Sheikh's Ex-Girlfriend (Khayyam Sheikh Series #1) (2 page)

“I'm sending you abroad, kid. Your last hits have all come out of the Middle East, and I think that if we're going to get the most out of your talents, that's where you need to be. We're setting you up with an office and a desk, and from there, you'll have your hand on the pulse of what's coming out of that part of the world. What do you say?”

Ella couldn't stop a wide grin from crossing her face. Her blood was already up, thinking about what she could do, what kind of literature she could find if she were on the ground in Dubai, in Morocco, in Tehran.

“I say I'm in,” she said, already packing away her apartment and putting it into storage in her mind. “When am I headed off?”

“In just two weeks if you want it,” he replied. “This has been in the works for a while, and you're just the one who caught the plum. We'll get your workload split up, and after that, it's goodbye New York, hello Dalal.”

Ella could feel the grin fall off her face, but Joe didn't seem to notice.

“Did you say Dalal?”

He nodded. “There's a real literary scene going there, you're within striking distance of Dubai, and we've already got staff out there. Seems like the natural choice.”

“The natural choice, yeah.”

She was aware that she was still in an elegant release party in New York, but somehow, she was suddenly thousands of miles away, looking at a man whose dark eyes made her heart swell. She was in his arms, she was kissing him, feeling his hands running over her body … she was in a garage, wondering what had happened and why he hadn't fought for her.

Dear god, what am I doing?
Ella wondered, but she already knew. She was going to Dalal.

***

It happened more quickly than she thought possible. Her apartment was packed up and thrown into storage, she said her hasty goodbyes to her friends, and after the person she sublet her apartment to  appeared, she spent her last week in New York at her sister Emmaline's apartment. She had to share her space with mounds of fabric and fashion books, but it was worth it to soak up her sister's love and affection before she left.

“Are you certain about this?” Emmaline asked. “Dalal is history for you, and not necessarily a good one. Are you really ready to face all of that again?”

Ella nodded with a conviction that she didn't necessarily feel.

“I am. After all, my history involved luxury hotels and the family of the sheikh. My future in the city involves a nice office in the Old Quarter and lots of young writers. It'll be totally different.”

“It was such a weird few months,” Emmaline mused, tacking another swatch of cloth to her mannequin. “One weekend it was just hanging out at Central Park, and the next we're showing around Nasim and … and that other man.”

Ella grinned at her sister.

“You can say his name,” she teased. “After all, he wasn't the one who broke my heart.”

Emmaline blushed at that, but she didn't reply. Nasim might have done a number on Ella, but Marid Faheem had simply stunned Emmaline. Nasim's best friend, the sheikh of Arana, had come on strong and left a confused Emmaline sputtering in the dust. Nasim and Ella had laughed about Marid being turned down by a freelance seamstress, but Ella knew that her sister still thought about the man.

“Anyway, it's going to be fine,” she continued. “I know it will be. It has to be.”

 Despite her assurance, she didn't know. She clung to Joe Vega's promise that if she didn't like the post that she could return to her old job. In truth, she didn't know what going back to Dalal was going to do to her. It might be too much, or it might simply break her heart once and be done with it.

Emmaline came to sit next to her, offering her a very welcome hug. They were a year apart in age, but they were similar enough to be twins. They were closer than many siblings; they were best friends.

“I want you to be careful,” Emmaline said seriously.

Ella laughed. “What should I be careful with?”

Emmaline shrugged, but she didn't smile. “Everything, but especially your heart.”

***

Emmaline's words rang in Ella's ears a week later when her plane touched down at the airport in Khayyam. She was walking past the newsstand when a certain picture caught her eye. The dark gaze, chiseled face, the slight quirk to his lips—she would recognize Nasim anywhere. It was the headline that surprised her.

Sheikh Nasim Bakkal Returns from Trade Endeavors in Paris …

Sheikh? She knew that there was only one man in the entire country who could lay claim to that title, and when she had left, Nasim had been that man's youngest brother. What had happened?

She steeled herself against picking up the newspaper and walked on. If he was the sheikh, even better. That meant that there would be even less chance of the two of them meeting in the same circles.

Her apartment was a charming little set of rooms in the Old Quarter, the most antique part of the city. It had a reputation for a bit of roughness, but she was charmed by the people selling food on the streets, the small restaurants, and of course by the little bookshop on the corner. Her office was directly below with her apartment just above it.

 As she threw the windows to her room open, she looked out over what she could see of the city. The last of her doubts melted away, and she smiled.

“Here I am,” she murmured. “Here I am.”

Chapter 3

The antiques fair was fascinating, and it was just the perfect antidote to her first challenging week. In addition to getting her home set up, Ella had dived into the work her publisher had assigned her. She had worked with the local stores and agents, looking to get new talent flowing. It might be a few weeks yet, but when people realized that there was a new publisher on the ground, she knew that she was going to be swamped.

She expected to receive the general run of standard submissions, but littered throughout them would be the work from those who were truly passionate, those who were dedicated to their craft and deserved a chance to shine. Those were the people she was waiting for.

The fair was hosted close to the city center, and it covered some four city blocks. She could wander from diamond salesmen with heavy security to women with their blankets spread out, selling old sabers and camel whips. She flipped through the bins of old books, she picked up a skewer of roasted lamb to eat as she moved, and she enjoyed the day, seeking the shade when the sun grew too hot.

I think I'm finally finding my feet here,
she thought happily, when she heard her name being called.

For a moment, she didn't even think to turn her head. After all, who in the world knew her here yet? Then the call came again, and she turned, a heavy weight in her stomach.

It wasn't Nasim, but it was bad enough.

Marid was taller and slimmer than Nasim, but there was an arresting quality about him. Dressed casually in jeans and a perfect white T-shirt, Marid could have been any other fashionable young man making his way through the town, but she knew that he was a sheikh, a man of enormous wealth and power. Even more frighteningly right now, she knew that he was Nasim's best friend.

“I thought that was you!” he exclaimed, walking up to her. “I am glad you turned around, otherwise I would be afraid that you were dead and that I had seen a ghost.”

Ella found a smile tugging at her lips. After all, it was very hard to dislike Marid.  “Hello, Marid. I'm happy to see you.”

“Likewise. What brings you to Dalal?”

She hesitated, and then shrugged. It wasn't like it was hard to find out who she was and what she did.

“I'm establishing a branch for Quill here. We're putting a lot more work into finding interesting manuscripts from this part of the world, and Joe Vega wants me to be right here and recruiting.”

“Ah, your work,” Marid nodded, and then he shot her a sideways glance. “You know, I had thought that there might be another reason that you were in town …”

“Not that one,” she said sharply, and then she reined herself in with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I just meant that it's only for work.”

Marid nodded, and if there was something bright and gleaming in his eye, Ella chose to ignore it.

“It has not been easy for him over the last few years,” Marid said casually, but of course Ella knew who he was talking about.”

“No?”

“Nasim, well … he was never prepared to be sheikh. He was the third son, and there was no way to realize that the seat would be his.”

“What happened?” she asked in spite of herself. She could tell herself all she wanted that she didn't care about what had happened for Nasim to become sheikh, but a part of her longed to know.

“A boating accident—Azim and Mumin were on the water, and something happened to their fuel line. They were pronounced dead, and Nasim had to be called back from France to take his place.”

Ella bit her lip. She had not liked Nasim's brothers, but it made her stomach twist to think of them dying so badly.

“How is Nasim doing with it?”

She meant with the grief, but Marid ignored that part.

“He is a fine sheikh. He works hard, sometimes I think he has forgotten how to enjoy his life, but that is neither here nor there. If I'm honest, I would say he hasn't truly enjoyed himself since—”

Ella cut him off with a sudden glance at her phone.

“Oh, I'm sorry, I don't mean to cut you off, but I need to get going. I have a manuscript I need to go over before this evening and if I put it off too much longer, I am going to be terribly, terribly late. You don't mind me taking my leave, do you?”

Marid's eyes fairly danced, and she could tell that he wasn't taken in by her ruse.

“Of course not, Lady Literary. Good luck with your endeavors.”

He took her hand for a gentle kiss, but suddenly she was remembering a man who had taken it in a similar way. She remembered the brush of lips over the delicate skin of her knuckles, and she remembered the way he had looked up straight into her eyes, sending a deep shock through her soul.

She pulled away from Marid before she could remember any more, and she turned to make her way through the crowd. Even as she became lost among the people, she could feel his dark gaze boring into her back.

 I think things are going to get complicated,
she thought helplessly.

***

That evening, Nasim was working at his desk when a servant announced through the intercom that Marid Faheem was there to see him. He happily left off his work for the moment, but he drew back when he saw the devilish gleam in Marid's eyes.

“Whatever you have in mind, I want nothing to do with it—” he began, but Marid cut him off.

“Not a what, but a who, and this time, you are completely wrong.”

Nasim knew what his friend was like when he got that look on his face. The best thing to do was to be patient until it passed, and so he crossed his arms in front of his chest and waited.

“Quill Publishing is setting up shop in town, and I think that their representative is someone that you know very well …”

For a moment, the name meant absolutely nothing to Nasim. Then, with the force of a blow to his chest, he remembered a fluff of short blonde hair, bright blue eyes that he could drown in, and a mouth that seemed made for kisses and laughter. When he remembered those eyes darkening with confusion, her sweet face reddening with humiliation, he came to his feet.

“No,” he snapped. “No, I will have no part of this.”

Another man looking at Nasim's dark looks and taut frame would have been afraid, but Marid had been his friend since they were boys. Instead of being afraid, Marid took a seat in Nasim's desk chair, the picture of casual humor.

“She's only grown more beautiful than she was before. I have done a little reading, and it seems that success agrees with her. She managed to find a writer who will almost assuredly be taking the Pulitzer this year, and now she has been sent to Dalal to work her magic.”

“I don't care—” Nasim started, but Marid continued as if he hadn't heard.

“I saw her today at the antiques fair. She was moving through the city as if it already belonged to her, as if she had already decided to make it her home. She fits here in a way I don't remember her fitting in in New York …”

“This means nothing to me,” Nasim said, forcing his voice to a growl so that Marid wouldn't hear it shake. He started to walk past his friend, but his next words stopped him.

“I wonder if she would like to come to dinner with me, perhaps fly out to Arana for the weekend?”

Nasim reacted almost before he knew what he was doing. In one bound, he had come up on top of Marid, and his hands were clenched in Marid's T-shirt, dragging him up.

Far from being incensed at such rough treatment, Marid laughed in delight.

“
There
it is,” he said triumphantly. “That's what it took. I knew you weren't as cool as you were pretending to be.”

“If you wanted to know how seriously I take this, you could have asked instead of trying to bait me,” he growled.

Now that Marid was out of his chair, he dropped back down into it. He rubbed his eyes. He wasn't even thirty-five yet, but he felt a hundred years old. When he thought back to that night when Ella had met his family, he felt ancient, as if he were half-dead.

“I can't see her,” he growled, almost to himself. “I don't … I don't deserve her …”

Marid made a scoffing sound. “My mother always told me that we should all be very lucky that we do not get what we deserve in this life, but when it comes to Ella, it's not a matter of who deserves who. It's a matter of love and of passion. My friend, no one has ever touched your heart the way this woman has, and now fate has brought her back to you. Do you think that everyone is so lucky? Do not waste this.”

“She was humiliated by my family, and even worse, I did nothing to defend her. I stood there while Azim took her to pieces and while Mumin watched.”

“You are not that man anymore,” Marid said bluntly, “And now, you are the sheikh. You want the woman? You want to see if there's anything left between you? Now you go find her.”

At Marid's words, Nasim felt something open in him that had been locked away five years ago. It felt like a breath of cold night air sneaking into a still and closed room. He realized that it was hope.