The Tycoon's Captured Heart (20 page)

“What is it?” Rais asked as he peered through the wooden slats of the crib. 

At almost nine years old, Ramzi was the wisest of them all but his nose twitched with disgust as he surveyed the tiny, chubby thing sleeping in the crib.  “It’s a girl,” he said with revulsion. 

Turk stared at it as well, not sure what to make of this latest addition to their family.  “What do we do with a girl?” he asked. 

Ramzi shook his head.  “Nothing.  Girls are boring.”

Rais reached in and poked the sleeping infant.  “Does it move?” he asked. 

Ava walked over to the crib and put a hand on Ramzi and Rais’ heads.  “Girls are a lot of fun,” she told her boys as she stared at her first daughter, already in love with her child.  “And Ciala will be a lot of fun once she gets older.  She’s just a baby now, but she’ll grow up and I think you’re going to like her just as much.”

The three boys looked at each other, silently conveying their skepticism.  “She’s very nice,” Ramzi finally announced although his tone suggested that he was only being polite for his mother’s sake. 

Ava laughed softly before she bent down to her sons’ eye level.  “You’ll have a big responsibility ahead of you.  Ciala will need your help to guide her through all of the stuff you three already know.”

Rais took another peek at the baby and shook his head.  “She doesn’t look like she’ll be able to learn much.”  At six years of age, he was already taking after his mother where math was concerned.  He loved numbers and formulas, latching onto any math book he could find.  “I’ll teach her, but…” he looked doubtful.

Ava laughed and tousled his hair.  “Just you wait.  She’s going to be lots of fun.”

Ramzi kept his face a perfect blank, just like his father would when he disagreed with someone.  Turk wasn’t as successful at hiding his emotions so his cynicism came through loud and clear. 

“Give her a few years.  I think you’ll change your mind.  Most boys change their minds about girls at some point.”

Ramzi, Turk and Rais looked at each other and grimaced.  “Girls,” Ramzi said with a disgusted shake of his head. 

Fourteen year old Ramzi walked into the school room.  “Ciala, Shantra, we need to talk,” he said and sat down next on the floor where five year old Ciala was building a tower with blocks and three year old Shantra was drawing with fat crayons. 

Ciala dropped her blocks and came over to sit on her oldest brother’s lap.  She leaned her back against his chest and smiled up at him. 

“You can’t date boys,” he told both of them. 

Shantra looked at her brother with confusion, but she didn’t say a word. 

“I don’t like boys,” Ciala assured him with five year old confidence.

“I’m a boy,” he said carefully, his mind going back to the previous night when he’d kissed a girl for the first time.  As much as he had liked the experience, he didn’t want his sisters to have boys touch them.  Ever!

“You’re my brother,” Ciala laughed.  “You’re not a boy.  I mean, you’re a boy, but not really.”

Ramzi rolled his eyes at her five year old logic.  “The thing is, when you start to like boys, we’re going to have to talk.  Because…” how did he explain?  This was such a difficult conversation.  “Well, you’re just not doing it.”

Ciala grinned.  “Okay.  No boys.  But will you help me build a tower?”

Ramzi knew he was supposed to be in school.  Chemistry was fascinating, but Ciala really was cute.  And she was smarter than most of the girls he’d come into contact with so far, so she was more interesting to talk with even though she was only five years old.  The jury was still out on Shantra.  She was silent now, but boy could his little sister talk!  She loved to chatter about anything under the sun.  If she wasn’t talking, she was singing.  Or dancing.  Or just moving in general.  Shantra could not sit still for even two minutes.  He knew because he’d timed her.  So far, she’d only made it to forty-five seconds. 

He looked over at her now and, sure enough, Shantra was humming a little tune although he had no idea what it might be.  Unfortunately, his baby sister could sing about as well as his mother.  Pretty badly, in other words.  At least his baby sister had a softer voice.  When his mother bellowed out a song, she could clear out rooms.

“When you get older, I’m going to teach you self-defense, Ciala.” 

She turned in his lap and smiled up at him. “Really?  Will I be able to flip you over my head like you, Rais and Turk do to each other?”

Ramzi laughed at the possibility.  “No.  You won’t ever be able to flip me over, but you’ll be able to do that to any man who touches you.”

They were now on the floor and Ciala tried to imitate the way he was building his side of their tower, but Ramzi had studied architecture already and he was able to balance his blocks more accurately.  No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get it right and her side of the tower kept tumbling down.

Ciala sighed with frustration at not being able to keep up with her brother. 

Rais and Turk walked into the room at that point, saw what Ramzi was doing and sat down on the floor, each of them building an annex to the tower with elaborate cantilevers, bridges and connecting rooftops. 

“You’re taking over again!” Ciala announced, stomping her foot for emphasis. 

Rais looked up at her and shook his head.  “Ciala, you look very pretty today.”

Ciala stuck her tongue out.  “You’re still taking over.  You do that all the time!  You take over my toys!” 

With that, she stomped over to where Shantra was drawing and picked up her own paper, glaring at her brothers occasionally, frustrated that they didn’t even care about her anger. 

After several minutes of this, Ciala had had enough.  “I think we should play hide and seek,” she announced.

The boys barely even acknowledged her.  They were too intent on discussing the next section of their wooden tower, taking up all the available blocks.  She considered just kicking their tower down with her foot but she remembered the last time she’d done something like that to her brothers.  She’d been held upside down by her ankles and carried through the palace until her mother had rescued her.  She’d just been relieved that she’d worn pants that day. 

So instead of kicking things in, she took another tactic.  She walked over to Turk who was bent over, focused on his portion of the wooden building.  With a dramatic sigh, she draped herself across his back. 

“Ciala!  Get off me!” he snapped.  But she was sticking to him like glue. 

“Play hide and seek with me,” she pleaded. 

“No, now get off,” and he shrugged one shoulder, hoping that would tumble her off of his back. 

Ciala jumped to the floor but simply so that she could continue her mischief, inching closer to their “masterpiece”.  “What does this do?” she asked and put her finger dangerously close to what she knew to be a supporting beam. 

Rais glared at her.  “Don’t touch it, Ciala.”

She almost giggled at how they all froze, worried that she’d touch that one block and make the whole thing come tumbling down. 

“Well, what does this one do?” she asked and pointed to another vulnerable block.

Ramzi wasn’t going to risk it.  He stood up and grabbed her legs, dragging her further away from the tower.  “Be good!” he warned and moved back to his position. 

Undeterred, Ciala shifted her attention to Rais, moving behind his back.  She put her knees on his bottom and climbed up his back, propping her chin on his shoulder.  “It looks good.  But I know what would be even more fun,” she said with excitement. 

The brothers all looked at Ciala, then at each other.  Ciala was too young to decipher the silent message that passed among them.  “Fine!” Turk announced.  “We’ll play hide and seek.  In fact, I’ll be ‘it’ first.  I’ll count to ten and everyone go hide, okay?”

Ciala jumped off of Rais’ back and clapped her hands.  “Wahoo!  But you have to count to one hundred,” she cautioned. 

Shantra stood up as well, clapping her hands even though she wasn’t completely sure what all the excitement was about. 

Ciala walked over to her baby sister and took Shantra’s hand.  “Start counting,” she commanded.  She waited until Turk was laying on the floor with his hands over his eyes.  By the time he’d reached four, Ciala had pulled Shantra over to one of the closets.

She giggled as she pulled the door shut, turning on the light so that she and Shantra wouldn’t become scared.  She vaguely heard her brother counting, but the solid door muffled most of the noise.

Turk and Ramzi sat right back down around the wooden tower and continued their building efforts while the counting continued.  Rais went to the other closet to get the rest of the wooden blocks so they could make their building bigger. 

“Ready or not, here I come!” Turk called out.  The three of them quietly discussed their building efforts, completely forgetting about their annoying little sisters who were sitting in the closet hiding from them. 

Ciala had no idea how long she and Shantra sat in the closet, trying very hard to be quiet.  But after a while, she accepted that she’d hidden too well for her brothers.  It was only fair to come out and start the game over again.

Opening the door carefully, she peered out into the room and…the rats!  All three of her brothers were sitting right back around that stupid tower.  They hadn’t even tried to find her! 

Shantra’s tiny hand moved into Ciala’s and an idea came to mind.  “Come on, Shantra.  We have some teaching to do,” she said.

Shantra skipped along next to her older and wiser sister, not sure what was going on but pleased to be included in the fun. 

Ciala took one of the small shovels from the gardener’s shed, handing one to Shantra and taking another for herself.  She wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to do, but it had to be good, she thought. 

When she found something at the stables, she finally had a plan.  In the garbage can, Ciala found several mesh bags that had previously contained grain and carried them through the stables.  The stable workers all bowed to the little princesses and she smiled to each of them, cheerfully greeting each of them by name as she eagerly anticipated getting even with her horrible brothers.  But when she found what she was looking for, her smile changed from polite to excited.  “Come on, Shantra.  This is perfect.”  She bent down and scooped up the horse manure into the mesh bags.  Just a little in each one, she thought.  Shantra was too busy banging her shovel against the dirt but once Ciala was finished, she brought the shovels back to the gardener’s area and led Shantra back to the palace.  Hiding the bags from the other staff members, she hurried to each of her brothers’ rooms, placing the manure in strategic places, then slipping out. 

Several hours later, Ciala was dressed in one of her prettiest dresses.  She walked over to her mother and wrapped her arms around her neck.  “You look pretty tonight,” she said and plopped herself down on her mother’s lap. 

“Hello beautiful!” Jiran said as he stepped into the room.  He kissed his wife first, then bent lower and tickled Ciala.  “What have you been up to today?” he asked as he moved over to the bar and poured himself a drink. 

“I played with Shantra,” she told her parents. 

“Ciala!” a roar came from outside the living room door.  A moment later, Ramzi’s tall body burst into the room.  His eyes skittered through the room, landing finally on his little sister.  “You are in trouble, little girl!” he yelled.

Jiran knew that something was up and stepped in front of his oldest son.  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Rais and Turk stepped in a moment later, both with equally furious expressions on their faces.  Rais and Turk were almost the same height but Ramzi had experienced a growth spurt so he was a few inches taller.  Unfortunately, all of that angry, young-teen fury was focused on Ciala at the moment. 

“She did it, Father!” he roared, pointing an accusing finger at Ciala.  “Now she’s trying to pretend to be all cute and innocent, but she did it!”

Jiran looked over at his daughter and knew from her expression that she’d been up to mischief.  Ciala was cute, but she was still too young to hide her expressions.  “Ciala?  What did you do?” he demanded. 

Rais and Turk pushed forward, only stopped by their father’s stronger arm.  “She put manure in our shoes!” Rais said. 

Ciala jumped off of her mother’s lap, her shoulders leaning towards her mean brothers.  “Yeah, well you took over my blocks and then tricked me and Shantra into hiding in the closet!  You’re both meanies!” she yelled right back, not intimidated in the least. 

Ava rolled her eyes and held Ciala back.  In that moment, a nanny carried Shantra into the room, all dressed and ready for bedtime. 

“Stop!” Jiran roared out, ending the battle before it had begun.  The nanny, startled by the chaos in the room, backed up a step and clutched her tiny charge closer to her chest. 

“Not you,” he said to the nanny who smiled weakly. 

Shantra wiggled out of the nanny’s arms and practically danced over to her brothers.  She jumped up and down, clapping her hands.  “Did you find the surprise?  Did you?  Did you?” 

She looked over at her older sister, giggling in her excitement.  “Should we show them?”

Ciala took her mother’s hand.  “They found their surprises,” she said with pride. 

Ava sighed with exasperation.  “Did you tease the girls?” she asked of her three sons.

Ramzi stood up straighter.  “She was being annoying, Mother!  She wouldn’t leave us alone.”

Ava stared down at her daughter, eyebrows lifted.  “So you tricked her into hiding in the closet?”

The three boys shrugged.  “It got her to be quiet,” they explained, only slightly remorseful, and feeling that way only because they’d been caught. 

Ciala’s eyes drifted up towards her father’s stern expression.  “Why will I want to kiss a boy?” she asked with wide, brown eyes. 

Ava and Jiran both lost the thread of the conversation with that question. 

“Why would you want to kiss a boy?” her father asked, bending down to his daughter’s level, curious, but understanding that it probably had to do with one of his sons. 

Ciala shrugged.  “I don’t know. Ramzi said I would kiss a boy and then I would have to flip him over my shoulder.”

All eyes turned back to Ramzi who only crossed his arms over his chest.  “I merely told her that, if a boy tries to kiss her, she should flip him.”

“Good!” her father said with a nod of agreement. 

Ava’s hand slapped over her eyes.  “Not good!” she argued.  “What are you teaching her?” she demanded of her oldest son. 

Ramzi was undeterred.  “She shouldn’t be kissing boys mother!”

Ava threw her hands up in the air.  “She’s five years old!  She’s not going to be kissing anyone!”

“I want to kiss a boy!” Shantra sing-songed, once again jumping up and down.  She then grabbed onto her father’s leg and kissed his knee.  “I kissed a boy!”  She tilted her head far backwards and grinned. “Now I flip you, Daddy?” she asked.

Jiran chuckled and lifted her into his arms.  “Yes.  Now you need to flip me over.”

Shantra giggled and laid her head on his shoulder.  “I don’t want to flip you,” she told him and wrapped her arms around his neck.