The Sheikh's Must-Have Baby

by Holly Rayner

  “How silly of me.”

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Come on,” he said. “You’ve never gotten the full tour. I bet this time, we make it all the way up to the master bedroom.”

  “Mmm, don’t count on that,” she said, leaning into him, allowing herself to enjoy his warm presence.

  They reached the house. Ahmad took Khalid from Joanna and handed him gently to one of the maids.

  “Could you put him to bed, please?” he asked, his eyes not leaving Joanna.

  “I should do it,” Joanna protested. “He’s my son. And he’s never been put to bed by anyone other than us.”

  “He’ll be all right,” Ahmad said. “You’re a wonderful mother, Joanna. Better than any I’ve ever known. But it’s okay for you to take a night off. It’s okay to let the staff handle things for you tonight.”

  She sighed. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “It’s just hard to have him out of my sight.”

  “Well, come on up to the bedroom,” Ahmad suggested. “I’ll show you something that will take your mind off of things.”

  She swatted him gently, but turned and followed him up the narrow flight of stairs that led to the second floor of the house.

  She had never been up here before, and she had expected things to be more confined and less spacious than they were downstairs, but she was pleasantly surprised. The landing was a massive open area, almost as big as the living room below it. It was a perfect square, and on every side, a door was positioned, leading to one of the upstairs rooms.

  Ahmad led her toward one of these.

  “The master bedroom,” he said grandly.

  Joanna made a sound like a trumpet fanfare and giggled.

  He opened the door and ushered her in.

  It was three times as big as her apartment back in Pleasant Hill, with French doors leading to a balcony that overlooked the beach. The bed, a giant king with a crisp white comforter, sat in the middle of the room.

  Ahmad scooped her up and laid her gently onto the bed.

  “Tonight should have been the first time we did this,” he said, leaning over and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

  She shook her head. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that it isn’t,” she said. “I wouldn’t change a thing about how we got to this point, Ahmad.”

  “Neither would I,” he agreed. “Not one thing.”

  He dimmed the lights and opened the balcony doors, allowing a salty breeze to blow into the room. Joanna closed her eyes as he came to her and joined her on the bed.

  “We have all night,” he said softly, his fingers eagerly tracing her skin. “All day tomorrow, too, if that’s what you want. We have as long as we want for this.”

  “We have the rest of our lives,” Joanna said softly, tracing the band of her new engagement ring with the pad of her thumb. “You have me forever.”

  He bent to her and planted a line of kisses along her collarbone, and she arched her back against the mattress and lost herself in his touch.

  Epilogue

  Eighteen Months Later: Joanna

  The door slammed shut. “Hello?” Ahmad’s voice called out.

  “Papa!” Khalid jumped to his feet and went running out into the foyer.

  From her seat in front of her vanity mirror, Joanna heard father and son greet each other. She smiled as Khalid squealed in delight, knowing that his father had just picked him up and zoomed him through the air, playing airplane.

  Ahmad entered the bedroom with Khalid tucked up under his arm like a kicking, squirming football.

  “I found this in the hallway,” he said with a laugh. “Does it belong to you?”

  “Yes, and it’s very fragile,” Joanna said, smiling. “Don’t manhandle it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Ahmad said. “Looks pretty hardy to me. Maybe I should try… tickling?”

  Khalid squealed happily as his father plopped him gently onto the bed and tickled his stomach.

  “Can you get him ready?” Joanna asked. “I thought I was going to have time to do it, but I spent too much time on my hair.”

  “Well, it looks lovely, so I can’t complain.” Ahmad leaned over and kissed her cheek.

  Then, he scooped up Khalid again. “Come on, kid,” he said. “Let’s leave your mother to beautify herself.”

  “Where, papa?” their son asked.

  “To put your suit on,” Ahmad told him.

  “No!”

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  Joanna closed her eyes, relaxing as their voices drifted back to her from down the hall. It was a wonderful thing to have a co-parent she could so fully trust. Being married to Ahmad had brought home to her how difficult it would have been to raise Khalid on her own. She would have managed it, she knew. She would have done anything, moved heaven and earth, for her son. But it was much nicer to be part of a team.

  She put the finishing touches on her makeup, stood, and went to her wardrobe. Her gown for the evening was hanging on the door. She had chosen a navy blue floor-length one with tiny diamonds decorating the bodice. The fabric was so dark at the neckline that it was almost black, but it lightened gradually as it cascaded to the floor. Joanna thought it looked like a blue sunrise.

  She stepped into it and zipped it up. Even though she had been part of the royal family for a year now, she still hadn’t gotten over the feeling of having clothes that were tailored to fit her. There was never any struggling to close a zipper. There were never any strange gaps or bulges. The dress fit her like a second skin. It was perfect.

  She would have liked to take a moment to admire herself in the mirror, but at that moment, Ahmad called out her name.

  “We’re ready!”

  She stepped into her shoes, strappy with low heels and a perfect match for the dress. They looked as if they had been made to go with it. She reached up and patted her hair quickly to make sure the elaborate style was still in place, and then she hurried to meet her husband and son.

  They were waiting for her in Khalid’s playroom, looking out of place in their fancy dinner attire. Ahmad’s eyes lit up when he saw her.

  “Look at you!” he exclaimed. “Khalid, look at Mama.”

  “Pretty,” the boy said solemnly.

  He was verbal for eighteen months and delighted his parents by remarking on everything he encountered. Now, Joanna bent and kissed the top of his head, then lifted him up in her arms.

  “The car is waiting outside,” Ahmad said. “Do you want me to carry him?”

  “No, I’ve got him.”

  They made their way out to the car turnaround and got into the luxury vehicle that awaited them. As it pulled away, Joanna looked up at her house.

  They had moved here about a month after the wedding, leaving behind the downtown penthouse. Ahmad had said that it would be better for Khalid to grow up outside the city, somewhere he could feel free to run around and play outside, and Joanna agreed. She had worried about that more than once, but she hadn’t known whether or not it would be okay for a member of the royal family to live outside of the Sepha city limits.

  Apparently, and thankfully, it was.

  The restaurant they were going to tonight was one she had discovered. It was brand-new, newer to Al-Yara than Joanna herself was, and she liked the fact that she had found something here that Ahmad hadn’t found first. He teased her about it, telling her that she might have found it but that it wasn’t as good as the places he liked, but Joanna knew how he really felt. He loved the place just as much as she did.

  If he hadn’t, he would never have agreed to come here for their anniversary dinner.

  They were escorted to their usual table, one of only ten on the second floor of the restaurant. Tonight, all the other tables were occupied, which was usual—this was a very popular place. Joanna looked around, taking note of who else was here. There was a famous Italian model, and one of the Governors of Al-Yara. The people who ate on this floor were well-known and important.

  Joanna
couldn’t help enjoying the fact that she was one of them, that she belonged among this company now.

  A high chair was brought for Khalid. Joanna seated him carefully and pulled a baggie of cereal out of her purse. It amused her that even though they were dining at a high-class restaurant, she was distracting her child with the same things mothers back in Missouri gave their kids at fast food places.

  Her world had changed dramatically, but some things never would.

  Ahmad ordered a bottle of wine, waited while it was poured, and then raised his glass to her.

  “Happy anniversary,” he said. “One year.”

  “The paper anniversary,” she said with a smile. “Not that your gift is made of paper.”

  “What’s my gift?”

  “You’ll get it later.”

  It was a fire pit, which she’d had installed in the backyard while he was out of the house. She touched the diamond necklace he had given her that morning and hoped he would love his present as much as she had loved hers.

  “I did bring plenty of paper, though,” Ahmad said, placing a folder on the table. “If you don’t mind a little business talk over dinner?”

  “Not at all.”

  In truth, it excited her. She knew some people might not have seen it as romantic to discuss business at their anniversary dinner. But for Joanna and Ahmad, creating things together had always been at the heart of their romance, and now, she was eager to take the next step in their first joint business venture.

  “I had your logo design painted on the fleet,” he said. “Take a look.”

  Joanna opened the folder. At the front of the sheaf of papers inside was a glossy photograph showing all of Ahmad’s planes rolled out onto the tarmac. And there was her logo, the flying wing in a circle that she had sketched on a cocktail napkin months ago. It was surreal to see it painted on the side of a jet like that.

  “It looks amazing,” she said.

  He nodded. “I hoped it would be ready when we were set to take the first flights,” he said.

  “When will that be?” Joanna asked. “Do we know yet?”

  “We still have a lot of hiring to do,” Ahmad said. “We’ve got our pilots, but we need almost all the support staff. I really want you to meet with the people who apply for positions as flight attendants.”

  “Me?” Joanna wasn’t going to be working for the airline directly. She was a consultant, nothing more. “Why do you want me to meet with them?”

  “Because of your experience as a flight attendant,” he explained. “I want to make sure that the people on our staff are absolutely top-of-the-line. And you’ll know what kinds of questions to ask them in the interview to make sure I get the quality I want.”

  Joanna was flattered.

  “I’ll make sure you get good quality,” she promised. “You can count on me.”

  “I know I can,” he said with a smile. “Now, pull out that pamphlet in the back, there.”

  She pulled it out. Flight Attendant Outfitters was printed across the top, and she could see pictures of men and women in various uniforms. She flipped through it, surveying the pictures.

  “Obviously, we’d put them in our colors,” Ahmad said. “But what do you think? Can you help me choose a uniform from this catalog?”

  “I can absolutely advise,” she said. She pointed to a woman in a pencil skirt that hung to the knees. “This right here is no good, for example.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Ahmad asked her. “She looks good.”

  “She looks fine. But she won’t be able to move around. Flight attendants have to be able to bend over to get things out of drawers and low compartments. I think you should put them all in pants. They’ll be much more comfortable, and more able to move around.”

  “I don’t want them to look frumpy,” he said frowning.

  “So you put them in flattering pants,” she said with a laugh. “You’re a member of the royal family, Ahmad. All of your pants are custom-sewn to flatter you. You can do the same thing for your flight attendants, if you really want to.”

  “Would that be a good idea?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” she said. “They’d be able to have outfits that were actually cute, and they’d be comfortable, as well. And I’m sure you can imagine that an employee who’s comfortable gives the best service. Which reminds me, don’t put your female flight attendants in high heels.”

  “No?”

  “It looks classy, but they’ll have to be on their feet for hours at a time. That hurts. And they might actually end up damaging their feet permanently that way. Not to mention, it’s a sexist policy.”

  “I’m so lucky I have you,” he said, smiling. “I don’t know what I would do without you here to point these things out to me.”

  “You’d have unhappy flight attendants, most likely,” she said. “And they’d take their pain out on your passengers. The happier the crew is, the better the experience will be for everyone who flies with you.”

  “We need to choose colors,” Ahmad said. He pulled out a few different paint chips he had stapled together. “Which of these do you like best?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” She mulled over them for a moment. “The blue and orange looks nice. Which would be the primary color?”

  “The blue. The orange would be for accents. We don’t want to blind people.”

  She nodded.

  Khalid reached out for the paint chips, and Ahmad handed them to him.

  “Which one do you like best?” he asked.

  “This one!” Khalid held the orange one up and waved it around.

  Joanna smiled. Their boy was full of opinions. She knew he didn’t actually have a preference when it came to the color samples, nor did he know what the conversation was about. He just wanted to be a part of things, and Joanna couldn’t blame him for that.

  Their food arrived shortly after. It was an elaborate seafood sampler platter. Even after a year living in a coastal region, Joanna found there were still seafood dishes she hadn’t yet explored, and she had yet to find one she didn’t like. She and Ahmad ate at a leisurely pace, talking about marketing ideas for the airline, ways to get the word out to the high-class public about their new travel option.

  From time to time, Joanna transferred a bit of food onto Khalid’s plate alongside the bowl of plain buttered noodles they’d ordered for him. Although he was young, he had a curious palate and was always interested in trying the things his parents were eating. She knew from prior experience that he enjoyed mussels on the half shell, and passed him one, laughing as he slurped it down without a shred of dignity.

  “We’re really going to have to work on his table manners,” she said.

  “Another time,” Ahmad said, laughing. “He’s young. Let him be a kid.”

  Joanna nodded. She knew that her husband had never really gotten to enjoy his youth, free from the pressures of belonging to the royal family. One of the many things that she and Ahmad had agreed on was that Khalid would never be forced to grow up too fast. He would have a childhood.

  After they finished eating, Ahmad dismissed the car. They were only a mile from home, and it would be nice to walk. Joanna laughed as she watched the vehicle drive away.

  “What’s funny?” Ahmad asked, scooping Khalid into his arms.

  “It’s just that, back home, I would never have thought of walking a mile through a city in a gown like this,” she said. “I would have been nervous even to wear it. I never owned anything so fancy before. But now… well, things are different.”

  “Because you can have as many gowns as you want?” he suggested.

  “Well, that’s true,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I think it’s okay to waste what I have, or to be careless. It’s more that it just doesn’t seem to matter if my dress gets a little frayed around the hem. For the first time in my life, I feel like I have people around me who see me for exactly what I am, and I don’t have to worry about the impression I’m giving.”

&nb
sp; “I feel the same way,” Ahmad said.

  “It’s strange to think that I never had money for things like clothes and jewelry before,” she said. “And now that I can afford them, I no longer feel any great need for them. They’re just for pleasure.”

  “Then I hope my gift to you brings you many years of pleasure,” he said, touching her necklace gently.

  “Every moment with you is pleasurable,” she assured him.

  “I think Khalid’s asleep,” he said.

  “Don’t wake him,” Joanna said, reaching out and taking Ahmad’s hand. “He’s had a busy day.”

  Hand in hand, they walked home under the light of the moon.

  The End

  I hope you’ve enjoyed Joanna and Ahmed’s story! Subscribe to my mailing list and get news, freebies and more!

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