A Family Affair (7 page)

P
ROMPTLY AT FIVE MINUTES TO SEVEN
, T
RISH AND HER SHADOW
made their way to the dining room, where Malik was waiting for her, a silly grin on his face. Trish knew her grin was just as silly. He held her chair, the silly grin still on his face.

“I’m not sure I can eat. I didn’t go back to sleep. I couldn’t wait to get here this morning. I am sooo happy,” Trish babbled.

It was all Malik could do not to sweep her up and run from the room. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to do for this woman sitting across from him. First, he wanted to get up on his feet and shout to the palace that he was in love, but that would have been stupid. Everyone in the palace already knew.

Instead of going back to bed, he had gone to Rashid’s room and woken him for a second time to inform him about what he had done.

Rashid had grumbled good-naturedly but had got up and sat down on a settee alongside his old friend. “Now what?”

“Now you plan my wedding, Rashid. I have things to do. Maybe Soraya will give you some advice. She loves telling people what to do. Don’t we have wedding planners here at the palace? You know, like that crazy movie we saw back in the States.”

Rashid rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Let me make sure I have this right. You want
me
to plan
your
wedding. Me, who knows as much as you know about things like this. I have no idea if we have a wedding planner here at the palace. I’m thinking we don’t, or at some time or other, we probably would have heard about it. No member of the royalty has gotten married in this palace that I know of. Your sister, after all, kept rejecting all the prospective husbands your father presented to her. Anyway, I think women are supposed to do things like that. Soraya has nothing to do, so let her have a go at it.”

“I trust you, Rashid. Find a wedding planner and work with him or her. I want my wedding to be perfect. Besides, when Trish goes back to the States, I am going to allow Soraya to go with her. It will just be long enough for Trish to do what she has to do before she moves here permanently. That just leaves you, Rashid. I know you’ll do a good job. Nothing tacky, now. But I want it a mix of our way and Trish’s way. A wedding to remember. Perhaps two ceremonies, one Muslim and one Christian. Check that out. I feel so much better now that I know our wedding is in your capable hands.”

Those capable hands flew in the air. “I quit. Wedding planning is not in my job description, Malik.”

Malik laughed. “You can’t quit. You are bound to me for life. We both know that. Two ceremonies, the private one and the palace one. Do a really good job and don’t bother me with details. I have a honeymoon to plan. Do it for me, Rashid. I promise to have Trish bring you back a planeload of White Castle burgers.”

“You cannot bribe me, Malik.” Rashid’s tone belied his words and made it clear that he could be bribed that easily.

“I just did. We both know you would cut off your arm for those burgers. Like me with the hot dogs, which take forty-eight hours to digest. I wouldn’t go back to sleep if I were you. You have a busy day, starting right now.”

“I need a date, Malik! When do you want to get married? I could be wrong, but doesn’t the bride-to-be have some input here?”

“The sooner the better, but at least a month from now. Trish will need two to three weeks back in the States. She is as anxious to get married as I am, so don’t worry about that. Soraya will need that much time, too. See how perfectly this is working out, Rashid? I’m killing two birds with one stone, and my sister and her incessant pestering will be done with. She will come back here joyfully and, I hope, a changed young woman.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen. You’re a fool if you think so,” Rashid said sourly.

“Carry on, Rashid. I have to meet my prospective bride for breakfast. By the way, my next project after getting married, palace business, and seeing to my sister is going to be finding you a wife. I think that’s your problem.”

Rashid dropped his head in his hands and pretended to sulk as Malik left his suite of rooms. The moment the door closed behind him, Rashid’s clenched fist shot into the air.

The palace buzzed and hummed as the two lovebirds finished their breakfast just as Soraya entered the dining room, late as usual. She eyed her brother, sparks shooting in his direction. “And I have to find out this wondrous news from a servant!”

“I didn’t want to wake you, sister. Had you been on time for breakfast, you would have known sooner. Spending less time in front of a mirror would do it, Soraya.”

Soraya ignored her brother. She bent over to hug her soon-to-be sister-in-law and murmured all the right words about how happy she was to welcome her into their lives. Trish hugged her back.

“I have a surprise for you, Soraya. I am going to allow you to go to the States with Trish when she returns to settle her affairs. You will return with her. Let’s make sure we both understand that.”

“Of course! Of course! Truly, I can go? Oh, you are the best brother in the whole world. No chaperones, though. Just Trish and me. I want to experience this all on my own. Say yes, Malik. Please, no chaperones, just Trish.”

Malik looked at Trish, and she bobbed her head up and down. Since Malik could deny his bride-to-be nothing, he agreed.

Soraya was off her chair in a nanosecond. She did her best to smother her brother with kisses and hugs. “Oh, I am too excited to eat. I must pack.” She was almost out of the dining room when she ran back. “Who is planning the wedding?”

“Rashid.” Malik hated the sound of his sister’s laughter as she ran from the room.

Trish burst out laughing. “Are you having second thoughts about your wedding planner?” Trish giggled.

“Not one little bit. Well, perhaps a little. All right, a lot. But Rashid will not fail us. I think I can guarantee it will be a wedding to remember. Come. Let’s go to the garden. It’s been too long since I kissed you.”

Trish needed no urging. She bolted from the chair and reached for Malik’s hand. She couldn’t wait to feel his lips on hers.

Life certainly was wonderful.

In between earth-shattering kisses, the ecstatic couple talked of what married life would be like, living in the palace, how many children they wanted, how they would be raised, and what Trish’s role would be until the children came along. Many more kisses later, Malik got down to what he called “the serious stuff.”

The serious stuff turned into a one-way discussion of money, lots of money, way too much money for Trish to comprehend. “I spoke to my advisers early this morning to bring them up to date, not that they weren’t already up to date. I’ve spoken to them several times since my father’s passing, and they told me the only record they have of a marriage here in the palace was that of my father many years ago and how the situation was resolved with my mother’s parents. So, we must abide by that ruling.

“On our wedding day, you will receive five million dollars. It will be deposited in banks in Switzerland or perhaps Liechtenstein. Possibly the Antilles. The account will be solely in your name. My advisers will hold meetings with you, and you will tell them how you want your money invested. That is my wedding gift to you. Then there is a rule in place that every year we stay married, on the anniversary of our wedding day, another five million dollars will be deposited into your account. In addition to that, for every child born of our union, five million more will be deposited.

“No one will ever be able to touch that money but you. Also, you will have an account here at the palace, where you will have access to as much money as you need to use for whatever you want. We also have credit cards and accounts at all the souks. All you have to do is sign your name.”

Trish’s eyes popped wide. “No! I am not marrying you for your money. I can’t accept that. The palace account, yes, but nothing else, Malik.”

“It’s not negotiable, Trish. It’s how it is done here. Are we going to fight?” he teased.

“No, Malik, I have no wish to fight with you. Life is too short. I just want you to know that I am not marrying you for your wealth. I’d live in a tent in the desert with you if it came down to that. I never once thought . . . What in the world am I to do with all that money?”

Malik nodded, as though he had known all along what she would say. “I need to speak of two more things. You won’t like hearing them, either, and I don’t like to speak of them myself, but it must be done. One, you must learn to speak Arabic. Not fluently, but enough so that you can greet and carry on a conversation of sorts with our people. And we ask, note I said
ask,
that you read the Koran. In turn, I will read your Bible. Will you agree to this?”

Trish didn’t miss a beat. “Absolutely.”

“That brings me to the last thing on my list of things to discuss. In the event of my death, you will step into my sandals. Only a wife can do this, not my sister, and she fully understands this. If there are children, boys specifically, even if young, they wear the sandals, so to speak, with trusted advisers until they come of age.

“In the event we divorce, you get to keep all your monies, but you must leave the kingdom and never return. There will be many papers for you to sign. I myself went through all this when I left for America. I signed until I thought my fingers would fall off. It is our way, and we can change nothing. We agree now, speak of it now, and then we never have to speak of it again.”

Trish turned thoughtful. “Should we divorce, who gets the children, assuming we have children?”

Malik knew this question would come up. “The children would stay here. You would have my promise that they would be tutored in both faiths. When they came of age, they could seek you out on their own. This is written in stone, Trish. I cannot change it even if I wanted to. In the event we have no children by the fifth year of our marriage, you will leave Dubai voluntarily. I will remain. And then, like my father, never marry again.”

“Would I be allowed to see the children if we were divorced?”

“Unfortunately, the answer is no. We will not divorce, Trish. That is a promise I make to you from my heart. I’m sure we will have as many children as we want. But not right away. We need to spend our first year together. I know this is like a blow to the gut, but it all needed to be said. I know you agree now, but when you are back in the States, you might want to change your mind. I hope that doesn’t happen.”

“It won’t happen, Malik, because I love you. We’ll make this work for us. I don’t see any other way. Don’t look so somber. It wasn’t that much of a punch to the gut. I more or less thought it would be something like that. I’m marrying you with my eyes wide open. So, now kiss me, and let’s seal our fate.”

Trish looked deeply into Malik’s eyes and saw only love and honesty. “All right, I agree. But, Malik, what if we have no children?”

Malik burst out laughing. “I don’t see that happening, do you, Trish? I see us with a large family to love. Let’s start off with two girls who look like you and two boys who look like me.”

Trish smiled because she knew Malik expected her to smile, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. She hadn’t liked this conversation, had known in some way it was coming, but, still, she didn’t like it.
Two too many negatives. Please, God, don’t let this be a mistake on my part.

Trish looked down at her watch. Just minutes until it was time to leave for the airport for her return to the States. Compared to the way Soraya was dressed, she felt like a bag lady. She wore comfortable sandals, linen capris, and a loose-fitting top the color of a misty mountain. Soraya was dressed in one of her many Chanel suits with high heels. Everything about her screamed designer and wealth. She herself had only the one piece of luggage, whereas Soraya had three huge suitcases and two trunks. Where she was going to store these things in Trish’s small town house was a mystery to her.

She’d tried to explain discreetly that her friends and she herself did not
dress up
every day. She’d also tried to explain that appointments for facials, massages, manicures, and pedicures had to be made in advance and couldn’t be done daily. If Soraya heard her, it was not evident in her manner. In her gut, she knew Soraya was going to be disappointed in the lifestyle back in Vegas. Then again, maybe not. Malik had taken life in the States in stride and had made it work for him. But by the same token, he had committed to living the college life and wanted to blend in, to be part of it. This was just a vacation for Soraya.

In the end, Trish had shrugged it off. What would be would be.

Trish was in the grand center hallway, sitting on a settee and waiting for Soraya, who had returned to her suite to change her shoes one more time, and Malik. She felt sad that she was leaving and yet anxious to return to the life she’d had before coming to Dubai. The plan was that Malik would go to the airport with them, see them off, then go on to Abu Dhabi for meetings.

Trish looked at her watch again. Time was suddenly so precious. She wished she could wave her arm and stop time, but that wasn’t possible. She had to fight the tears that were burning her eyes.

Then she saw him striding toward her, and her heart melted. This was only the second time she had seen Malik in his official white robe, the
kandura,
and with the white scarf, called a
ghutra
, on his head, complete with the
agal,
the black band to hold the scarf in place. When she’d seen him the first time, she had been sick and hadn’t really taken it all in. He looked truly regal, imposing as well as important. The first time he had simply been the man who saved her life. Trish felt her heart fluttering in her chest. She blinked as he drew closer, then burst out laughing when she saw the rhinestone belt around his waist. Somehow, she knew in her gut the stones weren’t rhinestones at all but diamonds. How this man tried to please her. She loved him so much, her hair hurt. She said so, and he laughed.

“What do you think, Trish? Will I make a statement when I walk into my meeting with all the sheiks and emirs?”