“So many men,” she said as that chill almost made her throat seize up. Suddenly she understood the position Ephraim had boxed himself into, and she turned to him wide-eyed. “Wait, how long has it been since you opened the borders?”
“Four years,” Ephraim had said grimly.
“So in a year their military service will be done. What happens then?”
Ephraim’s jaw set tight as they watched the men march along the banks of the Golden Oasis. “Then I am bound to fulfill my commitment and make them full citizens of Habeetha, give them a stipend, and allow them to live anywhere they choose.” He took a long breath. “Some will choose careers in the army, and they will remain here. But these are just barracks, with men living in dormitories. They will all want their own houses, families, lives. And so most will flock to the capital city, and the city center simply cannot absorb so many new people at once. Ya Allah, what a mess I have created!”
Jan thought back to what she’d seen on the tour of Habeetha’s capital. The city was clean and beautiful, but it was also small and crowded. Everyone drove expensive cars, but the traffic was heavy despite the wide streets. Sidewalks and marketplaces were busy, and cafés and restaurants seemed to be packed at all hours. There were many tourists, of course—after all, this was the Vegas of Arabia—but that only made everything seem more crowded. Many of the highrises in the city were office buildings or hotels for the tourists, and even without knowing the exact numbers, Jan could tell there was no way the city had enough housing for the thousands of young men who would complete their military service in a year.
“Why not just build more highrises in the city itself?” she’d asked when Ephraim had explained that the desert outside the city was almost impossible to expand into. “If you can’t expand the city outwards, then just expand it upwards! Wouldn’t that solve any housing problems you might have?”
“The problem is, when you build a highrise, you need to have a foundation that goes very deep into the earth,” Ephraim had said. “And the land composition on the fringes of the city simply does not allow for it. The few highrises we have in the city center are already pushing the limits of what we can do.” He looked toward the shimmering waters of the Golden Oasis and shook his head. “The only way is that way. Across the shining waters. I know it, Darius knows it, and now you know it.”
Jan closed her eyes as her head spun, and she took a deep breath before looking at Ephraim. “OK. But war? An invasion? Shared marriages? Wasn’t there some middle ground? What about some agreement for Noramaar to take some of the immigrants?” She’d asked Darius the same question, but she needed to ask it of Ephraim as well.
Ephraim had smiled, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her. “Do you think Darius can agree? Do you think he will simply tell the people of his kingdom that they will have thousands of new neighbors, military-trained young exiles from the sinful city of Habeetha? And to get my people to move, they would have to be exiled. I would have to force them to move to Noramaar, would I not? After all, many of them were seduced by the freedoms we offer in Habeetha, freedoms that are still against the law in the kingdom of the good Sheikh Darius.”
“You keep calling him that,” Jan had said. “The good Sheikh Darius. Like you’re mocking him or something. What is it with you two? Clearly you know each other, and there is some kind of a strange bond. Yet you exchange public threats and hostilities, and I do believe that you would in fact go to war against him if it came to it. I just don’t get it, Ephraim.”
The driver of their car turned his head and glanced back at her just then, and Jan frowned when she saw his eyes. She blinked and stayed quiet as Ephraim pressed a button and raised the frosted glass partition between the front and back seats of the custom designed Range Rover.
“What did I say?” she’d whispered when Ephraim turned and grinned at her.
“You called me by my first name without addressing me as Sheikh,” he said. “It is considered an insult. I have had people flogged for less.”
“You’re kidding. You’ve actually had people whipped in public for insulting you? Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“OK, I am kidding,” Ephraim had said deadpan, his jaw tight, his eyes narrowing. “Do you feel better now?” He shook his head and smiled. “Ah, Jan. You are still looking at my world with the eyes of an American, a self-proclaimed savior. I may be a king, but I am still a savage, yes?”
“If you’re having people flogged in the town square, then yes, you are a savage. I’m not going to apologize for being disgusted by that!”
“An insult to the Sheikh is not an insult to me as a person,” Ephraim had explained. “It is an insult to the people of the kingdom. In America you have many symbols that people take pride in: Everything from the great victories of World War II to the dominance of Hollywood to the supremacy in sports and the longest list of Nobel prizewinners. You are a scholar of psychology and biology, Jan. You understand how identity and self-image is fundamental to a person’s well-being. In a tiny kingdom, identity and self-image is dictated by the king, Jan. By me! Do you understand? There is a burden of responsibility to display strength and dominance so that my people feel strong, so they may raise their children with pride. Is that not what the people of America take their greatest pride in? Strength and dominance? America dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan, killing millions of men, women, children, and their dogs, cats, and goldfish. Yet the victory in World War II is a source of pride for Americans. Do not misunderstand me—I believe it should be a source of pride for America! What angers me is that you call me a savage for demonstrating strength and dominance in ways that are in line with the peculiarities of my own history and culture.”
Jan had taken a long breath and glanced out the window as the car slowly pulled away from the lines of Arab men marching along the banks of the Golden Oasis. Darius had made exactly the same point when he explained why he could never simply make an agreement to open his borders and allow people to flow in from Habeetha. It had to be done in a way that enhanced the perception of him as Sheikh, made him look strong instead of weak, smart instead of foolish. And it was not about the personal ego of a king—though certainly that was part of it—but about what it meant to be king. Which meant that just like Darius would never agree to it, Ephraim could never ask it either! The end result might be the same—a joining of the two kingdoms—but the manner in which it happened was important. The symbolism was important. The symbolism was everything.
And she was the symbol.
That dizzy feeling of being in a made-up world where nothing made sense came back to her when she realized that these two men were in some way prepared to fight their own egos for the good of their kingdoms. After all, what king would step aside and hand the throne to his new queen?! Suddenly it occurred to her that perhaps they were truly reaching for the nobility in themselves, the ability to sacrifice ego for the good of the people while still making sure the perception and symbolism would not affect the self-image of their kingdoms. It was a delicate dance, a careful balance, an operation of great finesse. Oh, God, these men were truly royalty, were they not?
She’d remained quiet for the rest of the journey back to the city center and past the small cluster of highrises as the thought occurred to her that it was by no means settled that anyone was going to give up their thrones. The game was underway, but in a sense it hadn’t really begun yet, had it? Who knew what would happen when all three of them came face to face? Setting aside the question of how Darius and Ephraim would react, Jan didn’t even know how she would react! She’d shared one passionate night with each Sheikh, and without really talking about it with them, she’d held off from sharing a second night with either of them. Strangely, both Darius and Ephraim had backed off when she asked them to, even though she wouldn’t have been able to stop them if they’d advanced and pushed for it. Were all three of them instinctively trying to set a balance, dance this twis
ted dance of lust and emotion, politics and partnership?
Now it suddenly made sense as Jan watched Ephraim wave his ridiculous snake-stick as he packed a duffel bag with God-knows-what in preparation for their trip into the unknown. It made sense that they’d chosen this island in the middle of the Golden Oasis. It was symbolic that neither kingdom owned the island, just like neither Sheikh could claim Jan as his own. Their first meeting as a trio needed to be on this one piece of land that symbolized the delicate balance that needed to be struck in order for this to work.
Our first meeting as a trio, Jan thought as she wondered what to even pack. A trio. A threesome. A threesome?
Oh, God, that’s what’s going to happen here, isn’t it, she finally allowed herself to admit as the energy rushed through her in a churn that made her almost throw up. They’re both going to take me, one after another, at the same time perhaps. Oh, God, this is my last chance to back out, isn’t it. If I agree to go to that island, I’m agreeing to more than just sightseeing, aren’t I.
Stop freaking out and think of it as sightseeing, she told herself as she looked at the multiple sets of clean cotton panties she was packing like a good little schoolgirl going to summer camp. You’re a scientist and a scholar, and part of the reason you’re doing this is to understand and learn, to observe and record, to theorize and experiment.
But it didn’t ring true as she felt her body buzz in a way that made the sickness disappear just as quickly as it had arrived. The truth was the whole scientist-conducting-experiment was a way of tricking herself into taking things this far, a way of telling herself that it made complete logical sense to get involved in this scheme. But now it was time to drop the charade, to push the scientist away and let the human take over. The human woman.
Now’s when you learn what it was really like to be a woman a million years ago, shared by the men of the tribe, shared willingly, joyfully, with love and passion and violence and competition all rolled into one. Is that woman inside you? Are you that woman? Can you be that woman?
“We’re about to find out,” she muttered, smiling to herself and shaking her head as she reached into the travel bag and rifled through the stack of soft cotton panties.
And then Professor Janice Johansen, PhD, grabbed all those panties and quietly took them out of the bag. She was going all in, she decided. Into the unknown. Into the history of womankind. Into herself.
22
“Sheikh Darius has gone by himself?” Ephraim’s driver asked again, his dark face twisted by a scowl as he listened over the phone to Darius’s attendant, the same woman who had dried Jan’s feet on the banks of the Golden Oasis a week earlier. “Ya Allah, Sheikh Ephraim and the American left by boat alone this morning as well!”
Ephraim’s driver and Darius’s attendant had met several times over the years as part of the entourages accompanying the respective Sheikhs when they attended conventions and pan-Arab gatherings of the region’s royal families. They’d become friendly, and sometimes spoke when on relief from their duties at the same time. This conversation had started as a simple text message from the attendant to the driver, saying that Darius would be away for a few days, visiting Noor Island, and she had time to talk and catch up if he did. The driver had immediately called her with the news that Ephraim and Jan had taken a boat into the Golden Oasis just that morning, with supplies for at least a few days.
“It cannot be a coincidence,” the driver rasped, scratching his thick black beard fiercely as he thought back to the way Jan and the Sheikh had toured the city and talked about policies and politics in a way that seemed odd. After all, she was an outsider, with no business questioning the decisions of the supreme Sheikh of Habeetha! “Not if you say that this same American woman was with Sheikh Darius just last week. Who is she? What spell has she cast over the great Sheikhs?”
“It does not take much for a woman to cast a spell over Sheikh Ephraim, I hear,” teased the attendant. “But I admit, it does appear to be a strange coincidence.”
“You have heard Sheikh Darius and the American speak,” the driver said. “What did they say to each other? You understand English better than I do.”
Darius’s attendant had remained quiet for a bit. “You know I cannot repeat anything my Sheikh says. It is a betrayal of my position as a personal attendant. Do you not follow the same custom in Habeetha? You do. I know it. How can you ask me to speak of my Sheikh’s private conversations?”
“The conversations may be private, but the effects might be public! There is something strange about to take place. I feel it. Four years of the Sheikhs threatening war, and now, out of nowhere, both Sheikhs are having a secret meeting with an American woman who has visited each one privately.”
“What are you saying? That she is a spy? A political agent? American CIA? Ya Allah, I promise you, that is not the case,” the attendant said, snorting with laughter over the phone.
The driver tensed up and exhaled hard. “Ah, now you have already revealed much. So the relationship between the American and Sheikh Darius is personal. He has taken her to bed? Yes?”
The attendant remained silent, but the driver could hear her breathing quicken in a way that told him he was right. “Sheikh Ephraim has taken the American to bed as well. She has been with both of them in one week. Are you still convinced there is nothing strange in the works? Are you ready to speak of what you heard?”
The attendant stayed quiet for another long moment, but the driver kept going, pushing, cajoling, reminding her that in the end they served their kingdom and not their Sheikhs, that sometimes those in the shadows had to take things into their own hands if they saw something that did not seem right.
“I will tell you what I heard,” the attendant finally said, her voice soft but firm. “But only so you understand that what is happening is not a great evil but instead something that could be the greatest good.” She paused a moment, as if wondering whether to say what she was about to. “Perhaps then you will see that although it appears that our Sheikhs took this woman to bed, the truth might well be that it was she who took them to bed, that it is she who might be in control, that it is she who we might someday call Sheikha and queen. Queen to both of us, to both our kingdoms.”
The driver listened, his disbelief rising with his rage as the attendant spoke of what she’d heard, told of how Darius had ordered a gown of blue silk made for the American, taken her to London to the charity gala where he knew they’d meet Ephraim, of how they’d spoken of shared marriages, symbolism and perception, experiments and traditions.
In stunned silence the driver hung up the phone, not sure if the world had gone mad or if it was just him. He’d gotten used to Sheikh Ephraim challenging tradition by now: After all, gambling and alcohol were banned by Islamic scripture. Still, the driver had seen enough of the hypocrisy of the citizens and rulers of stricter Arab kingdoms, and he knew that thousands of the younger generations openly violated those laws on pleasure trips to the West. So why not expose the hypocrisy and bring it into the light? There was a boldness and strength to Sheikh Ephraim’s move that the driver admired, and he also understood that the revenues from tourism would help the country once all the cars in the world ran on electricity and not oil. But this shocking plan to reverse the Islamic tradition of one Sheikh taking many wives was too much. How could that be a show of strength?! It was weakness, to bow to a woman, was it not?! How could Sheikh Ephraim betray the trust and faith of his people like that? It would make all of them look weak and foolish! How could he say with pride that he was a natural-born citizen of the great kingdom of Habeetha once his Sheikh bowed his head to a woman—a brash, rude, unattractive American woman, that too! It could not happen. And it would not happen.
No, he decided as he scratched his beard and clenched his jaw so tight his head hurt. It would not happen.
23
What if it does not happen, Sheikh Darius thought as he pus
hed open the door to the old guest house on Noor Island. The abandoned sandstone building stood just a few hundred feet away from the banks of the Golden Oasis, and it was in serviceable condition despite being ignored by at least two generations of Sheikhs. The walls, windows, and doors were sturdy, and there was still usable old teakwood furniture: wooden chairs, benches, tables, and bed-frames—though any cloth or cushioning had been removed years ago. The floors were covered with a fine layer of golden sand, but they were clean and with only the faintest of cracks in the sandstone.
Yes, what if it does not happen with the three of us, Darius thought again as he kicked open the door to the inner rooms and stood back, wondering if he would find out about the rumors of snakes the hard way. No movement, and certainly no mythical snakes, and Darius exhaled and wondered again what he was doing here, why he had chosen this place to consummate this plan.
“Because there is no easy way out,” he said out loud as he glanced around the empty inner rooms of the guest house and then strode back out to the veranda and stared towards the shimmering waters of the Golden Oasis. He could see his forty-foot boat anchored some distance away, and he could see the dinghy he’d taken bobbing gently where it was tied to an old wooden mooring post. There was no dock or jetty on Noor Island, because the shifting sands beneath the waters changed the levels so much that one could never be certain of the right place to bring a boat ashore. That was part of the reason Noor Island had stayed unused for generations. There had even been a rumor of one of the old Sheikhs being trapped here and starving to death after his boat ran aground. The story was so old even Darius’s father could not verify its accuracy, but the rumor was that the entire Sheikh’s entourage had been trapped, and when they ran out of food, they began to eat each other.
Shared for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 10) Page 10
