by Sophia Lynn
It hadn't always been easy growing up biracial in the suburbs, with a white father and a black mother, but they had always looked out for each other.
Roxy had sent her the next message, and Estelle smiled when she read it. Estelle was rather demure in her speech, but Roxy could be as foul-mouthed as a sailor. The message that she had sent to Estelle was littered with four letter words, but it was completely unequivocal in its support and love.
Go get 'em, big sis, and if anyone gives you any crap, just call me. I'll be on the first plane over.
Estelle sighed. Even her little sister was worried that she wouldn't be able to handle herself overseas.
If she were honest with herself, she could see why they were concerned. The move from the suburbs to New York City had been a big one, and then she had been in the whirl of college. Despite the fact that she must follow fifty travel bloggers online, she had never left the country before. Now she was heading to Dubai.
It's not like I'm going to work for strangers.
For the last two years, she had been working with Miller & McKinley, a law firm in New York that handled the US affairs of many Middle Eastern clients. She had been hired right out of college, and she was excited to put her language credits in Arabic to good use.
Over the past eight months, she had been working nearly exclusively with Kalil Enterprises, one of the biggest tech innovators in Dubai. She had started with simply managing communications between Miller & McKinley and the Kalil representatives, and a few months after that, she had taken them on completely.
When Roxy had been impressed by her job, she had glowed with her sister's praise, but she had remained practical.
“Frankly, I'm like a glorified secretary. There's just a lot that can fall between the cracks when you're dealing with transatlantic funds and mergers, and I just make sure that all of the pieces get popped back into place.”
“Even if someone misplaces an entire email chain?” asked Roxy, teasing.
“Especially if an entire email chain goes missing,” she said with a grin.
The incident still gave her nightmares sometimes. Right before a deal closed, she had found a particularly important email that had somehow failed to be sent on to the Kalil executive coordinating the project. It was all wrapped up, all ready to sign and seal, but Estelle had managed to stop the whole thing in its tracks by simply sending the email off to Amir Kalil and marking it as urgent.
It was just business as usual, but the first she had heard about it was Henry Miller stomping into her office and demanding to know what the hell she had done. He was so loud and aggressive that she wondered if she should leave the room, but then what he was saying snapped into place.
Somehow, simply through sending that email along, she had saved an entire branch of Kalil's electronics manufacturing. When Miller told her that, she had felt a little light-headed. She knew that the Kalil account was worth literally billions, but she didn't realize that it had anything to do with her.
“I just can't believe that I did something so important,” she said.
Miller grinned at her. “Well, get ready to keep on doing what it is you do. Amir Kalil wants to make sure that you're working on their accounts exclusively from now on.”
The position had come with a nice raise, an office of her own rather than a desk in the middle of a large open room, and regular contact with one Amir Kalil.
In addition to awarding her the account, he had sent her a length of woven cloth of unbelievable softness and delicacy, composed of shades of green, her favorite color. It kept her toasty warm during the harsh New York winter.
From the formal tone of his messages and the sweet gift, she imagined that Amir was an older gentleman, perhaps her father's age. Certainly some of his messages had a certain protectiveness to them when he told her to be careful walking home or when he asked after her health.
She quite liked Amir, and she strongly suspected that he was the one who had pushed for her to be brought to Kalil Enterprises.
Just four weeks ago, Estelle had gotten the offer that would change her life. It was a salary, room and board, and travel expenses to go work with Kalil Enterprises. The only issue was that she would be working in Dubai. She had a momentary pang of panic at the idea of leaving literally everything she knew behind, but in less than an hour, she had called to let Miller and McKinley know she had accepted.
“We wouldn't usually let you go so happily, but Mr. Kalil was very persuasive,” said Miller, looking her over closely. “He's very happy with the work that you've done for them, and I think they've been waiting for a while for the chance to bring you on board.”
There was something a little suspicious about the way Miller spoke, but she brushed it aside. She had always known that her time at Miller and McKinley was limited, and she was right.
The last month had been a whirlwind of activity and excitement as she spun into motion. She had found someone to take over her lease, handed her duties at work over to her co-workers, had several difficult conversations with her family, and attended the round of goodbye parties held in her honor in New York.
“This is going to look very silly if I get all the way out to Dubai and realize that it's not for me. Think of how embarrassing it would be if I went all that way just come back!”
She had made that statement at the end of one of those parties. She had had perhaps one more glass of wine than she needed, and so she was simply sitting on the couch, watching her best friend Amy clean up.
“Are you really worried about that?” Amy asked, startled.
When Estelle nodded, Amy smiled at her.
“Well, I think you're wrong,” she said softly. “I think that you have a soul that's made for adventure, and for you, this is just the beginning.”
Impulsively, Estelle had reached for Amy, drawing her into a tight warm hug. Amy had been her friend all through college, and they had come to New York at the same time. Where Estelle had hitched her stars to legal matters, Amy had taken advantage of the New York publishing scene, wading her way through manuscripts and articles until she won a small standing for herself as a woman with a good eye for the written word.
Where Estelle was a bright star, Amy was a soothing twilight. She was quieter by far than Estelle, and sometimes, her slight plumpness and her glasses made her shy.
“What am I going to do without you?” Estelle muttered, burying her face in Amy's neck.
“I don't know, clean your own messes?” observed Amy drily.
As if the thoughts had summoned her, Estelle's phone chirped, and a message from Amy appeared.
Knock 'em dead. I know you will.
Estelle felt unwanted tears choke her up. The woman next to her stirred, and Estelle knuckled them away hurriedly.
Only a few more hours before she was going to land in Dubai. Her excitement burbled up through her exhaustion and nervousness.
This is going to be amazing.
*
Amir had made it to the airport early. Rashid, his driver, had frowned when Amir mentioned that he was going to drive himself, but even Rashid couldn't deny that Amir got himself there faster than Rashid would have done.
He parked his sleek Mercedes in the tiny private lot reserved for his family and made his way through the terminal. As he dodged the wide variety of passengers passing through the airport, he had time to wonder all over again about Estelle Waters.
She had first come to his attention during the Ellsford deal. He still got a little headache whenever he thought back to that day. Harold Ellsford had been playing exactly as fair as he was required to do, and since they had worked together so many times before, Amir was inclined to take the man at his word. Then that email happened to land in his inbox, and everything had shut down as if smashed with a sledgehammer.
It was fine; people had tried to take advantage of the Kalil family before, and they would try to do so again. Of course, the same people never tried twice. There was mercy for one's enemies, and then t
here was stupidity. He had made very sure that Ellsford would not be operating in this area of the world ever again.
The only good thing to rise out of that horrible mess was his acquaintance with Miss Waters. He had read her nearly painfully polite but urgent note, and once he had dealt with Ellsford, he had returned to it. For some reason, something about it tickled his fancy. He could imagine the woman who wrote it as one of the gray-haired battleaxes from the old American movies he had watched when he was very young. He imagined her sharp eyes catching the discrepancy and sending it to him with complete confidence and an understanding of what had to be made right.
When she sent him an actual thank you card for the pashmina he sent her, he had been amused to see her round, even handwriting and a little tickled by the old-fashioned courtesy of her response. Not long after that, he decided that if he was going to work with Miller and McKinley, he was only going to work with Miss Waters.
The decision had been a good one, and when he decided to look for a personal assistant and general administrator with US experience for Kalil Enterprises, hers was the first name he had chosen.
Bahir, his younger brother, had raised an eyebrow at the choice.
“You're choosing a woman who might rather be knitting booties for her grandchildren to act as your good right hand?”
Amir glared at his brother. Bahir was good-hearted, but getting him in the office was always a chore. He was the real Dubai playboy; Amir only looked the part.
“I think she's a widow,” he said. “She speaks of her family, but she never brings up a husband. I would rather have her than a girl who will leave as soon as she gets married.”
“Who knows, perhaps she will surprise you, brother,” said Bahir with a grin. “Perhaps the two of you will fall in love.”
He had come out to meet Miss Waters on a whim. Typically, Rashid would be the one to pick her up and take her to the apartments assigned for her, but over the last few months, his interest in his correspondent had grown. She was competent but very sweet, and after all, it would be good to have a face to put to the name.
Amir had to admit that he didn't look much like a businessman that day. He was dressed in fashionable slacks and light linen shirt open to show his collarbones. He was tall, as were all the men of his family, and like them, he was built lean. His father, when he was in one of his more expansive moods, liked to talk about their family history as horsemen, how they could ride for a week, simply switching off between a string of horses.
The intercom came on, announcing the arrival of Miss Water's flight, and he made his way to the gate where she would come out. It was a weekday, so the airport was busy but not overwhelmingly so, and he started to look for Estelle Waters.
He glanced carefully through the crowd, looking for an older American woman. He supposed his picture of a 1950s’ secretary was far from correct, as the only older American woman he saw was quickly joined by a very happy family.
The crowd thinned, and a young woman with extraordinary black curly hair made her way through it. She walked with a bounce in her step and her head up, scanning the crowd for someone. She wore a light green dress over dark leggings and ballet flats, and when he met her eyes briefly, he felt a deep jolt go through his body.
A shame I'm not here to meet that one. But I suppose if it were here, I wouldn't really want her looking over my accounts.
The girl couldn't have been out of college. Perhaps she was in Dubai for school, or perhaps she was on one of the desert archaeological digs. He admired her voluptuous frame and her loose easy gait for a moment before he turned his eyes back to the crowd.
Miss Waters' plane had disembarked almost twenty minutes ago. He frowned. He had no message that she had decided at the last moment not to come.
He found her name in his contacts and typed a quick message to her on his phone. I'm here to pick you up. Are you off the plane?
Her reply was gratifying instantaneous. Yes, I am here. The flight was lovely! Where are you located?
Amir glanced around. I am under the large potted tree with the red flowers. I'm straight out from the gate.
I will come find you! I am looking forward to meeting you.
Amir grinned at the enthusiasm of her message. For a woman like Miss Waters, surely this would be the adventure of a lifetime.
He looked up in time to see the same young woman with the flyaway dark curls in the green dress cutting through the crowd toward him. As she got closer, he could see that her skin was an utterly smooth warm brown with a splatter of completely adorable dark freckles across her nose. She seemed to be looking for someone, and a suspicion started to grow in Amir's mind.
Miss Waters?
The moment he sent off the message, she glanced down at her phone and started to type.
Amir sighed, looking at her with disbelief. This girl was the woman he had brought all the way from America to be his good right hand? She looked as if she should have been giggling with her school friends. She looked as if she should... he shook that last thought away because it was frankly disrespectful to her and besides, he had quite enough on his plate.
Amir pocketed his phone and strode forward. “Miss Waters?”
The woman looked up, startled. To her surprise, rather than regard him with fear or wariness, she offered him a wide grin that seemed to warm the world.
“Al Salaam alaykum. I'm Estelle Waters,” she said in surprisingly good Arabic. “I did not expect that you would come out to meet me yourself.”
“Wa alaykum e-salaam,” he responded, before switching to English. “I beg your pardon, but... you are truly Estelle Waters?”
She nodded, her smile even brighter. “I am. I am so excited to make your acquaintance, Mr. Kalil. I am so glad that I have the opportunity to thank you in person for offering me this opportunity.”
The words were absolutely what he would have expected from the woman he had corresponded with for so long, but the woman delivering them... well, this would take some getting used to.
“Do you have any bags to collect?” he asked.
If she was a little surprised by abruptness, she didn't show it. She shook her head, pointing to the rolling suitcase she was dragging along. “You gave me such a generous stipend that I decided I would wait until I got here to decide whether to send for my things or not,” she said with a small laugh. “Or perhaps that's gauche to bring up money so soon? All I know is that your offer was beyond generous, and I wanted to say thank you.”
Her bright honesty was infectious, and he found himself smiling at her before he could stop himself. “I am glad that you find it to your liking.” It was a little hard to take her seriously, and he understood how unfair that was. She was the same woman he had been working with for the past long months. Nothing should have changed.
She looked around them curiously as they left the airport, and the look she gave his car was appropriately impressed. He was pleased to find her, but he couldn't help the feeling that he had picked up a date, not a valuable assistant.
“How long have you worked at Miller & McKinley?” he asked as they pulled into traffic.
“Two years,” she said promptly, “though I found them through an undergraduate internship program. They hired me right out of school, and I've been working with them ever since.”
“And who were you working under at the law firm?”
“Mostly under Mr. Miller, but after I took on your account, I was mostly under my own recognizance.”
“You... were?”
She nodded. “Yes, they left most of the affairs to my discretion.”
Amir was acutely aware of how much his business to Miller & McKinley was worth. That they should have left it to an untried girl was simply astounding. That he had not noticed that they had done just that was incredible.
She must have read something in his face, because she nodded, her grin dying down a little.
“All right, I can see you're having some trouble.”
He was at a
stoplight, and he glanced at her quickly. He was a little startled at how a face that seemed designed for joy could look that determined in the space of a moment.
“I'm... having some trouble?”
“Yes, you are,” Estelle said firmly. “You obviously have a picture in your head of who and what I am, and I do not match it, do I?”
He wasn't sure what to say about that, but she was absolutely telling the truth. He nodded warily.
“I am sorry that I do not match your picture of me, but I do promise you that I am the same person. I am the one who found the email that halted the Ellsford deal, I'm the one who helped you get through the crisis in Chicago, and I am the one who has been keeping you up to date on the Kalil Enterprises interests in the United States for a solid half year and more.”
Now that she was talking, he could hear that steel that he had always found in her writings. He could feel those green eyes boring into him, and he could hear the resolve in her voice.
“Yes, you are,” he said quietly.
“None of that has changed, and if you truly think that it has, then you should tell me right now. I'll be offended, and I will be upset, but if you cannot work with me, that is something I need to know.”
“And what would you do if that was the case?” He already knew what his answer would be, but if he were honest, his regard for Estelle Waters was growing by leaps and bounds. He wanted to know more her, and this was a part of it.
“Then I would demand the three months’ severance pay that is part of the job contract, and I would look for employment in Dubai.”
He blinked. “You wouldn't go home to your family?”
She shot him a wary look. “My family loves me very much, but nothing would please them more than if I returned to the United States.”
“Are they so eager to see you fail?” he asked, obscurely offended on her behalf.
