by Holly Rayner
“I don’t have to do anything, do I? Push any buttons or anything?”
“Not unless I become unconscious.” He grinned at her rather rakishly.
“You’d better not,” she said sternly, sitting down. “No, I don’t think I’d leave LeeWay. What else would I do with my life?”
“You tell me,” he said, handing her a headset. “Put these on so we’ll be able to hear each other speak over the noise.”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, putting on the headset. “When I was younger I used to like watching talk shows. I’d interview my stuffed animals up in my room. I wouldn’t have minded hosting my own talk show.”
“Really! What did you interview them about?”
“Oh, it depended on what I had seen lately on the real talk shows,” she said with a laugh. “If there was some major athletic event going on, it was about their skills at sports. If there was an election, it was about their political acumen. The rest of the time they were movie stars and pop singers. They were very versatile.”
“So, talk show host? That’s your dream?”
“I mean, if I’m wishing for things. I know it’s impractical. I wouldn’t leave my family’s business to try and make a name for myself doing that.” Dakota laughed.
Majeed didn’t. “Why not? Talk show hosts have to come from somewhere, and you are a very good communicator.”
“Talk show hosts also have to be funny.”
“Are you not aware that you’re funny?”
Dakota glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Majeed was a joker himself, she knew that, but she didn’t see the characteristic quirk at the corner of his mouth that indicated he was stifling a laugh. Did he really think she was funny?
“What about you?” she asked, for lack of a better response. “Would you leave Ayad Aviation and do something else if your family wasn’t leaning on you about it?”
Majeed shrugged. “I might. It’s hard to imagine, though, isn’t it? Like a fairy tale.”
“They’d never allow it?”
“No more than yours would, I imagine.”
“What would you do, if you could? MC at awards shows?”
He grinned. “To tell you the truth, I always dreamed of being a news anchor. Sitting behind one of those big desks and letting people know what was going on in the world, being the face they trusted during hard times and the one they turned to during celebrations. When I was growing up, the top news anchors were like family members. We called them by their first names, and my father was always wondering aloud what one or another of them might have to say about the day’s events. I’d like to come into everyone’s living rooms like that.”
“That’s funny,” Dakota said.
“Is it?”
“I mean, the idea that even if we could get away from our families and the work we do for them, we both would have gone into communications fields anyway.”
Majeed smiled. “I guess having things arranged for you works out sometimes.”
They were airborne now, soaring over a vast expanse of desert. Dakota leaned over and looked out the window. The wind had whipped the sand into small dunes here and there, but Dakota knew the topography of the desert was constantly shifting. Even as she watched, an eddy of wind swept the peak from one of the tallest dunes causing the grains of sand to disappear into the landscape. She loved the way nothing was fixed in the desert. More so than any other climate, it seemed to be forever changing.
Majeed banked left. Dakota tried not to let the jolt of nerves that shot through her show on her face, but Majeed saw it and laughed. “We’re fine,” he assured her.
“I wasn’t worried.”
He smirked knowingly. “Do you want to take the stick for a while?”
“No! What?”
“Come on, you’ll have fun.” He reached up and toggled a switch over his head. “Go ahead, grab that.”
The control stick between her knees, which had been jiggling loosely since the flight began, was suddenly still as if pressure had been applied to it from all sides. Dakota placed a hand on it hesitantly and found it resisted her.
“You’ve got to use more force than that,” Majeed said. “Pull to the right. Go ahead.”
“I don’t want to crash us.”
“I’ve still got the manual override on. I’ll grab control back if there’s a problem.”
Dakota slowly increased the pressure on the stick.
“More,” Majeed urged.
She pulled harder. Now she could feel the plane responding, angling to the side, one wing dipping down toward the ground. Dakota gasped and released the stick.
“Good job!” Majeed said. “Ready to try a barrel roll?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Yes,” he said, flashing her such a huge grin that she had to laugh. “Maybe we’ll do more flying lessons later. That was a good start!”
About fifteen minutes later, Majeed banked the plane in a wide arc, and Dakota saw that the sun was beginning to go down. The horizon was absolutely beautiful, extending as far as the eye could see.
“It’s quite a view, isn’t it?” he said. “I like to come up here sometimes to think.”
“It’s beautiful,” she agreed.
“Wait until you see what’s over this ridge.”
“What ridge?”
Majeed pointed, but it was unnecessary—Dakota had understood as soon as she’d asked the question. They were flying toward a bluff in the sand, and as they approached, Majeed angled the nose of the plane up, taking them up and over—
“Oh!” she gasped.
It was the sea, sudden, and vast as the desert, spreading out before them. It had come up out of nowhere. Dakota loved living near the ocean, but work had kept her so busy lately that she realized it had been months since she’d seen it. Now here it was, like an old familiar friend, the darker sand near the waterline and the white of the breaking waves the only interruption in what was otherwise an unbroken landscape.
And, out of nowhere, she found herself imagining what it might be like to get married here. White wooden folding chairs arranged on the beach, decorated with red roses in gold ribbon. Walking across the sand in an elegant white dress, her feet bare, her hair loose around her shoulders. And waiting for her at the altar…Majeed.
She could see it.
They hadn’t spoken about the wedding at all today, Dakota realized. On each of their previous dates, their conversation had focused on details of the wedding or what their married life might be like. Today, though, they had actually gotten to know each other, not as business associates or as two people who were about to be shoehorned into an arranged marriage, but simply as humans. They had spent real time together, and not a minute of it had felt forced or businesslike. And for the first time, she wasn’t just planning her wedding to Majeed. She was daydreaming about it.
As they flew back to Majeed’s private landing strip, he offered her the chance to take control of the plane again. Emboldened by the realization that they had just enjoyed a real date that wasn’t about their families’ rivalry or their own marriage as a solution to it—that she actually liked him—Dakota took the stick and allowed Majeed to direct her through several maneuvers. It was a powerful feeling, being in control of the plane, and she was sorry when he flipped the toggle to take it back from her.
“Can we visit that beach again?” she asked. “I haven’t been to the ocean in ages.”
“Maybe not that beach,” Majeed said. “You can’t tell from above, but it’s not a good place to swim. There’s a big drop-off, and the waves are too violent. But my family owns a beach house on the coast, and I’d be happy to take you there sometime. We used to go in the summer when I was younger.”
“I’ve always wanted a beach house,” Dakota said. She had even contemplated buying one, but her responsibilities at the company usually kept her so busy that she wouldn’t have been able to take much advantage of it. In the end, it hadn’t seemed worth it. Maybe that would chan
ge once she was married. Maybe peace between the bin Ayads and the Lees would mean less cleanup for Dakota to do, and she would be able to take weekend trips to the shore. That would definitely be a perk.
Majeed landed the small plane gracefully on the airstrip and took the headset back from Dakota. “That was a pretty good date, I think,” he said, smiling.
It had been better than just pretty good, Dakota thought, climbing out of the plane and onto the jetway. Even if they hadn’t been promised to each other, even if it hadn’t been for the Emir’s ultimatum and everything that was at stake for both their families, even if Majeed had just been a man she’d met and decided to go on a date with, she would have wanted a second date after this one. She looked up into his dark eyes and, for a brief but powerful moment, was tempted to kiss him.
The moment passed. She would not kiss him today. She would wait. But if things continued to progress this way between them, Dakota thought as she got back into the limousine, that kiss would be coming soon enough.
Chapter 9
“I think you like him,” Dylan said, leaning against the doorframe to Dakota’s room and watching her apply mascara.
Majeed’s driver would be picking her up in half an hour; she was running behind schedule. Dakota capped her mascara and tossed it back into the drawer, then turned to put on her heels. “Of course, I like him,” she said, avoiding her brother’s penetrating gaze. “He’s nice. We have fun together.”
Dylan shook his head. “No, I mean I think you like-like him.”
“You think I like-like him? Like, more than a friend?” she teased. “That’s mature.”
“Well, do you?”
“He’s my fiancé.”
“Answer the question.”
“Quit lurking.” She got up and pushed him out, closing the door in his face, then sat back down to put the finishing touches on her hair. She suspected he was still outside her door, though, and sure enough, a few moments later she heard him call, “You liiiiike him.”
“Dylan!”
“Don’t be embarrassed, Sis. It’s a good thing. We’re all really happy for you.”
She stormed over to the door and jerked it open. “What do you mean, we all? Have Mom and Dad and you been talking about this?”
“Maybe a little.” He grinned insouciantly.
“You drive me crazy,” she said. “Do you know that?”
“You love it.” He made a little twirling motion with his finger. “Turn around. Let me see that hairdo from the back.”
She turned, and he adjusted something on the back of her head, tightening a bobby pin. “All this work,” he said. “I guess His Royal Highness likes things fancy, does he?”
“I wanted to dress up,” she said. “It’s a date.”
“And you’re going to his house?” There was something knowing in Dylan’s tone.
Dakota pulled away from him and shook her head, half amused, half disgusted. “Stop living vicariously through me,” she said. “Propose to your own girlfriend and get her to move here, why don’t you?” She scooped up her purse, which had been lying on her dressing table, and strode past her gaping brother and out to meet Majeed’s car.
They had decided to spend their next two dates cooking for each other. It had been Dakota’s suggestion, and she was happy to have contributed to the increasingly outlandish date ideas. This one was more practical, she felt. It would give them a taste of domestic life, of what it would be like when they were married to each other and preparing meals to share all the time. And besides, it would be fun. She was a relatively good cook.
She was surprised when Majeed suggested they make a competition out of it. When could he have possibly cooked before? she wondered. Surely his servants did that kind of thing for him? Maybe he thought it would be as easy as finding a recipe on the internet and following the instructions to the letter, in which case, Dakota thought, she could definitely cook circles around him. She accepted his challenge.
He was waiting outside the front door of the bin Ayads’ manor home when the car pulled up, and she waited and allowed him to open the door and help her out. Standing beside him, she gazed up at the high stone walls of the place, the second-story archways that led out onto a wide wraparound patio. She had seen this home in news publications, but never in person. It was massive, much bigger than her own family’s house.
“Come on,” Majeed said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll give you a tour.”
“I thought we were having dinner?”
“It won’t be ready for about twenty minutes. Besides, we’re going to be living here after we’re married, so I’m sure you want to see the place.”
He led her down a narrow hall and up a set of marble stairs. The walls were made of the same light stone as the exterior of the building, and Dakota could tell the building was very old. At the top of the stairs, they came to a heavy wooden door, and Majeed took out a key and unlocked it. “This is my wing,” he said. “Our wing, someday.”
She was pleased to see that it came with a lock, that the rest of the bin Ayads wouldn’t be able to disturb them here. “What if the rest of your family wants to come into this part of the house?” she asked.
“They don’t, generally,” he said. “My wing is private unless I call someone to visit me here. We see each other in the common parts of the house, like the atrium, where we just came in, or the courtyard.”
“And does everyone have their own private wing?” Dakota asked.
“My brother and sister share a smaller wing,” Majeed said. “They’ll both move out once they each get married. I’ll be the one to inherit this house. Well,” he said smiling, “we will.”
Dakota was momentarily floored. She had forgotten that marrying Majeed would give her part ownership of this beautiful manor. Some of her anxiety about coming to live here faded. She wasn’t being brought to live in someone else’s house. It would be her house too.
“This is the sitting room,” Majeed said, opening the door to a cozy room with comfortable-looking furniture arranged around a huge stone fireplace. Oriental rugs overlaid each other on the floor, and soft lighting gave an aura of romance. “The library is through that door if you’d like to take a peek.”
Dakota crossed to the door, pulled it open, and was immediately hit by the smell of old books. Floor to ceiling shelves lined the walls. “Have you read all these?” she asked.
He laughed. “Not even half of them. But it seems like a worthy goal. Are you a reader?”
“When I can find the time, absolutely.”
He nodded. “It helps me to have all these books so close. I never have to worry about what I’m going to read next. There’s always something available.”
He was right behind her, looking over her shoulder, and Dakota drew in a breath. On all their previous dates they had maintained a physical distance that was dignified, almost professional. Now she could practically feel his breath on her neck. She had stepped inside his home—they were somewhere truly private together, for the first time—and it seemed a line had been crossed.
She turned and stepped away. “We should eat,” she said. “I’m starving. Maybe we can finish the tour after dinner.”
If Majeed was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “Very well,” he said easily and led her through the sitting room and into a spacious kitchen. He pointed to a stool at the island. “You sit there.”
“You have your own kitchen? I thought we’d be going back to the common part of the house for this.”
“The family dining room is only for state dinners and company functions. Everyday meals are taken in the private kitchens. Sometimes I join the rest of the family in my parents’ kitchen, but I thought it would be better if tonight was just us.”
“You thought right,” Dakota grinned. “So what are we having?”
“Cheeseburgers and fries.”
“Come on, seriously.”
“I am being serious. You don’t believe I can prepare an American de
licacy?”
Dakota laughed. “I can’t wait to see it.”
She sat at the island and chatted with him as he pulled out skillets, plates, and a package of ground beef. The preparation of the patties was more elaborate than any Dakota had ever seen—he diced onions and peppers and rolled them into the meat before placing it in the pan. Soon, the sound of sizzling could be heard, and pleasant smells were rising from the stovetop.
“You actually do know how to cook,” she said, surprised at the ease with which he handled the pan.
Majeed dropped the fries into a pot, which immediately began to spit oil, and hastily put a lid over it. “What made you think I didn’t?”
“I just…wasn’t sure…”
“You thought I made servants cook for me?”
Dakota, who would have had no problem owning up to that thought when she’d first met Majeed, was ashamed. She should have known better than to make assumptions. This, after all, was the man who had learned to fly his own private plane rather than be chauffeured everywhere. She ought to have known he wouldn’t just let servants take care of everything.
“I like to cook,” Majeed said, flipping the burgers. “My favorite aunt taught me how. I was always her helper at holiday dinners. This kitchen wasn’t nearly as nice when I moved in here, but I had the whole thing remodeled. That’s why it’s so much more modern than most of the other rooms. Do you want cheese on this?” he added, holding up a burger on a spatula.
“Please.”
He laid a slice of cheese on it and put it back on the heat. “We do have servants who cook for us,” he said, “but they work in the main kitchen, cooking meals for my parents. And they prepare important meals when we have guests, too.”
“Well, that can’t be a full-time job,” Dakota said.
“No, it’s not. Most of them work in other capacities as well—for example, the driver who brought you here tonight is also a cook. And a few of our staff only work part time, specifically on the days my parents need someone in the kitchen when entertaining. My parents feel it is important to support as many employees as possible.”
