Sold To The Sheikh: His Indecent Proposal (An Interracial Sheikh Romance Novel) (10 page)

After a pause that seemed
to go on forever, Rami broke the silence. “What does it say?” Mia
took a deep breath.

“Not pregnant. That’s what
it says. It says, very clearly, ‘not pregnant.’” Mia trembled and
sank onto the floor of the bathroom, her vision wavering as tears
began to form in her eyes. Rami sighed.

“Dr. Farber said it’s not
unusual for it to take up to five tries, Mia,” he said, his voice
full of sympathy. “Sometimes even more.”

“What the hell is wrong
with me?” The words left her in almost a wail. “Why the hell isn’t
this working?”

“Let me come over,” Rami
said. “I’ll bring you breakfast, and we’ll watch
something—something with no babies in it.” Mia brought her knees up
to her chest and hugged them tightly, waves of grief washing
through her.

“What’s wrong with me,
Rami?”

“Nothing is wrong with
you, Mia. It just takes time. That’s all.”

“It’s been six
months!”

“Some people have to keep
trying for years,” Rami reminded her. “You have to stop beating
yourself up about this, it’s not healthy.”

“It’s not healthy? Neither
is pumping myself full of hormones to ovulate, or producing fifty
freaking eggs at one time! None of this is healthy, or normal, but
it’s supposed to be—it’s supposed to work.” Mia shuddered as a sob
worked through her. “You need to just…just give up on me. Please,
just find someone else; it shouldn’t be too much
trouble.”

“Mia,” Rami’s voice was so
soft down the phone. “Come on. I know it’s tough. I know you’re
tired. Please just let me come over. I’ll bring you some food, and
I promise we won’t talk about this or even think about it for the
rest of the day.”

“I just feel like a
freak,” Mia said, sniffling as her nose began to run. “I can’t do
the single most important thing a woman’s supposed to be able to
do.” Mia’s abdomen shook as another sob wracked her.

“Shh, Mia, it’s okay.
You’re not a freak, you’re a wonderful woman. God knows this is a
really tough way to get pregnant, Dr. Farber’s told us both a dozen
times.”

“Doesn’t make me feel less
like a failure,” Mia muttered, closing her eyes and resting her
forehead against her knees.

“You’re not a failure.
Come on. If you don’t want to stay in, let’s go to a museum, or a
park or something. You need to get your mind off of
this.”

After a long, pensive
pause, Mia wiped at her face and took a deep breath. “I guess,” she
said finally. “Okay. You can come over with breakfast and we’ll
figure out what to do from there.”

“Good,” Rami said, and Mia
thought she could hear him smiling. “As my contractor I hereby
order you to not even think about babies or pregnancy for the next
forty-eight hours, do you hear me?” Mia laughed weakly.

“Right up until we meet
with Dr. Farber again and tell her I’m still just as un-knocked-up
as ever?”

“Exactly. Get a shower.
I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

As Mia showered, she tried
not to think too much about why she felt fluttery all over that
Rami was coming round. “It’s just a comfort to have him here,
that’s all,” she told herself as she rinsed conditioner out of her
hair. She had started taking prenatal vitamins on Dr. Farber’s
recommendation during the first IVF cycle, and her hair had never
been thicker, her skin more radiant. She stood under the showerhead
for a long moment, letting the hot water sluice down her body. Mia
had told her mother on more than one occasion that she and Rami
were keeping things strictly professional between them, but after
six months of seeing each other—even if mostly in the context of
medical appointments—she had to admit to herself that her initial
negative impressions of Rami’s boastfulness, his ostentatious
displays of wealth, had all but vanished.

He’s really, weirdly, one
of the sweetest guys I’ve ever met.
Mia
turned off the water in her shower and reached for a towel,
wrapping it around her body in well-practiced movements. She had
always found the rich guys at her school irritating—sometimes
extremely so. Though they had all been so attractive she couldn’t
help imagining what it would be like to date them, it had left a
bitter taste in her mouth when one member of the school’s most
exclusive fraternity had managed to get a drunk driving charge
overturned with nothing more than a phone call; a feeling she had
thought she would forever associate with the extremely wealthy. She
had found out later that the same frat brother had later nearly
killed a family of four when he’d gotten into a car accident while
once again driving under the influence. He had been charged, and
convicted of the offence—and yet, he’d gotten little more than
house arrest and court-mandated attendance at Alcoholics
Anonymous.

Mia dressed quickly,
shaking her head at the fact that she was pulling on a pair of
designer jeans over a pair of underwear that had come from Target.
When Rami had taken her shopping for the trip to New York City, she
had drawn the line at him buying any kind of lingerie for her; that
had seemed entirely too intimate a purchase for someone she was
only—at best—friends with. Rami had been appalled at the fact that
she was going to wear cheap underwear underneath expensive clothes,
and had tried to insist that he could just give her his card and
leave her to consult with his personal shopper on her own, but he
had finally relented when Mia threatened to return everything if he
kept it up.

By the time Mia heard
Rami’s knock at her door, she had pulled her thick, dark hair into
a bun, and even managed to straighten her slightly messy living
room. She knew Rami didn’t judge her for the tiny rental home she
lived in, or even for her shabby, secondhand furniture, but somehow
she felt as if he
should.
She hurried to the door and let him in, smiling
as much as she could manage after the bad news of only thirty
minutes before. “I told you that you’d be able to wear those
clothes for years,” Rami said, nodding at her outfit. Mia blushed;
she wouldn’t admit it to him, but she had worn the outfit just
because it was him coming over. Had it been her mother, she almost
certainly would have stuck with pajamas, or her comfortable old
jeans.

Rami came into the living
room weighted down with a box full of diner-bought breakfast
delicacies—nothing fancy, no four-star restaurant fare—and Mia felt
such a strong wave of relief at the realization that she nearly
began crying again.

“You’re so kind,” she told
him as he set the box down on her coffee table. She could smell
eggs, hash browns, something fruity—and she could swear there were
pancakes in one of the Styrofoam containers, too.

“I wanted to bring you
coffee, but I then I realized that’s probably a terrible idea, so I
got hot chocolate instead,” Rami said, pulling a big Starbucks cup
out of the box. “You like the Salted Caramel, right?”

“You’re going to make me
cry!” Mia took the big, thick paper cup from him and plucked the
stopper out, sniffing at the heady aroma.

“Nope, no crying,” Rami
said, wagging a finger at her. “We’re going to watch stupid movies
and you’re going to eat as much breakfast as you can possibly
stand, and then if you want to go for a walk or go someplace else,
we’ll do that.”

“Okay, you’re telling me I
can’t cry and then you say all these nice things that are
guaranteed to make me cry,” Mia said warmly. “That’s not even a
little bit fair and you know it.”

Rami chuckled. “I didn’t
say I was a
fair
client.” Mia laughed.

“That’s more like it. Now
sit down and I’ll get plates, forks and knives from the
kitchen.”

“Do you even know where to
find plates, forks and knives in a kitchen? Have you ever been in a
kitchen?”

“I’ll have you know that
I’ve served myself plenty of meals in my life,” Rami said, crossing
his arms over his chest. “I even know how to wash
dishes.”

“I’ll believe that when I
see it!” Mia say down on the couch and draped an afghan around her
waist, tucking it under her feet to keep them warm. True to his
word, Rami returned a moment later with plates and cutlery, just as
Mia took her first sip of the rich, satisfying hot chocolate.
Looking up, she feigned shock, acting as though she might drop her
cup at the surprise of seeing the wealthy man with plates and
flatware, waiting on her.

“Ha-ha,” Rami said
sarcastically, settling himself a few feet away from her on the
couch. “I told you I could find my way around a
kitchen.”

“I stand corrected,” Mia
said primly. Rami served her a full plate of her favorite comfort
foods, then turned on the TV, pulling up Netflix and selecting the
TV series
Firefly
. In no time at all, or so it seemed to Mia, her grief at
having once more failed to conceive began to evaporate, as she took
bite after bite of the greasy, satisfying breakfast and let herself
be drawn into the drama and action of the series.

Once or twice, as one
episode rolled into the next, Mia found herself looking at Rami.
She had never been unaware of the fact that he was objectively
attractive, with his almond-shaped, heavy-lidded eyes, full lips,
and sharp jawline. His thick, black hair was always immaculately
cut and styled, and Mia thought that even without his tailor-made
clothes, Rami would have looked breathtaking. But even if he was
the best looking man she had met in years, that fact had at first
been irrelevant to Mia—he had screamed and ranted at her right
after the accident which was his fault, and at their first “date”,
had come across as an annoying braggart. And yet, while neither of
them had ever said anything about having feelings towards one
other, Rami had, over time, become a friend, and Mia’s sense of how
attractive he was had increased as she lost the impression of him
being nothing more than a spoiled, extravagant, trust fund
kid.

Mia knew that any thinking
about how attractive, or how kind, or how funny Rami was, was
stepping into dangerous territory. She knew that, at the end of the
day, there was nothing more between them than a contract. Rami was
generous and kind enough to make sure she was as happy and healthy
as possible throughout the process, and he was, she was now
convinced, a genuinely good person. But he had let slip to her on
more than one occasion that before he had decided that what he
really wanted was to have a child, he had gone out clubbing at
least three or four times a week, staying out until the early hours
of the morning and sometimes going home with a woman he’d met only
hours before. Rami was wealthy enough that he had only to crook his
little finger and women of all kinds would throw themselves at him.
He was so far out of Mia’s league that she would never have
imagined him becoming a friend until it happened; she certainly
couldn’t realistically imagine him being anything more.

“What do you want to do
now?” Rami turned to her after they’d watched three episodes of the
series—each an hour long.

“Are you seriously
planning on spending the whole day with me?”

“Why not? I didn’t have
anything planned.”

Mia frowned. “You
didn’t?”

Rami shrugged. “If we were
pregnant, then of course we were going to celebrate the hell out of
that. If we weren’t, I thought we might both need cheering up. So I
just didn’t plan anything for today.” Mia stared at Rami in
astonishment.

“You really surprise the
hell out of me sometimes.”

“Still? I’d think a smart
girl like you would have me figured out by now,” Rami told her,
giving Mia a teasing grin.

“Maybe I’m not as smart as
you thought,” Mia replied, sarcastically.

“Or maybe I’m more
mysterious than I thought,” Rami countered, and Mia
laughed.

“So what do you think? We
could watch a few more episodes, or go to the park…or
shopping?”

“Oh my God, no—you are not
taking me shopping. I refuse. I will not get out of the car if you
try to take me to the mall again.”

Rami laughed. “Fine. I
still say you would feel better with a new pair of shoes—it always
works for my mom. But whatever you want to do.”

Mia considered it for a
moment. “There’s a Monet exhibit at the city art museum,” she said
hesitantly.

“Then let’s go see it,”
Rami replied. Mia smiled, sighing happily. Even if nothing ever did
come out of her relationship with Rami, other than business and,
hopefully, a baby, she would be grateful for the rest of her life
for how he treated her with such kindness and generosity. It was
more than just the money he spent on her; it was the fact that he
had made the effort to remember her favorite non-coffee drink at
Starbucks, or that he was willing to spend all day making every
effort to cheer her up when in all fairness he should be even more
bitter and depressed than she was.