Authors: Kylie Knight
Farhid turned to the woman on his arm and calmly smiled at her, though it was less genuine than the one he had offered Clarice only moments ago. He seemed completely relaxed and calm with the entire situation, unfazed by his wife’s appearance. The only telltale sign that he knew that he’d been doing something that he shouldn’t have was the slight blush gracing his cheeks.
“Djamila,” he greeted and leaned down to plant a light, chaste kiss on her cheek. “Are you enjoying your time here?”
She smiled demurely at him, all but ignoring Clarice, making the other woman feel increasingly embarrassed and more than a little uncomfortable. “I am,” she answered. “There are so many interesting faces here. I am happy you chose to come.”
“I am, too.” When he spoke, he looked to Clarice and she caught his eyes, dark and intense. His words seemed directed at her, even though he spoke to his wife, and that knowledge sent her body tumbling once again.
He’s married, she reminded herself, but it did nothing to quell her reaction to him.
When he spoke again, it was to introduce the woman at his side. “Djamila, this is Clarice Herston. She has helped to bring this charity to life.”
“How do you do,” Djamila asked in greeting, nodding her head respectfully in Clarice’s direction.
“A pleasure,” Clarice answered.
For a moment, the three of them stood in awkward silence. Did Djamila know that Farhid had just been flirting with her? Did she know that he was still looking at her with intense eyes that might have been shining with desire?
Clarice didn’t think so.
Clearing her throat, Clarice quickly looked around the room to find her husband. He was where she had left him, still chatting with several businessmen. When he made them all laugh, she forced a large smile and called out to him, though the extra attention her voice attracted was hardly welcome just then. “Donald, darling!”
He glanced over at her in surprise and for a moment she caught a look of annoyance. He didn’t seem pleased that she was calling him over, but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t stand here feeling humiliated, damnit. Reluctantly, he bid his business friends adieu for now and made his way over to her.
As soon as he was within reach, she grabbed at him and forced him to her side. She was wearing a plastered, fake smile, but he didn’t seem to notice. She didn’t think he would. “Farhid and Djamila Kanaan, this is my husband, Donald Herston.”
Clarice watched as Farhid’s expression tightened, but just barely. She was sure that her husband didn’t even notice it as he reached out his hand to shake the other man’s. Nor did Djamila who continued to smile pleasantly, if a little in boredom.
“What is it you do, Mr. Kanaan?” asked Donald, focusing on the husband rather than the wife, though Clarice didn’t miss how his eyes quickly took in her curvy form.
Farhid seemed less than interested in Donald, but answered him politely, if a little curtly. “My family is in politics.”
Clarice wondered what kind of politics. She knew he was from Qatar, but had little knowledge of the area or what sort of politics there were out there. Was it a republic? A democracy, like the United States? She had no idea. Perhaps, if her curiosity remained at the end of the night, she would remember to look it up. Or maybe she would try desperately to erase him completely from her mind.
“Excellent,” Donald commented, oblivious to Farhid’s lack of enthusiasm in their conversation. “I considered getting into politics myself. Maybe I’ll run for president,” he said with a laugh, winking at Farhid as though sharing some sort of private joke between the two of them.
Clarice rolled her eyes and shook her head a little at her husband. He was more serious about running for president than he let on, but she didn’t think he’d make it anywhere. Who in their right mind would elect someone who cared so little for people in general as their president? She hoped no one.
Farhid smiled thinly and said simply with, “Indeed.”
Silence finally pressed between the two couples as Donald picked up on the unwelcoming attitude of Farhid and his wife’s bored interest in just about everything around her. Clarice was both grateful and disappointed when he leaves.
“I’ve got people to see, you know how it goes,” he said by way of explanation, then grabbed a cream puff and disappeared into the crowd.
Clarice was left alone with the couple, which was maybe worse than having her husband try hopelessly to engage Farhid in conversation, but only barely.
Feeling a sudden desperate urge to get away from the couple, she forced her expression into an apologetic one and said, “You’ll have to excuse me. I think I see the committee chair over there and I really must talk to him about a few details. It was such a pleasure to meet you both. Please, enjoy New York.”
Before either of them could say anything, Clarice hurried away, searching the crowd for Julian as she went. Julian was the chair of the committee for the charity and she had most definitely not seen him when she made her escape. It was a terrible, lame excuse, but she just couldn’t stand there anymore. Her embarrassment was too great.
Especially because, for just one wild moment, she had thought about what it might feel like to kiss Farhid Kanaan.
Chapter Four
Friday morning found Farhid and Djamila arguing amidst a flurry of scattered clothing, open suitcases, and courtesy flowers from the hotel. They were set to leave that afternoon to return home to Qatar. Their trip was brief, mainly an excursion to celebrate their honeymoon and to solidify a deal with an American Oil Company that wished to buy barrels from them to be exported for the next ten years. Farhid’s father had sent his eldest son to the Americas in order to get a better taste of doing such deals regularly. Since Qatar was a large exporter of oil, it would take a heavy role once he became a ruler himself.
Farhid had done his duty and sealed the deal with the oil company. It hadn’t been difficult as the majority of the details had been fettered out long before their arrival in New York City. It meant that their planned week here was largely sightseeing. They had toured all of the places encouraged by guides and maps, such as the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and the Rockefeller Center. These places had satisfied Djamila with their large crowds and their tour guides explaining why these places were important, making her feel as though she had gotten the real “American Experience” as she put it, but it had left Farhid wanting.
That was why, when the American who owned the oil company—Cameron Marston—had told him of a charity function set for that evening, Farhid had jumped at the opportunity to experience a different, less frequented part of the city.
Now, he wasn’t sure if it had been the best or the worst decision of his life.
Djamila had been terribly bored. She’d complained almost since arrival that the people were too stuffy, the food was too bland, and the music was terribly dull. And although Farhid had agreed with a large majority of what Djamila was experiencing, he couldn’t help the spike of annoyance at her complaining.
Was she incapable of simply trying to enjoy something new?
It was the reason they had split up. It was the reason that, as he’d been speaking to a group of foreign dignitaries and a couple of actresses that he didn’t recognize, he’d seen her across the room.
Clarice.
And now, he didn’t want to leave New York. Not yet.
“We are here for the sake of Sheikh Kanaan, my father,” Farhid told her sternly, knowing his words were both true and no longer valid.
Djamila’s voice briefly turned sweet, pleading even. “We don’t belong here, Farhid,” she told him sincerely, believing her words as much as anything she had ever told to him. “We have responsibilities elsewhere to attend to.”
Despite her sweet tone, he dismissed her with a wave of his hand, feeling a spike of irritation. Would his wife never listen? “I assure you, wife, that my father is still Sheikh and he continues to run the country just fine in our absence.”
Her eyes flashed in anger and indignation.
“Our duties here are done, Farhid,” Djamila argued, picking up a scarf presented to her by Farhid’s mother the day of their wedding. It was meant to be a blessing, but she hated it and Farhid hated seeing her in it. “It is time for us to return to Qatar.”
He sighed, shaking his head. This was beginning to aggravate him deeply.
They had been arguing all morning, ever since Farhid had suggested that they might extend their stay. Djamila had been furious at even the suggestion of such a thing.
“Yes, perhaps,” Farhid conceded, trying to remain calm even as his wife’s anger grew. “But we might stay for the sake of staying. It is a new experience, so different from home—”
“I do not wish for different!” Djamila yelled at him. “I wish for home! I wish for the familiar, for the comfortable! I have made the most of this trip, but I wish to stay no longer.”
Farhid frowned deeply. It was quickly becoming apparent to him that there would be no compromising on Djamila’s part. Certainly he could force the subject as he was her husband and the prince of Qatar, but that would hardly make their continued stay here pleasant for either of them. Djamila would sulk if he forced her to stay, pouting and telling him how much she hated it here until he hated it, too.
No, it would be far better to give in to her wishes to return home. That had been their intention anyway, hadn’t it? But Farhid had found something here that he had never encountered before: a brief spark with a woman that was not destined to be anything.
Clarice Herston was married, as was Farhid, and she was hardly the type of woman that his father might approve of. She had no background in royalty or in Qatar, and he sensed that her money was not necessarily her own but that of her husband.
She was anything but ideal.
But then why couldn’t he stop thinking about her? Her bright blue eyes flashed before his eyes and it was all he could do to keep his expression calm and his heart settled. Beautiful, he’d considered her. More beautiful than anything else in the entire world, he thought.
She had captured his attention like no other and now he could not leave before seeing her at least once more.
And that was when it occurred to him. He saw Djamila’s angry expression, her deep wish to return home making her sullen and unreasonable. He saw his desires to spend time with this new, exciting woman. And he saw the dangers in the collision of these two things.
That is what gave him his brilliant idea.
“Very well,” he told Djamila finally even as she was amidst a rant about how foolish and ridiculous he was being.
Maybe it was the calmness of his words that got to her first, but when she finally understood their meaning he knew it, because she froze and looked at him with wide dark eyes. “Farhid?” she questioned, as though not believing he’d acquiesced.
“You are right, Djamila,” he told her, choosing his words carefully. “It is wrong of me to hold you here when you so wish to return home.”
He watched as hope bloomed in her eyes, a tentative smile forming on her full lips. “Really?”
He nodded once. “Yes. And that is why I will send you home. Our guards will ensure you are well protected, of course, and once I have finished my business here, I shall return to Qatar after you.”
For a moment, they just stared at each other. Slowly, Djamila’s excitement grew until he could see it all but bursting forth from her. It was maybe more than it shoulder be after he had added that she would be returning alone—was that a normal wish for a new bride, he wondered?—but he cared little of it, because after one more moment, she smiled and threw herself at him. Wrapping her arms around his neck in an uncharacteristic show of excitement and affection, she kissed his cheeks and thanked him.
“Oh, thank you, husband! Thank you!”
He didn’t ask why she was so eager to return home and she didn’t ask why he was so eager to stay. It was the type of arrangement that worked out so perfectly it was almost as though fate were intervening on their behalf.
Djamila quickly returned to packing, her movements light and bouncing with excitement.
Farhid didn’t care why she was so excited; he simply couldn’t be bothered with his wife, his father’s plans be damned. Instead, his mind was focused solely on the new opportunities afforded to him in the wake of her absence.
Do you know that I’m coming for you, my beautiful Clarice?
Chapter Five
It had become Clarice’s practice to go to the charity committee on Saturday midmornings—brunches as they usually ended up being—with the intention of taking her mind off of how horribly wrong her marriage was becoming. This Saturday was no different than any of the others in that respect, but there was something different about it. It had to do with the call that woke her that morning.
Her phone began ringing on her bedside table. It was early, she knew that much at least, and the buzzing of her phone was an irritation that grated on her nerves. Who was calling her this early she thought?
Blearily she opened her eyes and spotted her bedside clock: four fifteen in the morning. Her irritation grew and she thought that the only reason she was going to answer that phone was to yell at whoever was on the other side and then promptly hang up on them so that she could toss the offending thing across the room, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
That was her plan, anyway, until she actually answered it. “Hello?”
“Clarice? Darling, did I wake you?” It was Donald on the other end.
Immediately, she woke the rest of the way up. Sitting up straight in her bed, phone held tightly to her ear, she blinked away the sleep as a million scenarios of what was wrong, how he was hurt, how he was stranded, went through her mind. “Donald? Are you alright? What happened?”
“I’m in California,” he informed her, ignoring her panicked tone and her urgent questions as though both of these things were unimportant and irrelevant. Maybe to him they were. “I just landed about an hour ago.”
Frowning as she already felt the disappointment and anger start to filter into her system, Clarice asked her husband, “Why are you in California?”
“Can’t get into details right now,” Donald answered smoothly, making Clarice think that something else was going on other than the usual lack of consideration that was her husband. “Just know that I have a business meeting and I’ll be back in two weeks.”
“Two weeks?!”
“Love you, darling,” Donald said ignoring the sting of her voice.
The line went dead and that was that. There was no more to be said. Clarice’s shoulders slumped heavily and she stared incredulously at the phone in her hand. Had her husband seriously just left without warning, without a care, without even a thought of her? She glanced back at his empty side of the bed looking just as neat as it had the night before when she’d crawled in.
Of course he had done that, she realized with a shake of her head. He hadn’t given her a moment’s thought since… well, since there wedding.
Forcing herself up, she headed to the shower to get cleaned up and ready for the day. She wouldn’t let that man ruin any more of her days, she determined. By the time she was cleaned up and dressed, it was still very early and she had the time to hit the gym, make a few phone calls, and shower again. It was just past ten when she left for the charity committee meeting wearing black high waisted slacks that emphasized her tiny waist and a flowy white blouse that made her look both lackadaisical and professional simultaneously.
***
Clarice arrived with coffees for the entire group, making her a few minutes late, but none would mind. She did this about once a month and she’d had a reaction from them that was nothing but gratitude.
As she walked into the room, it was alight with chatter. The committee was mostly made up of wives such as herself. Women who were wealthy and bored thanks to their husbands’ business obligations—and occasionally their indiscretions—and wanted to do something to soak up at least a little bit of their time. But there were others as well. Recent graduates of Harvard and Princeton, young men and women who needed this to put on resumes even though it didn’t pay them anything. And there was the odd business man who was using this as a tax write off.
As far as Clarice could tell there was only one true philanthropist in the group, a Mr. Dwight Wattles. He was in his seventies and had the air of a kindly grandfather. Once Clarice had asked him what drew his interest to the charity and he’d answered her that he’d spent so much of his life accumulating wealth without the slightest care of who he might trample along the way. Now, those tramplings haunted him a little bit and he wanted this moment to do a little to ease those hauntings.
He wasn’t altruistic, but he was a good man who just wanted to do a few little good things before he left this world.
Clarice set the coffees down on the table, smiling in greeting at Mr. Wattles. “How are you this morning?”
“Good, good, my dear,” he answered with a pleasant smile. “Have you brought me some coffee as well?”
“Oh, yes. Black with two lumps of sugar,” Clarice answered, placing a paper coffee cup down beside him.
The man thanked her and she warned him it would still be very hot.
“Oh, Miss Clarice—” Mr. Wattles always called her this even though she was married, “—you should have mentioned that we had a new addition to our foundation.”
Clarice’s eyebrows rose in surprise. She’d had no idea to be perfectly honest and that was pretty unusual. Clarice generally knew most of the goings on of the committee, though she wasn’t the chair. She was secretary mostly, but she took charge of most of the events and worked closely with Mrs. Shears who was the committee chair.
She should have known they had a new member.
When it was clear that Clarice had no idea what Mr. Wattles was talking about, the older man gestured across the table to a dark haired man that Clarice recognized immediately: Farhid Kanaan.
“Oh.”
***
At the end of the meeting, Clarice was relieved. She h ad been thoroughly flustered during the entire thing thanks to the sudden and inexplicable appearance of Farhid Kanaan, the dashingly handsome man she had met the other night at the charity function. She had thought that he was likely gone already, returned to Qatar with his lovely wife.
But his wife was nowhere to be seen and though Farhid made a point of paying attention to the meeting—admittedly he did a better job than Clarice did at that—he also found the time to catch her eye from across the table. His eyes were as dark as she remembered and they still sparked with that heat, that fire.
It made her clumsy, causing her to drop her pen which rolled across the table to the floor at her feet. It made her body warm, causing her cheeks to flush. And it reminded her that at the end of the charity function that night they had first met, she had wondered what it might be like for his lips to press solidly against hers.
But now the meeting was over and Clarice said good bye to several of the members, insisting that she could not stay for the brunch that they often went to afterwards.
She just needed to get out of there.
Clarice made it out the door and into the elevator while everyone else was still mingling, making her think that she had made it out smoothly. But then a smooth, tanned hand caught the elevator door before it could close and shucked it open again.
In walked Farhid Kanaan.
Clarice’s heart jumped even as she cursed her luck. How had he managed to catch her so easily? Which was a ridiculous thought. He probably just didn’t want to stay for brunch and was trying to leave as quickly as she was. It likely had nothing to do with her at all.
“Clarice, I was hoping that I might catch you,” he told her in a rich voice with a smile playing at his lips.
Or not.
Internally, Clarice cursed. He’d been trying to find her deliberately, she realized, and it made her wonder why. She had felt a strange connection to him the other night, but as soon as she realized he was married—and she remembered that she was married—all thoughts of that connection had fled.
Or at least, she’d forced them aside.
Now, she had to face them again and it was doing strange things to her body. Heat flooded her, making her cheeks grow rosy and her breathing become slightly heavy.
“Mr. Kanaan, it has been a very unexpected surprise,” Clarice managed to tell him, staring at the reflective doors rather than into his eyes which seemed incredibly dangerous at the moment. “I would have thought you had returned home already.”
“I had intended to, yes,” he admitted. She could feel his eyes locked onto her, but she refused to meet them. Dangerous, she reminded herself. “But I changed my plans. I decided I wanted to see more.”
Focusing on keeping her breathing even, she asked, “Of the city?”
“Of you.”
Okay, this has to stop, Clarice thought, realizing that this was most definitely not a coincidence. He had found her deliberately, tracked her down—not that difficult given that she’d explained to him how involved she was with the charity—and then followed her when she left.
“Mr. Kanaan—”
“Please, Farhid,” he interrupted.
She ignored his insistence. “Mr. Kanaan, while I am very flattered for the attention, I must insist that we… um, stop this. Whatever it might be.” She finished awkwardly, because she realized midsentence that he hadn’t expressed a romantic desire to get to know her. Although she had felt a strong connection on her side, perhaps it was merely a polite interest on his end.
She didn’t think so, but it was possible.
His smile stretched further across his face, forcing dimples onto either of his cheeks. “Clarice, I am asking only for a little of your time,” he told her gently. The softness in his words forced her to finally face him, and her breath caught immediately at the bright intensity in his dark eyes. “Perhaps we might talk?”
She bit her lip. This seemed like a dangerous idea. The connection that surged through her was consuming, it brought with it a twisting in her stomach, an urge within her body, and a fluttering of her heart. She wanted something from him, but it wasn’t talking.
Forcing these feelings down, she took a deep breath and finally nodded. “Alright. Certainly.”
They took the elevator down and instead of heading home, Clarice walked around the building towards the back where there was an enclosed courtyard with trees and benches. It was lovely and felt secluded though she could still hear the cars that passed on just the other side of the building, and she knew there were windows that looked down onto the little area.
As they walked, Farhid asked a few questions. “You are from New York?”
Clarice shook her head. “Iowa. Dalton, Iowa.”
“Is it lovely there?” he asked, genuinely interested in the place where she had grown up.
She smiled ruefully at him and shook her head. “No. It’s terrible. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.”
He laughed a little at that. “Then I am grateful you are no longer there.”
“Me, too. What about you?” she asked as they found a bench beneath a tree to sit at. “You mentioned you’re from Qatar. Is it beautiful?”
“It is,” he answered easily. “It is a wonderful mixture of tradition and the modern. Gardens are cultivated for their pleasing beauty and the buildings are constructed with appeal as well as practicality in mind. I am very fond of my home.”
“Then why haven’t you returned yet?” Clarice asked, though he had already told her the answer, at least partially. He’d claimed it was to see more of her that he’d lingered, but was that all?
He hesitated for a moment, considering his words carefully before he replied. “Qatar is lovely and it is home. But in it, I have many responsibilities. My father is grooming me for the future and I must admit that I tire of it sometimes.”
She felt like there was more to what he was saying. The responsibilities and the grooming—what were they for really?
“I have to assume you’re a pretty important family in Qatar,” Clarice told him. “Otherwise you probably wouldn’t have attended the charity function the other night.”
He smiled at her and she noticed again his full lips and those dimples. He really was quite handsome. It felt nice to have a man smile at her like that again.
“You are right,” he conceded and for a moment he looked like he might laugh. But he didn’t, he simply said, “A very important family. You see, my father is the Sheikh.”
It wasn’t the reaction he’d likely been expecting, but she couldn’t help it. She laughed. She didn’t claim to be an expert on Arabic culture or on Qatar culture for that matter, but she was pretty sure that a Sheikh was a king. A king.
“Does that still even happen?” she asked. She couldn’t tell if she was legitimately incredulous or if she was teasing him. Probably, her words were incredibly insulting and offensive, but she couldn’t help them. What did that make him? A prince? Was she talking to a prince?
“Indeed, it does,” he assured her. He didn’t seem offended. In fact, he seemed to appreciate her laughter, though maybe more for the mere sound of it rather than the reason for it. “Since my father is the ruler, than makes me next in line to become Sheikh after him. But that is many, many years off. My father is in excellent health and is a good ruler.”
Ruler. She was trying to take a moment and really believe it seriously, but it was difficult. Thinking of countries still having kings—or Sheikhs—was so foreign to her. It was naïve and a little egocentric of her to think that all cultures outside of the United States would follow the same model, but she had just never really considered it until now.