Older Woman, Younger Sheikh

by Teresa Morgan

He wasn’t going to leave her any space for herself. Misery pummeled her. He would have all of her. But if he knew all of her, he wouldn’t like what he saw.

  Okay. If he was going to know it all, then she might as well get comfortable.

  A heavy weariness consumed her, an ocean of dark water closing over her head. Taking as deep a breath as she dared, she flipped off her high-heeled sandals and held them in one hand by their gold straps. The bed was nearby, the same bed she’d shared with Ghassan, but the traditional coverings were gone.

  She sat down heavily on the modern, crisp duvet. “My best times on this boat were always with Shafa. I didn’t use him to get away from just Ghassan.”

  Amin’s lips flicked downward. “He sees you in a way I cannot. You are more honest with him. He knows a side of you I do not.”

  Maybe that’s because he’s not blackmailing me to have sex with him… Black anger swooshed over her. “If you want honesty, you should get a girlfriend. Honesty is not how this works.”

  Amin straightened, looking even taller from her sitting perspective. “This works the way I say it does. At this moment, I want your honesty.”

  This was it. He might as well know.

  “Ghassan sometimes brought VIPs on board. He wanted to impress them, to offer any hospitality they wanted. So he gave them whatever they asked for.”

  Amin’s eyes narrowed. “And they would sometimes ask for you.”

  She swallowed, remembering the horror of the first time it had happened. Ghassan had explained that the son of a visiting sheikh had taken an interest in her. She hadn't gotten it, had no idea what any of that meant. Ghassan had had to explain what was expected of her, in detail.

  Having to sleep with Ghassan had been bad enough. She’d objected, as much as she’d dared.

  Hadn’t made a difference.

  Her gaze went glassy. But no tears came. The tears had run out a long time ago.

  “The worst part was how normal they were. How ordinary. Not angry or mean. It was just something they wanted, so they got it. They didn’t have any doubts or regrets. As if they were entitled to ask for anything, and have it handed to them just like that.” The voice saying the words seemed to come from a long way away. It certainly wasn’t her voice. These were things she’d never say. Not allowed.

  “Rania.” Someone said her name. It was a kind voice, with a tremble of emotion in it.

  She blinked twice, and the room came back into focus. She became aware she’d been slumping, nearly collapsed on the bed.

  She practically leapt up, straightening her back, sucking in her stomach muscles. Chin in the air.

  Pride. She had nothing to be ashamed of. But a few things she didn’t need to think about. She’d done it all for her family. They were safe and happy because of the things she’d done. She was a heroine, as her father had always told her.

  That made it okay.

  “I was faithful to Ghassan,” she said haughtily. “No matter what he asked of me.”

  “Including when he asked you to sleep with other men.”

  How awesome it had to be. To live a life of privilege, to have the power and money to decide what you wanted to do with your days, and nights. To plan your months and years without taking anyone else into account.

  She hoped Amin appreciated it.

  “A few times. It was rare. But if we had a male visitor who had to be impressed and he wanted me, Ghassan showed his generosity.”

  Amin’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. Words seemed lost to him.

  He’d asked for honesty. Well, how did he like his honesty now?

  Except… He’d probably be done with her. He’d made it clear he didn’t want to share her on their first night. She couldn’t turn back time, erase her past. And she’d done what she had to for her family.

  If he condemned her for that, he was the hypocrite, not her. He’d known she was Ghassan’s mistress. What did he think they did? Play backgammon all night long?

  “I have a past, Amin. You knew that when you approached me. I haven’t been a fresh-faced virgin since I was seventeen, and that was a long time ago. I assumed you chose me because you want a woman of experience. That is what you got.”

  “I chose you because—” He broke off, looked to the ground. Paused for a long heartbeat. Looked up again. “Your toiletries are in the gray stateroom, down the hall. I will see you in the morning.”

  When she saw Amin the next day, the sunshine beat down like a hammer, and the waves of the gulf pranced around the boat in a cruel, mocking dance.

  She’d coated her face with waterproof makeup. Smoothing her skin to its teenage freshness, highlighting her wide, deep-honey eyes. Most importantly, hiding the blue-black circles under those eyes.

  Sleep hadn’t come to her. She’d tossed all night like the water outside her porthole window. Her mind had spun with ideas, gambits, tricks she could try to get Amin back.

  Everything that came to her smacked of desperation. Amin would see through her games like they were plastic wrap.

  He saw her as dirty now, with a filth that couldn’t be washed off.

  The stupidest thing she’d ever heard, an old, misogynistic view. A ridiculous idea that needed to be thrown out and burned with fire.

  Amin had told her more than once that he knew what she was. Except he didn’t, not really.

  She wasn’t a “what.” She was a woman who had done what she needed to for her family, what she’d been forced to do by people who thought they had the rights to her body.

  She would never be proud of the things that had happened to her. But she hadn’t chosen them. And she was not somehow unclean. Anyone who thought that way needed ten CCs of the twenty-first century, stat.

  The trouble was, how to make him see things that way. Before he dumped her and put her brother’s family on the street.

  There had to be something she could do to get him back. She just had no idea what that could possibly be.

  So she went to the upper deck on the tipping point of a full-blown anxiety attack.

  To her surprise, Shafa and Nairi’s luggage had already been loaded onto a skiff pulled up to the side of the Miizaan. To the east lay the port of Zeddine, the golden beach meeting the blue water, the dark buildings rising up beyond. She’d felt the boat moving during the night, but it was still surprising they had arrived at their destination. A full three hours early, she noted.

  Shafa stood on the deck, a raw linen jacket draped over his shoulders. As Rania approached from behind, she noted Nairi had grabbed on to Amin’s arm like it was the last lifeboat on the Titanic.

  “But we didn’t get a chance to become better acquainted.” The pink gloss on her perfect lips glittered in the sun.

  Amin spoke to Shafa as if Nairi didn’t exist. “Your niece is very pleasant, Shafaqat. But perhaps next time you will feel free to bring your nephew.”

  Her friend didn’t speak for a long moment. He cleared his throat before speaking again. When he did, his voice was weak. “That would be… refreshing.”

  “I agree.” Amin acknowledged Nairi for the first time, and it was only to remove her manicured hand from his arm and place it firmly on Shafa’s. “I believe we can make our agreement work. You may expect my call.”

  “I look forward to it, my friend.” Shafa had recovered his expansive, enthusiastic tone of voice. “Ah, Rania, my dove. There you are. We leave you now.”

  She battled the inner urge to stiffen, maybe even run to the other side of the ship, as Amin turned to her. Instead of looking at the bitter condemnation that would be on Amin’s face, she focused on Shafa.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go.” Oh, truer words had never been spoken. Sailing back to Nalut with Amin would occupy the longest day of her life. One day to figure out how to get him back, and he would probably prefer to spend that day without even seeing her face.

  “Say farewell to your friend,” Amin stated, zero emotion in his voice.

  She nodded at the order, plas
tering on a smile.

  Shafa kissed her on one cheek, and took the opportunity to whisper close to her ear. “Make him care for you, Rania. This is a good one. Not like Ghassan.”

  As they switched cheeks, she gave him the only response she could. “Is he?” she asked. “I don’t know.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When Shafa and Nairi’s boat zoomed off toward the port, Nairi waving a filmy scarf toward the boat—and Amin, of course.

  “Have you eaten?” Amin asked her.

  Why do you care? she didn't respond.

  “I have. Thank you for asking.”

  “Excellent. Then we are ready.” He caught the eye of Captain Naveed, who stood on the deck above them.

  Naveed ordered someone to bring the skiff to port. Immediately, she heard the muted roar of the onboard motor of a much smaller boat.

  The little, tippy, barely there thing took the place of the other skiff at the bottom of the ladder on the side of the Miizaan. She watched, filled with gratitude for the guys who worked the yacht—they were awesome, doing all this stuff that she could never, never do. To her, skimming over the water, showing no fear, they might have been superheroes.

  And then, she felt a large, warm hand on her bare shoulder.

  “Rania,” Amin said. “I am sorry.”

  A horrible egg of tension broke open inside her. He wasn’t going to hold her past against her, meno male. Everything was going to be all right between them. He wasn’t one of these idiots who thought a woman’s value was only between her legs.

  Despite the fact he was blackmailing her into sleeping with him.

  “It’s okay, Amin. You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Ghassan is gone now. I’m happy that you won’t ask those things of me.”

  A hint of color rose over Amin’s cheekbones. “Actually, I was not speaking of our discussion last night. I am apologizing in advance for this.”

  A flash of electric orange appeared in Amin’s hands. As soon as she recognized the life jacket, and that Amin was offering it to her, she instinctively backed away. The small of her back hit the cold railing that ran around the boat.

  No. No, no, no. The hum of the motor rose from the waterline at the bottom of the ladder, a low-level horror waiting for her to misstep and go over the side.

  “Rania.” His tone was an attempt to soothe her. “I ask that you trust me now. I understand how terrifying this must be for you—”

  Though her throat felt like paper stuck together with glue, she managed to force words out. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Amin gave a snorting laugh. “I am not blind, Rania. Nor a fool. You are clearly afraid of the water.”

  “I’m not.” The denial creaked out of her mouth.

  “That would be remarkable if it were true,” Amin said. “I asked the crew and learned of the incident where you were swept overboard. You could have told me this. I had no idea you hated yachts or I never would have brought you.”

  “I don’t hate yachts. Or any boat. They keep you out of the water.”

  He shook his head. “As I said. Remarkable. The only way past your fear is through it.” He moved closer to her, his body meeting hers, trapping her against the railing.

  Her stomach, bared by the turquoise patterned bikini she wore, met the thin cotton of his shirt, the warm muscle of his abs beneath. Intense attraction went to war with her insane fear.

  “Rania,” he whispered. “I will not let any harm come to you. You must believe me.”

  She looked up into his eyes, and saw a flicker in them that she recognized from so long ago. That lost little boy who had been willing to leave everything he knew for her.

  His hand crept up her bare back, somehow giving her strength to face what was coming. “Please come with me, Rania. Let me do this for you. You are safe and protected with me.”

  With a will of their own, her fingers wrapped around his biceps. If they could stay like this, maybe she could face whatever was coming.

  “I’m terrified of the water,” she admitted. “But I’ll do what you want. Just please don’t leave me.”

  He took one of her hands and raised it to his lips. “I do not intend to.”

  Getting into the skiff was a screaming terror. Amin scrambled down first. She put on the lifejacket before taking a single step, and nearly asked for two more to wrap around her legs.

  Amin offered her encouragement as she came down, telling her to focus only on each step, and that she was doing well.

  The fact that her fingers managed to stay clasped around the wet metal ladder was a personal triumph.

  “You will find this journey rewarding, Rania,” Amin told her, once she was “safely” in the tiny, wave-tossed… she couldn’t even call it a boat. It was a rubber dinghy with a motor on it, like they used on TV shows where insane people went scuba diving to look for stingrays and sharks.

  Why anyone would want to actually look for those things, she had zero idea. She intended to stay as far away from them as possible.

  Cassius gunned the motor and the little plastic excuse for a boat zoomed off. Her pulse took off with it.

  Hold it together. Zeddine isn’t so far away. You’ll get there, see something great that Amin is excited about. It’ll probably be fantastic.

  And even if it wasn’t, she had to act like she loved it, even though this would probably lead to more excursions on the merdoso tiny little unstable crappy Zodiac-thingie that was eight million times worse than the yacht, which she would never complain about again.

  But as the Miizaan got farther away, the port did not get closer. They went parallel to the shore for a while, then turned—gulp—out into the gulf.

  An arm went around her shoulders. “Close your eyes. Everything will be well.”

  The voice was one of a thousand in her throbbing head. She had no idea how she heard it through the painful chorus of sounds warning her that she was going to end up in the water and die. That the intense beating of her heart wasn’t just fear, but an actual heart attack that would kill her even if she didn’t go overboard.

  She closed her eyes, but the motor still roared, the boat still bumped over the waves, and tiny stings of salty water pricked her lips and eyelids.

  “It is not far now,” Amin assured her, having to raise his voice over the sounds of the horrible watercraft that did not deserve the name of “boat.” “Did Ghassan not wish you to learn to swim?”

  A drop of water knifed into the corner of her eye. “After I went overboard that one time, I asked him if I could take lessons. He promised I could.”

  “And so?” Amin prodded. “Why did you not?”

  “He never arranged them.” She’d reminded him as much as she’d dared, right up until he bit her head off for “nagging” and told her he’d get to it when he felt like it.

  “You could have arranged them yourself anytime these past years.” She didn’t dare open her eyes, but through the darkness behind her lids, it sounded like Amin’s eyebrows were drawn together in confusion.

  “I did,” she confirmed. “Tuesday nights at the public indoor pool for six weeks.”

  Amin waited for the end of the tale that he must have known was coming.

  “Ghassan informed me that I had overstepped my boundaries in setting it up without his permission and that my presence would be required at the palace—”

  “Allow me to guess, every Tuesday evening for six weeks.”

  She shook her head. He would be able to see the gesture, even if her own eyes were still clamped shut. “Every Tuesday evening. Permanently. Even when he wasn’t there.”

  “I do not find that difficult to believe.”

  In her vulnerable, terrified state, she’d told him Amin way too much truth—even though he said it was what he wanted. She should definitely not say anything else.

  She did anyway. “Ghassan didn’t swim. I don’t think he wanted me to be able to do something he couldn’t.”

  “And I imagine the entertainment of
seeing you frightened every time you boarded the yacht was an additional enjoyment for him.”

  She licked a dollop of salty water from her lip and didn’t answer.

  The sound of the motor ticked down a notch, and she felt the thingie that wasn’t really a boat slow.

  One of her eyelids sneaked open. Blue blue blue as far as she could see. But something else, too. A sliver of dusty gold topped by extreme green.

  Land. And they were heading toward it. She had to bite her lip to keep from shouting and throwing her fist in the air. LAND.

  The island was small, but it was made of sand and dirt and she could stand on it without it rocking like this “boat,” and right now, that was enough for her.

  “Are we going there?”

  Amin nodded, and gave an order to Cassius to head in to a small cove. Cove, rocks, beach… She didn’t care, as long as it meant standing on something that didn’t swish under your feet.

  The cove was pretty enough. The inlet would have been entirely circular if it wasn’t squished on one side. Rocks dotted the entrance from the cove to the Mediterranean, explaining why they had to take the sort-of-boat-thingie instead of just sticking to the yacht. The rocks were too close together for the yacht to get into the inlet.

  The island itself seemed green and fertile, with tall palms that had bunches of both young green and ready-to-drop dark brown dates just hanging from them. But clearly no one lived here. No buildings, no structures of any kind. Just the world’s quietest, most secluded beach.

  The Zodiac hadn’t even stopped moving when Amin jumped out and extended a hand to her, which she took with a burst of delight. Sliding over the rubber hump that served as the not-boat’s hull had a terrible effect on her bikini bottoms, sending them right up where they didn’t belong.

  Amin noticed. “Allow me.”

  With a dark spark in his eye, he slid a finger under the bottoms, at the back. The heat of his hand contrasted with the wet fabric as his knuckle dragged down her butt, putting the garment right. Once that was done, instead of taking his hand away, he left it on her ass. Under the swimsuit.