by Ella Brooke
Danielle couldn’t help but flinch a little.
“You’re right,” she said sadly. “What happened tonight, that was me not having any faith in you at all, and I am sorry for that. You deserve better.”
She expected him to be stern about it, but the smile on his face was remarkably gentle. She remembered all over again what a kind man he was, and she felt a strange warmth in her. For once, it had nothing to do with the sensual pleasure they so easily shared. Instead, it was the slow realization that while she still felt unworthy, he certainly did not share the feeling.
“Thank you,” he said. “I know that things can be difficult, but at the end of the day, what I want is right here. We are both very different people, but I think that will work for us rather than against us.”
He paused, and she realized that in many ways, he was as uncertain as she was. Faris had always struck her as such a confident man, so very aware and alert, that it never struck her at all that he might be feeling as nervous and excited about what they had between them as she did. Deep inside, Danielle could feel something melt, and the smile she gave him shimmered with happy tears. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she loved him again, but she pushed it back.
Right now, though, Danielle believed that it could happen, and that it would happen, and she was not sure that she had ever felt happier than she did right now.
Chapter Fifteen
Two days later, they were packing up for London. Even the thought made Danielle’s heart sing. When she was young, the world felt impossibly large to her. She studied languages because somewhere in the back of her head, she wished she could meet people all the world over, to connect with them in some very real and integral way.
London, the international city where it seemed all the world came, was like a dream, and now, thanks to Faris, it was a dream that was coming true.
Faris, of course, had a flat all his own in London, and when it came to packing, he only shrugged."
“It seems tiresome, packing your things and moving them from place to place,” he teased. “I prefer to have my things there and waiting for me.”
“You’re so spoiled,” she said with a sigh, looking over her clothes. “I swear, I didn’t have this much when I came to Paris…”
“So leave it,” he said with a shrug. “Elise DuConte’s work is amazing, but there are designers that I am sure that you will like just as well in London.”
Danielle shook her head. Sometimes, it was difficult to believe the amount of money and power that Faris really commanded.
“Sorry, that sounds awful to me,” she said, making a face. “It’s unnecessary, and that would mean that I have to spend hours shopping when I’d rather be seeing the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace.”
“My apologies,” Faris drawled, coming to stand behind her. “I suppose we can’t let anything get in the way of you trying to see everything that the British Isles has to offer.”
She started to answer him, but then his arms wrapped around her waist, and he nuzzled at the nape of her neck. She shivered at the tingle that ran through her body, and then, out of sheer force of will, she tugged away.
“If you keep that up, we’re not going to make the plane this evening,” she said accusingly, and Faris shrugged.
“It’s my plane,” he said carelessly. “I’m sure it can be convinced to wait…”
“Unbelievable,” Danielle said, but there was a smile in her voice when she said it. “Look, I need to finish this, and unfortunately, it’s not something that I can finish while you are looking at me like you want to ravish me.”
“It’s true, I do,” he said solemnly, and she grinned at him.
“Will you go pick us up some food? I’m getting hungry, and we probably shouldn’t just eat fruit until we get on the plane…”
Faris sighed, but there was a smile on his face.
“Such a demanding woman,” he teased. “But all right. It’ll be good for me to get a bit of a walk and to stretch my legs before we get on the plane anyway. I’ll see about picking us up some of that falafel we liked so much. I’ll be back in an hour or so, but if you can think of anything you might like better, let me know.”
He left, and the apartment felt quiet and a little too heavy as Danielle went back to packing. She had a job to do, and of course she was going to do it, but the feeling of Faris with his arms around her and his breath against the nape of her neck made her shiver. The man was pure pleasure and fire, and after she finished packing, when he got back, she was going to show him exactly what that did to her.
*
Faris whistled a little as he walked down the boulevard. As he walked, he couldn’t help but reflect on how much things had changed over the course of his stay in Paris.
He would never have thought there would be a kind of pleasure in going to get food. He was the sheikh of one of the wealthiest emirates in the UAE. When he wanted food, it would simply appear for him, of whatever type he pleased. It was something he had never much of before.
Since being with Danielle, however, that had changed. Now he was discovering the pleasures of trying new food places and of sharing them with someone else. Even when the food was dismal, there was something about the shared experience that made him smile. There was an odd but very real pleasure in bringing food to Danielle and in seeing her light up with pleasure at his offerings.
She had allowed him to see Paris in a whole new light, and now, he realized, she was going to help him see London in the same way.
He was almost to the falafel shop that he had mentioned earlier when his phone rang. Taking it out of his pocket, he saw at a glance that it was Marais. Grinning, he answered the call.
“Marais, a pleasure to hear from you…”
“I am afraid that it is not going to be a pleasure for much longer,” Marais replied, his tone clipped. “I felt it courteous to let you know that the deal is off. Though the bid that you made was an attractive one, we have decided that we wish to go with another location.”
For a moment, Faris didn’t understand, and when he did, a black tide of rage rolled over him.
“You’re turning Aswar down?” he demanded. “Why the hell would you…”
“We have found a vendor that we believe will work more closely with us, one who simply offers us more. I am deeply sorry if you thought the investors were more interested in Aswar than they are, and personally, I can tell you that I am very sorry to be missing out on a chance to work with you…”
“Who is it?” Faris snapped. “Who in the world did you choose?”
There was a pause, and finally, when Marais spoke again, there was something furtive about it. Faris was too infuriated to think more about it when he heard the answer.
“It was Sheikh Seif of Kamul that put together a bid that interested the investors more. Again, Sheikh Faris, I am very sorry…”
Faris didn’t bother to hear the man’s apologies. He hung up the phone, and shoved it in his pocket. He was on the doorstep of the falafel shop, the rich smell spilling out into the street, but he couldn’t pay attention to it. Instead, he started walking quickly, trying to organize his thoughts.
It seemed ridiculous that Marais’s investors would choose Kamul over Aswar. Despite his antipathy for the sheikh himself, Faris had visited Kamul several times over his reign. In the end, he found it pleasant enough, but unremarkable. It wasn’t just pride that made him think that Aswar was more beautiful, more accessible; it was a fact.
Why, then, would the investors decide that Kamul was the better bet?
The only answer was that someone how, Seif had made it worth their while to build there.
He walked for almost half an hour, until he was warm under his clothes and his feet were beginning to hurt. He was a little calmer, at least, and with a sigh, he started back toward the falafel shop. At the end of the day, there was nothing to be done, not really. All of the angry pacing in the world wouldn’t change the investors’ minds, and that was th
e end of it. He tried to concentrate on Danielle and their time together in London. He had never met a woman who could soothe him as easily as she could. Faris knew that when he saw her next, his pain and frustration would smooth away, melting like a sprinkle of snow on the warm ground.
Of course, that was when he rounded the corner and set eyes on the last person in the world he wanted to see.
Seif’s brows arched up in surprise, and he smiled to see Faris. Faris was ready to let the man go by with a curt nod, but Seif fell into step next to him.
“What a fine day to see you walking, Faris,” he said cheerfully. “I am pleased to see you.”
“Given our last interaction, that surprises me immensely, Seif,” Faris retorted. “I’m in no mood for you today, so let me walk on.”
“I would, but I just had some good news,” he chuckled. “I have signed a contract to build an international resort in Kamul, a project that is going to make Kamul the next Dubai.”
Little chance of that, Faris thought, but he gritted his teeth and kept walking.
“How nice for you. Congratulations,” he said out loud.
No matter how quickly Faris walked, Seif didn’t get the hint. Instead, the other man kept pace with him, talking about the deal until Faris was ready to turn around and shout at him. Then he said something that made Faris stop in his tracks.
“And of course I was pleased to speak with Danielle the other day,” he said. “Such a kind woman, forgiving me for the ass I made of myself not so long ago.”
Faris stopped in his tracks. He was aware of the slight smirk on Seif’s face, was aware that he was likely playing straight into whatever game it was that the sheikh of Kamul was playing, but he couldn’t help himself.
“You ran into Danielle? You spoke to Danielle?” he asked, his voice dangerous, but Seif didn’t seem aware of it.
“I did,” he said. “Not all that long ago. We stopped and had coffee at one of the English-language bookstores.”
Seif paused.
“Her blue silk dress was lovely. DuConte, I believe?”
Faris could feel his head spin. Danielle, beautiful, sweet, and honest Danielle, had met with Seif? Talked with him? She had called the dress a secret, but Seif knew about it? The facts spun around his head, and slowly, a picture was forming that Faris didn’t want to see.”
“We’re done,” he said, ice hanging from his words. “Get out of here. I don’t care to continue this conversation.”
He started walking again, and by some miracle, Seif stayed where he was. However, his words, pitched to carry, were perfectly clear.
“I know she looked as good out of the dress as in it…”
Faris’s temper, already at a boiling point, spilled over, and he whirled around with a roar of rage. Seif, despite his casual words, seemed ready for Faris’s attack, and he blocked the first strike, but not the second, which sent him reeling.
There was a calm voice in the back of Faris’s head that told him to leave off, that it was enough, but Seif’s words buzzed in his ear like flies, stinging him and driving him forward.
They traded blows, neither of them capable of getting the upper hand. Still Faris could not stop, because the voice in his head, which was now Seif’s voice, never stopped.
Danielle would never betray me. She would never meet with Seif in secret; she would never keep such secrets from me…
She had called it a secret, though, her dress and how she had gotten it. She had hidden such fears from him until she nearly boiled over, and yet she never told him about meeting Seif, even though she knew how he felt about the man.
Her silence when she was usually so open and honest felt like a damning conviction, but still Faris fought on, trying to deny it by raining blows on Seif that were blocked and returned. He barely felt the hits that Seif was landing on him; he was in a pure battle rage where the utter annihilation of his enemy was the only thing that was acceptable.
He grabbed Seif finally, slamming the man against the brick wall, and for some reason, the other man smiled at him. Seif’s lip was split, and Faris knew that his own eye was swelling shut, and for a moment, Faris paused. What the hell was he doing?
“She’s a clever girl. Good with words. Good with contracts. You trust her completely, don’t you?”
Faris froze for a moment, and then with a snarl that sounded barely human, he drove his fist toward Seif’s face. If it landed, it might have broken the other man’s nose, but instead, there were hands on his shoulders and his arms, dragging him back. Suddenly they were both swarmed by policemen shouting in French and pulling them apart.
Seif’s face looked disgustingly self-satisfied, and as he was forced into a police car, he felt the anger in him growling and coiling like a dragon, ready to lash out and ready to strike.
Chapter Sixteen
After she had packed all of her things, Danielle found the lacy black underthings she had left out of her bag. With a blush, she showered and then pulled them on, looking at herself critically in the mirror. She was slender and pale, but no sane person would call her an elf. There were curves there, and they were enhanced by the sheer black lace that Elise had called a Parisian detail.
She knew that she and Faris preferred each other naked, but there was something illicitly exciting about the lace. Surely he would be attracted to it? Men liked real lingerie, didn’t they? She might have been done trying to emulate the cosmopolitan women of Faris’s past, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t try a few tricks of her own.
When she glanced at the clock, she could see that he had been gone almost an hour, and that meant he would be back soon. With a grin, she went and stretched out on the bed, reading an article in Urdu to keep her skills sharp. Hopefully, he would come home and find her just like this, and then they could put off eating lunch for just a little bit…
She finished the article, and then another one, and then a particularly long one after that. Her ear listened for his key in the lock, but there was nothing. Danielle sat up, concerned.
The clock told her that it had been almost an hour and forty-five minutes since he had left the townhouse, and she bit her lip.
She called his phone, but it went to voice mail. She thought about hanging up, and then she decided to leave a message.
“Hi!” she said, her voice sounding tinny and slightly forced. “Did you get lost on your way to the falafel place? Maybe you found someone you know. Give me a call at some point. I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay.”
She hung up and waited a little longer, forcing herself to read another article. This one was in Hindi, which was her most recently acquired language and therefore the one that was most challenging for her. Time and again, she had to look up words that she knew, and it seemed to take an age, but when she looked up at the clock, she could see that barely ten minutes had passed.
She waited until it was exactly two hours since he had left, and she tried his phone again. When the voice mail picked up, she squelched an automatic panic reaction and tried to speak clearly.
“Hi, it’s just me again. It’s been two hours since you left, and I figure that maybe you’ve just got some business that you need to take care of? I don’t want to be a worrywart, but if you could just give me a call at some point here… that would be awesome. All right, I hope everything is okay!”
She ended the call, and the townhouse echoed with the sound of her false cheer. Suddenly, she felt silly for being panicked in lingerie, and she made her way back to the bedroom to change. Back in a familiar red-wine dress, she was a little more comfortable.
Danielle told her that there was nothing wrong. People got delayed all the time, and that didn’t mean something terrible had happened, not at all. There was likely a perfectly normal and rational explanation for what was going on.
She parked herself in the sitting room, her feet curled up underneath her. She put her back to the clock because she knew that watching it would only make her insane. However, she coul
d still hear its delicate chimes as the quarter hours passed, and mentally, every time it did so, she counted how long it had been since Faris had left.
Danielle’s stomach started growling. She had been slightly hungry when he had left, and now she was starving. There was still some food in the kitchen, but for some reason, she couldn’t quite bring herself to go get it. She wondered why that was, but then she realized with a sickening lurch that it was because if she did, it would have meant admitting in some way that Faris had never made it to the falafel place.
She tried to convince herself that at any moment, Faris would come in, arms full of food and explaining why he had been held up. She imagined him smiling ruefully and apologizing to her for being so late and then setting the food down so she could fly into his arms. He would tell her how silly she was for being so worried, but he would soothe her for a short while anyway, and then he would direct them toward the food, telling her a funny story about what had happened.
Danielle concentrated so hard on this image that it was almost real, and then the quarter hour chimed again and she realized that he was more than three hours out. Her phone felt like a brick in her hand, but she took a deep breath and called him again.
“It’s been three hours,” she said softly, “and I think I’m running out of assurance that you are going to be okay. Please, please be all right. I’m worried, I’m so worried about you. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you…. please call me back.”
She hung up the phone and sat down on the divan. Outside, the skies had turned gray, and it threatened to storm. She knew that at some point soon, she would have to call the police. She didn’t want to. Calling the police would be admitting in an irrevocable way that she believed that something was wrong, that there was a chance that he would not return to her… that something terrible had happened to her.
Danielle didn’t realize she was crying until the hot tears were on her cheeks. Her hands were shaking, and instead of wiping her tears away, she clenched them tight in her lap. When she finally relaxed them, they were shaking, and she could see where she had dug her fingernails deep into her palms, leaving behind vivid crescents.
