SHEIKH'S SURPRISE BABY: A Sheikh Romance

by Knight, Kylie

  How could he tell her? Kelly hadn’t come into the office since Tallah started working, and always just called his cell phone directly. Had he been secretly keeping her from finding out as well?

  Justin sank his head in his hands. “I am a despicable person.”

  He needed to tell her. There was no right decision. Hearts were going to be broken, he’d lose everything, but damn it if that was how it was to be, he was going to go out with some honor. It wasn’t like he was a cheater! In all this life, this was the only time anything like this had even happened. If he came clean, was honest and up front about it, it might redeem him. Maybe not to Tallah, or to Kelly, but to himself.

  It was the middle of the afternoon when he called her into his office. “May I speak with you a moment?”

  He knew his schedule was clear, so they’d have a minute to talk. When she came in, she closed the door behind her and fixed him with a little smile.

  “Wait,” he said, his hands held in front of him.

  All joy fell from her face, and her mouth pinched into an annoyed quirk. He loved it. “What is going on with you?” she asked him. “I thought we had a nice time, but you’ve been avoiding me ever since.”

  “I know.”

  “You kissed me, remember? Are…” she crossed her arms. “Do you regret what happened?”

  “It’s not like that,” he said. “It’s not totally that,” he corrected.

  Why couldn’t he stop shaking? The thought of hurting her like he knew he was going to was keeping all of the words from forming. He’d lost track of what he was going to say, how he was going to say it.

  “Tallah…” Even just saying her name gave him a thrill. “What happened was amazing, really, but I need to tell you—“

  The office door opened. Both he and Tallah jumped. Kelly, his fiancé, walked through the door. Justin’s heart seized, and sank.

  “Excuse me,” Tallah said, “you can’t come in here without an appointment.”

  The breath caught in Justin’s throat and he coughed to try and make a sound over what she was saying.

  Kelly, though, laughed. “Oh she is a feisty one. It’s okay darling, I don’t work for or with Mr. Gilmore, here.” She came right up to him and planted a kiss. “Hi sweetie. I’ve been calling you. Busy day?”

  Justin looked past her head to see Tallah standing behind her, eyes wide, face looking ready to explode.

  “Swamped,” he said, and in that moment, had never felt worse about himself.

  Tallah stood in frozen shock. He had a woman? He never mentioned her. Why hadn’t she come by before, or called? The woman said she’d been calling all day, but Tallah never received any. Private line. Must have been. What was he thinking? Was she supposed to be some side-piece why this skinny bitch gets all of the status? Bullshit. Tallah didn’t share, and she sure didn’t play around with trampy scumbags like him.

  “If that will be all,” she said.

  The woman laughed and turned toward her. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Sometimes I forget he’s someone around here. I just see him as my Justin.” She pinched his cheek playfully and laughed. “Were you in the middle of something?” she asked him. “I can come back, sweetie?”

  “No no,” Tallah said sharply. “We’re done here. Stay as long as you like.”

  “Oh, thank you,” the woman said with a smile. She was nice, too! Genuinely sweet. Tallah couldn’t hate her, but she could hate Justin.

  She marched out of his office and sat at her desk. For a moment, she toyed with the idea of murdering him. The act would be simple enough, but what would she do with the body?

  Instead, she sat at her computer and typed up her resignation. It had only been a couple of months, but there was no way she could come into this place again after today. Not after this.

  She printed it up, and when his woman left with a smile and a wave, Tallah walked right in and slammed the office door closed behind her. There was going to be yelling, and it was nobody’s business but her own.

  “Tallah, wait,” he said coming around the front of his desk again. Apparently he sat down thinking he was going to get some work done? Hell no.

  “This is my official resignation. I am no longer under your employ.”

  “Please, you have to believe me, this wasn’t how I wanted you to find out.”

  “Oh I understand,” she said, convincing herself again that murdering him would be a bad idea. Somehow. Somehow it would be a bad idea, even though in that moment she couldn’t come up with a single reason why. “I wasn’t meant to find out.”

  “No,” he said quickly, “that’s not it. I was going to tell you.”

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Just when she walked in!”

  Tallah laughed. It was spiteful and entirely without joy.

  “Please, would you just hear me out? I didn’t mean for any of this.”

  “Don’t you worry,” she said, “I’m no longer your problem. Enjoy your life.”

  She turned her back on him and strode across that damned carpet to the office door.

  Strangely she wasn’t worried about her bills. Come what may, she’d take care of it. In that moment, what hurt the most was realizing how much she’d actually come to care for him without realizing it. In that moment they shared, it all fell into place. Now she realized it had all been a lie.

  Her bills would be fine, but she wasn’t sure her heart would ever be again.

  Justin sipped from his wine. Kelly sat across from him, going on about shopping with her friends. They were out to dinner at her favorite French restaurant. It was quiet, romantic. The gentle glow of the candles on the table set her hair under soft tones and lit up her eyes. Kelly was a beautiful woman, kind.

  As Justin smiled at her, swirling the wine in his glass in a lazy motion, he wondered when he’d stopped being in love with her. It was a terrible thing, but everything happening had snapped him out of whatever rock he’d hidden himself under. Work, life, the demands on his time and attention. He’d never stopped and thought about himself, about his happiness, about how he felt about… well, anything. Tallah had been a fire. She woke him to his own life. Now that she was gone, so was the only joy he’d felt in… Justin did his best to mask the sigh as he realized that sentence ended in years.

  How had everything gotten so out of hand? Things had been simple. Well, simple, but not what he needed. Not what he wanted. Tallah had been what he wanted, and now that was destroyed. She’d never have him, not after this.

  So, instead, Justin sipped his wine as he thought about a life with Kelly.

  Tallah sat in the reception area of a new office and tried to keep her leg from bouncing. She’d received a call from this company requesting she come in for an interview. After a few failed interviews she realized she’d have to give up on any sort of a corporate job and began looking for work doing what she had been. This, though, was with a very prestigious company and the work was just like what she’d been doing for Justin. She didn’t feel confident going in with only a couple months experience, but they had called her in, so she wasn’t about to say no.

  During the interview, she expected some uncomfortable questions about why she left, but he never asked any. By the end, he just smiled at her and asked, “Can you start Monday?”

  Tallah was so overjoyed that she laughed. “Yes, of course. I’d be happy to.”

  They shook hands and as he closed her file and stacked some papers he asked, “Did you have any questions for me?”

  “Well to be honest, I was surprised to receive your call. I don’t remember having put in an application.”

  “Oh, no, you didn’t. You came highly recommended by Justin Gilmore. He’s a friend of mine.”

  “Is that so.”

  He gave her a little smile. Her tone had betrayed her, she knew he heard it, but he was smart or kind enough to let it go. “Yes. Spoke very highly of you. I guess it’s to our benefit that you left his em
ploy, huh?”

  “I’m sure he and his fiancé will get along just fine without me.”

  “Oh,” he said, surprised, “you haven’t heard, have you. No, they broke up. He kept it quiet to avoid any news in the tabloids, but yeah.” He clicked his tongue against his cheek and drummed a quick rhythm with his fingers on his desk.

  By the time she got home she found herself thinking about Justin. She didn’t want to, but damn him, he snuck into her thoughts like a snake. Why would he have recommended her for the job? A guilty conscience probably. The same for breaking up with that woman. Guilty conscience. Had to be.

  She paced around her home unable to settle herself. If his guilty conscience was that bad, enough to help her find another job knowing she didn’t want to talk to him, and breaking up with his fiancé without telling Tallah about it, did that make him such a bad guy? What if it wasn’t just out of guilt?

  Her heels clacked against the floor of her kitchen as she slowly paced. Finally her eyes fell on the card he’d sent her. She never brought herself to actually throw it away.

  Picking up her phone she dialed the restaurant. When they answered she said, “Yes, I’d like to order some soup for delivery.”

  Justin took a deep breath and knocked. After a few uncomfortably long moments, the door opened and Tallah stood there looking understandably surprised. “I got your soup,” he said.

  She gave a small smile. “Did it help?”

  “A little.”

  She stepped back, opening the door wider as an unspoken invitation. He bowed his head and stepped in, his heart beating fiercely. His fingers were numb, and he found himself flexing them repeatedly to try and get the blood flowing.

  “I’m sorry,” he spurted out. “I never meant to hurt you.” He turned around to face her. She stood, arms crossed casually over her chest, her face still but pensive. When she didn’t say anything, he decided to plow on. There was nothing to lose at this point.

  “It was unexpected. You were unexpected. At first, I panicked. I was so drawn to you it was terrifying. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “So you were an ass.”

  “I was an ass. It was the only way I could think to hide how I felt.”

  Tallah walked around him to her couch and sat down. “Well, it worked. All the way up until you kissed me.” She patted the other side of the couch.

  With a sigh he steeled his will to continue and sat down. “That, too, took me by surprise. It wasn’t planned. I don’t want you to think I had any master plan. I never felt for anyone what I do for you. Did for you.”

  “Did,” she repeated quietly. “Then why did you break up?”

  Justin rubbed the back of his neck. He could still see in his mind the hurt on Kelly’s face. It was unavoidable, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. “I realized it wasn’t the life I wanted. I knew I’d never be able to convince you to talk to me, but it felt dishonest to continue with her. I told her what happened, and apologized. We separated. That was it.”

  “You told her?” Tallah asked, genuinely surprised. “About me?”

  Justin nodded.

  “You had the perfect job, the perfect woman. I just don’t get why you would give that up.”

  Justin shrugged and looked at her. Even with her hair pulled back casually, sitting on her couch in her pajamas, she was the most fetching person he’d ever seen in his life. “It just wasn’t what I needed.”

  Tallah took a deep breath, the movement pressing the fabric of her shirt against her chest. He could see she wasn’t wearing a bra, her excitement pronounced against the material. Her eyes dipped to his mouth and she licked her lips. “What do you need?”

  “You,” he said. It was simple, but it was the truth.

  “Please,” she whispered and threw herself toward him. Catching his face in her hands, she kissed him. The relief inside of him nearly broke him.

  All he wanted in life was her forgiveness and love. In that kiss, he knew he had both.

  The passion of the kiss only increased as they quickly worked to undress one another. Now there was nothing stopping them, nothing holding him back No fear, no anxiety. Just the two of them.

  When she climbed on top of his lap and lowered herself on top of him, he was able to allow himself to enjoy it without any guilt. The skin of her body rubbed along his as she worked her hips, moving him in and out of her. He took her nipples into his mouth one at a time, playing across each with the tip of his tongue.

  On top, Tallah was able to work a magic he didn’t realize she possessed, and she found the spot she needed him to be in. Riding him in tight controlled motions, she brought herself to orgasm before his finally rose up and claimed him.

  They rested against one another after, their bodies slick with sweat, their breathing heavy yet satisfied. For the first time, he was exactly where he wanted to be.

  Now that he had her, he was never letting her go, and the way she looked into his eyes as she playfully moved her hips in slow circles, he knew she felt the same.

  THE END

  Forgiving My Bad Boy

  Saundra’s classroom was a gentle cacophony of 5th graders talking amongst themselves while they separated into groups. Most classes around their age group were learning from doing quiet book exercises or listening to the teacher lecture, but Saundra preferred a more hands-on method for teaching.

  The other teachers liked giving her crap about it, saying she only went the extra mile because she was young. “Give it a few years, you’ll see it doesn’t make any difference and you can save yourself a lot of energy.”

  What a horrible way of thinking! Saundra didn’t become a teacher to hang out and get the summers off. She enjoyed working with children, sculpting their minds and helping them learn about the world around them. There were no bad children, just children going through a hard time that haven’t been taught any better way to be. Take lectures for example. It was one thing to tell a student the information, and have them test well on it. It was another to have them actually perform the science or make a fun activity out of the geography homework to help them actually learn the how and the why of it. Then you’re not just teaching a child what to think, but how to think.

  Saundra paced around the room slowly as she watched the children in their groups. They had to match certain colors to the nations of the world, but there were no words or labels. They had to do it by shape. They could talk, but raised voices weren’t allowed. Their classroom had neighbors, after all.

  Suddenly a boy fell backwards out of a group, and Clark, what some would call a trouble child, came around to stand menacingly over him.

  “Clark,” Saundra snapped. She made sure her tone wasn’t aggressive, but she put no hint of fear into it. Saundra was well known as a teacher not to be messed with by anyone.

  “He started it!” Clark said immediately.

  “Wrong answer.” She helped Jonathan to his feet. “What happened?”

  Clark stood with his arms crossed and glared at Jonathan.

  Jonathan said, “I didn’t do anything! All I said was that it wasn’t Italy.”

  “I know what Italy looks like,” Clark yelled and reached out for Jonathan.

  Saundra grabbed Clark by the wrist, twisted her body at the waist, which both twisted his arm and pulled him off balance. She kept him there like that for a moment.

  “We do not handle things physically. If you have an issue or a question, you ask me and I will assist you in handling it. When you make the situation physical, you immediately place yourself in the wrong. Am I understood?”

  “You’re hurting me!”

  “I’m preventing you from hurting someone else. Answer me: am I understood?”

  “Yes!”

  Saundra pulled him so that he had to take a few steps forward, moving him away from the group, and she released his wrists. “According to school policy when is it okay to fight?”

  Clark averted her eyes, which she allowed. She could see the indignant shame in
them.

  “Never.”

  “And in my classroom, my rules, when is it okay to fight?”

  Clark looked around, crossing his arms again.

  “All right,” she said, then raised her voice. “Class,” she said to get everyone’s attention, “in my classroom, when is it okay to fight?”

  “Self-defense,” they all said in unison.

  If the principal ever found out she was spreading that rule around, it wouldn’t be pretty for her, but she’d be damned if she was going to raise a class full of victims.

  “Clark, Jonathan did not attack you. So why did you become physical with him?”

  He shrugged.

  “Because he’s stupid,” Jonathan said, which flared up Clark once more.

  Saundra took a step between them. “Jonathan, two demerits for provoking him. Get back to work. Clark—“

  “I’m not stupid! I was looking at the map upside down. I couldn’t tell what was what.”

  “That’s fine, but—“