by Sophia Lynn
Table of Contents
Sheikh’s Secret Triplet Baby Daughters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Sheikh’s Secret Triplet Baby Daughters
By Sophia Lynn & Ella Brooke
All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2019 Sophia Lynn & Ella Brooke
This story is a work of fiction and any portrayal of any person living or dead is purely coincidental and not intended.
CLICK HERE
to subscribe to my newsletter & get EXCLUSIVE updates on all offers, secret previews, and new releases!Chapter One
Chapter One
Myriah
Myriah only had to be out on the streets for a few moments to realize she had underdressed for her day. The streets of Ealim were full of people in fashionable coats and scarves, and the women in particular, cosmopolitan and as polished as diamonds, seemed to give her rather pitying glances as she made her way slowly down the sidewalk.
Myriah Boone had to admit she stuck out a little bit. Ealim was the capital city of Hassur, and there were plenty of tourists and expats on the streets, but the vast majority of people catching cabs, stopping to eat at the plentiful food trucks and carts, shopping, working, playing, and eating, were Ealimi. The people of Ealim were mostly of Arabic descent, where Myriah usually called herself a purebred American mutt. She was as tall as many of the men on the street, with pale skin and blue eyes that seemed a touch large for her face. Her features gave her a slightly innocent look on a good day, and on a bad day, it made her look a bit, she thought, like a creepy doll.
Today, the cold wind was whipping down from the tall mountain that shadowed the city. It tugged at Myriah’s long skirt, making her shiver a little. She resisted the urge to pull the sleeves of her dark blue sweater down over her hands, because, after all, she wasn’t in college anymore. Instead, she resolutely walked along the street, occasionally stopping to make notes on her pad of paper. She knew other people would have progressed to making notes on a smartphone or a tablet, but the feeling of a pen and a pad in her hand was comfortable for her; hand writing made her slow down and take her time.
Myriah turned a corner, and she felt that little tingle at the back of her head again. It had been absent the entire two weeks she had been in Ealim so far, and she was beginning to wonder if she was never going to feel it. That little tingle had always led her right, and she was beginning to wonder if she could even tell her bosses that a site might be even vaguely acceptable without it.
All morning as she walked, she’d thought about what it might be like to return to the United States having failed. Her bosses at Metcalfe and Warner liked her a great deal, but even if they wouldn’t have seen it as a failure, she would have. There was no reason they couldn’t find a suitable site in a cosmopolitan and wealthy country like Ealim, but here she was.
That was before she turned the corner and walked down a street she hastily noted in her notebook as East Fourth Street, and that tingle came on so hard it was nearly a full-body shiver.
In many ways, it didn’t quite make sense. East Fourth Street was a little more out of the way than the quarters she had been checking out for the past few days. It was a little narrower, perhaps even a little grimier. It was close enough to the heart of the capital to catch some of the hustle and excitement, but no one would have called it any kind of visionary center. Myriah, however, could see exactly what it could become with the right investors.
She was technically only scouting for an Ealim location for a famous Parisian restaurant. She was one of the best location scouts that Metcalfe and Warner had, and she was seldom wrong. She saw several spots that could be bought and converted into the spacious kitchen and dining rooms that the Parisian restaurant demanded, but more than that, she could see the other properties that could be brought in.
Oh it would be incredible. I know the Ealimi government likes to make sure new businesses and foreign trade benefit the local populace first. Perhaps some kind of timeshare or collaboration would be appropriate . . .
Ealim was a truly international city, and Myriah loved the idea of leaving her mark on it, even if it was in such a small way as this. She leaned against the half-wall of a city garden, pulling out her pad to make more notes. She was so absorbed in her work that she didn’t notice the sly man in dark clothes until it was a little too late.
She looked up just in time to see him grab at her at her purse, tucked carelessly under her arm, and she had just enough time to realize her passport was in there before he was down the road. If she had been given another moment to think, there was a chance that she would not have vaulted down the road after him—she would have realized it would be far safer to go for one of the many policemen on the street, or even to call the embassy directly to make sure that she could get the replacement documents she needed.
However, Myriah had been raised in Boston, where it was more common to hear, “Well, you shouldn’t have been holding your purse like that,” than, “Oh, I’m sorry you got mugged.”
One moment she was feeling her purse being tugged from her and the next she was dashing across the pavement, dodging a very startled little car as she ran after the man.
“Thief!” she shouted, and then after a moment, she repeated herself in Arabic. She had no idea if anyone was going to reach out to help her or to stop the man, but at the very least it made her feel a little better when people whipped around in shock.
Oh good, this isn’t so normal that people are just bored of it, she thought with a slightly hysterical humor. That means this area might be just a little dangerous, but only enough to be excitingly trendy.
Myriah wasn’t in bad shape, but she was in boots that were not meant for running, and after a few moments as the thief edged further away, she thought she might lose him. Then she looked ahead and saw a broad tall man in a charcoal-gray suit dead ahead, and she took a deep breath.
“Stop that man!” Myriah shouted, and she knew that she did not have much left after that.
She half expected the man to simply stare around him in shock (at least, most of the CEOs she had met did that, and he certainly looked like a CEO). She saw a brief moment of confusion cross his face, and then there was a look of fiery concentration as he saw the man who was bearing down on him and hoping to skate past him without a word.
As Myriah watched, the man in the suit threw out a hard arm, and the thief clothes-lined himself so beautifully that Myriah wished she had caught it on video. The man’s feet went out far in front of him, and the momentum put him flat on his back. Before he could rise, Myriah’s new hero reached down to grab him up by the scruff of the neck, removing the purse from his grasping hands with a deft motion.
“There you are, my love. You may want to count the money you had in there. It is far better for us to try to get it from him now rather than having to wait until the courts can hash it all out.”
“Oh, he was quick, but I don’t think he’s that quick. I have been following him for blocks now and never let . . . him . . . out of . . .”
Myriah’s voice trailed off, because that tingle was back in her head, and this time, it was screaming. For a moment she was confused, because that peculiar sense of hers had never gone off before with a person, only with a place or an investment opportunity of some kind. This was different. This was as if it were trying to remind her of something she already knew.
“We should get him to a local police station,” said her rescuer in a more dire tone. “People like this need to be taken away and—”
“Please . . . let him go, and will you look at me?”
“It won’t take more than a few minutes, but . . .”
As he spoke, her rescuer turned toward her, and then he went still, his eyes dark as chocolate and as wide as her own. Even as the thief redoubled his efforts to escape, and even as the man took a tighter grasp on his arm, making him flinch in pain, the man stared at Myriah.
As he stared, a murmur went up around the watching crowd, and Myriah, whose Arabic was only passable when she was calm and not, say, exhausted from running after some jerk who had stolen her purse, only realized what was going on when she heard the words Sheikh Halil spoken over and over again.
The worst part, she thought, was the way things were coming into place. Sheikh Halil Aljabbar was known for wandering his city as a citizen, seeing what there was to see, eschewing the use of bodyguards in what was, after all, one of the safest and peaceful places on the continent. He often reiterated that he had certainly put the time in to maintain the peace, and that meant he definitely should have the leisure to enjoy it.
In fact, it was one of Sheikh Halil’s addresses that had made Myriah suggest Ealim to her bosses in the first place. She had liked the way he talked, and the way he wanted his country to be open to the global community while still retaining its unique identity. Now that she thought about it, it probably would have been best if she had actually watched those videos of his speeches rather than simply reading them on the flight to Ealim. That way, she might have had some damn warning for the torrent of feelings that tore their way through her when she recognized who he really was. It wasn’t like Halil was an unusual name throughout the Middle East.
Maybe I just liked the way he talked because he reminded me of my favorite—and only—fling, she thought numbly.
“Hello, Sheikh Halil,” she said in her smallest voice.
Chapter Two
Halil
Sheikh Halil Aljabbar was getting damned sick of placating all the fools at the table. He could tell that a time would come, a time in the not-so-far-distant now, when he would order everyone out and make the decisions that needed to be made. He knew that he could do it. It wasn’t so hard for him to see the path to the common good; the developers represented in the project and the people who lived around the proposed new structures.
He heard a soft voice chuckling inside his head and felt a gentle squeeze on his shoulder, though there was no one there to chuckle or to squeeze, at least not anymore.
I wish you were still here, Father, he thought, and he imagined his father laughing again.
To get in your way and to make you stumble where otherwise you would be assured? Not likely. Just be patient. Be patient with them, and be patient with yourself.
Sometimes, he could hear his late father’s voice so clearly that it felt as though the kind, old man was standing right behind him.
Halil took a deep breath. “All right,” he began, when he could at least speak without wanting to shout at someone. “Let’s try this again. This is what I as the head of the investors am willing to budge on. The rest, as we have mentioned before, must stand as it is.”
He wondered if he was finally learning some of his father’s famous diplomacy, or whether there was a light in his eyes and a tension through his frame that told the old men at the table he was losing his patience. It was probably, at best, a mixture of the two, and at this point, Halil was willing to take it.
The men agreed to most of what he said, fought him a little longer to show that they were, too, men of power and influence, and then in the end, gave up on the rest of it. The fact that they had simply, finally chosen the path that he had recommended at the beginning of the day was enough to make him tear his hair out, but somehow, somehow, Halil managed to keep a nearly sincere smile on his face as they took their leave from one another.
The moment the door shut behind the consortium and he was alone in the board room, Halil pulled out his smartphone. A single ring put him in contact with Marek, the young man who ran all his affairs, and he grinned when he heard Marek’s cautious hello.
“No need to walk on eggshells, my friend,” he said. “They went for the plan, and that means that in just over a year, we may be able to open the doors of the Hadid Aljabbar Memorial Hospital.”
He could think of no better tribute to the man who had raised him, who had been a father to the country as well as to Halil himself while balancing it all so gracefully. He could only hope that some of his father’s diplomatic ways could be inherited, but sometimes that felt more like a pipe dream than anything else.
“That’s good, sir. Shall I call legal and make sure that they’re on hand to inspect the documents thoroughly?”
“Yes, and make sure that Lila Masoor gets a bonus. She was instrumental in putting this all together. And make sure that the entire proposal team gets a good dinner on the expense account.”
“Very good, sir,” said Marek, and the relief in his voice was obvious. “Will there be anything else?”
“Hm. Yes. Is there anything important going on for the next few days?”
“There is a meeting with internal security tomorrow, and then a luncheon at the international aid benefit the day after . . .“
“Yes, we’re just going to go ahead and cancel that. I’ve been doing the good thing and the right thing for a while, I feel like going dark for a few days. Let security know, and then maybe take a day off yourself.”
“Sir, I hardly think . . .”
“Thank you, Marek. I’ll check in again on Thursday. Enjoy yourself!”
Halil grinned, only slightly guilty over his treatment of his poor, put-upon assistant because, after all, Marek was getting a few very needed days off. Khalid in security would probably be similarly displeased, but that could all wait until Thursday, when he needed to be everything to every part of Ealim again. For a while he could simply be himself, and that felt like stepping into a comfortable pair of shoes after wearing fashionable ones that pinched all day.
The sun was just beginning to set when Halil walked out onto the street, stretching his arms out and breathing deep.
This was his country. This was his city. There was nowhere on Earth where he felt as comfortable, as much himself, as in Ealim.
It certainly hadn’t always been this way. Halil had been a wanderer ever since he was sixteen, when he got expelled from the school he had attended in London. Every inch the renegade prince, he had seen what the world had to offer, from South Africa to South Korea to the United States to Iceland. He had never stayed anywhere for more than a few months, choosing to settle in luxurious style in the best penthouses the various cities had to offer, always on the move for the next thrill, the next bit of fun.
Then one day, everything changed, and he returned only to find that the thing he had been seeking for so long, all without ever knowing he was seeking, was the place he had left so many years before.
He had never known love could be acted out in long hours with developers and diplomats. He had never known responsibility could be a burden that he put on so willingly.
Of course, Halil thought with a grin, just because he was terribly in love with his country didn’t mean he didn’t want to take a bit of a break for a while. The times when he could actually afford to go off the radar of the palace staff and his security were always vanishingly rare, but a part
of him lived for these times.
Soon enough, he would be called to marry and to step up as a husband and a father to some reliable and entirely appropriate girl, but that could still put that off for a little while, and while he could put it off, he would.
Halil was just beginning to wonder where the night would take him when he heard a shout, first in English and then in Arabic. It was not so unusual to hear English here, but something about the shouter’s tone, angry and full of righteous indignation, made him look up in surprise. Then there was a man carrying a woman’s purse barreling toward him, he heard the word clarify from unrecognizable shouting to the word “Thief!” and without thinking, he grabbed the man around the arm, twisting him around neatly as the man squawked.
Then there was a tall woman in dark clothes coming up quickly behind him, and Halil took the man’s prize from him.
“There you are, my love. You may want to count the money you had in there. It is far better for us to try to get it from him now rather than having to wait until the courts can hash it all out.”
The woman was panting a little, but she smiled when she straightened to speak to him.
“Oh, he was quick, but I don’t think he’s that quick. I have been following him for blocks now and never let . . . him . . . out of . . .”
“We should get him to a local police station,” Halil continued. “People like this need to be taken away and—“
“Please . . . let him go, and will you look at me?”
The plea was a strange one. Halil had one moment to wonder whether she was hurt or if there was something else she needed from the squirming thief, but when he did what she said, it felt like everything in him turned to ice, and then, simultaneously, lit on fire.
His body remembered better than his mind did, and his heart remembered even better. Without thinking of what he was doing, without a care in the world except for the woman in front of him, Halil let the thief go and stepped up to her.
“Are you real?” he whispered. “You’re not some kind of . . . terrible figment of my imagination or some dream come to taunt me?”