“Not at all. So start from the beginning.”
Abdul leaned back against the steel counter in the kitchen and casually crossed his arms in front of him. Suddenly Emily felt nervous. She had an open kitchen concept so that people could watch and she could engage with her customers while she was working and it had never bothered her before. Truthfully she enjoyed her open kitchen and loved when people could see her making their delicious creations. But having Abdul so close to her, watching her move, looking so casual with her as if the air around them wasn’t sizzling.
How was she supposed to focus with him watching her every move? Somehow she managed to muster up whatever courage she had and started to pour in her ingredients to melt together and create the sugar.
“What are you doing to start?”
Emily explained, as if she was teaching Kara, the ingredients that she was pouring in and how the needed to melt together and come up to a high temperature without burning. Abdul nodded along as if he was understanding every move she was making. His stare was intense and she felt like she might melt and boil like the ingredients in her pot.
Once the sugar was fully melted, she poured it onto a sheet pan that had a protective cover so that the sugar wouldn’t stick.
“What’s next?” Abdul asked
She explained that she needed the sugar to cool a bit when she poured it out because it was so scorching hot that she would burn herself otherwise. After it had cooled she started to roll sugar, keeping it pliable. She started to cut the sugar into smaller strips the size she needed for the roses.
“How do you mold the roses?”
Emily’s focus was sharp, taking her time to press the rose petals with her fingers making them the perfect shape.
“You have to shape each petal individually, it takes a lot of time to do each petal on its own and make them perfect. If one is wrong it makes the whole rose look wrong.”
For the next several minutes Emily didn’t say a word. She methodically cut and gently molded the sugar into petals about one inch in size. Her fingers were nimble and tentative, making sure to keep moving quickly so that the sugar didn’t seize on her. The pan with the sugar she kept under a lamp that was heated to keep the sugar warm but she still had to work quickly. Her fingers soon found a rhythm with the sugar and it soon seemed as if they became one. She had forgotten that Abdul was in the room and had even forgotten that she didn’t know what she was doing. Letting her instincts take over, her fingers guided the process.
Pressing the last petal together she held out her fragile flower. It was a perfect, glasslike rose.
“Wow,” Abdul breathed.
“Yea, wow,” she answered. There were no other words. She’d actually made the perfect rose. Sure the process had taken some time and it would be a grueling process to make as many as she needed to make for the cake but she knew she could do it and do it beautifully.
Emily looked up at Abdul to see what he thought of her creation, but he wasn’t staring at the rose. He was staring at her.
“I wasn’t talking about the rose, Emily.” His voice came out gravelly, as if something was caught inside that he didn’t know how to get out. “I was staring at you.”
Her breath caught at his words and her mind raced with hope that there could be any way that he felt the same about her as she did about him. After making the rose in his presence, something that was such an intimate process for her, she had immediately known that she’d let him in somewhere special to her, somewhere that no one got to go.
In two smooth steps he was in front of her. His strong hands gently cupped her face and he stared down at her with a fire in his eyes that she knew she felt inside of her. He parted his lips only slightly and leaned down to her, a lock of hair falling in front of his eyes. Emily could hardly breathe, she didn’t have a moment to think about what was about to happen. She tilted her head up and opened herself up to him.
When their lips met she instantly felt dizzy and exhilarated. It was almost as if she was watching herself from the other side of her kitchen, seeing the passion that was flowing between the two of them. When she’d daydreamed about hips lips and his taste, she never imagined it would be so divine. Her dreams hadn’t come close to experiencing the real thing. And when she always thought that sirens would go off in her mind, telling her that what she was doing was wrong and that she should back away, instead her mind stayed quiet, reeling only in the feel of him.
Chapter 8
Abdul didn’t know what exactly had come over him while he’d watched her making her flower. It was something so unique, so intimate, and beautiful that he couldn’t help himself. His feelings for Emily had been building from the moment he found her covered in flour and had only intensified as they spent time together every day. The dinner had revealed so much between them that it had almost been too much to understand, but everything became clear when he watched her make the elegant flower.
It was strange but in a way he pictured her as the delicate flower. It was something that needed to be treated with the utmost care. She was fragile, beautiful, and breathtakingly amazing. He knew he shouldn’t have kissed her. It wasn’t right, he was engaged and had made a promise, whether he had wanted to or not was not the point, he had still made the promise, the commitment. And kissing Emily had broken that contract. He cared about Nora and didn’t want to hurt her, but why didn’t he feel guilty? Even more so why couldn’t he pull his lips away from Emily’s?
Where she should have tasted garlicy from their meal from earlier, she instead tasted sweet, like powdered sugar. She was light and delicate on his tongue yet satisfied the craving that he hadn’t realized he’d had. The kiss shook him somewhere deep inside, somewhere that Nora had never been able to reach and he didn’t think she ever could.
When he pulled away from Emily he looked into her eyes, he needed to know if she felt even half of what he was feeling inside. Abdul always believed that the eyes were the window to the soul and he was desperate to know what he soul was feeling. Looking down into them, he saw her blue eyes shining with something he’d never seen before in a woman. Something deep, something fulfilling, something that reached in and touched his heart.
Could she really be falling in love with him as much as he was falling in love with her? The thought made his heart beat faster, thinking that he might have finally found the love that he’d always wanted to find.
But what would he do about Nora? He was engaged, the ring creating a contract between the two of them, and as a business man he took contracts seriously. It wasn’t as if he could just simply walk away from her, no matter what his heart was telling him. There was so much to consider such as his future living as a sheikh, her parents feelings, his parents requests at picking a suitable woman. He wished he hadn’t agreed so quickly to marry Nora, he wished he’d given himself time to find love. But then again, if he hadn’t agreed to marry Nora, would he ever have stepped into Emily’s little bakery? Would she even be a part of his world, and now, his heart?
Suddenly her eyes flashed and the love he was seeing vanished and in its place was a wall that she quickly put up.
“I’m so sorry,” she said and pulled away from his arms.
Immediately he felt empty without her there. Something was missing and he felt an ache of loneliness where she had been.
“Don’t be sorry.” His voice came out hoarse. There was so much more he wanted to say but the words were strangled inside of him. He wanted to tell her he loved her, he wanted to hold her again and wanted to feel her lips against his. But he couldn’t tell her any of that? How could he? The fact still remained, no matter how badly he wanted to love her, he was getting married.
“You should probably be going now,” she said to him. She kept her eyes averted as she stared at the flower she’d just created.
Saying anything would be better than saying nothing at all, but Abdul just couldn’t find any words. Instead he walked out of the kitchen and grabbed his coat. Taking one last lo
ok back at Emily, he walked out of her door. He didn’t want to hurt her, no matter how much he was feeling inside, he knew he couldn’t have her. For her sake, his, and Nora’s, he needed to walk out of the bakery and forget that anything had ever happened.
His only problem was he couldn’t. It didn’t matter that he’d stopped going to see her every day, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. But he knew he couldn’t continue their friendship the way it was, he knew he would fall for her more every time he saw her. It took a restless night of him tossing and turning to finally come up with the perfect solution. There was no way he was going to let Emily walk back out of his life, not when he enjoyed her being in it so much. But if they couldn’t be friends, and there was no way to be more than friends, then he had found another way to be in her life. And it would be perfect.
Chapter 9
“You want to do what?” Emily’s eyes were wide with pure confusion.
“I want to invest in your business so that you can expand to open another bakery. Maybe even look at franchising it!”
Emily hadn’t heard from Abdul in a few days and she had to admit she’d missed him more than she’d expected and it did feel good to see those dark sexy eyes again. But she knew he should really be staying away, no matter how much her body pulled her toward him. That kiss had been the most sensual kiss she’d ever experienced. His lips were soft but strong and his arms wrapped her so tightly that she feared for a moment that she’d only be able to breathe him in instead of air. If she had her choice, she’d have never stopped kissing him and she would do it over and over again. Unfortunately it wasn’t her choice, it was his. He was engaged and that’s the choice he’d made and no matter how badly she wanted him, she had to accept that fact.
But suddenly here he was, standing in front of the front counter with a business proposal to expand her business. Clearly he was a business man because in her hands she had a four page proposal that she was just barely leafing through as he discussed capital and profits and locations.
“And where do you have all of this money from?” Emily couldn’t help but feel a little confused. The plan he was proposing was going to need a good deal of money and she was not planning on taking out any kind of business loans.
She looked at him and saw Abdul’s cheeks color slightly and while he looked adorable like that, it made her wonder why.
“I have the money, that’s not something you need to worry about.”
Emily watched him a moment longer and felt her heart warm inside. Immediately she looked away and put his proposal down.
“I appreciate you being nice enough to want to help, but really, this little shop is just perfect for me. It’s really all I need. I know I said that someday I’d like to get bigger and do more but I just don’t think this is a good idea.” Emily was frustrated with herself. She couldn’t believe that she’d even considered working with him, opening a business with him for even a fleeting moment.
The offer was amazing and generous and almost impossible to turn down. But the fact of the matter was, how could she work with Abdul every day, run a business with him, when she felt so much for him? It wouldn’t work. She’d fall even harder for him and there would never be a way out.
“This isn’t about generosity or being nice. This is about tasting your food every day recently and never being disappointed. It’s also about watching you make that flower the other night, the skill and precision that it took. This isn’t about friendship, it’s about business. It’s about an investment.”
An investment. That sounded pretty cold and harsh. Didn’t he care at all? Hadn’t he felt anything at all when he’d kissed her? Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he had thought he would or was so swept up in the moment that he had kissed her. Or lonely! That must be it. Surely his fiancé living a plane ride away would make anyone lonely. Even with all of the justification, calling her an investment had stung.
For a moment she was tempted to accept his offer purely out of spite. He wanted to give her money? Fine she’d take it. From his nonchalant attitude about his money he clearly had some to spend. But it felt wrong to do that. Wrong to do to Nora, her client, since for whatever reason he had he did kiss her, and wrong to do to herself. The more time she spent with him the more she’d fall in love with him and she knew it. So she held firm.
“Thank you. But no.”
It felt good to say no. In a weird way she felt like she was taking control of a situation that she felt powerless in. In a situation where she had fallen hard, much to her own dismay, for her client’s fiancé, she had felt like she was a spinning top with no way of stopping. Saying no to him, saying that she couldn’t take his money and wouldn’t partner with him made her feel strong again. Finally she had found the inner strength that she’d always had. It was the strength she’d had to open her own place, it was the strength she had to move forward in life when her parents had died, and now it was the strength to walk away from a man that she felt more for than any person she’d ever met.
Foolish? Possibly. But she felt strong and independent.
Arman clearly wasn’t used to hearing no and wasn’t going to take it easily. He pushed the papers back at her, grabbing her hand and making her take them. His gaze leveled hers and she wondered what he was thinking when he looked at her.
“Please. Just think about it?” He turned and walked out her door again and she was left holding his offer in her hands.
****
“How could you turn him down? Are you crazy?” Kara was in pure disbelief and had frozen herself in place, refusing to work until Emily gave her an explanation for what she believed was clearly a mistake.
“No, I am not crazy. But how am I supposed to take his money? Sure he says he’s just an ‘investor’ in a good product. But how am I supposed to work with him every day? See him every day?”
Kara was the only person who knew just how crazy Emily was over Abdul so Emily knew she had to understand just why she turned down his offer.
“But it’s an amazing offer!” Kara had looked over the proposal that Arman had drawn up and had told her exactly what a great opportunity he was offering her. “Basically he is willing to put in all the money and is only taking a percent, not even half, of the profits of the second business. Do you know what a deal that is?”
Emily knew that was true, she knew if she really wanted to start expanding that the opportunity Arman was offering her was going to be the best she would ever find.
“But how can I work with him?”
Kara finally chewed that one over for a second. It seemed that it finally dawned on her that it wasn’t the matter of pride or respect, it was the matter of her heart. But Emily could see the moment that it dawned on her that Kara had a solution to that as well.
“I will work in the second business as the manager! That way any day to day dealings will go through me and I will relay messages to you. You will only have to talk to him when you absolutely have to. And eventually he will simply become a business partner who you never have to see and your feelings will go away. Plus it gives me a great job when I graduate next semester!”
Emily sighed. She had to admit that her plan actually did seem to work pretty well. It would be a great opportunity for everyone and maybe after a while her feelings would go away. After all, maybe she wasn’t in love with Abdul, maybe it was simply a crush. An intense crush where she couldn’t stop thinking about him but a crush nonetheless. How could she turn down an offer that was going to be great for so many people? And she could finally see her dreams coming true?
And even a little part of her had to admit that keeping Abdul in her life, in any way possible, was a plus. Maybe her feelings would go away, she was sure hoping they would especially if he was going to be a part of her future. A big part of it. In a woosh, her resistance to say no left her and she was left with only reasons to say yes.
“OK,” she finally agreed. “I’ll call him and tell him I changed my mind. But I’m going to tell him that it’s y
ou he will be working with, and myself only when necessary. That way I can keep some sort of sanity in this situation.”
Kara leapt across the way and wrapped Emily in a hug of thanks. “Oh wow, this is so amazing! I get to keep working with you but I get to actually manage a business and I have a job after I graduate! This is literally a dream come true!”
Emily hugged her back. She was excited, it was hard not to be when she knew that she was about to embark on a dream that she’d had for so long. Who knew? Maybe this could be bigger than expected. Maybe they could even franchise the bakery. She knew she should slow down in her thoughts but it was hard to stop a train once it was on the tracks. The only thing she had to hope was that Abdul hadn’t changed his mind yet.
The entire rest of the day she spent making flowers for Nora’s approval. It took some time but after that first one it became easier to make the perfect little roses. The process became faster and more often she was creating more perfect roses than she was messing them up. But once her fingers grew tired and the place was clean, Emily knew she couldn’t stall the phone call anymore. It was true that she could have simply waited until the next day when he and Nora would come into the bakery, but she thought maybe the conversation was better had without Nora. There was no guarantee that she even knew about the offer he’d made Emily.
Abdul picked up his cell on the second ring. She never had actually had to call him before and only had his number as a precaution incase anything went wrong with his orders that he called in. But she had of course saved it to her phone and she wondered if he was surprised to see her number light up his phone.
SHEIKH'S SURPRISE BABY: A Sheikh Romance Page 81
