by Holly Rayner
A woman so captivating that she was all I’d been able to think about since that first drink at the opening for my project in Dubai?
Because I wanted to be a part of that baby’s life. Absolutely. There was no question in my mind. But I wanted just as badly to be a part of Faye’s life.
I might not have put it in those terms before—hadn’t even thought about it, really, because it had never occurred to me to doubt that I would be—but the moment she said she might not want me to be involved, the only thing I could think of was that I wasn’t going to let her go.
Not without a fight.
I had absolutely no intention of letting her do this by herself. I definitely wasn’t going to let her walk back out of my life as quickly as she’d walked into it, without leaving so much as a souvenir behind.
And I wasn’t even going to get started on what she’d told me in her house, about how far underwater she was, and how much she was struggling to help support her parents. The fact that she was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to save their business or their house, and how crushed she was at the entire idea.
The idea that she hadn’t been able to sell the article she’d written, even when she incorporated the interview with yours truly. The even bigger idea that this was a constant state of affairs for her, and that although she might find a way through this current problem, another would pop up next week, and then the week after that, because that was what her life was like. A revolving door of trying desperately to write a story good enough to sell, and then the sprint after that to find the next one—and then the next. The constant axe hanging over her head.
The constant competition with the rest of the reporters in the pool.
And now she was going to try to do it while pregnant. After she gave birth to the—to our—baby, she’d also be trying to take care of the little one while working. It was going to get more complicated, not less, and she was already struggling to keep her head above water.
If she thought she could tell me that sort of story, and then expect me to duck right out of her life like it didn’t have anything to do with me, or like I didn’t have any thoughts on the matter, then she didn’t know me at all.
Of course, I realized a moment later, she didn’t. Not nearly as well as I wanted her to. But I had plans to fix that.
Right now, though, wasn’t the time to talk to her about that. I gave her a long, intense stare, trying to communicate all the things I was thinking with just a look, and saw her pupils dilate and her head tilt. I gave her a slight smile, knowing that she’d picked up on at least some of what I was trying to communicate to her with my look alone, and tilted my head back, giving her more.
I’m not going to let you do this on your own. I’m not going to walk away when I know I can help you. I’m certainly not going to walk away when it would mean never seeing you again. That’s not good enough.
I waited for the twitch of her lips in response to my unspoken words—the acceptance of what I was saying, and her acknowledgement that I was right—and then turned to my parents.
They were the ones I needed to deal with right now. After all, they were the ones throwing around all the disappointment and disapproval. Faye hadn’t had a single thought of cutting me out of her life until my mother had gotten involved. And as far as I was concerned, that meant that she hadn’t thought about it—until my own mother put it into her head.
“Let me get this straight,” I told them, dividing a glance between my parents. “All I’ve heard for the last five years is how much you two want me to move back to the city. Get married, settle down. Have kids. I can’t come home without hearing how much you want this for me. How much you want grandkids—even though you already have several!—and how much more you want to see me. How much family means. I hear it so much that I dream about it even after I leave. Did you know that?”
I waited for their answer, my eyes pinning them both down and forcing them to hear what I was saying. I waited until I saw the shadow of an apology pass over my mother’s face, and saw my father’s eyes slide to the left, away from me—a sure sign that he agreed with me, but wasn’t going to say so out loud.
I knew he wanted me home so that he could see me more, but he’d known how important my job was to the family. That I was important enough to that arm of the company that it might cease to exist entirely unless I was careful about my exit.
He’d also known that I would move home and settle down when I found a reason to do it.
Faye was that reason. I just needed my parents to see that.
“I told you I would move home and settle down, start a family, when I found a girl I wanted to settle down with,” I said quietly, willing my mother to understand. “I wasn’t looking for that girl. I wasn’t intent on finding the person I thought could hold my attention. The truth is, she only found me because she wanted to do a story on the family.” I looked over at Faye, unable to stop myself from smiling. “She agreed to get drinks with me only because I told her I would give her an interview. I don’t think either of us could have guessed what those drinks would lead to.”
She stifled a smile, her golden eyes glowing at the memory, and the action lit my entire being up. My parents might not be able to see it as clearly as I could—probably because they didn’t know her yet—but Faye was the woman for me.
She was the one I wanted by my side as I traveled into the next step in my life.
When I looked back at my parents, I could see my father’s face softening, a smile starting to play around his lips. He’d seen the interaction between Faye and me, then. He knew where this was heading.
My mother, however, was still wearing a cold, hard mask. She was the one I still needed to convince.
“You want me here, in Kayyem,” I said quietly. “This woman will give me everything I want out of life, and she will keep me here. The truth is, she loves the city almost as much as I do—maybe even more, actually. Why isn’t that enough? Why would you deny us the opportunity? Don’t you want your son to be happy?”
My mother scoffed. “Of course I want my son to be happy. Of course I want you to move home and stay. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you at least one hundred times. I want you home. I want you settled with a family, and I want you in the same place all year round, so I can see you whenever I want to. You know you’ve always been my favorite.”
Her face softened for a moment as she said that, and my heart leapt. Maybe she’d seen it. Maybe she’d seen the way I looked at Faye—and the way Faye looked at me.
She was going to give us her approval. I could feel it already.
But then her eyes went to Faye and her face went hard again.
“It seems, however, that this woman doesn’t actually want anything to do with you. She’s given you up already, at the first sign of trouble. She has said that she does not want your help.”
When her eyes came back to me, they’d lost that softness and become cold, hard chips of granite. “How will you make a life, son, with a woman who is so quick to desert you when someone challenges her? How will you settle down with a woman who is so quick to jump at the idea of leaving you?”
Chapter 25
Aziz
I was just opening my mouth to tell my mother that the only reason Faye had said anything like that was because my mother herself had basically told her that she was unwanted, when another voice broke suddenly in.
“I must say, I think you’re all being entirely unfair,” Khalid said.
I turned to him in a whirl, surprised by the interruption—and a little bit annoyed, if I was being honest, considering I was just about to make a really good point to my mother about how this entire situation was her fault.
It was very rare to get to say something like that to her. She was, for the most part, an entirely reasonable and wonderful woman—all of which made her hard to find fault with. It also made this sudden sensitivity about Faye’s nationality… strange.
I mean, she was right when she as
ked where we would live. But that was something we could work out. The only thing that was going to matter was that we got to be together.
In any country.
Besides, that was my decision, and Faye’s. Not my mother’s.
And none of this had anything to do with what Khalid had just said.
I realized that I was staring at him without really seeing him—and he was staring back at me like I’d lost my mind, while everyone else in the room was quiet. Waiting for the conversation to get back on track, I supposed.
“What,” I asked quietly, “are you talking about?”
When he gave me the same wink he’d always used, ever since we were kids, I started to feel a little bit better. He’d been quiet up to this point in the argument, but I should have known better than to think he was going to stay out of it entirely.
Khalid always had something to say.
“I’m talking about this incredible concern about Faye and her nationality,” he said, like it was the most rational thing in the entire world. “What’s wrong with Americans? Particularly American women?”
The question was aimed at my mother, of course, and she was the one that answered. “Nothing is wrong with them. When they are marrying American men.”
Her words were sharp and cold. Cold enough that I reached out and took Faye’s hand without even really thinking about it, my heart immediately telling me to protect her from what my mother was saying. She squeezed my hand, though, as if she was the one protecting me.
The squeeze made me feel immediately better—which made me wonder whether she was actually protecting me. And if she was, how she was doing it.
And why.
Because this was the woman who’d just told me that she was quite willing to go through life without me, if that was the best way for me to continue my life uninterrupted. And protecting me didn’t exactly coincide with not caring if I stuck around or not.
That realization sent a wave of heat through my body.
“Mother,” I said sharply. “American women are allowed to marry whoever they want.”
I thought that should go without saying, but evidently she needed reminding.
“Not Al-Sharims,” she said quietly. “Not my son. Not when she’s not willing to fight for you.”
“But,” Khalid broke in, shooting me a glance that said I should let him handle this, “I agree with Aziz. You are being unfair to American women, Aunt Ahava. After all, were it not for my American wife, I would not have been in Kayyem this weekend. And I would not have been available to save your husband’s life. Amber is the one who wanted to return to Kayyem for the month—because she was tired of being on the road, and wanted to return to the people she now considers to be her family. She wanted to come back to the place she calls her home base. And though I had other things I needed to do at the clinic in Cairo, I gave in. Because I love her.”
He gave her a slight smile—one that I knew would be impossible for her to stand up against. “Auntie, you may very well owe an American wife for your husband’s life. And what will you do then?”
I looked from him to my mother, wondering whether that particular gambit was going to work. And yes, this whole argument was really ridiculous. It was stupid, and beyond that, my parents were arguing with me about whether I loved the woman—and whether she loved me—and I was actually listening to them.
Faye was actually considering leaving me, with my baby, just because my mother had protested and my dad had kept his mouth shut.
But in our culture, parental approval was paramount to law. And no matter how much time I’d spent in the Western world, no matter where Faye was from, the thought of marrying her without my mother’s blessing…
It couldn’t happen.
And that made Khalid’s argument even more important than he probably knew. He might be treating this all as a joke, but he was quite literally holding my future in his hands.
Which was why I held my breath as I watched my mother for her answer.
I saw her lips twitch, saw her eyes soften at Khalid’s words, and saw her start to come down. I saw the moment she started to believe—or at least started to want to give me the opening I needed.
And I stepped into it without thinking. I went to her and took her hand, looking down at her with as much love as I could summon in that moment.
“Mother,” I told her calmly. “I never saw Faye coming. She did not seek me out intentionally, to seduce me or try to gain my trust. She argued with me about whether or not I was allowed to buy her a drink! But she entered my life like a hurricane, and she hasn’t left my mind since. Surely you can see how rare that is. Surely you can see that this is what I’ve been waiting for.”
My mother gazed up at me, her eyes now brimming with tears, and sighed. Then she put a hand to my cheek, cupping it the way she’d done when I was young. “My son,” she whispered. “I do not doubt your feelings. But you know as well as I do that it has always been my job to take care of you, keep you from doing anything stupid. This girl happened into your life at the very time when you needed something to change. Do you think that was a mistake?
“And now, at the first sign of protest, she is quick to tell you that she will do this by herself. That she does not need you in her life—and that she’s happy to continue without you. You might love her, my son. But does she love you? I am not convinced. And until I am, I will not give my blessing.”
Well. Let’s go right back to what I said earlier about my own mother having caused this entire mess. Because now we were right back at Faye having said that she could have the baby on her own, and that she didn’t need me.
Things I was sure she’d only said because my mother had planted the idea in her brain.
But was I sure? I realized now that I didn’t know. Because in all the things we’d said to each other, Faye and I hadn’t talked about how we actually felt. And now, that was…
A glaring lack. I knew how I felt. I didn’t know whether she returned those feelings.
When I turned to her, my lips sealed against my heart, which felt as though it was trying to exit through my mouth, I saw her staring at me, her eyes large and golden… and doubtful.
Chapter 26
Faye
Aziz turned to me with his heart in his eyes, his face so drawn up with pain and confusion that I didn’t have even one shred of doubt as to how he felt.
The man was in love with me. I could see it right there in his face—in the way his eyes were glowing like he’d somehow built a fire inside his head. In the set of his lips, which, though I hardly knew him, told me that he’d already made up his mind about something important. But I could also see the question there.
The doubt.
He knew exactly what he wanted, I thought, but he didn’t have the first freaking clue how I felt about him, and that made sense.
Because we hadn’t actually talked about how we felt about each other. We’d talked about life, about our careers, about our hopes and dreams and wishes. But how we actually felt about each other, and where the other person might—or might not—fit into our future? That was part of that whole conversation about the future that we’d never bothered to have. Because obviously we were both idiots when it came to talking about things that mattered.
And that meant that he didn’t know I was in love with him, too. If he did, none of this would have mattered. He would have been telling his mother that we were in love and that we were going to be married, and that was that. Or maybe something slightly less bossy.
If he’d known that I loved him. And instead, I’d said that I would do this without him. That I didn’t need him, and that he’d be better off if he went on with his life as it already was.
My God, I’d been an absolute fool. I hadn’t meant it, but it was far too late to take it back now—and his mother was using it against me. Against him. She was trying to convince him that I didn’t love him the way he loved me, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Because the truth, now that I was actually looking at it straight on, was that I didn’t know how to move forward without him.
I hadn’t been sure before. Yeah, I’d liked him and thought that if we’d been in the same place in life, we could have made something happen together. I’d been quite happy to jump on a plane with him and fly to Kayyem, when the opportunity presented itself.
But I’d never actually thought about what I wanted from him. I’d never thought more than an hour ahead.
I’d definitely never really allowed myself to consider whether we were going to have a future together—and if we were, how it was going to happen.
And now that I’d had him for a full day—or more, depending on how you looked at it, with the time change—and had seen what it would be like to be with him for the rest of my life, I wasn’t sure I could go back. I’d had a glimpse of the promise of a future with him, and now that I had, I didn’t know how to have a future that didn’t include him. It was like I’d seen the shining city on the hill, the oasis, and now the vision was melting away from my view.
I couldn’t let that happen. No matter what I’d said, I didn’t want to do this without him. I didn’t even want to consider it.
And in that moment, I remembered that I wasn’t only the girl who did the best thing I could think of for other people. I wasn’t the girl who gave up on something she wanted just because it might be better for someone else if she didn’t reach out and try to grab it.
Had I ever been that girl? I couldn’t remember ever being her—which begged the question, really, of why she’d suddenly appeared with Mrs. Al-Sharim’s words. Where had that girl come from?
I’d never been that person. I’d always been the girl who went after whatever she wanted, full speed ahead, no second thoughts, no doubts. No lack of confidence. That was the girl I needed to be right now. There was a man standing in front of me who I wanted like I’d never wanted anything in my entire life, and I was about to let him slip right through my fingers.