Sold To The Sheikh: His Indecent Proposal (An Interracial Sheikh Romance Novel) (3 page)

“I will remember! Have a
good night, Rami—and thank you again.” Mia tapped the ‘end call’
icon on her screen before the man could press his suit any further.
She set the phone down and sighed, shaking her head in
amazement.
Did he really just ask me out
on a date?
It had been so long since Mia
had considered going on a date—so long, in fact, since anyone had
asked her out on one—that the very possibility left her
bemused.

Mia gathered up the rest
of her things, smiling bashfully at the fact that Rami had been so
intent on taking her out for coffee. Thinking about the man, she
couldn’t deny that he was attractive; he was taller than her by a
good couple of inches, which was rare enough, and even without the
tailored suit, he had had what she sensed would probably be a nice
body under the clothes, lean and slightly muscled. His skin had
been flawless, his hair healthy and full, his face downright
gorgeous.

But even if he hadn’t made
a disastrous first impression on her by screaming at her, calling
her a bitch and insulting her intelligence, Mia couldn’t imagine
adding dating to her already-full schedule. One of her coworkers,
an art teacher, had asked her out for coffee several weeks before
and Mia had been forced to turn him down; she spent basically all
her free time with her mother, who needed so much help around the
house, in addition to being unable to drive herself to all of her
appointments with the various doctors she saw.

Mia had given up on the
idea of seeing anyone months—maybe even years—before. When she’d
been in college, she had managed to find time to date occasionally,
but as her mother’s condition had worsened, she had had to spend
more and more time taking care of her. Eventually the invitations
had slowed down, and she had ceased to look for them.

Her drive home was less
eventful than the previous day’s, and Mia walked through her door
relieved that the damage to her car hadn’t been worse. “At least,”
she said to herself, locking the door behind her and walking the
few steps to the beat-up couch she considered almost as an old
friend, “It can’t take them more than a few hours to get it done.”
She took out her phone and called the number Rami had given her.
After two rings, someone picked up.

“A-A Auto-Body, Lenny
speaking.”

“Hi, Lenny,” Mia said,
clearing her throat as quietly as possible. “I think—I hope—someone
I know called you earlier to make arrangements for a
repair.”

“Who is this?” Mia
imagined Lenny in her head; the voice suggested a middle-aged man,
and Mia felt oddly at ease. She thought he might look a lot like
her dad had, years before he’d passed.

“My name is Mia Campbell,”
she said, feeling her heart beat a little faster. If Rami had been
playing her… “I was—ah—involved in a collision with a man by the
name of Rami al-Hassan yesterday…” She wasn’t quite sure how to
phrase her question so as to find out what she wanted to know—had
Rami actually made arrangements to pay for her repairs, or had he
merely given her the contact information? If he hadn’t made
arrangements, she was going to contact her insurance and try and
get them to cover the repair, whether Rami wanted her to or
not.

“Ahh, yeah, Rami called me
earlier today. Mentioned he’d been in another crash.” The man on
the other end of the line laughed. “He told me to take care of
everything for you—he already has payment info on file. Can I ask
you for the year, make, and model? I want to order any parts I
might need before I leave for the day.” Mia sighed with relief;
Rami hadn’t been playing her for a fool, and had actually made the
arrangements.

“Uh, sure,” Mia said,
trying to recall the details in question.
“It’s—ah—a ’99 Volvo sedan.
I
think it’s an S70?”

“That sounds about right,”
Lenny said. “Color?”

“Dark green…hunter green,
I think you’d call it.” On the other end of the line, Mia heard
papers rustling, and Lenny muttering notes to himself.

“You can go ahead and
bring it in first thing tomorrow morning,” he said. “It’s still
drivable, right?”

“Oh—yeah, I don’t think
anything under the hood is messed up, just the back end.” She
swallowed. “And you’re sure that Rami is set to pay for this,
right?”

“Absolutely,” Lenny said,
and Mia heard the reassurance in the older man’s voice. “Rami gets
into scrapes like this from time to time. I’ve told him he should
trade in that Tesla thing for something more practical—or at least
something with front-end collision control! But you know how some
guys are.”

Mia chuckled. “Yeah,” she
said. “I know. So what time do you open tomorrow
morning?”

“Since it’s a weekend,
we’ll be open from nine,” Lenny said. “I’ve got a spot in reserve
for you, so if you can’t make it in right then, you’ve still got
priority. Rami insisted. I can’t make any guarantees, of course,
but based on what he said about the damage, I should be able to get
it done in a few hours.”

“Thank you,” Mia said,
smiling to herself. “I’ll get it there right when you open. I don’t
want to put you out.”

“No trouble there,” Lenny
said. Mia heard the squeak of a desk chair tilting back. “If you
need someone to pick you up…”

“I think I should be
fine,” Mia said, waving her hand to brush the idea aside, even
though she knew Lenny couldn’t see her. “Thank you so much for
being so accommodating.”

Lenny laughed again, a
rich, hearty chuckle. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll expect you at
nine. If you’ll excuse me, I should get these parts ordered for you
before I leave the shop.”

“Thank you again,” Mia
said. “I hope you have a great night!” She ended the call feeling
much more comfortable than she had when she started it. Mia plugged
her phone into its charger and kicked off her shoes, striding
through the small living room of her little house and into her
bedroom. She flipped the light switch on and yawned, stretching and
twisting against the soreness in her body, a mixture of the aches
from the accident the night before and the stress of standing up
and walking around in circles for most of the day.

She decided to make good
on what she had said to Rami—a nice, long bath would do her a lot
of good. She stripped her clothes off quickly, tossing them into
the hamper in front of her closet on the way to the bathroom. She
turned on the water and waited a moment or two for it to heat up
before she pushed the plug into the drain and let the tub begin to
fill. One of the few luxuries she allowed herself was a small
collection of bath salts and bubbles: it was a cheap way to give
herself something nice, and Mia had justified the occasional three
or five dollars based on the fact that she was buying a luxury at
less than a dollar per use. She picked a jar of pink salts perfumed
with sandalwood and neroli and poured about half a cup of the
potent, fragrant granules into the hot water.

As she waited for the bath
to fill, Mia thought about the strange man who’d collided with her
the evening before. Rami al-Hassan was handsome, there was no doubt
about it; and obviously he was wealthy. But he seemed—at least on
her first impression—like kind of a spoiled brat. He had been more
concerned with the damage to his expensive car than he was with the
fact that he had slammed into someone else. “Did he say it was a
Tesla?” Mia shook her head in wonder; she knew in passing that that
particular model of car started out at around $100,000—and with
customizations was often much, much more. Her entire salary for
three or more years might not be enough to buy one. And the
mechanic had mentioned that Rami had gotten into more than one
accident in the past.
Not that that’s
surprising,
Mia thought, considering he
had slammed into her at a stop sign and then had the audacity to
yell at her for, of all things, having stopped.

Mia turned off the faucet
and sank down into the water, breathing in the fragrant steam and
letting the tension flow out of her muscles. For a few moments, at
least, she would avoid thinking about the stresses she had to deal
with: her mother’s poor health and mounting bills; her unruly,
unwilling students; the enormous student loans she still had to
repay. She would float in the water and think about nothing at all.
Mia yawned again and told herself firmly that she was
not
going to let herself
fall asleep in the hot, soft-feeling water.

Despite her resolution, Mia
was so exhausted that within fifteen minutes, she had drifted out
of her lazy doze and into actual sleep, the lip of the tub holding
her head up and out of the water. She was never sure how long she
slept, but when she awoke with a jolt—coming out of a dream that
ended with a replay of the accident she’d had the day before—the
water was cold around her, and her stomach was growling with
hunger. She climbed out and wrapped a robe around herself, checking
her phone to see that her mother had called while she’d been
napping. She told herself that, since the message didn’t sound like
an emergency, she would have dinner before returning her mother’s
call. Mia rummaged in her fridge, freezer, and cabinets until she
was able to put together a reasonable meal of rice, peas and a
fried egg, liberally seasoned with hot sauce. She yawned, still
tired in spite of her nap, and devoured her somewhat bland dinner,
psyching herself up to tackle all of the things she needed to do
over the weekend.
First things first: call
Mom and tell her about the car. Maybe she’ll be well enough to come
and get you at the shop.

THREE

Lenny was true to his
word. Sitting in the waiting area, Mia barely had time to get
through the stack of papers she had brought with her to grade when
the shop owner came to let her know the repairs were almost
finished. “It wasn’t as bad as Rami had me believe,” Lenny told her
with a little shrug. “Though I did notice your brakes are pretty
worn in the back.” Mia blushed, too embarrassed—and too proud—to
say that she hadn’t been able to afford to get them
fixed.

“Yeah… I was planning on
getting those done next,” she said, fumbling with her papers and
avoiding Lenny’s gaze.

“I gave Rami a call and
mentioned it to him—said it probably happened in the collision. He
said he’d be happy to pay for them as well, so I’ve got one of my
guys out picking up a new set of brake pads for you.” Mia nearly
dropped the essays in her hands and stared at the older man in
outright astonishment.

“That’s—are you sure he
won’t be mad? Won’t he find out? Would he—would he sue you, or try
and come after me?” Lenny shook his head.

“Nah, he was only too
happy to take care of it,” Lenny said, brushing aside Mia’s concern
with a wave of his hands. “He won’t even question whether it’s
possible for brakes to be damaged like that, or I wouldn’t have
done it.” Lenny grinned. “I just didn’t like the idea of you
driving on those brakes—it’s asking for another
accident.”

“I really appreciate it,”
Mia said. “I was starting to worry. I knew they needed fixing,
but…”

“But you’re a teacher and
money’s tight.” Mia wondered how Lenny knew, and before she could
ask he gestured at the schoolwork she had scattered around her, all
of it in various stages of being graded. “It was my pleasure, my
dear. Rami’s got more money than sense—it might as well do someone
other than him some good.” Lenny left her after that, pausing only
to tell her that her car would be completely finished within the
hour.

Mia went to her mother’s
directly afterwards. She didn’t tell her mother about the accident;
she didn’t want to worry Amie, and with the repairs done with no
trouble to Mia, there was no need to mention it at all. The new
brakes were wonderful, though it took Mia the rest of her
afternoon’s errands to get used to them—if she tapped the brake the
way she was used to doing, the car jerked to a stop, slamming her
back against the seat with a jolt.

As grateful as she was
that Rami had taken care of her car, the incident faded to the back
of Mia’s mind as she spent the rest of the weekend helping her
mother clean up the house, taking her to the grocery store, and
making phone calls to confirm the next week’s appointments. During
the week, one of the neighbors, Karen, drove her mom to most of the
doctors’ offices, since it was next to impossible for Mia to get
time off, but on weekends, Mia took over.

As the days passed, Mia
found herself once more embroiled in responsibilities: trying to
keep her students motivated, going to meetings she didn’t truly
have time for, keeping in daily contact with her mother to make
sure she was okay and hearing about the different treatments and
updates on Amie’s condition.

Every so often, as the days
since the incident became a week, and one week became two, Mia
would stop short in the middle of something with the feeling like
she had forgotten something. But each time she wracked her tired
brain to try and remember what it could possibly be, she couldn’t
think of it. By the fourth or fifth time, Mia decided that whatever
it was, it couldn’t be that important—or she would have remembered
it.
Of course I’ll probably find out in a
week or two that it’s some bill, or some prescription I need to
refill for Mom, and everything will go to crap.