, unsure of what to say. She felt like a schoolgirl.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “I’m—I’m so sorry, Aziz. Oh my God.” She drew her fingers to her forehead and began to pat it lightly, feeling the sweat as it glossed on her skin. “I’m not normally like this. Oh God.” She was breathing heavily, her mind racing. She needed to get out of there. But the pulse, the attraction from the man before her kept her glued to her seat.
Without words, Aziz brought his fingers behind her neck and pulled her toward him gently, easily, and their lips connected once more. Amity breathed a sigh, easing her arms around the Sheikh’s neck, and allowing the kiss to stretch out between them. Their passion felt like electricity, fizzing from his lips down her neck to her breasts. She longed for him to touch her, to feel her. And she no longer had thoughts about that professional line she’d been toeing—no, dancing—ever since she arrived in Al-Mabbar. She’d snapped the line; she’d destroyed it. And here she was on the other side, in the Sheikh’s arms. And she didn’t want to be anywhere else.
The Sheikh brought her over him and their kisses became more serious, more insistent. They weren’t messing around anymore. No longer could Amity sense where the line of her body ended and his began. She swept her fingers beneath his black shirt and yanked it up, feeling the pulse of his muscles as he revealed his naked torso to her. She felt a rush as his hands flew over her shirt and flung it across the room, unhooking her bra in the process.
Their kisses turned to so much more—such erotic movements, mixed with sweet kisses and sighs. They made love on the couch almost as if they’d craved each other for months, instead of only days. The music on the television screen was no distraction; the revving Al-Mabbar City outside the windows held no merit for them. They were simply entranced with each other’s body, wholly and completely, without remorse.
When it was over, Amity stretched her body over his and swept her hair across her back. She felt his sweat gleaming on his shoulder, and she leaned her body into him. Her eyelashes swatted against her cheeks, and she drifted off to sleep easily, listening to the rise and fall of the Sheikh’s breath beside her. She felt peaceful, deeply thankful for the moment—knowing, perhaps abstractly, that this bliss would be gone as soon as she awoke.
ELEVEN
Amity awoke alone the following morning. The drapes had been whisked to one side, revealing a stunning blue sky. She rubbed at her eyes, noting that she was naked beneath the blanket, that her hair was a mess against the couch pillow. Beyond anything, her head buzzed with a hangover of immense proportions—unlike any she’d experienced in years.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, rubbing at her temple, at her neck. “What have I done?”
Her words surprised her as the memories came rushing back: the Sheikh’s lips over hers; the way he’d removed her clothes and gazed at her naked body; the way they’d united, as if they’d been waiting for that moment their entire lives. And now, as if none of that had happened—he was gone.
She rose from the couch and grabbed her jeans, bra, and her shirt, whisking them over her body before anyone else spotted her. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe that the maids hadn’t seen her that morning, sleeping in his arms. But as she combed her fingers through her untidy hair, she reminded herself that she was perfectly capable of pretending that it hadn’t happened. It was probably just another in a long line of sleepovers for the Sheikh, and a mistake on her part. That was all.
She strutted through the living room, toward his bedroom. She wanted to attack this head-on, to start a new day back in professional mode. When she spotted him by the window, tying his silk tie, she gave him a bright, earnest smile.
“Good morning,” she said. Her voice was chipper, polite. “I hope you slept well.” She could have been talking to any other client in the world.
He turned to her, cinching the tie closed. “Well, there you are! I’m happy to see you.” His words were false, as well. It was clear there was space between them—an awkwardness. They weren’t going to talk about it. “I was going to wake you, but I know you’re probably still jetlagged.”
“That’s all right. I need to get started on my proposals for the day.” Amity bit her lip slightly, hoping she didn’t seem needy, like a child. “Where are you off to?”
“A business meeting,” he said, his voice still upbeat. “The one that was canceled yesterday. I’m running a little bit late, in fact. I’ll catch you later, all right?”
“All right,” Amity said softly. She couldn’t help but feel like she’d missed something, like she wanted to call out to him—to ask him what she’d done wrong. “You have a good day.”
She watched as he strode from the room, almost in race-pace. She knew he was running away from her, away from the tension between them. As his footsteps became lost in her ears, she collapsed on his enormous bed, remembering the previous evening and feeling like her entire body was about to cave in.
Just a one-night thing, Amity assured herself, trying to breathe evenly. She leaned back on the comforter, feeling the high-thread-count fabric beneath her cheeks. Just one night. She’d hardly had many one-night stands in her life, but she was a grown woman. She knew the score. Why, then, did it feel like this one-night stand had hit her, headlong, like a semi on a highway?
“Just breathe,” she whispered to herself. Just breathe. She counted her breaths: the inhales, the exhales, trying to find solace in the way her body kept itself alive. She couldn’t help but remember how wonderful it had been to have his hands on her breasts; how warm it had been to fall asleep on his chest. She couldn’t help but remember how it had felt—for just a moment—to have someone who cared about her needs. To have someone see her as a woman, rather than a PR agent.
But she knew, deep down, that she and Aziz came from different worlds. He was royalty, a billionaire. The moment he left his mansion, women of incredible caliber latched onto him, nuzzled him, reminded him that he was worthy of so much. Champagne burst open for him. Clubs buzzed for him. Amity didn’t exactly attract a crowd of people. She would bet her entire savings that most of her clients didn’t even remember her name. She loved her job, her position in life—but it didn’t match with the Sheikh’s in any way.
But, at the same time, it seemed to Amity that the Sheikh’s true personality didn’t align so well with this life he had in Al-Mabbar City—this life of clubbing, of women, of material possessions. Even after spending just a few days with him, she’d discovered that he was a kind and compassionate man; that he’d rather spend a night inside watching movies than pop priceless bottles of champagne at VIP clubs. Deep down, he was a good, kind and humorous man—the kind of man she hadn’t expected to find at the other end of this mission, nor anywhere else in the world.
Amity rose from the bed, stretching. The hangover rallied high in her brain and she swept toward her suite, on a search for water and whatever Al-Mabbar’s version of aspirin was.
She nearly collided with a maid on the way to her bed. The maid gave her a once-over, linked eyes with her, and lifted a single finger in the air. One moment, she seemed to say. She leafed through her pockets and drew out two pills—seemingly pain-related, Amity guessed.
“Thank you,” she whispered
, shaking her head. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
“I think I do,” the maid said in broken English. She bowed her head, giving her a subtle wink, before scuttling off to another area of the mansion.
For a moment, Amity’s face burned red. Was the maid referring to her evening spent with the Sheikh? Of course she knew; word had probably gotten around. Her image was already tainted.
Embrace the shame, she told herself. And then rise above it. She remembered the blistering screams of one of her old pop-star clients in the months after she’d been discovered having an affair with a high-end Hollywood executive. The pain had riddled through her eyes, turning her nose red and her cheeks purple. “What am I going to do?!” she’d asked Amity, and Amity had known this couldn’t have been a question about PR. It was merely a question about a broken heart.
Instead of collapsing into her bed, Amity showered and brushed her teeth, feeling the bristles waffle too hard into her gums. Blood splattered into the sink. But she shook it off, her damp hair slinging water onto the walls.
She dressed in a lightweight suit and tapped toward the office the Sheikh had had organized for her, where she sat, dignified, in the desk chair. She swung one leg over the other and set her fingers to keys, typing out a brief, how-we’re-doing email for Charlie Campbell. She could hardly remember how it felt to be in L.A., all the way across the world. She imagined her desk, there in the corner, glinting and empty. Perhaps the interns were taking turns sitting there, twirling in her chair.
Suddenly, Amity snapped her fingers, remembering. She took her phone from her pocket and lifted it to her ear, dialing the now familiar number. Across the street, Flora’s hotel room phone rang and rang—surely echoing through the hallway, down elevator shafts. But still, the girl did not pick up.
Amity shook her head, grimacing. Flora still wasn’t back from her rendezvous with Aziz’s friend, that much was clear. That girl was so fired… once Amity discovered where she was, of course. She imagined a mother-daughter altercation: “Where have you been, young lady?”
She knew Flora’s only response would be teenage giggles. She knew the intern had no real interest in public relations. Then again, deep down, did Amity really care about PR at the moment, either? It seemed as if her stay in Al-Mabbar had ripped any logic from her brain. She was a shell filled with revving emotion. She felt out of control, and she did not like it one bit.
“Come on, Amity,” she said, shaking her head. Her now-dry brown locks swirled around her. “Think.”
Beyond anything, she was a professional—and she had a single job: to assist Aziz in creating a better, brighter public image. She drew out a piece of paper and scribbled on it, glossing through a tremendous list of schemes that she had previously utilized with her other clients. She remembered pitching so many of these ideas to those pop-culture fiends back in Los Angeles—how they’d hardly given her the time of day, telling her that she “was the expert” and that they “really didn’t care” so long as she did her job. Some of them had literally been filing their nails during these conversations—so blasé, so bored. Of course, back then, she’d taken pleasure in mopping up their messes, but not a single one of them had been good or decent.
But Aziz was a good person. And it was clear that he cared about others—and about her. Even after their awkward encounter, he’d greeted her warmly—viewing her as a human being, rather than a faceless suit, hired to clean up his messes. But how could she go on working with him now? How could she go back to being a professional, after everything they’d shared?
Amity closed her computer abruptly, her muscles twitching. She brought her fingers to her still-pounding temple. She couldn’t believe she’d allowed her feelings for him to take over.
She roughed her fingers through her hair, panicked thoughts driving her. Perhaps she could go for a run to clear her mind and assess her real feelings for the Sheikh? But outside, she heard the swell of the traffic, of the horns. She was far away, in a foreign city—and she didn’t know which way was up.
She felt herself rise from her chair. Her feet directed her up the steps as if she were walking through a long tunnel with only a single exit. There was no turning back. Her fingers grasped the wardrobe doorknob and sprang it open, revealing her large collection of professional clothing, her shoes all laid out for her long stay. She lifted her suitcase from the back, where the smell of cedar was dense in her nose. And she began pulling her things from their hangers and laying them easily, steadily into the bottom of her suitcase, knowing, deep down, that she was doing the right thing.
Her bosses would scorn her, maybe. She definitely wouldn’t get the office she so desired in New York City. Probably not for another five years, or when she’d saved enough money to open the place on her own. And by then—what would be the point? She wouldn’t have love. She wouldn’t have friends. And what did that mean for her life?
She tossed more things into the suitcase, feeling light tears roll down her cheeks. She wasn’t crying, was she? God. She hadn’t cried in months. She shook her head and yanked at the zipper, feeling the satisfactory seal of her suitcase. She would ensure that Flora had a way back to America, when she wanted it, on company funds. How else would the girl get home?
Amity lifted her cellphone to her ear, dialing a cab. She would be gone by the time the Sheikh arrived home, and she’d send him an email, explaining to him that she would find him a replacement. She didn’t have to say anything more than that. It would be professional, succinct.
“Yes, I’d like to arrange a taxi, please. To the airport,” she sniffed into the phone. She felt her heartbeat in her ears as she gave the address details. She felt as if she were falling down, down, down a cliff, waiting to hit the bottom.
TWELVE
Moments after she’d hung up, Amity heard footsteps outside her door. She felt her throat close, sensing that the footfalls were heavy. They couldn’t have belonged to a maid.
Aziz cleared his throat, and Amity spun toward him, her eyes wide. She sniffed, hoping he couldn’t tell that she’d been crying. She felt that ache in her throat—so familiar, from childhood—that meant she was losing something she truly cared about.
“Looks like you’re going somewhere?” Aziz said. He wasn’t smiling. His voice was firm, but soft. She longed to crawl to him, to roll into his arms. She longed to turn back the clock.
“I am,” she said. She could hardly speak, her throat was so tight. “I’m sorry, Aziz. I have to go back to L.A.”
“Did something happen at home?” he asked her. He crossed his arms, giving her that deep, penetrating gaze that made her stomach flip over.
“No,” she whispered. She felt the tears welling up once more, and she knew she couldn’t fight them. “It’s nothing like that. I’m just so sorry. I don’t think I should stay here, Aziz. I haven’t been professional, and I can’t trust myself to keep my feelings separate from my work. I will send a replacement to finish the work I’ve started. In the end, I’m not the one who can help you.”