The Sheikh's Accidental Bride (11 page)

FIFTEEN

The anniversary party had wound down by the time Nadya arrived back at her sister’s house, and for that she was glad. Being surrounded by guests only would have made it worse. There was leftover food everywhere, and her sister seemed to be in good spirits.

“I’m sorry,” Nadya said, as soon as she saw her, but Jasmine dismissed her, cupcake in hand. “No,” Nadya insisted. “Really. You flew me out here, and I was gone the whole time. Then I show up, and I’m a mess. And then I miss the whole reason you invited me.”

Jasmine looked like she wanted to respond, but had to finish chewing her bite of cupcake before she could speak, so there was a delay.

“You missed the
excuse
I had to invite you,” she said, when she could speak again. “I have my sister back. Whichever way it happened – and I hope one day you’ll tell me – I’m glad for that at least.”

Maybe in time, she would be able to find the silver lining that Jasmine had identified. But for now, the guilt, and the shame, and the heartbreak were too much.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Jasmine asked, the tone in her voice indicating that she could tell from the look on Nadya’s face that she had not.

“I found out what I needed to.”

Jasmine gave her that singular look that always means “I’d help if I could, but I know I can’t.”

Nadya tried to appreciate her for it. Maybe one day she would. But for now, she could only move her body forward, and hope that her heart, in time, caught up.

“I have to get to LaGuardia,” she said. “It’s time I headed home.”

SIXTEEN

Jasmine dropped her out front at LaGuardia, and after they hugged goodbye, Nadya wandered inside alone. She had her noise cancelling headphones, her travelling clothes, and her ticket in her hand; all the same things she’d had when she left Seattle to come to New York, but somehow, now, only three days later, she felt like she had infinitely less.

The airport had its usual annoyances, but Nadya had a hard time being bothered by them. Nothing mattered much. There would be troubles, but they were nothing like what she had already faced.

She’d checked in online from her phone, and with no bag to check in she started heading directly to her departure gate. As she passed through security, she couldn’t help but smile at the memory of Salman’s well-rehearsed escape plan from his own security detail. But the momentary joy of the recollection was immediately replaced by a pang of regret and sadness.

Would it always be like that, she wondered? Would every time she thought of him bring up again the same emotions? She’d had breakups before, but they’d never been like this. It was one thing for things just not to work out, or for two people to grow apart. But this…

She put it out of her mind. She tried, at least. She had some episodes on her phone to watch, still working her way backwards through the series she’d started in the cab. That’s how she’d do it – she’d bury herself in fiction until she could bear the starkness of the reality that she’d done Salman wrong.

As she neared her gate, Nadya saw that something wasn’t right. It took her a moment to place it, as nothing she saw around her wasn’t normally something you’d see in an airport. Then she put her finger on it. What was a chauffeur with a sign doing at a departure gate? And why was he wearing the grey suit that all of Salman’s servants wore?

Her pulse quickened as her pace slowed. She walked towards him cautiously, her eyes darting around the room, looking for the trap. The sign had the same detailed, elaborate calligraphy as the one that had lured her in to the whole situation three days ago. In fact, it was the same sign.

Nadya A
, it said.

Nadya walked up to the man, clearing her throat. “My name is Nadya,” she said, making her voice as level as possible. “Nadia
Anderson
.”

The man gave a huge, albeit very artificial, smile. “Yes, Miss Anderson. If you could just follow me…”

He took off at an aggressive clip, weaving through the crowd at such a pace that Nadya had her work cut out for her keeping up with him. When he stopped at last at the door to a private lounge, she was out of breath. He opened the door, which squeaked on its hinges, and motioned her inside.

She walked in, eyes darting around, waiting for the police, or maybe just Salman’s private security to jump out and tell her she’d been caught. The lounge was dingy, apparently abandoned. Most of the lights were out, and the room was dark, except for in the center of the room.

She saw no police. She saw no security. Instead, she saw a man in a bespoke suit, seated on a utilitarian sofa with upholstery straight from the 80s, facing away from her.

“Salman?” she said, her voice husky.

He stood, and turned. His face was impossible to read.

“Where’s your wife?” Nadya blurted out the question, her voice betraying an unjustifiable anger she didn’t know she was carrying, buried under the sadness.

“I don’t have a wife,” came the immediate reply. Salman got to his feet, putting his hands in his pockets. He seemed casual, but she thought she saw him sway just the tiniest bit.

“But I
saw
you,” Nadya said, her tone accusing.

“You saw
what
, exactly? You saw me there, outside of my home?”

“While the wedding was happening!”

He raised his hands, as if to defend himself. “That wasn’t my choice. I called the wedding off three days ago. But my family… they thought I might change my mind. They told my assistant not to make any of the cancellations, just in case. And then, today, when I’d finally decided that I needed…” He cleared his throat, and looked down for a moment before continuing. His hands slid back into his pockets. “I thought the helicopter was going to Hastings-On-Hudson.”

The words couldn’t mean that. The words couldn’t possibly mean what it sounded like they meant.

“You mean they tried to trick you?”

Just the hint of a smile graced his lips at the lifting of her accusing glance. “They thought if they got me there, with all the people, and all the plans, and with my family’s reputation on the line, I’d change my mind.”

Nadya stepped forward, involuntarily. “But it didn’t work?”

His smile grew wider, now. “Honestly, it might have. Before I met you. When I thought that there was nothing more noble than obeying my family. But no, it didn’t.” He looked down again, this time shifting his weight on his feet, as thought to downplay his giant grin. “Why did you think I was sitting outside, when everyone else was inside?”

Nadya’s heart, that she’d tried so hard to keep from hoping throughout the entire exchange, leapt in her chest. But a stray thought sent it crashing back down to earth again.

“Wait,” she said, her accusing tone back with a vengeance. “You knew who I was? This whole time?”

Again he raised his hands, but this time he also stepped forward. “I did, and I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I wanted to tell you. I
tried
to tell you, so many times. But I didn’t have the words. I wanted to get to know you. More than anything. And while we were both under that illusion…”

Nadya tried to piece it all together. None of it felt like it was making much sense. “But we
weren’t
both in that illusion. No one was under any illusions…” She felt the guilt lift, first, before she could begin to let the joy in. “How did you find out?” she asked. “
When
did you find out?”

He was talking quickly now, as though he’d been holding the words in all this time.

“Right after we met, actually. When you went to the bathroom to freshen up, I got the message that my betrothed had been delayed, and wouldn’t get in until the next day. And it was like… it was like when you need to make a decision. And you flip a coin for it – not because you want to let chance decide, but because you’ll know, when you flip it, what side you’re hoping it lands on.”

He raised his hand, and gestured, as if illustrating a point. “And with you, the moment I saw you… ‘Thank God,’ I thought. ‘Thank God this is her. A woman that I feel an instant connection with. I couldn’t marry her if she wasn’t.’ So when I found out you weren’t actually my betrothed, I knew in that moment that I couldn’t go through with it. I sent a message to her family saying there would be no wedding.”

She stepped closer to him. He’d been speaking loudly, to cross the distance between them, but now she was close enough that he could lower his voice. “And I also knew I wanted to get to know you. Whatever I needed to pretend so that I could get to do it.”

She took another step towards him. “You knew who I was?”

He nodded. “I figured it out. I figured it all had to have started with an honest mistake. By the second day, I already knew that much about you. And there was only one Nadya A. that flew into LaGuardia that day, around that time.”

He leaned into her, conspiratorially. They were close, now. Closer than two strangers would ever stand. “Don’t ask me how my family has access to that information. Best you don’t know,” he said, as an exaggerated whisper.

Nadya laughed, the sound echoing through the large, empty room.

“So you forgive me?” he asked.

“I do. But do you forgive me?”

His smile could have split his head in half. “Of course.” Nadya felt his hands reach out to hers. “So what do you want to do now? New York’s our oyster… Well, the world is, really. We’ve got a jet…”

She leaned in, slipping her hands out of his, and bringing them up to his shoulders, draping them around his neck. “You know,” she said, “I think I’d really love to go bowling.”

“So,” he voice was so quiet, now, filling only the tiny space between them, “a night at home it is?”

She nodded, smiling. “That sounds wonderful.”

A thrill ran through her entire body, starting at her lips, when she felt the soft electricity of his kiss. She felt his arms wrap around her, holding her tight, never to let her go, and she could have sworn, somehow, from somewhere, she could smell just a hint of honeysuckle.

***

That night, they took the helicopter back to the house. Back home. There, Nadya noticed how the marble steps gleamed in the moonlight. This was how they were meant to be seen, she thought. This was how all of this was meant to be seen – with the heavy filter of guilt and fear removed.

She found she didn’t want to go bowling. The world was too bright, with the moon in the sky and their hearts up with it. So they set off through the forest, heading towards the lake.

Nadya stripped off her clothes and went skinny dipping in the cool, cold water. It was a shock to the system, but a welcome one. She turned her gaze back to the shore, looking for Salman there.

But he wasn’t there. He was out in the water with her, swimming in the lake. Bright and light and free.

Holly Rayner

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Thank you for reading my work, I dedicate this story to each and every one of you. As promised, here are the first few chapters of my previous book,
The Sheikh’s Make-Believe Fiancée

The weather was typical for fall in Chicago. A little chilly, a little rainy and very windy. Guests milled around the Field Museum in their finest attire as Lily served them drinks from behind the bar. She handed champagne and mojitos out to CEOs and hotel heiresses, wiping her hands on her black apron between rounds.

Lily looked around and took in the beautiful surroundings of the museum. Her eyes lingered on artifacts and artwork that just weeks before she had been responsible for maintaining and cataloging. Her parents had been so proud of her when she had landed the job as Junior Curator at the Field Museum just a year before. They had known when she left their small town in Missouri for college that Lily probably never would return for good.

Lily had always seemed like a child that was destined for bigger things. She had grown up in the cocoon that close families and small towns provide. But even as a young child, she had fought hard to break free and fly on her own. As a freshman in high school, she dove headfirst into college prep courses so that she could earn a scholarship. That was when she discovered her love for history and art. She began searching different scholarship programs and found one for a Bachelor’s in Museum Studies. She soon found that she adored being immersed in a world where history, science and art come together.

Lily was her parents' only child; they always supported her choices and tried to give her everything, but they were a blue collar family. Her mother, Betty, worked at the local dry cleaner’s and her father, Stan, was a truck driver. Despite their best efforts, they couldn’t afford to help Lily out financially, and this only caused their daughter to work harder. By the time she was a junior in high school, Lily had completed several dual enrollment courses and had chartered her course. When she graduated from her tiny high school, she did so with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree from the university.

She had left home and moved into the college dorm where she disappeared into her studies. Lily had little time for what college life offers young people – parties, friendships and romance. She worked hard to learn everything she could so that she would be in a position to find a good job upon graduation. She was determined to support herself and move further away from her small town and into a big city, wherever that might be.

After completing an internship at a local museum in Missouri, Lily got the call she had been waiting for. The Art Institute of Chicago was looking for a teaching assistant. She jumped at the opportunity and moved to the big city, falling in love with it immediately. The lights, the sounds and the smells were so different from anything Lily had experienced before. In her usual style, she dove headfirst into her work and within a few short years, had moved up the ranks at the Institute. Her work ethic began to get her noticed by others in her field and soon the renowned Field Museum offered her a position as one of several Junior Curators. Lily loved her job at the Institute, but knew that they couldn’t offer her something similar. So after much deliberation, she bid goodbye to her colleagues and began working at the Field Museum.

At first, the job had been challenging. Lily knew a lot about her industry, but moving from an art institute to a full-fledged museum required a different set of skills. She had to get retrained in several areas, but within a month, she started feeling comfortable in her new position and thought she had finally landed the job that she would have forever. At just twenty-six years old, she was making a comfortable living, had a nice apartment in the West Loop and had made a small, but close-knit group of friends. In all rights, she was happy. Until the cutbacks happened.

They came suddenly and completely out of the blue. One day, Lily was detailing the history of an ancient Mayan artifact in her office, the next she was unemployed searching for jobs online.

“What happened?” her mother had asked, just as confused as Lily.

“I don’t know,” Lily had told her, trying to hold back the tears that threatened. Lily prided herself on being strong. Maybe even too strong. “They just said they had to cut back and that since I was the last junior curator hired, I would be the first to be let go.”

Lily spat the words out as if they hurt her tongue. Betty sighed heavily into the phone. “I’m so sorry dear. But you know your dad and I are here for you. Whatever you need.”

Lily appreciated her mother’s support. But she also knew that it meant she could only have whatever she needed if she came back home to Missouri. Her parents couldn’t help support her financially. And Lily wouldn’t dream of asking.

After letting the news of her redundancy sink in for a few days, Lily got busy looking for another job. But she soon found out that jobs in her field were hard to come by. She had never had to actively seek out employment in the museum and art world and now, looking at the slim prospects, the task was daunting. But Lily tried. She spent weeks filling out online job applications and submitted her resume to the hundreds of museums and institutions. She figured she’d start close to home because she really didn’t want to move. Lily had fallen in love with Chicago.

Before long, Lily had realized that she would have to make a decision. She hadn't gotten any offers from local museums and her savings were dwindling. She knew she had to choose between looking outside of Chicago for work, or find another line of work to tide her over until something in her field opened up.

After a long walk along the Burnham Harbor, Lily had decided she wasn’t ready to give up her life in the city. She went back home, swallowed her pride, and took the only job that she knew she could get. One of her good friends from the gym, Jill, worked part-time for a catering company and had told Lily that she could get her work if she ever needed it. Lily called Jill and the next day, she was wearing a white dress shirt, black pants and black apron and serving canapés to pretentious housewives at a craft party.

Lily hated that she wasn’t doing what she loved, but she was determined to make it. She worked with Jill for several months, banking every penny she made just so that she could stay in her apartment. The event at the Field Museum had come as a complete surprise. She had been looking at her schedule for the week, looking up the addresses of the events and punching them into her phone so she would be ready to arrive in plenty of time. When she had gotten to the address for the ball, her hands had frozen. She knew that address. It was for the Field Museum. The place where she had been working until just months before.

“Jill, I can’t do the ball,” Lily had said in a worried tone.

“What? Why not?”

“I just can’t. I’m busy that day,” Lily had said.

Lily could hear her best friend's sigh through the phone. They had known each other for a few years, and their bond was uncanny. “You liar. You’re just afraid to do the ball because it’s at the Field Museum.”

Lily let out a long sigh. “Jill, I can’t go back there, I can’t. Not as a server. There’s just no way.”

“Listen,” Jill said, in the best firm tone the blond haired, bubbly farm girl could manage. “You are better than them. You don’t have to worry about any one of those stuffy shirts. Because I bet you, if any single one of them got fired, they would go crawling back to their mamas and papas. But you didn’t. You stuck your chin out and did what you had to do to support yourself. You have no reason to be ashamed of that.”

Lily had finally agreed to go to the event. The ball was for dignitaries and wealthy people from a variety of industries. It was not an uncommon event at the Field Museum. Lily remembered the museum hosting Christmas parties, birthday parties and even Bar Mitzvahs for famous people back when she worked there. Rubbing shoulders with people of that stature didn’t intimidate her, but serving them cocktails did. She knew better than to feel less than them, but she was pretty sure they saw her that way. What scared her more, what really intimidated her about the ball, was the chance of running into the people she used to work with.

Lily reached out and handed a champagne flute to a beautiful woman with honey-blond hair. She extended her long arm to Lily, grabbed the glass with her perfectly manicured fingers and then floated away, her green ball gown trailing behind her. Lily watched her walk across the room to where a tall, dark, handsome man was waiting. Lily guessed he must have been of Middle-Eastern descent. Probably some oil tycoon or rich playboy, she thought.

Khaled took the glass from the woman in the green gown and smiled politely as his brown eyes danced playfully. He looked down at the woman, then his eyes wandered above her head and meandered about the room, stopping briefly on every woman that caught his eye. If the woman in green noticed, she didn’t let on. She slipped her arm through Khaled’s but he pulled away before she could get it all the way through. As if he had done it a million times before, he turned effortlessly and left the woman standing with the three other people they were chatting with. When she turned to look for him, he had disappeared into the crowd.