by Ella Brooke
"What's the matter?" she asked, peeking up at him, and Adil made himself laugh a little.
"It made me a little sad," he admitted. "I am now even gladder that I made the choice I did for the mother of my child, but the idea of you being with a man who could not appreciate you.. that sounds terrible."
"It was worse than being alone, I'll tell you that," she said, "but now is it my turn yet?"
"Yes, it is your turn," Adil laughed, and somewhere inside him, a truth about Annabel clicked home. She would never tell him a story to make him pity her or to anger him or to manipulate him. She would tell him a story because she thought it was funny or because it was the truth or because it was something she thought he needed to know. It was an engaging thought, and he resolved to think about it later on as she sat up. She did not move back to her side of the couch, however. She sat comfortably in the circle of his arms and looked at him with consideration.
"Do you believe in love?"
The question startled him, and he looked at her in surprise.
"Why, what do you mean?""
She shrugged, perhaps a little shy but unwilling to withdraw her question.
"It's something that I've wondered before, after some of the things you've said. You talk about never marrying and only having an heir, and you've talked about all the things you used to do. So I want to know, do you believe in love?"
"That is a very good question," he said thoughtfully. Her eyes looked unexpectedly bright, and he wondered what kind of stake she had in the question. He would have thought that a woman who had had a past like hers would not set such store by it, but he had been wrong before.
"I do, but not in the way that you are thinking of," he said at last. "I believe that my parents found a working relationship that they could be proud of. I believe that they both loved me very much, and that my mother and her aunts loved each other as sisters should. I believe that there are many people that believe that they love each other."
He paused long enough that Annabel wondered if that was the end of his answer, but then he shook his head.
"I believe that there are many kinds of love, perhaps, but that the love between a man and a woman... well, there is attraction there, certainly. There is lust, and there is a need for a bond that will help them support a household. Those things can be profound and deep, but they are not love."
He looked at her then, and there was something she had never seen in his eyes before. It was hard, and she wondered if it was so vicious because it had been wounded once upon a time.
"No, I do not believe in the kind of love that you are thinking of. I think that there is lust most often, and after that some kind of exchange of needs at best. I do not believe in it."
He shrugged as if the matter was somehow distasteful to him, and he stood away from her. His sudden departure left her cold, and she curled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her as she watched him move towards the refrigerator. He had discarded his jacket at some point and his tie as well. Now in his wrinkled shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he looked more handsome than ever, but she felt that he had put a distance between them that wasn't there before.
"Do you want anything to eat?" he said. "Perhaps some wine?"
"If I am trying to deliver a healthy baby, I should not," she said with a shrug. "No big loss to me, I have never cared for the stuff."
"Ah, then more for me."
She felt a strange chill go down her spine as he poured himself a glass of deep red wine.
Remember this, something small and cold inside her said. Remember this. There are many faces to this man, and this is one he is not aware he is showing you.
Chapter Eight
At some point, Annabel grew tired enough that she was nodding off on the couch, and Adil sent her to sleep with Marissa.
"I'll likely end up sleeping on the couch out here," he said, "though I am very used to this flight. I might save sleep for actual night fall when we are in Sakhi. It helps me get my sleep back in order."
She had just long enough to wonder if she should have done that for her and Marissa, but then she fell into a deep slumber that was completely dreamless.
When she rose from that sleep, she was well-rested, possibly more well-rested than she had ever felt.
Is this what it's like to get enough sleep, Annabel wondered. If so, I've been missing out.
She turned over to check on Marissa, but to her surprise, the little girl was gone. She felt a tingle of fear run up her spine, but then she told herself that there was only so far her little girl could have gone. She walked out into the main cabin, where there was bright golden light streaming in through the windows, and she stopped short at what she saw.
Marissa was seated next to the sheikh of Sakhi, leaning against his arm as he drew something on a sheet of paper on the table in front of them. Marissa's face was drawn tight with concentration, but Annabel wondered if she had ever seen Adil look as relaxed as he did now. There was a slight smile on his face and his hand held the pen with a relaxed elegance and grace.
Annabel wanted the moment to last a little longer, but then Marissa saw her.
"Mama, mama, come look, Adil is showing me how to draw a bird."
"Or more appropriately, we are showing each other how we draw," Adil said gravely. "Marissa's cats are quite practiced. She has made a very strong case for my house needing a cat at some point down the road."
Annabel came to sit across from them, grimacing slightly.
"Marissa, I hope you weren't bothering Adil..."
Marissa stuck her chin out stubbornly.
"I wasn't," she insisted."We were just talking."
"It's true," Adil said with a smile. "We were only talking."
Annabel glanced at the sheet of paper that they were passing between them. It was half-covered with doodles in pen. She could recognize her own daughter's half-formed scribbles easily, but she was immediately taken with Adil's drawings. They were fluid and loose, capturing the essence of the animal that he was depicting, whether it was a cat, a dog or a bird.
"Those are pretty," she commented. "Do you do any painting?"
He ducked his head in a way that looked almost shy.
"No, not really. It is simply something that happens when I find myself in a place with paper and pen. Marissa agrees that the same thing happens to her."
She was startled by the wistful warmth in his voice when he spoke about her daughter. After an immediate protective feeling died down, she was left with a strange sort of tenderness. This was a man who wanted to be a father, even if he was going about it in a strange way.
She glanced out the window, startled to see the bright blue water and the golden coast.
"We've come a long way," she said. "How long were we asleep?"
"For quite some time. As it turns out, this is a voyage that can knock you out if you are not used to air travel. Fortunately, it looks like you and Marissa are both natural travelers."
Marissa giggled, liking the idea quite a lot, and then she started to regale her mother and Adil with a list of places that she wanted to go in the future.
When she paused for breath, Adil addressed them both.
"Although I would not say that Sakhi was close to many other places, it is easy enough for us to travel by jet to wherever we want to go. Perhaps we can see some of those places in the future if we have the time. We will, however, be in Sakhi in an hour or so. I am looking forward to introducing both of you to my home."
This is real, thought Annabel. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach. She wondered all over again if she had made the wrong decision, if she had changed her and her daughter's lives forever. Nothing would ever be the same, but glancing at her daughter's happy face, she thought that it might be all right.
Adil studied her for a moment, and then he turned to Marissa.
"It sounds like the stewardess is getting our meals ready right now. Why don't you go see what it is we are having?"
As M
arissa made her way to the stewardess's quarters, Adil turned to Annabel.
"Are you all right?" he asked, and she smiled a little helplessly.
"I am," she said. "Only I think a lot of this is beginning to sink in. It's all real. You are a sheikh, you are going to give me a child, or I am going to give you one. I am living in a future that I could never have dreamed of."
To her shock, his gaze cooled off slightly.
"Are you having second thoughts, then?" Annabel wondered if there was something menacing in his voice even as she shook her head.
"No, not really. I think anyone in my situation would have taken your offer."
She wondered if there was a slight flicker of pain that crossed his face, but then it was gone as he shrugged elegantly.
"That may very well be, but I did not ask anyone. I asked you. What is important to me is that you find our arrangement satisfactory."
Annabel found that she had to laugh a little at his formal words. He looked hurt again at that, and she reached out to squeeze his hand. In the back of her mind, she was slightly shocked at how comfortable she was with simply reaching out and touching him like this.
"Do not worry," she murmured, aware that her daughter could be returning at any moment. "I am a woman of my word."
He relaxed a little, squeezing her hand just as she squeezed his.
"Good," he said, his voice imbued with just a small growl. "That is what I require from all around me."
She started to say something, but then she saw a heat rise up in his eyes. A few moments ago, they had been bantering back and forth about their bargain, and suddenly, she was now confronted with the physical reality of it. This man would take possession of her body in a way that only one man ever had before, and suddenly her mouth was dry.
"There is more than just our words involved here, Annabel, and I want you to remember that," he said, his voice a velvety rumble.
He let go of her hand abruptly as Marissa returned with the stewardess close behind. Annabel was sure that her face was as red as a tomato, and she was relieved when he was the one who turned to the pair with a kind smile.
He asked Marissa to describe the meal in front of them, and as the stewardess laid it out, Annabel discreetly touched her hand where he had held it. She could still feel the warmth of his fingers there, but it was more than that. She felt branded in some strange way, as if she would glow there for anyone who had the eyes to see it.
I feel claimed, she thought finally. I feel like I belong to him now.
...What have I done?
***
Annabel was quiet after they got off of the plane, and there was a pensiveness that hadn't been there before. Adil could sense it, but for the moment, he left her alone. There were many reasons why she might be more serious right now, but she still flashed him a grateful smile when he answered Marissa's dozen questions about the airport that they walked through and the sleek dark car that was pulled up for him.
It was mid-afternoon in Sakhi, the large city in full bustle. Adil, who had always preferred to drive himself, took the driver's seat and with Marissa in the back seat and Annabel by his side, he took them through the city.
Marissa was buckled in, but she pressed her nose to the glass, looking out, wide eyed.
"There are so many people!" she said happily. "There's a man spinning sugar! Can we stop? It looks delicious!"
Adil was going to say of course they could, but it was Annabel that quickly shook her head.
"No, Marissa. You just ate, and putting sugar on top of the meal that you got on the airplane is going to make you sick to your stomach."
Adil lapsed into silence as Marissa fussed slightly and then subsided into a deep sigh. Annabel caught his eye and smiled.
"Can't wait for those turbulent teen years," she said.
Until recently, Adil had not thought much about children or about how they were raised. While plenty of his friends and acquaintances had children, they were very much kept out of the adult sphere. It had not occurred to him how very involved a parent could be, or at least, the reality of it had not struck him.
He looked at Annabel with a new respect. His own parents had taken a hand in raising him, but he also knew that nannies and tutors were involved as well. As far as he could tell, Marissa had become a very sweet girl with just her mother keeping her in line.
The trip out to their destination was relatively short, just an hour and a half from the airport, but by the end, Marissa was drowsing in the back seat and Annabel was glancing back at her with worry.
"Air travel takes it out of people," Adil said softly. "Adults and children. She will be fine."
Annabel bit her lip, a gesture that he found strangely engaging. For a moment, he had a mad urge to pull over and kiss her lower lip, but he reminded himself that that would be the least appropriate thing he could do at this juncture.
"I hope so. She's just been so easy to wear out lately. I hope that they can figure out what is going on with her. The doctors back in New York were no help at all."
He could hear the helplessness and despair in her voice, and he reached over to take her hand again.
"Something will be done," he promised. "Do not worry about it."
She smiled at him, a slightly rueful edge to it.
"That's right, you're new to this parenting thing. It's what parents do. We worry. One day, you're bopping along, doing fine, and then, suddenly, there's an entire world that you cannot control. All you can do is look after it and love it, and sometimes, you have to find that there is nothing at all you can do."
Adil blinked a few times.
"I'll admit," he said, "there is not a great deal that I cannot control. I have been sheikh for more than ten years, and though there are things that go wrong, I also have the power to set them right."
"That sounds very nice," she said with a slight laugh. "I don't doubt that there are some things about that that will apply for children as well, but, well. You'll see, I suppose."
When he glanced over at her. Adil was struck by the soft beauty of her face. Her dark hair was still up in those sleek braids (did she even sleep with her hair up?), but there were a few strands falling down around her face, giving her a sleepy kind of charm.
He suddenly knew that he had chosen well, even if inadvertently.
"I suppose I will," was all he would say, and he drove a little faster. Suddenly, Adil wanted nothing more than to be off the road for the night.
Chapter Nine
Despite her sleep on the jet, Annabel realized that she had slept most of the way out to their location as well when she woke with a jolt. The car was stopped, and the height of the sun in the sky told her that it was closer to sunset than it had been when she went to sleep.
"Where... what is..."
She felt a heavy hand close around hers, squeezing companionably. For some reason, even before she got any kind of decent explanation, Annabel felt a surge of comfort from the touch.
"It's fine. We are here."
"Here..."
Adil grinned.
"I'll show you."
'Here' turned out to be a Spanish-style hacienda set like a jewel in what seemed to be a lush oasis. When Annabel turned to look at the way they had come, she saw bare desert with the bright city of Sakhi in the distance. When she looked at the hacienda, she saw white-washed walls, elegant Moroccan arches, and a tiled roof of gorgeous baked clay.
"Oh, Adil, it's beautiful..."
He grinned at her, and in a strange moment, she realized that he wasn't looking at the beauty in the house. Instead, he was looking at her reaction to it, and she blushed a little bit. Why would he care what she thought of it? It was only going to be a private place where they could... where they could...
She shook her head to get the thought out. That particular thought had been getting more and more insistent over time, however, and very soon, she knew that she would not be able to ignore it at all.
Before Adil could see the dist
ress on her face and ask her what was wrong, however, there was a noise from the backseat.
"Mama? Mama, I have to go to the bathroom..."
"Of course," Annabel said with a rueful smile. "Adil, do you mind...?"
"Not at all, I'll go get the house opened up."
Marissa had been tractable enough when she went to sleep, but she was disoriented and a little fractious when she woke up. They found the bathroom just fine, but afterward, she was overwhelmed by the manor itself, because that was the only word that would suit a place so large and gorgeous.
"Mama, it's so big. Where are we going to live?"
"Right here for now," Annabel repeated patiently. "It won't always seem so large..."
Adil had been keeping his distance to let the two of them get used to the space, but now he stepped forward.
"I find that when I am afraid of things that seem to large, I need to start smaller," he said. "Perhaps I can help."
Marissa looked suspicious, but to Annabel's relief, she agreed to try things Adil's way. She took his hand easily when he offered it, and Annabel trailed the pair down the hall.
"All right," Adil said, stopping at a door that was marked with gold paint. After a moment, Annabel could see that it was a horse dancing on its hind legs. "This is where you are going to start."
When he opened the door, he revealed a room that was easily larger than their old living room, but far cozier and more luxurious. There was a child-sized bed in the far corner with drapes of some kind of gauzy fabric hanging from the ceiling, an enormous braided rug in the center of the room, and a large chest off to one side. Along one wall were two long shelves, just high enough for a four year old to reach, filled with books. The walls of the room were painted a smooth creamy violet with white trim giving it a nearly fairytale feel.
Marissa looked around in wonder. Annabel half-expected her to run straight in, but she glanced up at Adil and her mother.
"Whose room is this?" she asked, and Adil laughed.
"It's your room if you want it," he said. "Once upon a time, when my family came here for meetings and for vacations, it was mine. When I realized that you and your mother were going to be coming to stay with me for a while, I had some people update it with what I knew of you. Your mother mentioned that violet was your favorite color."
