The Sheikh's Secret

by Knight, Kylie

  Caroline lept up and and squealed so loudly that Bethany threw her hands over her ears. She had no idea what had her friend so excited, but the way she was jumping up and down made it look like she had just won the lottery or something.

  “Beth, this is it! There is absolutely no way you aren’t going to dinner with him tonight.”

  “This is what, exactly?”

  “It! Something important? What if he’s going to like, ask you to marry you or something? That would be so cool!”

  “That would be crazy! We’ve only been dating for four months. You can’t get engaged after four months.”

  “Really? Because people do it all the time. Look, I don’t know what he’s going to say, but I bet it’s going to be amazing.”

  “And you don’t mind if I leave?”

  “No, but I’ll mind if you stay. One of us needs to have something to talk about, right?”

  Beth nodded, her thoughts already starting to drift to the evening ahead. For the first time since her whirlwind with Aasif had begun, she was nervous about what was to come. She hadn’t talked to him about where things might be going with them because she was afraid to. It was pretty much the worst time ever to start falling in love with someone, but she had gone and done it anyway. What she wasn’t entirely sure of was whether or not he felt the same way. She had a feeling tonight was the night she was going to find out, she just wasn’t sure what he was going to say.

  “Bethany, you look utterly devastating tonight.”

  She loved the way her name sounded coming out of his mouth, the way it rolled off his tongue like a soft purr. He looked pretty amazing himself, if they were going to talk about looks. His body was just as toned as ever beneath a sharp black on black suit, his hair slicked back and his perfectly white teeth gleaming in the candle light coming from their little table. Then there were his eyes. There was something about Aasif’s eyes that made Bethany’s heart jump every time she looked into them. There was a depth there that she had never found in another man before, a depth that made her feel completely at his mercy.

  God, what if he did propose to her tonight? What would she do? Should she say yes? Did she love him? The question sounded utterly ridiculous for her to ask, even if she was just asking herself. How could she be in love with a man that she had only known for four months? Things like that only happened in the movies. They weren’t logical, weren’t practical. The thing was, practical or not, she did love him. Looking at him now Bethany realized that she couldn’t stand the idea of something coming between the two of them. She wasn’t ready for this whirlwind love affair to end.

  “Devastating? That sounds severe. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

  “Oh darling, believe me, “ Aasif said with a grin as he took her hand in his across the small, intimate table, “with you it’s a good thing. It’s a very good thing. You’re the kind of beautiful that could make a man lose control of himself, that’s all I mean. The most stunning woman I’ve ever set eyes on and I’ve got the good fortune to call you mine for the evening. What more could a man ask for?”

  Bethany lowered her eyes and blushed, not used to being complimented in such an extravagant way. She wasn’t much a fan of being referred to as being called a belonging of anyone, not usually, but she felt that she understood the sentiment behind his statement and it was one that made her very hopeful about their future. This wasn’t the kind of conversation that led to two people parting their separate ways. It couldn’t be, could it?

  Their server arrived with what looked to Bethany to be a very pricey bottle of champagne and held it up to Aasif for his inspection. He looked it over with an air of authority that made Beth swell with pride to be his date, despite knowing that it was a silly way to feel. It was just that it was so uncommon for a man as young as he was, only twenty-three, to be as cultured and well possessed as Aasif managed to be. He knew about the finer things in life and yet possessed little to no arrogance about it, which she considered to be a difficult balance to strike. She did, she loved him in a way that made her feel hot and tingly all over, a way that made her want to smile for no reason at all except that he was beside her. He nodded his head that yes, the bottle of champagne was what he was looking for, and the server quickly and quietly poured them each a glass before scurrying away. Bethany had spent more time alone with him by this point that she could even remember but all of the sudden she felt nervous. She didn’t know what to do with her hands and she was too shy to make eye contact with him. She was nervous. More nervous than she could ever remember being in her entire life.

  “Bethany, I’d like to make a toast, if I may. Will you raise your glass with me?”

  She looked at him with a soft smile and did as he asked, feeling her nerves bouncing inside of her body like they were on a trampoline.

  “To us. Or more specifically, to you. You have been the most intriguing, challenging and fantastic woman I’ve ever known. These last few months have been the loveliest I’ve spent in the States. I can’t imagine what my life would be now without you in it.”

  “Really? Do you mean that?”

  “Of course I do,” he said, leaning towards her with eyes full of passion and overwhelming sincerity, “I don’t think I’ve ever meant anything more. I think you already know this, but I love you, Bethany. I hope that doesn’t frighten you.”

  “No,” she said breathlessly, “I never thought I would say this in such a short amount of time, but I love you, too. I really, really do.”

  “God, I’m glad to hear you say that. That makes this dinner much better than it would have been if you thought I was a lunatic.”

  He chuckled and Bethany giggled along with him, giddy and almost drunk with anticipation of what might come next. This didn’t feel like her real life, it felt like a movie she was watching or a dream she didn’t know she was having.

  “Well I definitely don’t think that. I think you’re amazing.”

  “I think you’re amazing. That’s why I asked you here. I need to ask you a question.”

  Oh god. This was it. He was going to propose to her! She knew she should say no, that they needed more time to get to know each other, but she wasn’t going to. She was going to say yes and then she was never going to look back.

  “You can ask me anything, Aasif.”

  “I wanted to ask you if you’re willing to keep this relationship going after I go. I know I’m invested enough, but are you? Do you think you could manage it?”

  Bethany felt like she had been slapped in the face. She didn’t fully understand what he was saying, but she knew it wasn’t what she had been expecting and she knew it wasn’t good. She wanted to keep things going after he went? But where was he going? And if he really had to go, why didn’t he just ask her to go with him? She had just heard the words “I love you” come out of his mouth, but that couldn’t really be true. Not if they were followed up by him dropping the bomb that he was going off somewhere and leaving her behind.

  “I, I don’t know. I don’t understand, Aasif, what exactly are you saying?”

  Aasif let her hand go and sighed, taking a long sip from his glass of fancy champagne. Bethany followed suit, not because she loved the taste so much. At this point everything tasted a lot like cardboard. It just seemed like the thing to do, and besides, she felt like with the turn this talk had taken alcohol might not be such a bad idea.

  “Bethany, you know I’m not from here, that I’m from somewhere very far from here, right?”

  “Yes, I know that. I remember everything you’ve told me about yourself, although now that I think about it that hasn’t really been all that much.”

  “I know, I realize that. It’s just that things are complicated with me.”

  “Aren’t they complicated for everyone?” Bethany shot the words back at Aasif before she could stop herself. If he hadn’t known she was upset with him before, she definitely did now. She was pretty sure he and most of the people at the surrounding ta
bles were very clear on that matter.

  “Bethany,”

  “No, you’re right. I told you I didn’t understand. I should at least let you explain.”

  “What you say is true, things are complicated for every family, but mine is different. My family is just different that most.”

  “How so?”

  Bethany could feel her eyes starting to well up with tears and she grasped her glass tightly in her hand, taking another sip to keep herself from giving into them. She refused to cry in this public place. She was not going to make a scene.

  “It sounds so crude to speak about it, but my family is wealthy. Uncommonly wealthy. My father is a Sheikh and I am being groomed to be one as well. It is my duty, my responsibility to my family. And that means I must return home, whether it’s my first choice to do so or not.”

  “When do you need to leave?”

  “In a week.”

  Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse, they went ahead and did. A week? All she had left with him was a week? She knew that he had broken the news by telling her that he wanted them to stay together, but that was little consolation at this point. It felt like someone was dying. She had always thought it was so stupid when people talked about the devastation of heartbreak but now she realized that it was shockingly real.

  “Oh. I see.”

  “Do you? Bethany, what I said was true. I love you, and I can’t stand the idea of losing you. But I can’t shirk my duty either. I just can’t.”

  “Why can’t I come with you? I would, you know.”

  She felt pitiful even asking him that but she couldn’t help it. If she didn’t ask the question she would drive herself crazy wondering what his answer would have been. She needed to know, good or bad.

  “I wish it were that simple, but you don’t know what you’re asking. My culture isn’t like yours. I’m expected to marry a certain kind of woman, a woman I’ve been betrothed to from birth. I won’t do it and I believe I can convince my family to come around to my way of thinking, but that will take time. After all, you cannot change a century in a day.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re engaged?!”

  “No, no” Aasif said quickly, looking around at the people who were starting to openly stare at them with every octave Bethany’s voice rose, “as I said, it was arranged from birth. I do not love her and we will not be wed. I just can’t bring you with me. Not yet. I know that it seems like too much to ask, but I have to ask anyway, because I need you. Will you wait for me? Will you try this with me long distance, across oceans until I am able to bring us together again.”

  Beth wished she could freeze time. She had no idea how to answer him. There wasn’t a solution that seemed like it could possibly make her happy. She didn’t want to lose him, but could she do it long distance? Could she really? She wasn’t sure, but she did know one thing. She was not quitter, never had been. She just wasn’t ready to give up on the first man she had ever loved.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes? Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I’ll wait for you. I will.”

  Aasif kissed Bethany’s hand with an excitement he couldn’t contain. Bethany smiled, but inside she felt empty. She just couldn’t manage to be happy about what they were about to face.

  Chapter Three

  “Aasif! Aasif, you must answer your mother when she calls to you!”

  Aasif fought to pull himself out of his own head and back to his father, whose agitation was starting to become clear in his voice. He was trying, but it felt very much like swimming up stream. He loved his family, he really did, but his heart wasn’t here with them anymore. His heart was back in the United States with the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, whose skin was as soft as silk and whose voice reminded him of sweet honey dripping slowly from a silver spoon.

  “Boy, I’m talking to you. Do you think that because you’ve been away you no longer have to respect your family, your father and your mother? Believe me, you still answer to your father. Don’t allow yourself to become mistaken about that. It will not be good for you.”

  “No father, I won’t. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I would never do something like that on purpose. I guess my head isn’t really back here yet.”

  “No? Well I hope that you get it back here sooner rather than later. You won’t be much use to anyone while you’re moping around like that. How will you become this family’s next Sheikh if you can’t manage to answer a simple question about supper?”

  “I know father. I know.”

  It was very rare indeed for Aasif to raise his voice to his father and it got the attention of all of the extended family members milling around the vast palace of a house Aasif had grown up in. His mother opened her mouth to chastise him but his father silenced her with one harsh hissing sound. Aasif cringed inside. Presumably this whole lecture had started because he had failed to answer his mother when she spoke to him and yet when she tried to add her two cents to the conversation his father had shut her up immediately. How completely backwards was that? This was why he didn’t want to bring Bethany here, this among other things. His lovely girl was opinionated and stubborn and demanded to be heard, some of the qualities he adored most about her, but they were also qualities that would be appalling to his family. The kind of traditional they were wouldn’t allow them to understand her. She was not their idea of what a woman, what a wife, should be. If only he could find a way to make them understand that she was the thing he wanted more than anything, more than the line of sports cars or excessive money or hotel empires. He just didn’t have the faintest clue how to go about doing that.

  “You be quiet, let me handle this,” he said to Aasif’s mother and to one particularly bold sister who seemed to want to get in on the action, before looking at Aasif with narrowed eyes, “and you. You come with me.”

  Aasif couldn’t think of anything he felt less like doing at the moment. His family had sent him away to America for his education so that he could go to the best schools and represent the family as well as humanly possible. When they had broached the plan with him several years ago, he hadn’t wanted to go. He didn’t understand why they felt the need to send him away to a foreign country in order for him to be better able to contribute to his own. He had resisted but he had gone because he knew that it was expected of him and fulfilling that sort of thing was important to him. His family name meant everything to him and he wore it with pride and so he flew far away from home.

  What his family hadn’t counted on was that he might develop a life of his own once he was living on his own. Aasif himself couldn’t have predicted it. It sounded like a wildly arrogant thing to even think to himself, but he had been around beautiful and exotic women practically from birth. He became aware at a very young age that people in his upper echelon circle, both women and men, viewed beautiful women much as they would view a fantastic piece of artwork. It was appreciated, and it could be purchased. People could be purchased, at the end of the day. It wasn’t hateful or even wrong, it was just the way things were. He believed, for good reason, that it was the same the whole world over when it came to society with really terrific amounts of money. It was easy to get so used to lovely things because they were so incredibly easy to come by.

  Things were very different when Aasif moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for several reasons. One of the most glaring of those reasons was that, at school, nobody around him knew who he was. At home he and his family were known by everyone. Everyone had an opinion, either good or bad, and that notoriety gave him both great opportunity and awful obligation. In Cambridge, Aasif had the opportunity to be anonymous. Scratch that, it wasn’t even that he had the opportunity. He didn’t have a choice. The people he was surrounded by weren’t interested in what his backstory was. They weren’t interested in his money, either. Many of them had impressive amounts of money of their own (although nothing that even came close to the wealth he and his family possessed) and they were there to get an educatio
n. He was, for the first time in his entire life, able to be an equal with his peers. It was astounding, the kind of freedom that provided him. It allowed him to truly explore who he was and what he was interested in. It allowed him to come to the place where he first laid eyes on Bethany.

  The most precious thing in the world.

  That was when he became certain of his desire to remain in the United States. It was something he hadn’t even allowed himself to think in the years before their meeting, but after he started spending all of his time with Beth he couldn’t deny it any longer. He loved this new life he had built. It was a life he hadn’t even considered and yet it was the happiest he had ever been. Unfortunately, that hadn’t mattered much, not in the end. Just as his family had insisted that he attend University in a place far from his home, they also insisted that he come back. It was such a strict demand that he hadn’t even gotten the chance to broach the subject of him staying put. He hadn’t even gotten to ask.

  And so he had returned to country, family, and duty, but he was not the same. His family could not undo the things that had altered inside of him when he went away, as much as they would have liked to do so, and now he felt isolated in a way he never had been. No, it was worse than that. He felt a deep seeded resentment beginning to bloom in the darkest recesses of himself and he feared that it would take root inside of him, blossom into a kind of hatred for the family he loved. It was just that he felt so much like a puppet being pulled around by his strings, always being ordered to go to the place where he did not wish to be. When was his life to be his own? Would he ever have that opportunity again? And when would he be reunited with his love, the girl who made the whole world shine just a little bit brighter? So no, he wasn’t interested in the conversation his father was pulling him aside to have. He did not want it. He just wanted to be left alone, and yet he went anyway. He was still his father’s son and his father was still the Sheikh, and so also Aasif’s teacher who would train him for his future’s path. It was his duty to obey whether he liked it or not.