Hilda took a breath as she glanced towards where Sabbath was sitting, over on the shelf near the back of the store, coolly surveying the scene in his who-gives-a-shit way, those green eyes of his wide and unwavering.
“You gonna be all right, my little monster?” she said, walking over and reaching for Sabbath, lifting him gently off the shelf and holding him at eye level. “Oh, shit!” she cried out when she looked into the cat’s eyes, shock ripping through her when she saw that Sabbath’s green eyes were somehow, someway, for some reason . . . not green anymore!
A chill crept through her as she looked at her cat, and she cocked her head as she wondered if it was just the weird light in the room that was making Sabbath’s eyes look red and not green. What. The. Hell. It was most certainly Sabbath and not some imposter cat—she knew that for sure. But those eyes . . . how? How?!
Hilda carefully placed Sabbath on the paisley patterned rug, watching him slowly walk towards his litter box in the back. Yes, it was most certainly her cat. She was just seeing things. Maybe it was the hormones. Maybe it was being sober. Or maybe it was because this was a dream too now.
She turned as the front door opened again, and as the warm outside air rushed in, Hilda felt that weird sensation again, like it wasn’t just the air swirling around, like it was time itself, space itself, reality itself twisting and turning, spinning and swaying.
The woman who’d walked in was tall, with dark red hair open and long, sharp features and narrow eyes, a pronounced jawline that matched her lean, almost muscular body. She looked athletic and strong, with boyish hips in tight black jeans, a loose gray shirt with a black tank top underneath. Was this Professor Norm’s wife? Whoa!
“Hey!” said Norm, blinking as he looked over at the woman. “That was quick. Di, this is Hilda. Hilda, my wife Di—”
“Nice to meet you,” Di said without a smile or a handshake. Her voice was friendly though, and Hilda smiled. “I love your cat. I’d have ten of them, but Norman’s allergic so we only have three.”
Hilda glanced at Norman, seeing a flash of annoyance show itself on his soft face before he relaxed and shrugged. Was she kidding or . . .
“Let’s go. I’m hungry,” said Di, flexing her long, tight arms like she’d just worked out or something. “And thirsty. God, it’s hot today! Come on. Chop chop, people.”
“Hold on,” Norm said slowly, looking over at Hilda, eyes almost apologetic. “Hilda hasn’t said she’s available right now. She might have appointments, and so—”
“Do you?” said Di sharply, eyebrows raised as she glanced over at Hilda, who was uncharacteristically quiet as she tried to shake that trancelike feeling of being in a dream where her green-eyed cat suddenly had red eyes and not green eyes.
She opened her mouth to answer, but was forced to look towards the door. It was opening again, someone else walking in as that surreal feeling got stronger. Hilda frowned and stared, wondering if that door was a portal through time as she looked into his green eyes.
Wait, what? Whose green eyes? What the hell was happening?
“How is business, Ms. Hilda Hogarth,” he said in that booming, resonant, accented voice as he walked into the store through that magical doorway.
Hilda’s mouth stayed open as she stared at the tall, handsome, Middle-Eastern man who stood there in the doorway, surrounded by light, like perhaps he’d been beamed down from that spaceship just to make sure she knew that she was one hundred percent crazy. Loco. Mas loco.
Please see him too, she thought desperately as she glanced at Norm and Di. Oh, please tell me you see him too!
“Sorry, we’re closed for lunch,” Di said turning to the man and then pausing when she saw him full, her eyes going wide for a moment, her body stiffening as she quickly touched her hair and stuck out her tight butt and smiled so wide Hilda would have puked if she hadn’t been so damned relieved that she wasn’t bat-shit crazy.
The man looked into Di’s eyes, a confident half-smile breaking on his face. “It is funny,” he said to her. “I was about to tell you the same thing, because I have a lunch appointment with Ms. Hogarth.” He looked over at Hilda, that half-smile turning to full when he looked into her brown eyes, everything about him so real and so surreal, so familiar and so foreign, so clear and yet so damned impossible.
“What?” she muttered as she blinked and took a step back, still not sure she was seeing right, not sure if she was hearing right, not sure if she was right.
“Why don’t we all go to lunch?” Hilda heard Di say in a voice that was way too sweet to stomach. “Then you can have your appointment with Ms. Hogarth in the afternoon. Come on. I just got tenure and I’m celebrating. It’s not too early for champagne, is it? Oh, look at that! High noon! Come on, people. Chop chop!”
“I do not drink alcohol,” said the man firmly, keeping his eyes on Hilda. “And I have a very full schedule the rest of the day. I do not have time to—Ya Allah, are you all right, Ms. Hogarth?!”
“Stay back. I got this,” said Di from behind her as Hilda felt her world spinning around and around, the walls closing in so fast she couldn’t even think about getting to the bathroom before the morning sickness rose up as if to remind her that yes, she was still crazy. Still crazy, and still pregnant.
“I’m OK!” she muttered, shaking her head and straightening up again as she held on and forced an embarrassed smile. “I’m OK. Thank you.” She raised her arms and placed her hands on her head, pulling her brown hair back straight until she could feel it pull at the roots, a wonderfully clarifying pain radiating across her scalp. She gulped down several deep breaths as she surveyed the room, the professor and his wife, the Middle-Eastern stranger, even Sabbath the little monster. The room felt remarkably still, like everything had stopped and was waiting for her to make a decision.
“You know what,” she said, pulling her hair back tight and then letting go so her thick brown tresses opened up full and wild. “Screw it. Let’s eat.”
15
“I do not want to eat. Thank you,” the Sheikh had said on the flight back to the United States the previous night, not even looking at the tray of freshly prepared hummus, organic almonds, cold-pressed virgin olive oil, and soft, fluffy pita bread that his personal attendant had placed before him. “More tea, and then you are relieved from duty until arrival.”
The white-clad attendant had bowed and taken the tray away, returning minutes later with a silver teapot from which he poured the hot sweet tea that the Sheikh had relished since he was first allowed to taste the strong brew as a child.
Rahaan sipped his tea and watched the clouds slowly move by as the silver jet cut through the sky. They had been flying for almost eight hours. Alim was asleep, as were most of the attendants. But the Sheikh could not sleep. And the Sheikh could not eat. That meeting with Yusuf Iqbal had awoken something in him—something that took Rahaan back to the tragedy of his father and the queens, to the accidental explosion that ended the lives of almost thirty people, irrevocably changing the lives of so many others along with it. Everyone had looked for someone to blame at the time. Indeed, Yusuf Iqbal’s father’s name had come up several times—after all, Yezid Mohammed Iqbal had been the Lead Engineer on the project.
But even as a grief-stricken teenager wielding supreme power, Rahaan had decided not to place blame on anyone. Certainly there had been a lengthy investigation by the Royal Engineers of Kolah, and an independent Saudi engineering firm had been hired as consultants as well. But although foul play was more-or-less ruled out, the specific cause of the explosion could not be ascertained. And so the young Rahaan, still racked with the guilt of that dream the night before the explosion, had simply blamed himself.
“To say nothing and do nothing is also a decision,” Rahaan said aloud, looking towards the window through the rising steam of his tea. He stared into the empty space of the open skies, his thoughts drifting like the c
louds. “And just because something cannot be explained does not mean it does not exist,” he said. “After all, for centuries people could not explain how birds can fly. But no one could deny that birds do fly! Eventually we discovered the science of aeronautics, and now a ninth-grade science student can clearly explain the physics of flying, from how a sparrow flies to its nest to a how a Boeing 747 traverses the globe.” He drank his tea and poured another cup, nodding and clenching his fist as he felt himself come to a decision. “And so perhaps someday science will explain why as a boy I saw an event that had not occurred yet—and that too in a dream. Certainly history is full of anecdotes of people seeing snippets of the future, either in dreams or in waking trances. Shamans under the influence of hallucinogens see visions. Monks in the silence of mediation see the birth of the universe. Priests in the rapture of their faith witness the glory of God. None of it can be explained, but it is hard to argue that it does not exist. With so many stories through the ages . . . Ya Allah, not all those stories can be lies! Not all those people can be insane or delusional!”
I ignored one dream long ago, and people died. So I cannot ignore the dream from two months ago, he had told himself as the plane flew through a cloud, the white swallowing up the deep blue of sky. I cannot ignore that the dream felt vivid and real, like no other dream except the one of the explosion, when I did nothing, I said nothing, I believed nothing: when thirty people died. This dream did not seem to foretell any tragedy, and it is not clear if it foretells anything except a passing lust. Either way, what is the harm in following up? What is the worst that can happen?
No, Rahaan, he told himself as he smiled at the thought of that curvy con-artist, that feisty fortune-teller, that gorgeous gypsy of the south. That is not the question to ask. That is not your way. You do not ask, “What is the worst that can happen.” You ask “What is the best that can happen!”
And just as his smile broke, the plane shot through the other side of the cloud, and the Sheikh almost shouted in delight as the blue of sky and the gold of sun burst through the window as if something out there was agreeing with him, as if everything out there was agreeing with him.
But how to walk back into this woman’s life after two months, thought the Sheikh as he heard the cabin door behind him open, which meant his brother Alim had awoken. I cannot simply show up at this woman’s store again, two months after that brief meeting that she may not even remember! Do I walk in and ask her out to lunch? She will think I am mad! Yes, there was an attraction I felt in the air when we met, but bloody hell, that was two months ago! We are a bit past the stage where “strike while the iron is hot” applies, yes?
Then make the iron hot again, the Sheikh told himself. Engineer a situation where this woman and you are forced to spend some time together so we can see if there is indeed something here or whether that vision was just a schoolboy’s wet dream that should be laughed at and forgotten. Some kind of a trial period with this woman to see if the attraction returns. That would be perfect, yes?
He thought of the company he’d just taken over in Albuquerque. He’d already put new management in place and the company seemed to be on the road to recovery. Rahaan was a dealmaker, not a day-to-day manager, but certainly he could find a way to involve himself in the company, creating a reason for him to be in Albuquerque. He was the goddamn owner, yes?
But that is business and this is something else, he thought as he watched Alim stretch and clap his hands to summon his attendants, one of whom would massage his feet while the other would scroll through the list of movies on the big screen until Alim picked one.
Slightly annoyed at being distracted from his thoughts, Rahaan frowned as he watched his younger brother sigh and grunt and stare blankly at the big screen. Alim was no longer a child, Rahaan thought as he wondered when his brother would step up and find some worthwhile pursuit to occupy his mind.
“The mind atrophies just like the body if it is not exercised every day,” Rahaan said out loud, pushing away those thoughts of Hilda Hogarth and prophetic dreams and instead focusing on his brother. “You spend all your time staring at screens like a zombie, eating unhealthy food. When was the last time you read a book that did not have pictures in it? When was the last time you visited a gymnasium? You are blessed with a sharp mind and a naturally healthy body, but soon enough your youth will no longer mask the evidence of your degeneracy.”
Alim glanced up at his brother, eyebrows raised. “Ya Allah, brother! I have only just awoken and you greet me by called me a degenerate? Now what have I done? What is the topic for today’s anti-degeneracy lecture?”
Rahaan took a breath and forced a smile, recognizing that he was directing some of his inner turmoil outwards. Yes, Alim was a bit lazy and directionless. He did not read much and he preferred chips and pizza to hummus and pita. But he had never fallen into drugs or alcohol, and was virtually a saint when it came to women. He was a good young man, Rahaan thought. He just needed a bit of a kick to get going, something to spark a sense of urgency, force him to focus on something big, something important.
In a way the shock of that tragedy forced me to become the man I am, the Sheikh reminded himself. I had my fun in college, but I was always forced to be cognizant that I was Sheikh and supreme leader, not just a spoiled heir of some Arab billionaire. I never took alcohol, never experimented with drugs. My only vice was sex, which I obtained easily and often and still do, though with a bit more discretion nowadays. And although I now spend half my time in Manhattan and have a reputation as a ruthless dealmaker, I do not cross certain lines when it comes to how I negotiate a deal. Yes, I play psychological games of misdirection and deception, but I do not lie to anyone who has not lied to me, and I do not cheat anyone who has not tried to cheat me. I have a code.
That last thought reminded the Sheikh of something Alim had said two months ago: “It would be against her code,” he had said about Hilda Hogarth, and as Rahaan stared at his brother, he felt an idea slowly swirl into form.
Being unexpectedly forced to take over as Sheikh had made Rahaan the man he was. Could he put the innocent, directionless Alim in a similar situation and force the kid to wake up and get serious? It would not actually come to pass, of course. Just find a way to make Alim think he was going to have to be Sheikh in say . . . six months. Six months would be enough time.
The idea was taking solid form now, and Rahaan’s keen dealmaking mind began to put the pieces together—all the pieces. By God, he realized as he turned to the window and stared into the clouds of white mist, there is a way to accomplish all of it with one move. A move that will need another participant, but she is a dealmaker too, is she not? I will be able to convince her. She will agree if the price is right.
The Sheikh took a breath and decided abruptly that yes, he was going to do it. What the hell! Why not! So he snapped his fingers and dismissed Alim’s attendants, smiling and narrowing his eyes as he glanced at his surprised brother.
“I will be informing the Ministry of Elders of this in the next few weeks, dear Alim,” the Sheikh said with quiet seriousness, “but I wanted you to know first so you can start preparing yourself mentally.”
“Preparing for what?” said Alim, frowning as he picked up the seriousness in the Sheikh’s tone.
“For taking over as supreme Sheikh of the land of our ancestors, the kingdom of Kolah,” the Sheikh said, delivering the line perfectly, no inflection in his voice, no break in eye contact.
Alim stared at his brother as if the words had not registered. Slowly he broke a grin that looked suspiciously like panic. “You are joking, Rahaan. And it is not even a good joke. What—”
“I am engaged to an American woman, and by tomorrow I will be married to her,” the Sheikh said, a shiver going through him as he said it even as he made a mental note to call ahead and have a diamond ring waiting for him in Manhattan. “And by the laws of Kolah, a Sheikh’s first wife must be from a
n Arabian royal family. If a sitting Sheikh takes a first bride who is not of Arab blood and royal lineage, the Sheikh must abdicate the throne one day before the nikaah ceremony. That is what I will be doing in six months, the day before we have the official Islamic wedding. In six months you will be Sheikh, little Alim. In six months you will need to get off your lazy arse and be prepared to administer your kingdom. In six months the throne of Kolah will be yours.”
16
“So is there really a throne in your palace?” Di asked as the Sheikh unwrapped his triple-decker roast beef sandwich and pulled away the top slice of the thick, nine-grain bread so he could inspect the meat.
“This is beef and not pork, yes?” he asked Hilda, who was seated right across from him at the four-person table in the center of the clean, well-lit café around the block.
“Um, hello, I asked you a question,” said Di, snapping her fingers in front of the Sheikh’s face until he slowly pulled his eyes away from Hilda’s and looked at the suddenly sparkly redhead, whose body was almost entirely turned away from her husband and towards Rahaan.
Indeed, Di had been asking all the questions thus far, most of them directed towards the Sheikh. Her ridiculously obvious (and inappropriate—even if her husband weren’t there, Hilda thought . . . ) body language aside, Di’s questions did cover a lot of ground. Now Hilda knew his name, what he did, where he was from, and the interesting tidbit that the man was supreme Sheikh of a Middle-Eastern kingdom called Kolah. Yup. The dude was a king. Hilda had scammed five grand from a king. Not to mention another fifteen from his kid brother, who was a prince. “Off with her head,” anyone? Oops.
“There is in fact a throne, but it is exceedingly uncomfortable and I only use it for the most formal of ceremonies,” said the Sheikh graciously, his eyes darting back towards Hilda as he answered Di.
“Fascinating,” gushed Di, fluttering her eyelids in a way that seemed strangely at odds with the lean, no-nonsense, sharp beauty she’d projected when Hilda had first seen her. In fact she seemed like a different person suddenly, and a quick look at Norm seemed to confirm it. The man appeared more surprised than jealous or angry, which made Hilda think Di didn’t usually turn into a sparkly girlie-girl whenever an attractive man showed up on the scene.
Stars for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 8) Page 6
