Queenie blinked and nodded. “I guess.”
“All right,” the man said, snorting once and shaking his head. “What time you get off work?”
“Midnight.”
“OK. I’ll meet you here at midnight. For your first driving lesson. Once I’m convinced you aren’t a danger to yourself or anyone else, the car is yours. Deal?”
Queenie had smiled, looking into his blue eyes and willing herself to trust him, to trust that this was the beginning of her very own love story. “Sure,” she’d said. “It’s a deal.”
He’d made good on the deal after five lessons. Five lessons during which they talked and smiled, flirted and laughed, hands touching as he showed her the gear shift, bodies brushing against one another as she got in and out of the driver’s seat.
Then, on the fifth day, he leaned over and kissed her. She’d kissed him back, and they made love in the backseat of that clean green Chevy. He was gentle and careful, and Queenie drove home alone feeling like she was glowing, like she was a woman, like her past didn’t matter because her future was here, her happily-ever-after had arrived! Who said she was destined to be a whore?! To hell with you, Mama!
But then, two months later, hell arrived at Queenie’s doorstep in the form of a woman with two children in tow.
“Your daughter is a whore!” the woman was screaming when Queenie made it out of her room to see what the commotion was about. “You tell her to find her own man, because this one is taken! You should be ashamed! Both of you should be ashamed! She seduces a married man, gets him to give her cash and even our car! Where is she?! Where’s that slut? Where is she? I want her to see the family she’s ruined. I want her to look my children in the eye and explain to them why their daddy just filed for divorce!”
Queenie burned that green car later that night. She drove it out past city limits, stuffed a rag and some cotton balls into the gas tank, and then watched it burst into beautiful flames as she sat on her haunches and cried. Then after the flames died down she laughed, realizing she now needed to walk like three miles before she could get to a bus-stop.
Mama barely spoke to her again after that. The next time she even brought up the topic was when Mama mentioned that the blue-eyed man had stopped by to see her.
“Wait, what?” Queenie had said. “When?”
“A couple days ago. I told him you were gone,” Mama had replied, barely looking up from doing her nails.
“Gone? I’m right here!”
Mama had looked up then, her face more wrinkled than ever, like she’d aged ten years over the past few months. “When will you learn, Queenie? When will you learn not to make the mistakes I did?”
Queenie had frowned as she wondered what the hell Mama meant. Then she got it. “My father? He was married?”
Mama slowly nodded, focusing on her nails again even though her hands were shaking. “Married. Two kids. House in Anchorage.” She smiled and shook her head. “He said his marriage was over, that he was leaving her, that we’d be a family. He never even set eyes upon you, Queenie.”
Queenie closed her eyes and moved close to her mother. She took the woman’s hands in hers, squeezed gently and smiled. Then she picked up the bottle of nail polish, smiled again, and finished doing Mama’s nails in silence.
“So I was a mistake?” Queenie said softly, just as she got to Mama’s left pinky.
Mama had taken a breath, pulling her hand away and reaching for Queenie’s face. She’d cupped Queenie’s face in her hands and looked her dead on. “Yes, but you were the only mistake I don’t regret.”
Queenie had cried, and they’d hugged, Mama’s blue nail polish getting all over Queenie’s red sweater. She thought to ask about her father, find out his name, where he lived. But then she’d held back, a part of her not wanting to know. Never wanting to know. Why should she give a damn about a man who didn’t give a damn about her, who’d never even bothered to look upon his daughter’s face, who’d lied and cheated and then turned his back on Mama?
“Did he even pay child support?” Queenie asked. “He must have paid child support. Or else he’d be in jail right now.”
Mama had shrugged. “Maybe he is,” she said with a snort. Then she shook her head. “I didn’t want a cent of that man’s money. You were mine, and mine alone. My angel. My pearl. The diamond of my life.”
Queenie had swallowed hard as she looked into her mother’s eyes that day. A part of her respected the pride that burned fiercely in the woman. But another part of her wanted to smack Mama upside the head and point to the peeling paint in their crappy home, the pile of unpaid bills, the stress they’d both gone through over the years. And all for what?! Pride?! Self-respect?! You shoulda sued his sorry ass for everything he had, Queenie wanted to scream. You owed me that! Maybe I wouldn’t have had to postpone college to work at a gas-station! Maybe I would’ve grown up with more self-respect of my own! You traded your own sense of self-worth for mine, you selfish bitch!
The thoughts had come out of nowhere, carrying a rage with them that made Queenie’s hands shake as she forced a smile and said she had to go to the bathroom. She’d stood there in the bathroom, staring at the dripping faucet, pulling out the book of matches that she carried with her like a smoker carried a pack of Marlboros. She absentmindedly began lighting the matches one by one, tossing them into the toilet and smiling at the way they sizzled and died. She thought of her blue-eyed lover, a dark feeling of perverse satisfaction coming over her when she decided that hell, he was leaving his wife for her, wasn’t he? And Queenie wasn’t even pregnant or anything! He wanted Queenie! What was wrong with that? Didn’t a man have the right to choose his mate? How was it Queenie’s business if he’d chosen to leave his wife and kids? People made mistakes. Maybe the wife was a soul-sucking shrew! Maybe the kids were annoying little brats! Maybe her blue-eyed lover was sitting alone in a motel room pining away for her! Whose business was it? Not Mama’s! Not anyone else’s! It was just him and her, wasn’t it?
Queenie had stared at herself in the mirror, a pout making her cheeks look big and round as she began to strike two matches at once, furiously tossing them at the toilet as she ripped through the book. She closed her eyes as she inhaled the pungent scent of sulphur and flame, and it was only when she smelled smoke that she opened her eyes again and gasped in shock.
“Oh, shit!” she screamed, realizing that she’d missed the toilet with the last few matches and now the stack of toilet-paper rolls were a ball of flame! She grabbed a towel and tried to smother the flames, but the towel was a cheap cotton blend that simply caught fire too!
Queenie had stared as the nylon shower curtain got in on the fun, and it was only when she felt the heat on her face that she realized it was time to get out. She looked at the beautiful flames one more time, and then she turned and headed for Mama.
“Mama, where are you?” she’d screamed when she got to the living room and saw nothing but the bottles of nail polish. “Mama!”
Queenie had run to the front door and pulled it open, hoping that Mama had already made her way outside. But there was no one there. Then she turned and glanced at the stairs, a chill coming over her when she realized Mama must have gone upstairs to use the other bathroom!
The flames were already licking their way out past the main-floor bathroom, swallowing up the dry particle-board that pretended to be walls in their shitty little home. She glanced at the phone, knowing she should be calling 911. But the flames would be at the stairs soon, and so Queenie decided that the neighbors would have to call 911 because she needed to get upstairs and get Mama out of there!
But when she got to the second floor, Queenie saw to her dismay that the bathroom door was wide open and there was no one inside! And that’s when it hit her: Mama had been doing laundry earlier, and she must have headed to the basement to move the clothes to the dryer!
Queenie almost went down
the stairs head first, somehow keeping her balance as she got to the basement stairs. She heard her mother scream, and she screamed back as she saw thick black smoke flowing from down below. The fire must have already burned through the thin floor of the bathroom, which meant the basement ceiling was about to collapse!
She coughed as she closed her eyes to the smoke and felt her way down the stairs. The guilt of what she’d done was making her choke worse than the smoke, and Queenie was sobbing when she finally got to Mama and grabbed the woman by the arms, pulling her back up the stairs as fast as she could.
They got out the front door just as the fire trucks pulled up, and Queenie lay back and pulled Mama close as the flames waved at them as if to say goodbye, like something had ended.
And something had ended, because Mama died three days later, alone in a hospital, of an undiagnosed brain aneurysm. Completely unrelated to the smoke inhalation, the doctors had assured Queenie when she arrived at the hospital after getting the call at work. It would have happened anyway.
“Woulda happened anyway,” Queenie said out loud as she pushed away the memory and tried to focus on the matter at hand. Wasn’t “woulda happened anyway” just another term for destiny? Fate? Meant to be? Was there ever gonna be a “meant to be” for her? Was she ever going to be able to get past the guilt, the shame, the shadow of being a mistake, a disappointment, a home-wrecker, a whore, slut, and everything else she’d been called in her life? What was next? Burn this life and keep running? Or make your stand here?
She glanced at her janitor’s overalls sitting neatly folded on the chair beside her bed. She’d been given two sets when she started work at the Wakhrani Group, and when she saw the crumpled set on the floor next to the chair, Queenie sensed that it represented a choice. The choice to face the patterns of her life and take control of them, or burn it all down and run away again. Stay and fight, or turn and hide.
“No more hiding,” she whispered to herself as she reached for the clean set of overalls. “If this is who you are, it’s time to embrace it. If your destiny is to always be attracted to the wrong sort of men, then maybe you just need to face that truth and embrace it. Make your stand here, Queenie. You thought you had a blue-eyed prince once and he turned out to be a frog. Now you’ve got a green-eyed king standing before you, so what’re you gonna do about it?”
Queenie and the king, she thought with a smile, nodding as she felt her resolve strengthen, her confidence soar. Maybe that is my destiny. I’m not settling for some prince. I’m gonna get a goddamn king! After all, Mama named me Queenie, not Princess.
8
CHRISTMAS DAY
It might not be so bad to have a Prince or Princess playing in these empty hallways, Sheikh Bawaar thought as he made his way down the wide sandstone passage toward the West Atrium of Wakhrani’s Royal Palace. Just so long as it is not from that woman’s womb.
“When did these arrive?” the Sheikh barked at the attendant who’d handed him the manila folder with test results apparently validating Renita’s claim that she was carrying his child. Of course, Renita had the ways and means to produce a report that verified she was carrying the lovechild of Hitler and JFK if she wanted, so the results alone were meaningless without the Sheikh’s own tests—meaningless to him, at least. Perhaps they might create some problems in a courtroom. Certainly they would create waves in the press.
Renita had been oddly silent after that outburst at the Christmas party—though the Sheikh had left the United States directly after the party, with no intention of returning until the New Year. He’d given the company the entire week off, which had always been the plan. Good plan, he told himself as he dismissed his attendant and strolled out toward the open atrium, along cobbled sandstone pathways studded with emeralds and rubies, fountains made of polished black Italian marble, teakwood gazebos hand-crafted by artisans from a century ago. He sighed as once again he pictured children running along the pathways, playing in the fountains, carving their names into the old wood of the gazebos. He’d been an only child, even though his father had taken four wives. Certainly he would have been one of many children if his father had lived long enough—the little he remembered of the man made Bawaar think fatherhood was something the old Sheikh took very seriously.
“You will be the old Sheikh soon,” Bawaar said, leaning over the edge of a lotus pool and staring at his reflection in the still water. “And Father did not live long enough to deserve the title of Old Sheikh! Ya Allah, he barely lived long enough to deserve the title of Father!”
Indeed, the “old Sheikh” had died before he was thirty, leaving behind four wives and one infant son. An heir. A prince. The boy with the sole responsibility of carrying on the Royal Line of Wakhrani—a responsibility his four mothers had never let him forget.
They’d arranged the marriage with Renita when Bawaar turned eighteen. By then he’d already been Sheikh for two years—officially, at least. Unofficially he’d been sitting on the throne since he was old enough to climb up there! He’d always loved the throne, loved everything about being Sheikh. He could not wait to impart everything he’d learned to a son or daughter, whoever would sit on the throne after he moved on to the next world.
“Stop with this melancholy and reflection,” Bawaar said, chuckling when he realized he was reflecting while staring at his . . . reflection. “Remember who you are. You are a man. A king. You create your own destiny, take what you want from life, make no apologies, leave no prisoners! You were raised by four women. You got married when you were eighteen. Your entire life you have been controlled by women, and now, when you finally declare your freedom, cast off the shackles Renita slipped around you during those dark years of unfulfillment, you are once again allowing yourself to fall under the control of women!”
The Sheikh spat into the lotus pool, straightening up to full height as the image of Queenie Quinn played at the corners of his mind. He’d thought about her for ten hours straight on his private jet, sipping tea and staring out the window. He’d imagined her curves as he gazed at the swell of the sand dunes on the ride back to the Palace. He’d remembered how she tasted, how she smelled, how she felt up against him as he bathed in the solitude of his private chambers. Was all of that just his mind looking for an escape, searching for the furthest thing from Renita? Or was there something more here?
Ya Allah, the Sheikh thought as he rubbed his stubble. I truly do not know! I was married when I was eighteen! Renita was the first and only woman I ever touched! I never went away to college! I never had harems or whores or high-school crushes! My mothers were even careful about the attendants they assigned to my private chambers, lest I be tempted by some commoner! By God, they did a number on me, did they not?! In a way I have been dormant all my life, my true self never really waking up, the sexual animal inside me never truly getting a chance to stretch its muscles!
So perhaps what I felt with this American woman is not just a release but an awakening, the Sheikh thought as he ran his fingers through his hair and then glanced at his diamond-studded Rolex. It was early in the afternoon in Wakhrani, which meant it was still Christmas morning back in the United States. Children all over America would be waking up to see what Santa had brought them. Did the Sheikh not deserve a Christmas gift as well? Perhaps a woman that he actually wanted? Maybe a child created by two people making wild, free love?
The pieces came together in Bawaar’s mind so fast he almost shouted out loud. Yes! Of course! Why in Allah’s name not?! He was a king, goddamn it! His mothers were no more. His wife had proved herself to be a madwoman. It was time for him to take control of his life, of himself, of his damned needs!
And right now he had just one need.
So he picked up his private line and dialed, glancing at his watch again and smiling when he realized that if they timed it right, he would have his Christmas present delivered before the clock ticked past midnight in Wakhrani.
&n
bsp; 9
It was seven in the morning, and Queenie was still wide awake. She hadn’t slept a wink, and her eyes were burning because she’d barely even blinked, her thoughts were so wild and convoluted. She’d gone back over her entire life, at one point rummaging through the kitchen drawers to find a book of matches. She just wanted to light one and see the flame. But she’d kept the apartment clear of matches and lighters, and although she could have lit the electric stove and set some paper on fire, she’d managed to resist the urge. This was an apartment building with families and kids. She wasn’t a goddamn psycho. She just hated herself, not everyone else!
“Merry Christmas to me,” she whispered as she walked out of the bedroom alcove and stared at the box containing the artificial tree she’d ordered online. The box hadn’t even been opened. She’d barely had time after starting this new job, which was perhaps the most physically demanding thing she’d done in a while. Who knew vacuuming carpets and taking out the trash burned so much energy?
“Well, there’s also being groped by your billionaire boss, breaking his nose, and then running for the goddamn fire exit,” Queenie muttered as she wondered if she’d imagined all of it, if Christmas Eve had never happened. Then she wondered if she could change her past simply by wishing hard enough. In her sleepless, manic state it seemed almost plausible! Close your eyes and imagine what you want, Queenie! What do you want for Christmas?
She got down on her knees and began to open that box with the Christmas tree. The tree was small enough that it came in one piece, and she stood it up, folded down the wire-branches, and gazed at the green plastic needles. She had no ornaments to hang on the bare branches, but that seemed strangely appropriate, given the emptiness of her life.
“What do you want your life to be filled with, Queenie?” she said out loud, closing her eyes as she leaned forward on her knees and held on to the tree like it was a magical artifact that would grant her Christmas wish. “What do you want?”
Mistletoe for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 17) Page 5
