The Sheikh's Accidental Bride (6 page)

With the thought of Other Nadya, though, she grew uncomfortable. She was sitting in the very same place as the woman would, in just a few days, form an unbreakable, lifelong union with Salman. This very spot, right here, was where their life together would begin.

“What’s wrong?” Salman asked, noticing her discomfort.

“Nothing,” she said. Looking at him, she meant it. His face had a way of banishing her worried from her mind. Whatever was going to happen in an hour, or two hours, or ten hours, she had him for the moment, and she may as well enjoy it. “I was just thinking the house looks bigger than what you had described. Inside it.”

He frowned. “Well, the rooms are quite large. Like back home, you know. Not like the tiny rooms they have here in America.”

She nodded, as though she knew what he meant.

“And there are some extra rooms. Guest rooms, and things like that. Nooks and crannies. I was just telling you the overall themes. There’s more to be discovered.”

She found herself excited at the prospect. She would wander around, discovering. Maybe it would take hours. Maybe it would take days.

Nadya’s heart sank again. She’d found herself imagining that this was all real, and forgetting that it wasn’t. She had to stop doing that, she thought. If only for her own sanity.

“And, of course, there’s the basement.” He said it with something sly in his voice, and winked at the end. Her curiosity was peaked.

“What’s in the basement?”

“If you’re done with your coffee, I’ll show you.”

She pitted her curiosity against her desire to stay there, sitting with him and sipping her coffee in the sunlight. The coffee and the warmth won. At least for the moment. They let the conversation between them lapse, quietly enjoying one another’s company.

“What’s that smell?” she asked, after a while.

“The coffee?” he asked, and she shot him an annoyed look.

“No, not that.”

“The food?” This time, the obviously incorrect answer was intentional. She could tell by his cheeky look.

“No, really. What is that?”

He concentrated, closing his eyes so he could focus. “Ah,” he said. “That. That’s Honeysuckle.”

“They have it in California,” she said, remembering again, for the second time in as many days, the time she’d spent there and how few her cares had been.

He was nodding. “They do,” he said.

“It’s beautiful.”

And she meant more than the honeysuckle. She meant everything. She meant the garden. She meant the house. She meant the entrance and the great grand door. She meant him. She didn’t specify, but she had a feeling he knew.

When they’d drunk in enough of her fill of sunshine that Nadya’s curiosity began to outweigh her desire to sit just a bit longer, he let her down to the basement.

They went through the door in Salman’s own side, and she caught just a hint of the rooms beyond. She wanted to explore them. She wanted to see the bedroom. She wanted to feel the way it would feel to wake up there, every day.

But that could wait. Maybe forever. No sense in torturing herself over something she couldn’t have. She followed him through a door that led to a long staircase. It took her down, deeper than she had expected, until they were well below both the house and the garden.

When they reached the bottom, they came out into a large, round room, with a tall, sloping ceiling. Salman flicked a switch, and turned on the lights. But the lights weren’t up on the ceiling. They were only about nine or ten feet above them, about at the height a normal ceiling would be. Up on the ceiling, high above them, were what looked like a million tiny, twinkling lights, laid out against a curving, dark blue field.

“A bowling alley?” she asked, surprised.

“Bowling under the stars!” He had his arms out, presenting. “I should explain,” he said, when Nadya continued to look a bit puzzled.

“It’s a reminder of home. In fact, I just had it completed, so my family can see it when they come for the wedding. When we were young, my father found out that the White House had its own bowling alley. We didn’t bowl – no one at home did. But still, my father was not a man to be outdone. So he set one up, out in the courtyard. And we played on it constantly.

“But we didn’t really know the rules, and maybe we should have found out how the game was supposed to be played, but the children were the only ones who used it. So we just made up our own rules, and played by those.”

Everything in the room shone. Nadya could have sworn that if she walked over and looked down at the lane, she would be able to see her face in it. Looking up at the “stars” above was captivating. So much so that she had a hard time concentrating on his words.

“Would you like to christen it?” he asked. He had walked up close to her, and it startled her to hear him so close so suddenly.

“Certainly,” Nadya said. “But only if you teach me your rules.”

He smiled, and obliged. As far as Nadya could tell, it was like a mixture of bowling and golf. Instead of keeping track of how many pins were taken down, instead, they kept track of how many throws it took to take down all the pins; the lower the score, the better.

“You have great form,” Salman said, watching her ready herself to throw her first try of the last round. If she got it in less than three tries, she would win.

“Thanks. I worked at a bowling alley in High School.” She began her backswing, and was halfway through the motion when she realized what she had said. The thought threw her off, and she released the ball too late, sending it flying up instead out smoothly out. The ball made a horrible banging noise as it bounced itself heavily into the gutter.

“It’s just like Dubai to have a bowling alley before everyone else. Tell me, did they know who you were? Or were you doing it in secret, just to try and get away from everything?”

She tried to stifle her sigh of relief as she readied her next shot, facing away from him so that he wouldn’t see the stress on her face. “The second one. What about you? Did you ever have anything like that?”

She bowled her second throw. Much better result, though not perfect. Losing was a real possibility, if he did well on his turn.

“Me? Oh, no. I think my mother wanted me to, in retrospect. She would tell me bedtime stories about princes that disguised themselves so they could walk amongst their people. But I was a good boy. I cared far too much about pleasing my father to ever do anything like that.”

The ball hit the pins, but left three standing. He’d have a chance.

“Is that why you’re getting married? For him?” Nadya was concentrating too hard on readying her next shot to keep the words from slipping out.

He didn’t reply. They both watched the ball roll down the aisle and blast away all three remaining pins.

Walking over to the ball return, Salman looked like he was considering what to say. “We all have our reasons for the decisions we make. It’s a hard thing, to try and find the balance between meeting your own needs, and doing what your family requires of you. The idea that the individual is all that matters, and the family has no say is very American. I’m surprised at you.”

“Well I am surprising,” she said. “I thought we covered that.”

He’d gotten his ball and was heading to the lane. Mute, Nadya watched him throw it, decisively. It struck perfectly, scattering all the pins on impact.

“And you’re surprising, too,” she said, as he turned with a grin that nearly split his face in two. “Have you been holding back?”

He shrugged. “I want you to like it here.”

“Oh, we’re playing again,” Nadya said, standing. “For real, this time. I was holding back, too.”

He raised his eyebrow skeptically. But he agreed. “On one condition, though,” he said.

“Anything.”

“If I win again, you’ll take a walk with me out across the property. There’s something I want to show you.”

She picked up her ball, and walked over to the lane, where the pins had already been set up for her next throw.

“Deal,” she said, and sent the ball screaming decisively towards them.

SEVEN

Nadya lost the bowling. She thought she might have room to say she was still taking it easy on him, but that would be a lie. She didn’t take losing too hard, since she was looking forward to seeing what it was he wanted to show her.

There was a large area around the house that was landscaped, as was the expectation with residences this grandiose. Out beyond that, however, Salman had left the remaining land as raw forest. It was a stark contrast to the carefully protected, meticulously cared for garden in the courtyard.

“It’s about 350 acres, altogether,” he said, answering her unasked question, as they wandered through the trees.

Nadya wished that she had worn her Chucks after all. Her sandals were new, bought for the party, and they were going to give her blisters if she wasn’t careful. She was torn between thinking that she should insist they go back, and wanting to keep going.

“And you want to show me all 350 right now?”

He chuckled. “No, don’t worry. I just wanted to show you the lake.”

It took them nearly fifteen minutes more to reach the lake. Nadya thought for sure they’d lost their way once or twice, but every time she looked over at Salman, she saw no trace of confusion or uncertainty. They weren’t following a path, really, though she could see some places, just here or there, where it looked like people had walked before.

They came upon the lake suddenly. There were trees all around them, and then in an instant there was just water. There was a grass lip, with a curve down to a small silt beach. The lake itself was alive, just the way she felt the house had been. It wasn’t theirs alone. It had a life all its own, with a bird’s nest out a ways and the occasional ripple from fish below.

“It’s beautiful,” Nadya said. She realized once she said the words that he had been looking at her, waiting with rapt attention for her to give her verdict.

“Isn’t it? I’m glad to hear you say that. My father wasn’t sold on the property at first. He didn’t understand why I would choose to live in America, when there’s a palace back home. It was always his idea that I would come back, after my studies were done. But now that they are…” He ran his fingers through his hair. It was a habit he had, Nadya noticed, when he was thinking of something that bothered him. “Anyway, I showed him this, and he understood.”

Nadya slipped out of her sandals again, as she had on the cool slate back in the courtyard. It didn’t seem like an odd thing to do, but she felt like it
should
be. In front of a man so powerful, and particularly in the strange, precarious and deceitful position she’d found herself in, it seemed like she should have been careful not to get too comfortable.

But she wanted to be comfortable with him. And she found that the more he spoke to her, the more she found that it was impossible not to be. Just as long as they stayed far enough from the riskier topics, so that she could keep the tight wire she was walking out of her mind.

“Not many lakes in Al-Ahradi, I take it?” she asked, and he shook his head emphatically.

“We’ve got a little bit of coast. Just a little. The palace is near it. But it isn’t really the same. The waves are always crashing. It’s beautiful, but it’s never still.”

He wandered a little bit closer to the water, if only to come a little closer to Nadya, who was standing with her toes right on the edge of it, now. “Everything in my life moves, it seems.”

She looked back at him. “Well, whose fault is that?” she asked. It didn’t seem like such a bad thing. Better than everything staying the same.

“I’m not just marrying for him.” He said it like it was the continuation of what he’d been saying just then, and not a call back to their talk in the bowling alley.

“Aren’t you?” Nadya asked, not looking back.

“No. I mean it. Everything in my life feels like it’s moving. My family keeps going, on and on. My sisters all have their own lives and my father has the kingdom. I think I’d like it, to get pulled in. Just the thing you’re so afraid of, I want.”

There were so many things she wanted to say. She wanted try and tell him that he didn’t need anything to be arranged for him; that maybe it would be better if he just went looking on his own. But she couldn’t say that if she didn’t want him to realize the truth. She certainly couldn’t say that and keep going on pretending that
she
still wanted the wedding. And if she didn’t want the wedding, then why was she still there?

She felt sweaty from the walk, and her feet, while glad to be out of the sandals, still felt warm at the pressure points, where before much longer her skin would have turned to blisters. It was better out here, as far as the heat went, but it was still summer, and she still wanted to escape it.

She stepped forward, into the water, letting out an involuntary cry at the temperature.

“Nadya?” Salman said, and she could hear the concern in his voice.

She turned around to look back at him, simultaneously stepping a bit further out, and a bit deeper in. “It’s colder than I thought it would be,” she said, a smile on her face as she saw his consternation.

It wasn’t easy to bother him. He wasn’t easy to tease. He was too solid, and too sure of himself, generally. But he didn’t want her out in the water.

She took another step backwards, pretending to nearly lose her footing, and saw him instinctively reach out as though to grab her. She steadied herself easily and laughed. “What, can’t you swim?” she asked him, and he frowned.

“Technically, I can. I’m a good swimmer. My swimming teacher told me so.”

Another step back. The hem of her dress was well soaked, now, but the fabric was light, and resisted being drowned in the water; as she went further out, the water lifted it up, making it look like a flouncy teacup-shaped skirt. This, more than all the people calling her “Your Highness”, had a way of making her feel like a princess.

Nadya’s obvious joy was eroding his concern, but he still wasn’t quite ready to go along with it.

“You look ridiculous,” he said, undercutting his own words with a smile.

She gasped. “You’re right. Halfway in is no way to be.”

To his protestations, she let herself fall backwards. The cool water sent a rush of adrenaline through her system. The world was all crisp and disorienting, but the insufferable warmth of the day was gone, and her feet felt soothed.

She came up, and saw him looking back towards the house, as though someone was going to come and rebuke them.

Nadya’s dress was soaked through, now, and she had to look down and check to make sure it wasn’t completely transparent. Probably something she should have done
beforehand
she thought gleefully. But it had turned out fine. She floated in the still water, feeling joyous.

She began paddling backwards, out into deeper water. “That’s your problem, you know,” she called back at him.

“I don’t have a problem.”

“Sure you do. Everyone has a problem. You said that, yourself. Last night.”

Even from here she could see the moment of confusion and the moment of recognition.

“That wasn’t exactly what I said.”

“Close enough. Anyway, do you want to know what your problem is?”

She noted that he was as close to the water as he could get, now, without actually touching it.

“Ok, what is it?”

“You can’t let go. We’re miles and miles and miles away from your family, and you still care more than anything about what they think. You’re worried that they wouldn’t approve.” She dipped her head under the water, so she could smooth and control the unruly wet hair that had escaped her braid. “It shouldn’t matter,” she said.

He shrugged. At least he didn’t refute it, she thought.

“Come in with me!”

“No!” He said it loudly, like it was a kneejerk reaction. But he didn’t really seem to disapprove anymore.

“It’s better out here!”

She splashed water across the surface of the water at him, but he was too far away to be caught by it.

He didn’t move. He just watched her, smiling. “Then you enjoy it!” he said.

She pushed off, swimming out to the middle of the lake. She wanted him out here with her. She hated that he wasn’t. But even if she had to be by herself, it was still an amazing feeling. She came up for air, now and then, and felt the warmth of the sun on her skin, and the balmy air. She was weightless, careless and free.

She didn’t know how long she swam for. She just knew it was long enough to cool off, and release the tension that any conversation about Salman’s impending nuptials brought up in her.

When she felt ready to come in, she looked back to the beach. He wasn’t there.

Nadya gasped. She had a sudden terrifying vision of her out alone in the lake. Maybe he’d heard something. Maybe her identity had been revealed, and he’d just been so angry that he’d left her out here, with no way to get back. She had a sense of what direction the house was, but only a vague one.

“Nadya!”

She heard his voice to her right. There was a rock formation on a little peninsula out into the lake. And there was Salman, sitting on a rock that was only just higher than the water.

He waved and motioned for her to come to him. She obliged, swimming as quickly as she could. She found the water next to the rock wasn’t shallow like the shore. It was deep, and she treaded water there, unable to touch the bottom with her feet.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked, though it was obvious. It was equally obvious that he was enjoying himself, too, sitting in the sun on the rock, with his feet in the water, watching her swim.

“I’m sorry Salman, the wedding’s off. I’m a lake woman now. I’m never coming out.”

He sighed with exaggerated despair. “Well, I guess it was bound to happen. I’ll make sure someone comes out to feed you now and then. But if you’re planning on giving me a magical sword so I can become king, you don’t need to bother. I already have a kingdom.”

“What, really?” she said, as though all her best made plans had been undone.

He nodded sadly. “Oh, well, I guess there’s no point, then.”

She reached her hands up towards him, and he grabbed them. Wordlessly, he pulled her out of the water and up onto the rock, as easily as if she weighed nothing.

When she’d been in the water, Nadya had thought there was no way that Salman could possibly be enjoying himself as much outside of it as she was. But now that she sat, dripping wet on the warm rock, she reconsidered. The heat of it on her wet skin was wonderful, and the sunlight on her cheeks, and on her dripping hair was working wonders.

She closed her eyes, and didn’t speak. Neither did he. She lay down beside him, drinking it all in.

The day had been eventful so far, and it was still early. She’d thought there was nothing she could love more than the hotel, but then she’d seen the house. She’d thought there was nothing she could like more than the courtyard, but then she had seen the bowling alley.

And then there’d been this. Here, Nadya felt like herself. Her nerves were settling. The stillness of the water was calming.

“Thank you for coming, today.” She could tell by the sound of his voice that it was having a similar effect on him. “I was important to me that you got to see it. It makes… it makes you feel like family.”

She didn’t answer. His words started a warmth in her heart that spread through her entire body. She reached on her hand, and set it on his back. It felt comfortable. It felt like they’d been together for a long time.

***