The Sheikh’s Unexpected Son: The Blooming Desert Series Book Three

by North, Leslie

  Her eyelids fluttered and then sank. She’d just close them for a minute. Just a little rest.

  * * *

  Raed reached for the next sheet of paper and it wasn’t there.

  Nothing was there, in fact, except his empty desk. He didn’t let this show on his face, but when the next speaker popped up on the screen he stole a glance at Lise.

  Who was fast asleep in her chair, curled up and snoring.

  She shifted, and the snoring got louder. Her chair was positioned just far enough away that he couldn’t shake her awake without it looking ridiculous on camera.

  “Sheikh Raed, what is that?” asked one of the attendees.

  “One of his assistants,” another one answered gently. “He works them so hard.”

  Well, he wanted to snap back, I’ve had to in order to keep this foundation alive. “We all have our moments,” he said with a smile, though a spear of unease pierced his gut. He’d come back early to attend the party—to at least make an appearance—because his chest had ached with the thought of missing it entirely. He’d wanted to be near Lise and celebrate with Jake so badly. But what the foundation needed was a turbo-charged, unencumbered woman who could sit next to him during meetings without falling asleep.

  And she needed to go to bed.

  Raed’s hands itched to disconnect all of it, to end the call and carry her back to her room. Maybe he should stay the night so she wouldn’t have to get up with Jake. Maybe.

  But no.

  He moved on to the next item in the agenda, Lise still asleep.

  16

  Raed sat across from his mother at the family breakfast, the table set up at the edge of the garden and the morning sun bathing them all in a fresh new light. Nenet had been hosting them every morning after they were finished riding, and Raed tried to make it as often as he could, though he hadn’t been able to attend as many as Lise and Jake in the past couple of weeks.

  Jake pointed a chubby finger at a bowl of strawberries and said something in his baby voice. At first, the word didn’t register as anything that made sense to Raed, but then it did—the Arabic word for strawberry. The toddler beamed, and then he said something that sounded incredibly close to the Arabic word for more.

  “Yes,” Nenet answered him in Arabic, spearing a strawberry with a fork and putting it on the little plate in front of Jake. “More strawberries.” She caught Raed’s eyes, and he managed to shut his mouth in the nick of time. She’d been teaching them. His heart swelled with pride at the thought of his son—and Lise, who was echoing more strawberries—speaking the language of his country. It was the same thing Raed would have done if they’d been together all this time.

  His own plate was already empty, and Raed didn’t say a thing.

  “So I finished the next chapter,” Lise was telling Nenet. “And honestly, I couldn’t put it down. It kept me up half the night.”

  “A good story will do that,” Nenet agreed. “I get too tired to stay up all night, but I woke up early several mornings to finish.” They were talking about a book that Nenet had lent Lise.

  Raed had never been part of a scene more domestic than this. Lise was so relaxed, sitting by Jake and feeding him small bites of food, guiding his hand on a child-sized fork and letting him put it down when he wanted to use his fingers instead.

  Tali breezed in from the palace, smiling at all of them. “Hello, family,” she said. “I wish we hadn’t got in so late last night. I’m letting Rafiq sleep in a little bit. Lise, I can’t get over how lovely it is to have you here.”

  The two women embraced as if they were sisters, not virtual friends based on a shared fandom.

  “Your cereal’s next to Jake.” Lise nodded toward the box of Choco Loco cereal that Tali liked. “I take no responsibility if he tries to grab your bowl.” She seemed happy to see Tali, even more relaxed than she had been.

  Tali ruffled Jake’s hair. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?” He giggled. “Ah, so you would. I’ll have to be careful of you, you little scoundrel.” She dropped easily into the seat next to his and poured herself a bowl, joining the conversation seamlessly.

  They passed around the bowl of strawberries. “Lise, do you do this kind of thing with your parents back in London? Perhaps on the weekends?” Tali asked.

  Amusement danced in Lise’s green eyes as she laughed, handing Jake another piece of strawberry. “Not really, no. But we do visit with my father on the weekends. My mother is always working. Actually, I’ve spoken to her more than usual this week.”

  “More than usual?” Raed raised his eyebrows. He’d seen Lise on the phone with her at the party. Phone calls—that was it. Nenet had planned these breakfasts on and off over the years, especially during times of transition in the palace, but she had always been the centerpiece. Always there. And now she had even changed the breakfasts. There was the Choco Loco for Tali and waffles and syrup for Jake—and his favorite, the strawberries.

  Nenet surveyed all of it with a satisfied expression on her face.

  She was matchmaking. Drawing in Lise and Jake with things meant to welcome and comfort them.

  Would she be so welcoming to a woman like Katharine? Would she lend Katharine books and talk to her about them over breakfast? Would Katharine even want that? He couldn’t picture her spending her time at a relaxed breakfast. Not with business to be done.

  Lise stood up to get Jake some more orange juice from a beverage cart set up nearby, passing behind Raed as she went. He didn’t notice the tension in his neck until Lise paused behind him and rubbed at the muscles there.

  “Relax,” she chided him.

  “I’m perfectly relaxed.”

  “Your neck says otherwise.” She lifted her hands from his skin, and Raed covered the place where she’d touched him with a casual brush of his own palm. Lise had gotten to know him quite well in such a short time, to notice how tense his muscles were without him saying a word.

  Did he know her just as well? He knew her favorite color was purple and she liked to be up a little early in the mornings except on weekends, when she fantasized about sleeping in.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. Raed didn’t need to look at it to know what it said. It would be a message from the staff that his visitor had arrived.

  “I’ll see you later,” he told Lise, then bent to say the same to Jake, and then he left to meet his visitor.

  Miguel Parades waited for him in his office. Raed had been working with a prestigious US publication called Tempo to do an article about the launch of his foundation, and they’d sent Miguel to shadow him for the day to gather background. He rose from his seat as soon as Raed came through the door and gave a little bow.

  Raed waved this off, and the two men shook hands. “You’ve come on the perfect day.”

  Miguel grinned. “I should hope so. It’s the one we agreed on after weeks of schedule negotiation.”

  “That’s exactly what I meant.”

  He earned a laugh from Miguel for that, and then Raed settled in behind his desk. The morning meetings would begin soon enough, and he ran through the foundation’s goals while they waited for the first of Raed’s team to arrive in the office.

  The day slipped through meeting after meeting. Miguel accompanied Raed to a lunchtime sit-down with some university administrators at a restaurant in the city. He hardly seemed to take notes during lunch, but Raed suspected that the casual chat wouldn’t do him much good for the article. In the afternoon, they came back to his office.

  “This is the presentation I’ve been honing for release to the global investment community,” Raed told him, turning his computer screen so Miguel could see.

  “Is he busy?” Lise’s voice floated in from outside the door, and tension rocketed across Raed’s neck.

  “In a minute he’ll be—” Stephen was saying, but Lise was already at the door, already poking her head in.

  Her eyebrows went up. “Oh, I didn’t realize you were with someone.” Stephen grimaced behind he
r, and from the angle of his body Raed could tell he was standing by to hustle her out as quickly as possible. “It’s not important. I’ll come back later.”

  “No, no.” Miguel stood and introduced himself. “I’m from Tempo magazine. Do you work with the foundation?”

  Lise hesitated, and Raed could find absolutely nothing to do with his face. He couldn’t very well tell Miguel that she didn’t—he’d been wrong to do it the first time, and he wouldn’t do it again.

  “A small pilot project,” she admitted. “I’m Annalise Danbury, but there are other people who can tell you more, I’m sure.”

  “Sit with us. I’d love to ask you some questions.”

  Lise did, watching him for permission, and Raed nodded toward the free chair. Miguel sat down next to her. “What kind of work do you do with the sheikh?”

  She looked so beautiful, sitting there. “My project involves English classes for the palace staff. It was personally signed off on by Raed—by Sheikh Raed,” she corrected herself, not quite quickly enough. “He’s excellent at finding ways to test the foundation’s theories before they’re launched on a larger scale. Starting here, in the palace, was a quite brilliant idea.”

  “I should make you my PR person,” Raed said, trying to force himself back into a semblance of ease.

  Lise laughed, watching him, her eyes bright. “You’ve given me enough work already, I think.”

  Miguel’s eyes went back and forth between the two of them, and unease grew in the pit of Raed’s gut. “Ms. Danbury, is your smaller scale focus having that much influence on the larger goals of the foundation? Do you think starting locally and building up is a better approach than the sheikh’s plan to launch globally all at once?”

  “Absolutely not.” Raed couldn’t help himself, though he knew it was Lise’s question to answer. “As Ms. Danbury said, these tightly targeted projects are proof of concept for the larger goals of the foundation.”

  “I see.” Miguel watched him for a long moment, then turned his attention back to Lise. “Would you like to weigh in on that, Ms. Danbury?”

  Lise did weigh in on it, but the words didn’t make any impact on Raed. An awful sensation prickled the back of his neck. She was too small-scale. Even this reporter had been able to see it. A woman like Katharine would never have given the impression that her work was small in any way. It would never be just a pilot project. She would have her own goals, and would never, never have given a member of the media the impression that her projects were anything other than massive, world-changing initiatives.

  There was no point in getting any more attached than he already was. She wasn’t the type of woman he needed beside him.

  “—back in London,” he heard her saying. “I’ve been in contact with them regularly for our partnership, and it’s benefitted everyone very much.”

  She had been talking to her employers more lately. And her mother, though Raed still didn’t think her family was as supportive as his own mother had been. She was planning to go back to London and planning for the life she’d have there. Unless he was horribly mistaken, Lise wasn’t considering staying. All of her future was focused on going back to the life that was waiting for her in England.

  If the whole point was to keep from getting attached, why did his chest ache like this at the thought that she’d be leaving Qasha?

  Obviously Lise and Jake would be headed back to the UK. Obviously they would go on with the future she’d built for them through her career. And Raed wouldn’t ask them to stay, no. Not if every reporter could see the way she was—too deeply emotional to be a power player in the business realm. Too trusting to get the foundation what it needed. It needed to be a big, sweeping vision, and having this article report that they were starting with thimble-size projects wouldn’t help at all.

  And yet Raed couldn’t put a stop to the interview. Miguel asked Lise several more questions about her work with the university and how she’d managed to plan a class schedule for different shifts, and her answers were deft and kind and not at all cutthroat. Not at all like Katharine would be. A woman like Katharine would jump into the meeting and take control. She’d hit all the talking points. She’d push their agenda hard.

  “I’m happy to show you other plans that we have for the future,” Raed put in the next time they paused for breath. “And of course answer questions in a more formal setting, if you’d like.”

  Lise hopped up out of her seat and gave Raed a little wave that made him wither on the inside. Miguel had seen it. “Thanks for letting me sit in on your interview,” she told Miguel. “If there’s anything you need to follow up on, you know where to find me.” Then Lise was gone, out the door, on her way to the next thing she had planned.

  Not here. You won’t be here for long, Raed thought, and it struck him like a bolt of lightning, painful and bright. It didn’t matter how happy Lise made him in his personal life. She planned to go back to London, and that’s what she had to do.

  For the good of the foundation, he had to let her go.

  17

  “You don’t have to look so stricken.” Lise reached out with an elbow and nudged Raed, who sat stone-faced in the passenger seat, his brow furrowed and a frown on his face. “You’re the one who taught me how to drive.”

  He put a smile on, his previous expression dissolving, and Lise wondered if it had ever been there at all. Some distraction still lingered in his dark eyes, but they held anticipation, too. Good. This was supposed to be a highlight of the year.

  “I’m not worried about your driving.” Raed put both of his hands behind his head and leaned back. “There’s a guard in the follow car, ready to take over in case things go bad.”

  Lise laughed. “Things are not going to go bad.”

  “It’s all relative,” Raed told her. “I just feel I shouldn’t be away from the office while everything is happening.”

  “Things are happening here, too. Stephen told me.”

  “What exactly did he tell you?” Raed leaned closer, and she caught the twinkle in his eyes even while she kept her eyes on the road.

  “That’s it’s your reunion day.” Her heart filled with secondhand joy. Lise had never gone to a high school reunion, but the way Stephen had described it, Raed and his friends had a wonderful time at their annual get-together. He’d told Lise about it because it wasn’t on Raed’s calendar. Well, she wasn’t going to have that.

  “Mama,” said Jake from the backseat, and then he blew a raspberry.

  “You have good timing too. Because we’re here.” Lise pulled into a spot next to the park. She’d been concentrating so hard on driving that she hadn’t brought up her own news, which was that she’d been offered a promotion just that morning. A promotion back in London. She was supposed to interview for it—merely a formality, she’d been assured—in just a few days. “I don’t see anybody else here yet, so maybe—”

  “Maybe we should stretch our legs.” Raed was the first out of the car and the first around to Jake’s car seat, and then he had his son in his arms. All three of them strolled across the grass, Jake toddling and Raed staying close by.

  “There was something I wanted to tell you,” Lise began, and then a voice echoed behind them in a shout.

  Raed’s face lit up. “The first friend,” he said, turning to wave. “Will you save your news for afterward?”

  “Of course I will.” Lise took Jake’s hand. “Call me if you need a ride back to the palace.”

  Raed caught her by the elbow. “You should stay.”

  Lise’s heart beat faster. “This is for you and your friends,” she insisted. “I just wanted to show off my driving skills.”

  He put his hands in his pockets. “Stay.”

  “Stay,” echoed Jake, pulling his hand out of Lise’s and running around in a little toddling circle.

  “Okay,” she laughed.

  The friends showed up, singles and couples and families.

  “They’ll be foundation supporters, if we
’re lucky, but this is about friends,” Raed said, and then they were surrounded by a group that had clearly grown larger than its original number. Some of the school gang had gotten married and had children, so Jake ran back and forth with them.

  “Who’s up for human chess?” Raed called after about half an hour, and everyone agreed—to honor the way they used to play actual chess in school. One activity moved seamlessly to the next. Frisbee. Football. The park was huge and lush and extensive, and the children ran together on the sidelines until Lise thought Jake might actually fall over from all the activities. They surged into a café across the street for burgers and sodas for lunch, and one of the friends in attendance leaned in.

  “Did Raed tell you how much we ate here as kids? You wouldn’t believe it.”

  Raed laughed. “I didn’t mention specifically that we kept this café alive for many years all by ourselves.”

  “How did you meet Raed, Lise?” the man’s wife asked, then took a big bite of her burger.

  “He was a student in one of my business classes,” Lise offered. “And later we reconnected through his foundation.” What would Raed say about it? This was, after all, a bigger group than they were used to being with, and she’d seen the hesitation in his eyes when she appeared at his office during that press interview.

  “Oh, I have a local project I wish he’d fund,” said the man. “But he’s so focused on world domination. I don’t suppose you teach art, too?”

  Lise laughed and shook her head. “I wish. I’m lucky if I can draw a recognizable stick figure. Raed, do you have any plans for art education?”

  The conversation flowed around his friends’ projects in the city, but she could tell from the look in his eyes that Raed was still thinking about ways to take those ideas and projects global. A hope that Lise didn’t know she’d been holding on to flickered out. Raed didn’t say a single word about their relationship. About their son. And of course he wouldn’t, not when no official announcement had been made, but she’d still thought—