Sold To The Sheikh: His Indecent Proposal (An Interracial Sheikh Romance Novel) (12 page)

A few minutes later Rami
left the office and found Mia in the hallway, bringing with him the
purse she had left behind. “It’s okay, Mia, really,” Rami said as
they walked down the hall together.

“I know,” Mia said. “I’ll
be okay, it’s just that right now—I’m really tired, stressed out,
and I feel terrible.”

“Do you want to come to
lunch?” Rami offered. “I could make arrangements for you to get a
massage, maybe a pedicure?” Mia smiled weakly and shook her
head.

“I think what I really
want is to be alone for a little bit,” she said. As they left the
building, she turned to Rami and offered her hand. “I’ll be in
touch in a couple of weeks, and we can…talk about the next steps, I
guess. I just kind of want to focus on helping mom and not think
about babies for a few days.” Rami smiled, and instead of shaking
her hand he pulled her into a quick hug and kissed her on the
cheek.

“I totally understand. A
couple of weeks. And if I don’t hear from you, you’ll hear from
me,” he said, releasing her from the embrace. “Don’t let this get
you down, Mia.” Mia summoned another smile and nodded.

“I’ll try,” she said. She
turned away from him and found her keys in her purse as she walked
towards her car. Almost as soon as she had the driver’s side door
closed behind her, a sob rolled up through her chest, and as Mia
turned the key in the ignition, the tears began to flow once again.
She had always worked hard, always studied and done her best. Mia
had almost never, in her entire life, failed at something that she
had worked to accomplish. The fact that she couldn’t manage to get
pregnant—something she had seen dozens of women who were less
intelligent, less educated, less determined than her accomplish
easily—felt like the most elementary failure of her entire
life.

Mia drove away from the
doctor’s office without any idea of where she wanted to go. She
didn’t want to go to her mother’s house—she didn’t want to burden
Amie with the news. Although she had told Rami that she wanted to
be alone, she couldn’t imagine going back to her own, tiny house;
she thought the silence there might drive her insane. Mia turned in
the opposite direction from the roads that would take her back to
her house and drove aimlessly for what seemed like an hour. She had
a full tank of gas, and plenty of money to refill if she somehow
managed to empty it. Mia was almost tempted to get on the highway
and just keep going until she had somehow outrun her
sadness.

Instead, as the album
she’d blindly put on the stereo came to an end, she turned in at a
strip mall that seemed oddly familiar. There was a grocery store, a
few chain shops that sold cheap, fast-fashion clothing, a liquor
store, and at the end, crumbling in its decay, a low, hunkered-down
bar called “Jake’s Place.” The name stirred something in Mia’s mind
and she tried to place it. As she pulled into a parking spot, she
remembered she’d been there once before, in better times, before
her mother’s health had declined so sharply. It was one of the
favored spots of some of the teachers she’d worked at the school
with.

Mia shut off her car and
got out, walking quickly towards the worn entrance of the bar. It
was mid-afternoon and she didn’t think there was any risk of
running into anyone she knew. The front door squeaked loudly on its
hinges as Mia opened it, and the few people gathered at the dimly
lit bar looked up. The place reeked of old cigarettes, though Mia
didn’t see anyone smoking inside, along with stale beer and the
sharp tang of spilled liquor.

She took a deep breath and
walked hazily towards the bar. She felt guilty; she knew that the
last thing she needed right now—on a physical level—was alcohol.
She was trying to get pregnant, after all. It would be
better—healthier—for her to go home and just cry into her pillow.
At worst, she could have a glass of wine. Mia sat down on one of
the empty stools as the sound system played a warbling, slightly
distorted folk song about “the best-ever death metal band out of
Denton.”

A female bartender, her
face greasy, eyeliner smudged, looking as though she’d gotten out
of bed maybe an hour before, approached, and Mia gave the woman a
little smile. “I need a shot of tequila,” Mia said.

“You look like you do at
that,” the woman said, sweeping her bleach-blonde hair back and
binding it with an elastic. The bartender reached behind her and
plucked a squat, clear bottle labeled Patron from the front of the
top shelf. Mia glanced down at her outfit; obviously the bartender
was more alert than she seemed if she could determine from Mia’s
clothing that she had the kind of money to spend on top-shelf
alcohol. Mia watched as the woman deftly poured a shot, moving a
salt shaker from the staging area to a spot next to Mia’s hand and
taking a couple of slices of lime from a caddy and placing them on
a little plate.

“Oh God, thank you,” Mia
said, taking her wallet out. She barely ever dealt in cash anymore;
she only had her card.

“Do you want to keep it
open? We have a two-shot minimum.” Mia bit her bottom lip; she knew
she shouldn’t be having even one shot of liquor, much less
two.

“Sure,” she said. “Keep it
open. I’ll keep it to two.” The bartender glanced at her with faint
skepticism in her eyes and took the card, moving off to respond to
a call for another round. Mia licked the space between her thumb
and forefinger on the back of her hand and sprinkled some salt onto
it. She had done shots only once before, in college. It was the
night of her twenty-first birthday, and Mia had gotten so sick that
she’d never quite been able to take anything from a shot glass
since.

Despite her sense of
trepidation, Mia licked the salt, knocked back the shot, and took a
hard bite out of one of the lime wedges. The tequila went down like
liquid fire, warming her from the inside out. It felt like
something loosened inside of her. Mia exhaled, half-expecting a
plume of smoke to leave her lips. She felt a flicker of guilt, but
that didn’t stop her from raising her hand to signal the bartender.
The woman approached quickly. “Can I have another shot, and… I
guess a Coke to chase it with?”

“Not a beer? We’ve got a
deal on Tecate when you buy Patron.” Mia shook her head.

“No thanks, just a Coke,”
she said, licking her lips. She could still taste the sharp,
sour-bitter lime. The bartender poured another shot and evaluated
the amount left in the bottle.

“I’ll leave this with you.
There are three or four shots left,” the woman said as she
half-filled the plastic cup with ice. “Let me know when you’re done
with it.” Mia nodded and took up the saltshaker again.

Mia barely noticed the
other bar patrons; she listened to the music playing over the sound
system as she knocked back her second, third, and fourth shots,
drinking her Coke between them. She finished off the bottle and
decided it was probably a good idea to take that as her cue to
leave; she knew better than to even consider getting into her own
car. She flagged down the bartender. “Can I get my tab and can you
give me the number of a cab company? I’ll figure out my car
situation later.” The bartender chuckled.

“We always folk keep their
cars here if they’re too drunk to drive. Don’t worry, no one’s
going to tow it.” The woman ran her card and Mia looked blearily at
the numbers on the check, her head swimming as she tried to focus
enough to determine what a good tip would be. Finally she decided
it was pointless and added twenty dollars to the tab before signing
the bottom.

“Your cab should be
outside for you in ten minutes,” the woman said lowly, taking up
the folder and checking the slip. “Come back any time,” she said
with a pleased grin.

“I’m not normally much of
a drinker,” Mia said. “It’s just…it’s been a rough six
months.”

The bartender nodded.
“Honey, we’ve all been there. Next time you have a rough six
months—hell, a rough week—come on in and see me. I’ll make sure
you’re looked after.” Mia nodded, accepting the advice. She
gathered up her purse and made her way out as steadily as she could
manage.

NINE

Mia was surprised to see
it was already starting to get dark outside by the time she exited
the bar. “Jeez, how long was I in there for?” She was barely aware
that she’d spoken her question aloud. In the corner of her eye Mia
saw a blurred movement off to her left and turned instinctively
towards it, only to see Rami appear from round the side of the bar.
Mia staggered backwards in surprise, tumbling gracelessly onto a
bench. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?
What are you doing here?! You’re supposed to be trying to get
pregnant! I spend all this money on fertility treatments, and
making sure you have everything you need, and what do you do with
it? You come and get shitfaced!”

“Rami, no. This is the
first time I’ve had anything to drink in—in—I think it’s over a
year!” Mia’s face burned as the blood flooded into her cheeks. She
scowled at Rami, feeling guilty and angry in equal measures. “I
told you I didn’t want you to keep paying me while we took a break.
If you have such a problem with me doing this when we aren’t even
trying to conceive right now you can just—just...go to hell. That’s
what you can do.”

“How do I even know you
haven’t been drinking all along?” Rami asked. “You stay at home,
but you could’ve been drinking gallons of wine, or whatever else
there.”

“You’ve been to my house!
Did you ever see any alcohol anywhere?” Mia wished the cab would
arrive already; she was exhausted and dizzy, and she was fairly
certain that as soon as she was safely alone, most of the alcohol
she’d consumed would come right back up out of her
stomach.

“And you—how did you even
know where I was?” Through the fog that had descended on her brain,
Mia remembered other odd instances: the time Rami had appeared when
she was having trouble at the pharmacy getting the medication the
doctor had prescribed for her mother; once when she had been out
shopping and Rami had just happened to be in the same store; and
finally the chance encounter at the grocery store that had started
her on the path to becoming the potential mother of his
child.

“Did you follow me
here?”

Rami’s eyes widened and he
looked away.

“Answer me!”

“
OK, before you start
making a scene. The truth is…I’ve been having you followed,” he
said quickly.

“What? Wh—what the
hell—why would you do something like that?” Uninhibited, thanks to
the tequila, Mia’s anger quickly rose to boiling point. “That’s
sick! What the hell were you thinking?”

“Well, it started because
I wanted to know why you brushed me off when I asked you out,” Rami
said, shrugging. “Yeah I know it’s a little fucked up, but I was
curious, so I had a guy follow you around. And when I found out you
weren’t seeing anyone, I thought…” he shrugged again.

“You thought what? That
I’d be the perfect choice to be your baby mama?” Mia’s hands shook
and she suddenly wished that she were alone; her stomach was
pitching and heaving inside of her.

“I wanted to protect you,
once you—once I knew you were going to be carrying my child. You
don’t exactly live in the safest part of town, you
know.”

“At least no one in the
part of town I live in is having me stalked!” Mia stood up
unsteadily, looking around to see if the cab would arrive. “I can’t
believe this. I really can’t believe…. No, you know what, I can
believe it. I just can’t believe I was so stupid that I didn’t even
think you might be doing this.” Mia almost cried out with relief
when the bright yellow flash of a taxi appeared in the parking lot,
coming straight to the bar. “Don’t even try and talk to me right
now, Rami al-Hassan. I am so damn furious that I could spit on you,
but you wouldn’t be worth it.”

“You call for a cab,
Ma’am?” Mia didn’t even glance at Rami as she nodded, fumbling
slightly for the door handle. Rami moved closer, and opened the
door for her silently. Without thanking him, Mia climbed into the
cab and gave the driver her address. She focused on staring
straight ahead, struggling to control her nausea.

TEN

After her one day of
excess, Mia returned immediately to her near-dry lifestyle; the
tequila hangover was more than enough to convince her that she
didn’t want to drink for a long time. The morning after, she saw
that she had three calls from Rami and two from her mother. She
called her mother back to let her know that she was okay, but
couldn’t bring herself to deal with either Rami’s accusations or
his apologies, whichever he wanted to exchange. She felt so
violated; the knowledge that he had had her followed for months,
and that he obviously didn’t see anything wrong with it, hurt her
more than she could have expected. Didn’t he trust her?
“You don’t exactly live in the best part of
town.”
The words played in her head over
and over as she nursed herself through the hangover, eating toast
and drinking tea.