“Julia, can you excuse us for a moment?” Neil asked.
“Of course, Mr. Elwood.” She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and left.
“Now, we can say goodbye properly.” Neil got up and came to my side, and El-Mudad similarly stood from his spot at the breakfast table. Neil took the coffee cup from my hand, passed it to El-Mudad, then held my face in both of his hands and kissed me, long and slow.
I smiled against his mouth. “You’re not making it very easy to for me to leave.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right. That’s not fair of me.” He dropped a kiss on my forehead then moved aside. El-Mudad slid the coffee onto the island behind me.
“Unfair or not, I won’t miss a chance to kiss you.” His lips brushed against mine, but we weren’t capable of taking things slowly. I opened my mouth under his and threw my arms around his neck. He grabbed my hips and pulled me against him, tight. I lingered for as long as I could dare without everything going way too far then gave his shoulders a gentle push.
He let the kiss end but leaned his forehead against mine. “Have a good day at work.”
I gave him a quick peck on the lips and sidestepped his embrace. “Seriously, you guys. I’m just going to work. I’m not leaving forever.”
Not that it wasn’t an extremely nice send-off. I could definitely get used to starting the day like this.
****
“Who’s the most relaxed employee here this morning?” Deja asked as she knocked on my door.
I couldn’t deny that. My weekend of perfect sex had turned me into Julie Andrews in The Sound of freakin’ Music. I’d breezed into the office and immediately ordered Mel to get a caterer on the phone for lattes and breakfast sandwiches to be delivered for the entire office the next morning. We went over my schedule, and I didn’t roll my eyes once. Amy couldn’t get those skirts from Forever 21 in time for the teen trend shoot on Thursday? Sure, we could reschedule that! Fatima was out with the flu, and now, we were running tragically behind on our “Best, Worst, and Most Ridiculous Fall Trends” story? No big deal, the issue didn’t have to be finalized for two whole weeks. What was a little panicked rushing around when the entire world was so damn good?
“I could really get used to this.” Deja plopped onto the sofa against the wall and kicked her legs up, propping her black Michael Kors stiletto-heeled ankle boots on the arm. “Just don’t let people start taking advantage of your good nature.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I have a Steve Harvey-esque ‘do not look Sophie in the eyes’ memo already drafted,” I promised her with a snerk.
“You know you have to give me the details, right?” Deja prompted. Clearly, I had not been forthcoming enough.
I glanced up at the door. There was no logical reason to be nervous; people knocked before entering, and conversations held at a reasonable volume wouldn’t be overheard by accident.
But I wasn’t sure I could keep my voice at a reasonable volume.
“It was…” I made a noise of mingled frustration at my lack of words and elation at what I would have described if I could have found them. “We’re making some major decisions here really soon.”
Deja’s brow creased. “For the better, I hope?”
“For the definite better.” I held back a moment. There wasn’t much I felt I couldn’t tell Deja; she was married to my best friend, the most sexually and romantically liberated woman in all of Manhattan. Knowing all of Holli’s exploits, Deja probably wouldn’t be shocked by one of mine. Still, it felt strange to admit to something that most people would consider unconventional in the extreme.
Oh, what the hell. “We’re actually thinking of moving past ‘casual sex partners’ and like…really dating.”
“He would be your boyfriend?” Deja asked. “Or your boyfriend and Neil’s boyfriend?”
“That second one.” My cheeks went hot.
“Sophie Scaife, you are blushing.” Deja shook her head in wonder. “And over a dude.”
“You have no idea. Deja, he is…” But how could I describe him when, until now, I’d so rarely spoken of him, even to my best friends? The relationship had been hush-hush for several reasons, not the least of which had been our public lives. “He’s just perfect.”
“Can I know about him, now?” she asked gently. “I get that you’ve got that whole secrecy thing going on.”
“It wasn’t really a secrecy thing,” I said, a little uncomfortable. It did seem like it was unfair that I hadn’t told them very much at all about El-Mudad besides, “He’s a hot billionaire.” Especially when, according to Holli, my evaluation of Neil as a hot billionaire was tragically off the mark. She thought he looked too “average”.
“But I do have to keep it a little secret,” I said, just to cover my bases. I didn’t think she or Holli would ever betray me on purpose, but it was easy to let things slip if people didn’t know the boundaries. “Okay, first of all, his name isn’t really Emir, it’s El-Mudad. Emir was just the name he was using at that French sex club.”
“Oh, of course,” Deja said, waving a hand and pretending that was a concept she ran into all the time. “Don’t we all have a name we use exclusively at French sex clubs?”
I laughed. “He’s from Bahrain, his family is super rich, and he lives mostly in France, now, because he shares custody of his kids with his ex-wife.”
“He has kids?” That piqued Deja’s interest. “How many?”
“Two girls, both in their teens.” Or maybe one was a preteen. Where was the cut-off on that?
“How old is he? Like, Neil’s age, or…”
“He’s thirty-six. No, thirty-seven.”
“So, more like my age. Okay.” She made a “not bad” face.
“He’s super hot, and…” I stopped myself. “Wait, I can finally show you a picture.”
I grabbed my phone and pulled up the camera, blushing hard as a scrolled for one I could show her. I picked a quick snap I’d taken poolside on Sunday afternoon. In the photo, El-Mudad reclined, shirtless, on one of the lounge chairs. His hair was slicked back from the water, droplets of which clung to every delicious ridge of his abs and his tight square pecs.
If this whole dating thing became a permanent relationship, I would have this photo made into a plaque that said, “Good job, Sophie!” with two engraved thumbs up.
Deja got up and headed to my desk, leaning over to look. She gave a long drawn out whistle. “Damn…and that’s coming from me. And I am gay gay. Text that to me. Holli will freak out if I got to see him and she didn’t.”
“No problem.” I still held the phone, because Deja’s gaze was transfixed.
“He could be a fence jumper,” she announced finally. “I might jump the fence for him.”
“How high is the fence?” I asked. In the past, she’d described it as The Wall from Game of Thrones, but with razor wire at the top.
“For him?” She considered. “One of those cedar privacy fences. With the family trampoline next to it.”
I turn the phone toward me, again. A totally involuntary, dreamy sigh escaped me. “And it’s not just the way he looks. He’s, like, the sweetest guy ever. He came to stay with me when Neil was in the hospital—”
“I remember that,” she cut in. I think it made her a little nervous when I started to talk about Neil’s time there. For months after my return from Neil’s sabbatical in Iceland, any mention of the incident had brought tears to my eyes.
“No, it’s okay, I’m not going to start sobbing or something,” I reassured her. “And El-Mudad really has a lot to do with that.”
She nodded in understanding.
“So, I don’t want to be super nosy, or sound, like…weird,” Deja began hesitantly. “But is he…”
“He’s bisexual, like Neil and I,” I said, trying to guess her question.
“No, I was going to ask if he’s Muslim.” She looked uncomfortable with the word.
“W-would it matter if he was?” What an odd question. It took me completel
y aback, especially coming from Deja, who was super liberal.
“No!” she said quickly. “No, not at all. God, Sophie, you know me. I’m a black lesbian—I’m not a big fan of prejudice. I just wondered because, you know, he’s out there having threeways and fucking dudes, and I’m pretty sure that’s a no-no for most religions.”
“If he’s religious, it’s never come up.” I thought back over our acquaintance with him. I’d seen him drink. I saw him eat pork osso buco once. And… “Do Muslim guys get circumcised? Because he’s not.”
She held up a hand. “I didn’t need to know about his dick. I already know too much about your husband’s.”
“I never told you any of that,” I reminded her. It was Holli’s weird admiration-slash-obsession on the topic that made it come up. In her deviant little mind, I’d scored some kind of phallic jackpot, and it was her opinion that I didn’t take vocal enough credit for that. “But seriously…why did you ask?”
“Because I’m worried,” she said frankly. “I’m worried about anybody who might be coming here. You know what things are like here, now.”
We had a rule that we would never utter a certain name in the office, but I knew exactly what she was getting at. It had already been unsafe for anyone from the Middle East to live here. That had ramped up considerably in the past sixteen years, but since the election…
“I worry about Mel,” Deja went on. “And Hannah in the advertising department. Some guy tried to rip her scarf off her head on the subway last week.”
“Oh, my god.” I covered my mouth in horror.
“I’m just saying…if you guys want to be safe…” She grimaced. “But there’s really no safe place, is there?”
My heart hurt at that realization. I’d never thought of it, because I’d never had to. Unlike Deja, I’d never had to worry about my safety beyond the everyday rituals every woman performed. It was enough for me to not walk too close to doorways or stay in subway cars alone with men. So, I hadn’t thought about what could happen to El-Mudad in America. His money couldn’t protect him from everything.
“He has a bodyguard,” I offered with an ineffectual shrug.
“Good,” she said grimly. Then, “Sorry, I really brought this whole thing down, didn’t I?”
“It’s not something you can turn off in your brain. I get it,” I said, though we both knew I could never truly understand.
She forced a smile. “Tell me something else about your amazing weekend. How many times did you guys do it?”
I engaged her with the post-game wrap up I’d usually do with her and Holli, but my heart wasn’t in it. My thoughtlessness distracted me; what would life be like if El-Mudad moved here? What would it be like if he couldn’t?
In all the sex and happiness of the weekend, I’d been picturing a relationship that might not be beneficial to everyone. Or downright impossible. I’d envisioned a traditional arrangement, wherein I came home from work at night to two loving partners, and we lived in some kind of domestic harmony.
Traditional might not have been the right word for it.
I stood by the idea, though. What a wonderful life it would be for all of us to live together, to wake up in the morning and go to bed every night, to share our hopes and fears and even the inane thoughts that floated through our heads.
I wanted what I had with Neil, but with El-Mudad included. And I’d selfishly decided that it would all happen on my terms. That he would move into our palace by the sea—but what about his daughters? That he would spend his days at home with Neil—but what about his own business, his own life? That he would want the exact same things I wanted—but what if he didn’t?
And how could I claim to love him if I’d never stopped long enough in my selfish vision of bliss to consider that the life I’d fantasized about could put El-Mudad and his children in danger?
Deja had a massively valid point. There was already so much going on in our country that made it an unwelcoming, arguably unstable place for people from Middle Eastern countries. What would happen if, one day, he simply couldn’t get back to us? Was it something that vast wealth could get around?
And we had our lives here, and Olivia. Emma and Michael had planned to raise her in America. They hadn’t anticipated the current state of affairs here, though, so maybe they wouldn’t mind if we ran away from the prologue of The Handmaid’s Tale that was currently taking shape all around us. But that left Valerie and Laurence, who were staying close by to share custody of Olivia. Plus, Valerie ran the magazine and oversaw the New York offices of Elwood & Stern; she couldn’t uproot herself and probably didn’t want to.
El-Mudad couldn’t be separated from his children, either. They lived in France. He lived in France, most of the time. There was no way he would be able to turn his back on them, and I wouldn’t want to be with a father who could do that, in the first place.
It had felt so good to rush headlong into this, but now that I had some time away from him and Neil, the insidious practical stuff was creeping in.
I didn’t like it, and it sure didn’t make me enthusiastic in the retelling of my weekend exploits. I was grateful when Deja’s phone chirped its alarm.
“It can’t be eleven already,” she groaned.
“No,” I whined. Though the change of subject was welcome, what it would change to was not. “I do not want to go over financials. You can’t make me.”
Deja raised a laser-precise brow. “You’re right. I can’t. But you do own half this company, so maybe you could pretend to be interested in quarterlies?”
“Ugh, fine.” I pushed my chair back from my desk.
“You’re coming out for drinks with us tonight,” Deja said as we walked toward the conference room. “You have to tell Holli all of this stuff. I will not be able to handle the interrogation, especially when you know I don’t have answers to half her questions.”
“I can’t tonight.” Not only did I want to spend as much time as possible with El-Mudad while he was visiting, I didn’t want to plunge back into the logistics that I was trying so desperately hard to ignore. “But next week. After he goes home. That way, I’ll have plenty more to tell you both.”
“Fair enough.” She pushed the door open.
Inside the conference room, the white screen had been pulled down, and the digital projector overhead illuminated dust motes in the air. It was too bad there weren’t any windows I could escape through. We weren’t that high up, and shattered legs seemed a small price to pay to avoid the hell of trying to stay awake while someone threw numbers I didn’t understand at me.
“Sophie?” Mel hurried up behind me, her face ashen. “Someone’s here for you.”
Oh, god, something’s happened to Olivia!
It disturbed me how quickly my mind immediately shot to that horrible possibility every time our assistant came to me with that look. And it was never anything serious. Usually just a meeting I forgot or a call from someone important.
“Who? I didn’t see anyone on my schedule this morning.” But it would be amazing if someone from, say, Balenciaga or Calvin Klein had shown up, and it became imperative that I missed the quarterly projections. It was a lot easier to pretend to look at those reports than it was to sit through them.
“She says she’s your sister.”
Every drop of blood in my veins turned to ice. Spikey, razor-sharp crystals of ice that punctured all my vitals. Metaphorically, anyway. Nothing was bleeding internally, except all of my ragged emotions.
“Who?” Deja’s head snapped up from the contents of the folder she’d been scanning.
“My sister.” I knew she was up to date on the weirdness involved there. Hence the deep concern etched on her face. I hurried to add, “It’s okay. It’s a surprise, but…”
“I’ve got this,” Deja said firmly. “You weren’t going to pay attention, anyway.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Anything you need to know, I’ll brief you later,” she promised. “Just…take
care of yourself.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and turned to Mel. “Can you show her into my office, please?”
“No problem.”
I watched her go then snuck to the nearest bathroom. I needed time to calm down, and Mel needed time to carry out my instruction, so it would all work out. Plus, making someone wait was a power move.
Why I felt I needed a power move up my sleeve, I had no idea.
Bracing my hands on the lip of the trough sink, I took some deep breaths. Okay. Your sister is here. No, not your sister. Susan. Susan is here, and she just happens to be related to you. She’s nobody to you. You don’t owe her anything.
Was that harsh of me? It sounded harsh.
Fuck that. I deserved to be harsh, didn’t I? I was being ambushed at work by a woman who’d known I’d existed, but never bothered to contact me to tell me that our father was dead. She was forcing me to confront the fact that she’d had his love and support, while I’d gotten a graduation card and one hazy memory of going to a circus, which I wasn’t entirely sure hadn’t been a dream.
She hadn’t even called me.
I had every right to turn her away, I realized. Just because she’d come all this way, that didn’t mean I had to speak to her. If I wanted to, I could have security remove her. Deny I even knew her. She’s my stalker, I could say. Or, she’s a deeply troubled woman who’s convinced she’s my sister. She’s looking for money. She’s trying to blackmail me.
Yet, deep inside my stupidly optimistic heart, a clawing need to forge some kind of bond with her gripped me. How could you even think of doing something like that to your family? How could you throw away what you always wanted?
I wanted to leave the bathroom. I really did. I just couldn’t move.
Instead, I studied my face in the mirror and tried to remember those pictures I’d seen on Facebook. I could still see the similarities between Susan and me, the ghost of Joey Tangen molded into our flesh. Genetics would never let me forget.
Another thought occurred to me, one that filled me with terror so sharp that it could have punctured my lungs. What if she’d seen that accidental “like” when I’d been scrolling through her pictures? What if she’d come all the way here to accuse me of being creepy, obsessed, unwelcome in her life? What if she’d been so furious that she’d traveled to Brooklyn from Nearly-Canada, Michigan to demand an explanation for that violation of her privacy?
The Sister (The Boss Book 6) Page 13
