by Ella Brooke
She took a deep breath and another one, trying to keep herself calm. Through the locked door, she could hear Faris in his own office. Over the past few weeks, she had become accustomed to his comings and goings. She knew that he went straight to his desk to get to work. Sometimes, he was talking with someone on the phone when he came in, sometimes in Hindi, sometimes in English, most frequently in Arabic, giving out orders in a curt tone of utter command.
Today, he was silent. She heard him pace back and forth like some kind of restless animal. Suddenly it occurred to her that he might need to come into her office, and she went to unlock the door. Just as she was stepping away from the door, however, she heard a sigh. It was soft, but there was a terrible clarity to it, as if the person who uttered it was simply on the other side of the wooden door. She froze, wondering what he would do next, but finally, she heard his footsteps take him away, back across the office to his desk.
She let go of a breath that she hadn’t been aware she was holding. It felt as if she were made of lead; everything in her drooped to the floor.
Danielle shook herself. She couldn’t let herself turn mopey and strange. If she wanted to keep her place here, she would have to do her job, and that meant she should get to work. It took more effort than she would have believed, but then she was hauling herself to stand up straight. She walked back to her desk, she put Faris out of her mind, and she got to work.
Chapter Eight
Danielle was surprised when the next four weeks flew by. That first day, she was counting the minutes until she could retreat back to her room. The day after that was a little easier, however, and she made her way to the city to see a museum exhibit after she was done with work.
From there, she had met one of the museum volunteers, a plump and motherly woman by the name of Zahra, who had been thrilled to talk with her about the ancient texts and artifacts on display. Danielle had been so impressed with the museum that she had looked for a volunteer form, and just a few days later, she was being cleared for a twice-a-month position behind the register at the gift shop.
Danielle, who had never had enough money to afford herself the luxury of volunteering before, was thrilled by how much fun it was, how good it was to feel as if she were a part of something. She was the only volunteer who was a foreigner, and almost all of the volunteers were older than she was, but she didn’t care. While she did it to get her mind off Faris at the beginning, she eventually started going just for the fun of it. The other women at the museum, seeming to sense that she was in a place on her own without any family, did their best to adopt her, and so she ended up going to family potlucks and group music nights.
Some of those nights ran surprisingly late, and one night, after she had attended a lively demonstration of the doumbek drum, she didn’t manage to get back to the manor until past midnight.
Danielle was walking up the steps toward the grand door when she realized she wasn’t alone. She tensed for a moment, and then she relaxed when she saw that it was Faris leaning against one of the tall pillars that lined the porch to the door.
“Good evening,” she said, a little shyly, and she was oddly relieved when he smiled at her.
“Good morning, perhaps,” he said with a smile. “You have been out late, lately.”
She took a moment to wonder what he knew about her comings and goings, and then she shrugged, smiling slightly.
“Matya’s son was back from university, and he had a doumbek drum that he wanted to show off. A lot of people showed up, and there was a sort of impromptu little party.”
“I see. Did you have fun?”
She didn’t think she would be human if she didn’t hope for at least a little bit of jealousy, even a tiny hint. There was nothing in his voice except fond regard, however, the amusement a young man might feel for his little niece who had sneaked her first cigarette.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” she said, lifting her chin haughtily. “And you, did you have a good time?”
He stepped out of the shadows, and she blinked in surprise.
In the darkness, it had been hard telling what he was wearing. Now she could see that he was wearing a handsome tuxedo, or at least, he had been wearing it. Now the jacket was off and slung carelessly over his shoulder, and the tie hung limply around his neck. The detail that stuck out to her like a burning emblem, however, was the slight bruise that was easily visible on the side of his neck. It was all too obvious what he had been doing, and somehow, Danielle managed to keep from making a surprised little noise.
It would be just hilarious, she thought, if the little foreigner girl was horrified by a hickey. She refused to give him the satisfaction. Instead, she smiled at him, a little cool, a little distant.
“I can see that you did have a good time,” she said. “And my good time has quite tired me out. I think I’m off to bed. Are you coming inside now?”
He looked strangely surprised by her pronouncement, but he shrugged.
“I think I’ll stay down here and enjoy the night a little longer. You go up, though. We have a busy day tomorrow.”
“Very well. Good night.”
For a moment, she had been tempted to push aside whatever dignity she thought she had and simply stay with him. The night was balmy with just a hint of a pleasant chill underneath. Not long ago, she would have wanted nothing more than to simply stand on the porch and breathe the night with him. Now she walked up the stairs toward her room, wondering if she was doing better, and if she was, why it felt so rotten.
*
Faris didn’t really want to stay on the porch. What he wanted to do was to follow Danielle up the stairs and give her a good shake, demanding if she knew how dangerous it could be to be female and unescorted on the city streets at night. For God’s sake, she had returned in a city cab, as if he didn’t have a fleet of cars and drivers available for her use.
He shook his head. Playing the doumbek? It was something that someone’s fifty-year-old auntie might do. He would have accused her flat-out of lying to him and hiding what she was really doing if he hadn’t know that she simply wasn’t a liar. When he looked into her gray eyes, he saw nothing but truth, and for some reason, that made him ache all the more.
Moodily, his thoughts turned to his own night. He had been working so hard and for so long that it had finally become apparent even to him that he needed a break. If he spent another night making deals and working with spreadsheets, he was simply going to snap.
The gala at the opera house seemed like exactly the right choice for him. It was full of people he genuinely liked, and it was full of the kind of women that he liked best.
Bretagne was a tall woman with flashing dark eyes and a soft cloud of dark hair that he should have wanted to run his fingers through. Dressed boldly in gold and completely unattached, she had made it very plain that she would be happy to see what a night at the manor might have held for both of them.
He had felt his blood race pleasantly when he saw her, and he could imagine how soft her skin would be under his hands, and as the two of them circled each other, he enjoyed the thrill of the chase.
Another hour had found them tucked away in a dark corner of the opera house, her hands on his clothes, his hands on her body, drawing her close.
Everything was fine, and then suddenly, it was as if he had woken up and taken a step back. His body was responding to her—Faris could see that she was a beautiful woman—but that was where it ended. His mind felt like a lump of clay, cold and untouched, and after a moment, Faris had gently disengaged himself from the beautiful Bretagne.
She had been confused and slightly irritated by the end of their activities, but with a shrug, she wandered back into the crowd. A short while later, he found her curled up on the arm of an older steel magnate, and he had had a moment of dark humor at how quickly he had been replaced.
Finally, frustrated, tired, and still unsure of what had happened, he ended up on the road back to the manor. He intended to go straight up the st
airs and up to his bedroom, but something had kept him on the steps.
His grandmother, dead since he was eight, would have said that it was a djinn who had grasped the hem of his shirt and held him back, but if it was, what was its purpose? Was it to make him see that when he saw Danielle, his heart beat a little faster? Was it to make him realize that her smile could warm him in a way that a sensual embrace from a woman like Bretagne never could?
He watched her go into the house, and then he had to quell the possessive urge that came over him. There was something in him that yearned toward her, that needed her in a way that he didn’t understand. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
Great men were undone by women like her, Faris mused. Throughout history, men would raise empires, and they would lose them over a woman, throw it all away. He had never understood before how such decisions might be made, but the truth was that now he was beginning to see. Now he was beginning to understand how a man might lose it all for a woman who looked up at him with rainwater eyes, who carried herself as if she had a spine of steel and yet could still melt like butter in his arms.
He shook his head, and with a heavy step, he walked toward his own quarters. There was nothing to be done here, and the sooner he learned to move forward, the better it would be for all concerned.
Chapter Nine
Try as she might, Danielle couldn’t pull the image of the love bite on Faris’s throat out of her mind. She would go hours without thinking about it, and then all of a sudden, she would see it there again, accompanied by a flush of anger and then a surge of guilt.
She knew she had no claim on him. That was clear, and he had gone out of his way to make sure she understood that. They were meant to be professionals in the office, and that meant she should not be thinking of how good her boss’s skin tasted or wondering what he might do if she nipped at his throat hard enough to leave a mark. She knew that playing with thoughts like that was only self-destructive, but she could not pull them out of her mind. When she was in the office with him, those thoughts ran rampant, especially when he would come in to tell her about this job or that one.
Perhaps the worst part was that he seemed to be oblivious. He paid no attention to her flushed cheeks or the way she somehow stammered. In this, she finally realized that her native awkwardness was camouflaging her real troubles quite nicely. It was ironic, in a way. the shyness that had always hung like a weight around her neck was now helping her hide the sheer humiliation of having a crush on a man who didn’t want her back.
One day, not all that long after seeing him on the porch, she sat up at lunch and realized that it wasn’t a crush at all. A crush might leave her fluttery when she saw him, but this was far deeper. It was as if he had invaded her in some elemental way, leaving her gasping and without a true north.
Danielle was very much afraid that she was in love and was unsure of what to do about it.
The answer, she decided, was nothing. Feelings like this couldn’t last forever if they weren’t reciprocated. She would simply go on as she had been going, and eventually the feeling would subside, turn to nothing, or perhaps, if she were genuinely lucky, it would become a real friendship, one that she could enter without fearing hurt or harm.
Danielle enacted her plan, unsure if it would work, but things were calm enough, and she was even beginning to think that perhaps it was working when he came into her office one bright day.
“Good morning, Faris,” she said. “Do you need the documentation on the dam deal from Angevin? I am just about done with that…”
“I’ll need that today, yes, but not until later. No, I just have a question for you.”
“Yes?”
“Are you all right with going to Paris?”
“Paris?” she managed to get out. “Like, the Paris in France?”
He smiled at her, but she could still see that he wasn’t understanding her disbelief.
“As opposed to the Paris in Germany, yes. There is a small conference there, and while I’ll be fine speaking all the languages that are required, having someone on hand who can make sure that anything I sign is in good shape would be a good choice. You can work remotely, of course, but I personally am much more fond of….”
He had to pause because without actually willing herself into action, Danielle had flung herself out of her seat and launched herself against the surprised sheikh. Her entire body lit up with glee, she hugged him as hard as she could while giggling like mad to herself.
She could hardly believe. She was going to Paris! She was a girl who had bounced around from town to town while her father pursued his work with the military; she had always been ashamed of her hand-me-down clothing from the charity bins; she had skipped more meals than she knew what to do with; and she was going to Paris…
After the first rush of glee died down, however, she realized that she was still holding on to Faris, and for some reason, he had made no attempt to pull her away or to make her stop. Her face flushing with heat, she peeked up at him, only to find him watching her with a pensive quality on his face.
“I… take it you are fond of Paris?” he asked.
“I… I am,” she stammered. “I’m so sorry, I was totally inappropriate…”
“Why?” he asked, waving aside her stuttering apology.
Danielle looked at him blankly, unable to figure out what he was asking her at all.
“What do you mean?” she asked, and he raised an eyebrow at her.
“I’ve been going to Paris for trips with my father and with my schools since I was a child,” he said, the expression on his face still slightly perplexed. “It’s a city like any other. In the winter it is cold and wet, and while the food was quite good, there was a kind of snobbery there that I have never liked. Why in the world do you want to go to Paris?”
Her first instinct was to reach for something silly and easy. She had seen plenty of silly movies that she knew were far from the truth. She had heard enough people talk about Paris to know that her view of it was definitely tinted toward rose.
However, instead of giving Faris a silly reason that he could fob off and forget about it, she paused, her eyes slightly distant.
“Because Paris is a story,” she said, and when he still looked confused, she hastened to explain.
“My schools didn’t take field trips to Paris. When they bothered at all, they tried to take their students to the local museums or to someone’s farm to learn more about farmers. Most of the time, I didn’t get to at all.
“I would sit in the school library, because I still had to be in class even if everyone else was missing, and I would read. I loved stories about desert islands and horses and strange happenings, because what girl doesn’t, but after I finished all of those, I found some books on the City of Light.”
She took a deep breath, because this part, while true, was a bit harder to say.
“Those books saved me,” she said quietly. “I might have ended up living in the small town where I graduated, getting some dead-end job and marrying some man who didn’t really care about me at all. Instead, those books opened up an entire world to me, and Paris was at the pinnacle. It felt like some kind of fairy-tale city, so beautiful and so weathered after all of the years and the battles. If I could make it to Paris, I thought, I knew that I had well and truly escaped everything that I had come from.”
She took one shaky breath and then another. When she looked up at him, there was a feeling of dread in her stomach. She was afraid that she would see humor in his face, or even worse, pity. Instead, it was as if there was a light dawning on his head. He looked at her as if he understood her a little better, and as if he liked what he saw.
“And here you are going with your boss,” he murmured, a slight self-deprecating smile on his lips.
“I think that will be lovely,” she said, and for some reason, her voice had dropped as well.
The silence stretched out between them, and it was only then that they seemed to notice they were still stan
ding in each other’s arms. Danielle started to apologize, but Faris let go of her, stepping back. To her dismay, his face was smooth and cool, as if they had not been talking about her dreams and her childhood just a few moments ago.
She opened her mouth to ask him again if she had overstepped, but instead, he was already going back to his own office.
“I’ll make sure that someone picks up a second ticket for you,” he said without turning back. “I’m afraid that it will likely not be as dramatic or as impressive as you think it will be, Danielle.”
She tried to smile at his words. It was difficult because all over again she realized that her feelings for Faris hadn’t quelled at all. All it had taken to call them forth again was a single touch, a single embrace, and suddenly she could feel herself responding to him again.
When the door clicked shut behind him, all Danielle could do was to wrap her arms around herself. She was going to Paris, she tried to remind herself, but what would it be like when she had Faris to contend with?
*
Faris returned to his office, and when he knew that he was alone, he cradled his head in his hands. He had been doing so well. They had ended up in a professional relationship where she wasn’t setting off all the alarms in his head, the ones that told him that he was in far too deep with a young woman who was completely inappropriate to him.
The idea of taking her to Paris was one that had been percolating in his head ever since the opportunity had come up. He hadn’t lied to her. Having his own loyal translator on hand was going to make things much easier. However, he would have been lying if he hadn’t said that the idea of her company pulled him in.
Ever since they had slept together, the urge to be close to her was one that he couldn’t understand and in many ways couldn’t deny. When he was away from her, the world felt gray and everything moved as if it were taking place sunk in molasses. Everything was slow and dreary. When she appeared, however, first thing in the morning and with a bright smile, ready to take on the day, she had made him smile.
