As she scanned the cheering crowd, her peers lining up beside her, waving to their relatives who had taken time off to attend the ceremony, her eyes landed upon two men dressed in smart business suits. At first they seemed so far out of the context from which she knew them that her mind refused to recognize them for who they were. When the taller of the two men lifted his hand to his lips and blew her a kiss, their identity finally registered and she thought she might faint from sheer emotion. It was Nick and Matt, standing side by side, grinning proudly at her.
She wanted to dive off the stage, dash over to them and squeeze them both as hard as she could. Instead she waved at them wildly, practically hopping on the spot.
The line of her peers wound down off the stage and back to their chairs where they sat anxiously listening to a lengthy address. Riley could barely sit still, she kept glancing backwards into the crowd, wondering if she had imagined seeing them at all.
At the end of the ceremony, she spotted them in the foyer and dashed towards them, throwing her arms around both of them simultaneously.
“You guys!” she said. “What are you doing here? It’s so good to see you!”
“You didn’t think I’d miss my little sister’s graduation did you? Actually it was Nick’s idea.” said Matt, smiling.
She turned her full attention to Nick then and kissed him full on the mouth. “I missed you so much,” she told him.
“I missed you too, sweetheart,” he said. “Congratulations.”
She kissed him again, this time to confirm that he was really standing in front of her.
“Hey, come on,” said Matt. “Take it easy. I’m standing right here. That man needs his lips for smooth talking clients, he doesn’t need you ripping them off his face.”
Riley laughed and did her best to restrain her affection. After six months, it took a lot of will power.
“Matt, you look amazing. You’re all healed up.”
“Yup, neck still gets a little stiff every now and again, but otherwise I’m fit as a fiddle.”
She turned to Nick again and when he smiled at her, she couldn’t help stealing one more kiss. Sorry, Matt, she thought, I’m seizing this day.
THE END
Prince Charming Exists
ONE
Lacy smiled and sipped from her water as she listened to her friend Wendy talk. The wind blew gently across their table as they ate al fresco, easing the warmth of the afternoon sun. The sidewalk was busy enough to let Lacy’s eyes wander occasionally during one of Wendy’s particularly boring anecdotes, but not so busy as to be overly distracting.
It wasn’t that Wendy was boring, actually. Lacy had to fight to keep her thoughts straight on that. If she were being totally honest, it was that she was jealous of her friend. That jealousy fed into depression, regret, and anxiety for the future. All of these, of course, were too much for the thirty-something corporate lawyer to accept or process. Thus the burden of dealing with such emotion was alleviated by her rather diplomatic soul white washing everything in an air of boredom, sparing Lacy the immediate response. Which, at the moment, would be a flood of tears.
“…so I found her in the bathroom, her teddy face down in the toilet, and she’s yelling at the thing for making a mess.” Wendy tore off a piece of bread and after swirling it in the leavings of her salad dressing, took a bite. Laughing around the bite, she added, “You can imagine.”
Lacy smiled and widened her brows in a show of dramatic sympathy. She knew that Wendy wanted to keep talking about the experience, but what were the right questions to ask? Should she ask about the psychological health of her child, comment on the ruined bear?
“So did Teddy clog the toilet?”
Wendy chortled and shook her head. “No, thank goodness. She hadn’t gotten him too far down. Plus she had just poopooed, so the toilet was freshly flushed. We just gave the bear a rinse and tossed him in the dryer.”
Lacy couldn’t stop the grumble in her throat. She tried to cover it up by coughing into her hand. “You gave it back to her?”
“I’m sorry,” Wendy said, as if suddenly realizing that she’d been talking about her kids for the last forty-five minutes. “I’ve been talking about me this whole time.”
Ah, yes, so she did realize it. Good. Lacy readjusted in her seat, hopeful that the conversation would move onto something more interesting.
“So how’re you? We haven’t talked for a bit. Any special men in your life?”
Lacy swirled the water in her glass and sighed before taking a drink. “No, no men. Not all of us have had the chance to be so blessed.”
“Aww, darnit,” Wendy said, frowning. “Work got you busy, huh?”
Lacy kept her face still, but Wendy’s insistence on not swearing, not even a hint, irked her to no end. She was out with adults. How could she respect a grown adult that thought the word “damn” was a swear word? Children gasped and pointed out when a swear word was said, not adults.
“Yep,” Lacy said, “but that’s okay. The bright side is I’m happy, so it’s cool.”
“Well don’t worry, it’ll happen when the time is right.”
“Yes, but as I said, I’m happy, so there’s no rush.”
Wendy smiled patronizingly and put her hand out as though she were reaching for contact, as if to soothe a burn victim without actually touching them. “Oh, you don’t know happiness until your little one pees in the potty for the first time. I swear, I thought little Jonathan was going to be in diapers until high school.”
Lacy sighed softly. “He’s three.”
“I know, but it was just constant. I mean, we were trying everything. The pull-ups were too hard for him to work out with this little thumbs, and the…”
Lacy’s eyes drifted to the sidewalk again. It was insulting the way Wendy assumed Lacy couldn’t be happy unless she had a man and children. In a way, she knew Wendy was just trying to help. She was happy with her life, so she wanted others – her friend included – to be happy too.
The thing is, the thin shell of boredom was a poor protection from Lacy’s own thoughts on the matter. She knew full well how old she was. If she got pregnant that day it would still be nine months before she had a child, possibly ten. Ten months! That’s almost a whole other year!
Of course, she didn’t want to have a child with someone she didn’t know. She wanted a family, not to be some workaholic mother who let the nanny raise her child. That meant at least a year or two in a relationship with someone. Of course, that’s assuming she met the right man that day. Tack on a few months for dating, and failed dates…
Lacy watched a woman in a gray suit walk down the sidewalk as she did some quick math in her head. The resulting sum was a number that only read as depressing. She may not only have not advanced to the next stage in life fast enough, but her supreme focus on work and making her life a matter of success may have lost her the game. Wendy was married for eight years now.
Eight years!
They were on their third kid, and she was a year old already. Her family was done, it was made. All Wendy had to do now was telling boring stories about her kids and let time make her children into adults. Meanwhile, Lacy was going to have to put a lot of work into trying to find anyone halfway decent to breed with.
She ran an agitated hand through her hair and fixed Wendy with a smile that said “Shut up.” After a few sentences, Wendy got the hint, and stopped talking. Lacy honestly couldn’t have said what she was talking about.
“Lacy sweetie,” Wendy said.
“Yes?”
“You look like you’re about to cry.”
In that instant, Lacy felt terrible about every bad thought she’d just had about her friend. “It’s not your fault,” Lacy said. “I just wish I was where you were.”
Wendy reached over and actually took Lacy’s hand in hers. “I know. Why do you think I tell you so many stories about my kids? It’s all I can think to do to help.”
The shell cracked, and Lacy’s lip
started to quiver. “You’re a beautiful woman, Wendy.”
TWO
There was a dynasty in the hot Arabian sands that spanned generations. It fell from father to son for two hundred years. In the turn of the century, the head of the household did something unheard of, and following the progressive ideals of the Western world, split his empire between his eight children; three of them women.
Not only was this unprecedented, but it was not well received, either.
The empire fell into inner turmoil and civil war. As the attentions of the world were sensitive to obvious lashing out, it was fought entirely in the shadows, and under the cover of night. Some of the most devious tactics were performed under the guise of business dealings.
So dangerous were these that to survive, the eight children were forced to learn the intricacies of their business. No longer could they rely on the expertise of others. If they were to each control a portion of their family’s empire, it fell on the shoulders of each of them to take the reins and guide their people into riches and peace.
It was a bloody time, and one that bred paranoia, but also tenacity and a heartfelt desire for the peaceful times to return. Each sibling in turn did just this. Walid, second to youngest, yet some would say the cleverest of them all, was the one to volunteer his holdings in favor of monetary compensation.
His siblings, suspicious of his intentions, yet trusting of their blood, agreed, and bought out his physical holdings. Walid then took his closest warriors, all of them under the cloak of business partners, and set out to start business in the United States. His family still attempting to recover from the conflict, he thought it best to let them have the larger portions, as that would appease them, and he could claim a small branch of the empire all for himself in a new land.
At first his siblings were furious, certain they had been deceived. Yet when each of their piece of his holdings paid out over time, they learned that he had not cheated them, but simply made a business deal that solved everyone’s immediate needs. The only fault of theirs was having not thought of it first.
His riches now numbered in the billions, Walid sat on a plane, not a single commercial passenger aboard, his guards, warriors, and advisors beside him as they crossed the ocean to New York. He’d made some contacts, and had a few options as to the best locations for his buildings. In addition, there were some ventures most advised to invest in, that would return him the most money per dollar invested.
Of course, American business laws were entirely different than those in his country. First he would have to meet with his corporate lawyer before they could proceed. He was looking forward to that the least. To study law was to dance with the greatest sand devil, the burning sand forever scorching the feet, threatening to devour whole anyone who made even a single misstep. To do this for corporations was to carry the devil on their back as they did this.
All of this produced either the most graveling suck-up in existence, or to create someone so cold-hearted, so unfeeling in life that they would sell their own grandmother to get out of a parking ticket. Still, it may be an evil, but it was a necessary evil. Such was the dangers of doing business in a new land.
After landing and checking into their hotel, of which Walid had bought out the entire top floor for he and his men, they set out to meet with their lawyer. Her firm had setup a meet and greet, complete with lunch buffet and alcohol. Walid walked into the convention hall, his men close at hand, and was at once rushed by bootlickers from the firm. They told him how much they appreciated his business, and welcomed him in. As he expected.
He scowled at the decorations, as though he needed a party thrown for him. A lovely young woman took a sip from her glass, looking bored by all of it, and didn’t seem to notice he’d arrived. Perhaps part of the catering team. No matter how menial her task, he appreciated her frankness for how she felt regarding all of this ridiculous celebration.
Were they so desperate for business that they would do all of this?
The bootlick ushering them along guided Walid and his men to the young woman. She, in turn, startled and hurried to swallow her sip of champagne as they approached.
“Hello,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m Lacy. I’ll be your contact here at the firm for your day to day needs. I’m sure it was explained to you that were anything major to come along, you have the full power of Johnson and Stash at your disposal.”
“You,” Walid said slowly, shaking her hand, “are my lawyer?”
“Yes sir,” she said, and fixed him with a solid look. “Is that a problem?”
The fierce gaze, the empowered posture, she reminded him of the strength of his sisters taking their piece of the empire. They were not to be trifled with, and neither was this woman. In his experience, every woman that had ever been near him was only so because of his power and money.
This woman, though, looked as though she was simply doing the job assigned to her. It was a strange thing to be made so happy by such a small thing, but he was.
Walid smiled, the first genuine smile he’d given since landing in this country. “No problem at all. I’m quite pleased to have met you.”
THREE
Lacy’s eyes were starting to cross from staring at the contract for so long. The bright white of the computer screen had bored its way into her brain, whittling away at her ability to focus on what she was looking at.
She blinked rapidly and pulled away from her computer. Gently, she touched a finger to her eyelid to see if any make-up had hung on this long through the day. There was some, but not a lot. Instead of doing what she so desperately wanted to do and just grind the heels of her palms into her aching eyes to relieve them, she instead focused on the wall across from her.
Continuing to blink to produce more tears, she focused on something far, then something near, then far, then somewhere in the middle. It was like eating a salad when she was starving. Her eyes didn’t fall out of her skull, but it wasn’t what she wanted.
The object she focused on far was her clock hanging on the wall. It said it was nearly 3 o’clock. Lacy startled and checked the time on her computer just to verify that was the accurate time. Lacy scrambled through her drawers for her small desk mirror and touch-up makeup.
One glance in the mirror and she wretched at her own face. He was going to be there at 3 o’clock, and she looked like hell! As quickly as she could manage, she did a quick reapplication of her blush and eye makeup.
As she reapplied her mascara, her assistant came in with a hot cup of coffee in her hand.
“Your afternoon pick-me-up,” Linda said as she set it on her desk. “Someone’s getting fancy for her 3 o’clock.”
Lacy flicked her eyes up to her smirking assistant. “Have you seen that man? You could fry an egg on that face.”
“Because he has the face of a frying pan?”
“What?” Lacy looked up to see her assistant fighting to keep a straight face. “No, because he’s hot. You know what?” Lacy picked up a paperclip and threw it at her assistant, who just laughed and ran from her office.
“Warn me before you—“ Lacy was calling out when he walked through the door.
Linda rushed in to stand ahead of him. “Your 3 o’clock has arrived,” she said sheepishly.
When she first saw him, Lacy’s first instinct was the shove all of her makeup stuff into her drawer. Of course, that would indicate she was in some way embarrassed. That, of course, was a sign of weakness. So, instead, Lacy put on a smile and stood.
“Thank you for being so prompt. Too many of my clients lack punctuality. They feel their money arrives before they do and holds their place.”
“A lack of punctuality shows a lack of respect,” Walid said, his voice deep and dripping with that accent. It made Lacy melt in all the right ways.
He came to the lounge chair in the middle of her office and sat himself. “I would hate to give that impression.”
“Of course,” she said, and gave a nod of acknowledgement to Walid�
�s colleagues, then a nod to Linda that she was excused.
“The eggs you ordered should arrive shortly,” Linda said before stepping back toward the door.
“Yes, Linda,” Lacy hissed. “Thank you.”
Linda bit on her upper lip to keep from laughing and rushed from the room.
“Well,” Lacy said and splayed her hands. “I was just freshening up. I’d hoped to be finished before you arrived, but of course that’s my fault for expecting tardiness.”
“Please,” Walid said with a small wave of his hand. “Do as you must. I am patient.”
“Thank you,” she said with a small bow of her head and sat. “I appreciate your patience.”
“You are worth the wait.”
She looked up from her makeup but he had fished his phone from his pocket and was scrolling through messages.
“Your partners are welcome to have a seat,” she said, eying the three men standing against the three far walls of her office.
“They prefer to stand,” Walid said. “It is their way.”
Lacy was mortified to be applying makeup in front of everyone, but she wasn’t about to stop, either. “I appreciate you meeting me,” she said as she finished up. “The documents you wanted me to look over…”
“Yes?” he asked and put away his phone.
There was something so fierce in every movement. The way his eyes surveyed everything around him, or how his fingers like the talons of a hawk gripped the arm of the chair. He was a predator, perched, ready to descend on anything hapless enough to be in his path.
SHEIKH'S SURPRISE BABY: A Sheikh Romance Page 71
