by Holly Rayner
“No,” Jenny said, shaking her head. “No children. We’ve been too busy for that. I do have nieces and nephews, though, and oh my, does Aunt Jenny spoil them. My sister called to tell me to stop sending so many presents. Can you imagine? That’s my job!”
“I guess I can’t argue with that,” Alyssa laughed.
They chatted for a few minutes more, Jenny sharing details of her life growing up in California. Over the woman’s shoulder, Alyssa caught sight of a stout man with heavy jowls walking towards Ali and Samuel. As the man headed their way, several people waved at him, and one man reached out to shake his hand.
“Is that Carl Lawson?” Alyssa asked quietly.
Jenny’s long earrings swung against her shoulders as she turned to look. “Good guess. That’s him, all right.”
“Carl.” Ali stepped forward to shake his hand. “Thanks for having us. What a wonderful party.”
“Thank you for coming,” Carl said, in one of the thickest Texan accents Alyssa had ever heard. “Now don’t tell me that’s your first drink.”
Ali raised the half-empty glass. “I don’t handle it quite as well as I used to.”
Jenny and Alyssa had fallen quiet. They both watched Ali and the Texan talk while Samuel stood nearby.
“Samuel.” Carl Lawson nodded at him and offered his hand for a shake. “Good to see you again.”
“You too, Carl. You’re looking good as ever.”
Carl Lawson barked a laugh. “You’re kissing my rear end, but I sure do appreciate it. Ali, I have your father waiting for us below deck. You joining?”
“Yes,” Ali said with a nod. He looked over at Alyssa, and she gave him an encouraging smile. He took the few steps over to her, anyway.
“You’ll be all right on your own for a while?” he asked, touching her arm.
“Yeah. Of course. I’m talking to Jenny, anyway.”
Ali nodded curtly. “I’ll make this as quick as possible.”
“I’ll see you in a little bit.” Alyssa kissed his cheek, and Ali walked off with Lawson. Another man had struck up a conversation with Samuel, and so Alyssa turned back to Jenny.
“That Mr. Lawson…” Jenny let the unfinished sentence hang there.
“What about him?”
“Oh.” Jenny pursed her lips. “You don’t know anything about him?”
Alyssa shook her head.
“He’s known for being quite aggressive in business,” Jenny said in a low voice. “They call him the Beast of Texas.” She paused. “Oh, but I’m not trying to gossip. I’m sorry. We’re here on his yacht. Maybe that wasn’t—”
“No, it’s fine. You were telling me a fact.”
Jenny smiled and plucked a piece of crostini off a passing waiter’s tray. “The food here is amazing.”
Alyssa looked in the direction of the spread. “I was just thinking about checking that out.”
A phone started ringing, and Jenny pulled her cell out. “It’s my sister.”
“The one you were telling me about?” Alyssa asked.
“Yeah, I should get it. You go get a snack, hon. You probably get to eat whatever you want, you’re so pregnant. That must be the fun part, huh?”
Alyssa laughed, but she didn’t answer. Jenny had already put the phone to her ear and turned away. Alyssa took a sip from her glass but found it empty. Setting it on a bus tray, she made her way to the buffet.
Taking a plate, she surveyed the spread. Lobster. Stuffed figs. Every kind of fruit imaginable, most of it sliced and constructed into elaborate pieces of art. Carl Lawson had really gone all out—assuming he didn’t live like this every day.
“Mrs. bin Talid?” someone asked.
Alyssa turned from the table to see a man about her age with dark hair and brown eyes.
“Yes?” she asked.
He bowed low. “Excuse me for the intrusion,” he said in a Baqari accent, “but I thought that was you. I recognized you from pictures.”
“It’s me,” Alyssa said with a smile. She probably needed to add more, but she wasn’t sure what else to say. Sometimes people recognized her, even in New York, thanks to all the publicity from back when she was pregnant, but Ali was the real celebrity, not her. Alyssa never quite knew how to react when people she’d never met before approached her.
“Are you enjoying the party?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. Definitely. You?”
He gave a short nod and laced his hands behind his back. He was a slight man, a few inches taller than Alyssa, and there was almost a military-like control to all of his gestures.
“It is a wonderful yacht,” he said. “One of extraordinary power.”
“It’s beautiful,” Alyssa said. “I don’t know much about boats, though. Yachts,” she corrected.
His lips lifted up in the slightest hint of a smile. “I do hope I’m not disturbing you. If so, I apologize. I should have inquired first to see if you were open to conversation.”
“I’m open,” Alyssa said. “It’s a party. But you don’t mind if I make myself a plate while we talk, do you?”
“No, no. Not at all.” He gestured at the table.
Alyssa moved down the length of the table, helping herself to some fruit and crackers. “How do you know Mr. Lawson?”
“I don’t, really. I would be lucky to become familiar with him.”
Alyssa looked at him out of the corner of her eye, and there must have been confusion in her face, because he hurried to continue.
“I am the assistant to a man who knows Mr. Lawson. Unfortunately, my boss could not be here today. He was kind enough to send me in his place.”
“Ah. That’s nice.” Alyssa finished selecting her snacks and took a cloth napkin from the display of perfectly-folded ones. She moved over to the side, closer to the railing, and the man followed.
“Do you know my husband, as well?” Alyssa asked.
The man didn’t answer at first, and Alyssa looked over at him as she bit into a chunk of cantaloupe. A dark look crossed his face. Alyssa paused in chewing. Was she imagining that?
But…no. The man’s eyebrows knitted, and his nostrils flared. “We have had…short interactions.”
It felt like a screw tightened in Alyssa’s chest. Why did the man sound so disturbed?
“My employer is more familiar with him,” the man said.
“And you’re his assistant,” Alyssa clarified.
“Correct.” His eyes surveyed the deck for a long moment. Alyssa got the sense he was working on what to say next, and so she stayed quiet and waited. “Mrs. bin Talid, I do not wish to ruin your enjoyment of this party.”
Alyssa’s mouth went dry, and the food that had only a minute ago looked so good now seemed completely unappetizing. “That’s…okay.”
“My employer is a…rival…of your husband’s.” He nodded. “Yes. Rival is the best way to put it.”
“Okay,” Alyssa said slowly.
The man’s jaw ticked.
Alyssa took a deep breath and set her plate down on a nearby cocktail table. Her feet were beginning to ache and this man was starting to annoy her. If he had something he wanted to tell her, he needed to come right out and say it. It was too hot and she was too pregnant for this nonsense.
“Sir,” Alyssa said. She paused. “Is there more you want to tell me? Who is your boss?”
“I do not think you would recognize his name,” the man said, “not being of the Baqari business world. He is no longer in the same position he used to be, thanks to your husband’s…business practices.”
He said “business practices” like they were curse words.
Alyssa rested her hands on her belly and looked straight at the man. The twins weren’t moving around, so that meant they were sleeping. She wondered if they would wake up, were her blood pressure to rise.
“What kind of business practices are you talking about?” Alyssa asked.
His eyes latched onto hers. “Your husband’s family’s business is quite a large one. It spans
the globe.”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded.
“What it took to build that up…the means through which he did it…” He looked away. “Again, Mrs. bin Talid—”
“If you have something to tell me, please just spit it out.” Alyssa’s breathing quickened. She was starting to lose her patience.
His face made a sharp turn back toward hers. “Are you aware of how many small, family-owned businesses your husband has destroyed in order to build his own?”
“I…” Alyssa shut her mouth. What was she supposed to say to that? Ali had only recently started taking a more involved role in the family business. Then again, he had been in and out of it since he’d finished college. That was the whole reason his father had allowed him to stay in New York—he was supposed to be overseeing the businesses there. According to Ali, though, New York hadn’t been the only place he’d worked for his father. He had also had stints running operations in Baqar and other parts of the United States.
“I will give you an example, Mrs. bin Talid, and please stop me if this upsets you. I see you are in a fragile state, and I do not wish to cause you stress.”
“No stress here,” Alyssa said through gritted teeth.
“I know of a family that owned a small group of medical practices, here in Baqar. Your husband attempted to buy them up, and when the family refused, he lobbied to have a law enacted that required them, along with many other practices, to update all of their equipment. The family could not afford to make the necessary changes, and the clinics were forced to close. At this point, your husband made his offer again. And how could the family refuse? He’d lobbied them out of business.”
Alyssa licked her lips, and she found her eyes searching the deck. Ali still hadn’t returned from his conversation with Mr. Lawson, and Jenny was nowhere to be seen.
“That is only one story of several I have,” the man said. He bowed his head and looked at the deck. “If I have disturbed you, I am sorry.”
Alyssa seriously doubted that was the truth.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“It was not my initial intention when I approached you.”
Again, Alyssa thought he had to be lying. Why strike up a conversation with her at all, if not to gossip? So far, the man hadn’t done anything but that.
She wanted to tell the man to go away, to call him on his bluff. But her curiosity was too strong.
“What are these other stories you mentioned?” Alyssa hated herself for asking, but she was too far into the conversation now.
“The same, essentially. Small businesses being forced to fold. Competitors being destroyed before they had a chance. Surely, you know that the bin Talid family runs a monopoly in Baqar. Not just in oil, but in other industries, as well.”
A monopoly. Alyssa had never put that word to it, but she couldn’t deny the truth. Ali and his relatives were very powerful, and not just due to being royalty.
On the other side of the deck, Alyssa caught sight of Jenny. She’d put her phone away and was talking to a statuesque woman with a handbag-sized dog.
“I need to go,” Alyssa said, not looking the man in the eye. “My doctor probably wouldn’t want me out much longer, and I should really be getting home.”
She didn’t wait for him to answer. Stepping around him, she walked away as fast as her belly allowed. No matter how swiftly she walked, though, she couldn’t keep the mysterious man’s words from following her.
Chapter 6
Alyssa
Alyssa wound her way through the crowd, though she didn’t really know where she was headed. Ali probably wasn’t done with his meeting yet, and Jenny had moved on to talking with someone else.
Alyssa’s vision blurred, and she clutched her belly. The glaring sun made sweat slide down the back of her neck and under her dress. She’d felt so beautiful getting ready that morning, slipping into the flowy dress and taking her time doing her makeup. Now, her eyeshadow was melting off, her feet were swollen, and her husband was a cutthroat business man.
Nausea rolled through her, and she went over to speak to a waiter. “Where’s the bathroom?” she asked, voice shaking.
“Right this way, ma’am,” he said, gesturing at a covered walkway alongside the deck. “I can show you.”
“I got it, thanks,” she mumbled.
The bathroom was halfway down the walkway, and Alyssa pushed the door open and collapsed into an upholstered chair. She took deep breath after deep breath, doing her best to get a hold of herself.
She sat in the powder room of the bathroom, with the toilet and sink through a little doorway. A large mirror hung above an antique desk, upon which was a vase of pink and yellow roses. The air smelled of lavender. Alyssa closed her eyes and inhaled the floral scent.
Stop freaking out.
Alyssa opened her eyes and studied herself in the mirror. Her face gleamed with a thin layer of moisture, but her makeup hadn’t melted away like she’d feared. Her pupils were big and scared, though.
Why had the man’s stories upset her so much? They couldn’t be true, could they? Ali wouldn’t hurt people like that, taking business right out of hardworking families’ hands. Sure, Alyssa knew he could be pretty extreme when it came to work. A shark, she’d heard him referred to as before.
But would he knowingly take away people’s livelihoods?
Alyssa stood. Sitting around wondering and fretting about it would do no good. She needed to ask Ali herself.
On the deck, Jenny approached, her eyebrows raised. “There you are. I was worried you might have left.”
Alyssa forced a smile. She hoped Jenny couldn’t tell how disturbed she was. “Oh, no. I was just chatting. And I just went to the bathroom.”
“Of course. I bet those twins have you running in there every fifteen minutes.”
“Exactly,” Alyssa said.
“Did you meet anyone of interest?” Jenny asked.
“Actually…do you know…” Alyssa looked around the deck. The man she had spoken to was nowhere to be found.
“Do I know who?” Jenny asked.
Alyssa’s shoulders drooped. She’d failed to get the man’s name. “Never mind.”
“Here comes Ali,” Jenny said.
Alyssa turned to look in the direction Jenny nodded. Ali’s gaze was locked on Alyssa, and she couldn’t help but notice he had no trouble making his way through the crowd. It basically parted for him, people taking note of his approach and then stepping out of his way.
Was that because he was a sheikh? Or was it because he was ruthless and they all knew it and were afraid? Alyssa clocked the faces of the strangers, looking for an answer, but found none.
Ali stopped in front of them, and a smile spread across his face. “How are you two getting along?” he asked.
“I’m afraid I’ve been bad,” Jenny said. “I stepped away to take a call and left your beautiful wife on her own.”
“I was fine,” Alyssa said. She swallowed. Man, her voice was so stilted. “Where’s Fakhir?”
“He will be out shortly.” Ali still smiled. “Did you get anything to eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Jenny spoke up. “How was your super-secret meeting, Ali?”
“Good.” He winked. “Wonderful, in fact. It appears the deal will be going through.”
Jenny clapped her hands. “That’s great!”
A rock formed in Alyssa’s gut, and it wasn’t one of the babies elbowing her. What had Ali needed to do in order to secure the deal?
Ali placed his hand against the small of her back, his favorite place to touch her, and she looked away. The party, which she had hoped would get her mind off of life’s anxieties, had only exacerbated them. All she wanted was to go home and get everything settled.
“Are you feeling all right?” Ali asked in a low voice.
She turned to look up at him. “It’s hot. I’m tired.”
He nodded. “We’ll leave immediately. Why don’t you go wai
t in the shade while I call the pilot?”
Alyssa did as he suggested and took a seat in some shade at the edge of the deck. Jenny’s husband had come back as well, and though they sat down with Alyssa, they soon became engaged in a conversation with another couple about transportation infrastructure in Baqar. Alyssa zoned out and watched the other people around her.
Not far away, Fakhir and Ali shook hands with Carl Lawson. Ali beamed, and Fakhir and Mr. Lawson looked equally happy.
Mr. Lawson doesn’t look like he just got screwed over. Maybe that guy was lying.
Except, why would he do that? He didn’t even know her. Alyssa supposed he could have some sort of vendetta against the royal family. But, again…why target her?
Alyssa stood as her husband and father-in-law approached. After saying goodbye to Jenny and Samuel, they walked to the opposite end of the yacht. The helicopter arrived at the same time, and Alyssa had to keep her hands pressed against her dress to keep it from flying up. One of the crew members from before helped them into the helicopter, and off they went.
This time, Alyssa didn’t press her nose to the window to watch the yacht disappear or the waves sparkle in the afternoon light. Instead, she watched Ali, who sat next to her. Like his father, he was busy tapping away on his phone.
She couldn’t take it any longer. Not even a five-minute ride back to the parking lot, where they’d left their cars on the mainland.
“Ali,” Alyssa scooted closer to him.
He looked up. “Yes?”
Alyssa glanced at Fakhir. He was still absorbed in something on his phone. In order to fully explain the whole story, though, Alyssa would have to shout. He would certainly hear her. It had been silly to try to say anything.
“Never mind.”
She was quiet the rest of the ride to the parking lot, and from what she could tell, Ali didn’t seem to notice she was disturbed. In the parking lot near the docks, Fakhir said goodbye and climbed into his chauffeured car.
Ali swung the keys for his sports car around his finger, a whistled tune slipping from his lips as he strode across the parking spaces. Alyssa followed at a slower pace, something winding up tighter in her with each step. It almost felt like labor—except, since she’d been in labor before, she knew that’s not what it was.
