Sold To The Sheikh: His Indecent Proposal (An Interracial Sheikh Romance Novel) (5 page)

“English Literature and
Composition, with a minor in Sociology,” she replied.

“So basically, you knew
you wanted to be a teacher from the beginning?” Rami asked. Mia
shrugged.

“More or less.” Mia
considered. “My dad always used to—well, he encouraged me to write,
and to read, and told me that no matter what, if I knew how to
communicate effectively, I could accomplish anything. So I thought
it would be good to give other kids that message.”

“My parents wanted me to
go into finance because they wanted me to be an asset to the family
business,” Rami told her. Something came over his face, an
expression that Mia couldn’t quite read, but it was gone so quickly
she didn’t have time to try and interpret it. “Mostly I just
partied and hung out with friends.” Mia tried again not to
frown.

It finally occurred to her
who Rami reminded her of, and why her feelings towards him were so
conflicted: he was exactly like the guys who had belonged to the
most exclusive frats at college; boys who were heirs to family
fortunes, living on trust funds; guys who never seemed to have a
care in the world. Rami started into stories of his college years
and Mia forced herself to listen, not wanting to be rude to the man
who had paid to fix her car and asked her out on a date—even if she
hadn’t exactly wanted to accept the invitation. “Oh man, you should
have seem my mom’s face when I crashed the Lexus. She wanted me to
go without a car for a month!” Rami shook his head, laughing to
himself. “But my dad told her that it wasn’t right for me to be
seen walking around or taking the bus, it would bring the family’s
reputation down and people would think we were poor.”

Mia drained her latte as
quickly as she could without appearing to gulp at it, feeling like
she needed an excuse to leave as soon as possible.
Why in the world does he think all this is going
to impress me? Is he even trying to impress me, or does he just do
this with everyone?
Mia smiled and nodded
at stories about the thousand-dollar bar bill that Rami had managed
to accrue on his twenty-first birthday, the apartment his parents
had bought and furnished for him when he graduated, the details of
a life so opulent she couldn’t begin to imagine living
it.

But as their conversation
went on, Mia was surprised to find Rami’s stories included some
details she wouldn’t have expected—not from the man who’d called
her a stupid car-wrecking bitch, nor from the bragging man-child
she’d sat down for coffee with. “Spring break of final year, I went
on a trip with Habitat for Humanity,” he said, when she had tried
to open the topic of vacations, hoping that he would tell her
something about his family rather than what he spent his money on.
“I flew a bunch of the members of my frat down with me, and we
spent a week seeing which of us could work on the most
houses.”

“That’s a good kind of
competition to have,” Mia said with a grin.

“Well, we pretty much
competed over everything—you know how guys can be, when they’re in
a group together.” Mia nodded; she knew all too well.

“How many did you rack
up?” She asked, raising one eyebrow slightly.

“Eight! More than one a
day. I came in second to my friend Lachlan, but I got the
second-place prize we agreed on.”

“And what was the prize?”
Mia asked.

Rami grinned wryly. “It
was a pair of those water wings—you know, like they give to kids
when they’re learning to swim?” Mia laughed out loud.

“OK… What was first
prize?”

“A spice rack.” Mia shook
her head at the silliness of the prizes.

“The idea was that we were
competing for the sake of it. The prizes were just a formality.”
Mia thought that with the kind of money the boys in Rami’s frat had
at their disposal, it was all well and good for them to compete
just for the sake of it; they needed something to keep things
interesting.

“That’s great,” she said,
laughing again. She had finished her latte, but in spite of her
earlier misgivings, she suddenly didn’t want to leave. “That’s
really…” she chuckled.

“God I just realized I’ve
been telling you all about me,” Rami said, bringing a hand to his
forehead. “I haven’t asked a thing about you, sorry. Please tell me
about yourself, Mia.” Mia shrugged, startled by the change in
tactics.

“There’s not all that much
to tell,” she began, fumbling in her mind for something that might
be even a little relatable to the wealthy, somewhat spoiled man
sitting across from her. “I’ve been a teacher for three years,
working at the public school. Honestly, I don’t really have a
life!” Mia laughed nervously. “I don’t know if you’re aware how
much time teachers end up working outside of school
hours…”

“Oh, it’s a ton, I know,”
Rami said, nodding. “I had to get tutoring from one of my teachers
when I was in high school, in order to get the grades I needed. The
guy was just constantly busy.” Rami reached across the table and
gave Mia’s hand a little squeeze. “I’m grateful that you took some
time to sit and talk with me.”

“Well, between that and my
mother…” Mia started to say, and then paused.

“Demanding mother? Mine
is, too.”

Mia shook her head. “No,
she’s very ill,” she said quietly. “My father passed away when I
was a teenager, and we’ve no other family around who can help her
out. One of the neighbors helps her get to doctors’ appointments
during the week, but she’s got a chronic illness which is really
taking its toll on her.” Rami frowned, looking
sympathetic.

“That must be really
difficult for you, being torn in two different directions by your
career and your mother?”

“It is and it isn’t,” Mia
said, taking a breath to push down the stress that just remembering
her mother’s condition stirred inside of her. “She—I feel like I
really owe her. My dad, too. I was adopted when I was little, and I
kind of—I almost feel like I owe them more than I could ever owe my
biological parents, because they chose to take me in.”

“You’re a good daughter,”
Rami said with a comforting smile. “I’m not such a good son.” A
troubled look flicked over his face, before disappearing in an
instant. “My mom is fond of telling me what a disappointment I
am.”

“She has high expectations
for you, then. That’s not—I mean, it could be worse.”

Rami nodded quickly. “She
has high expectations of me. And my father… his idea of showing
love is to buy me a car.” Rami shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve heard
either of them say ‘I love you’ more than a handful of times in my
life. Not to me, at least; maybe they tell each other all the
time....” For a moment, Mia felt almost pity for the wealthy man;
even if she had been struggling ever since her father had died, she
had at least known that both of her parents loved her
dearly.

“Do you think you’ll ever
have kids?” Mia wasn’t sure why the question occurred to
her.

“I’ve thought about it,”
Rami said. “I would want to give a child everything I never had—the
love, the attention, you know?” Mia nodded.

“It’s sort of funny,” she
said, glancing around the room. “We sort of grew up with opposite
problems. You grew up with more money than anyone could ever use,
but not a lot of actual love, and I grew up with all the love I
could stand, but almost no money.”

Rami grinned. “So you’d
want to make sure your child could have all the things they ever
wanted—the toys, the private school, all that.”

Mia shrugged. “It doesn’t
seem to have done you that much harm,” she admitted.

“It makes it harder to
know how to feel about people,” Rami said slowly. “I want to find
someone to spend the rest of my life with—but I don’t really know
how to read people. So many of my friends are just interested in
money, but I want someone who would stay with me even if something
happened and I was broke next week, you know?” Mia considered the
idea before nodding.

“Yeah, I guess it could be
kind of hard to live in that world,” she agreed. Her gaze fell on
an antique clock mounted on the wall and she realized that they had
been talking for far longer than she’d expected. “Oh—oh God, I’m so
sorry, but if I don’t go now, all of my frozen stuff is going to go
bad,” she smiled apologetically. “I wish I could stay a little
while longer, but that’d be half my money down the
drain.”

“No, I understand,” Rami
said, getting to his feet. “I hope you’ll have an hour or two to
spare sometime soon, so we can talk again.” Mia took the hand he
offered; but instead of shaking it, he pulled her closer to him and
she smelled the expensive cologne clinging to his skin as he kissed
her first on one cheek, then the other.

“I hope so too,” Mia said,
though she wasn’t sure of how she felt about him, or when she would
ever have any free time to spend on a date again. She made sure
both her phone and wallet were in her purse before hurrying out of
the café and to her car. She barely even thought about their
conversation as her mind filled with all of the things she still
had to do that evening.

FOUR

Mia managed to get her
groceries home before the frozen goods had melted. While the
much-anticipated carton of ice cream was a little soft on the
sides, she thought it would be okay after a few hours in the
freezer.

She went about her chores,
loading the washer with the clothes she would need for the work
week and cleaning up the dishes from her breakfast that morning.
She wasn’t in the mood to face more chores, but getting them
finished would give her at least a little peace of mind. As she
wandered around her house, going from task to task, she began,
almost involuntarily, to think about Rami.

It was bizarre that someone
like him, with all the money anyone could ever dream of, would ask
someone like her—a broke, struggling English teacher—out for
coffee; more so that he wanted to see her again sometime.
Rami could ask out literally any woman he wanted
and probably get a ‘yes’,
Mia thought, as
she finally sat down to look over the pile of papers she had still
to grade. “He was just being nice. He probably felt guilty for
going off on me, or whatever.” That made more sense. Figuring that
she would probably never hear from Rami again, Mia went about the
rest of her afternoon focused on her regular routine.

She was beginning to
consider what to make for dinner when she heard her phone ringing.
Assuming that it must be her mother, Mia dashed through the living
room and into her bedroom where her phone was charging. “Shit,
shit, shit,” she muttered as it rang a fifth time before she got to
it. “Please don’t let it be a heart thing. Or a lung thing.” When
she picked up the phone, however, the screen lit up with Rami’s
phone number. What could he want to call her about so soon after
their semi-date? Mia considered letting it roll over to voice mail,
then decided against it; maybe she had left something behind at the
café—her ID for school, maybe. “Hello?” Mia sank down onto her bed,
attempting to cover the breathlessness in her voice.

“Mia! I’m glad you picked
up.”

“Sorry,” she said, with a
flash of guilt. “I was on the other side of the house, my phone was
charging in my room.”

“It’s all good,” Rami
said. For some reason she couldn’t quite understand, Mia pictured
the well-dressed man leaning back in a chair somewhere, lounging,
completely at ease. She shook her head, clearing the mental image
away. “I actually wanted to ask you for a favor.”

“A favor?” Mia felt
irritated. Of course, the only reason Rami had asked her out for
coffee, or paid any attention to her at all, was because he had a
favor in mind.

“Yeah, I know—I probably
should have mentioned it back at the café, but it didn’t really
cross my mind until about an hour ago. Listen, promise me you won’t
just hang up when you hear what I have to say.” Mia pressed her
lips together, glancing at her phone in instinctive
distrust.

“I’m listening,” she said
finally, sinking back onto her bed.

“It’s kind of a weird
favor, so please—just hear me out, okay?”

“I will hear you out,” Mia
replied. She felt a low stirring of dread at what Rami might be
about to ask her. She did owe him, in a certain respect; he had
paid for her car repairs—and for more than the damage he had
actually done—out of his own pocket.
But
the accident was his fault. If he hadn’t paid out of pocket he
would have had to go through insurance. That wasn’t a favor—it was
for his convenience.

“Okay,” Rami said, and for
the first time since she’d met him, he actually sounded a little
uncertain. “I want you to be the mother of my child.”