Marrying the Sheikh

Her daughter was independent. She was smart, self-sufficient, and accomplished. She knew she had to deal with this and she would figure out how. Maggie knew that Ella had run away to hide from her problems, but now she had to face them.

“What are you going to do?” she asked gently, looking out the window, allowing Ella the dignity of her tears.

Ella let out a long, scratchy breath. “I have to go back,” she said in a whisper.

Maggie nodded and reached over and grabbed her daughter’s hand, squeezing it as she spoke. “Yes, you do.” She smiled slightly, leaned in and kissed her daughter’s wet cheek.

Ella pressed her lips together as she felt her mother’s skin on hers. She smiled and squeezed her mother’s hand back and then let it go. Maggie turned and left the room without another word. For the next hour, Ella sat quietly, thinking about her future, her past and what lay ahead for her, back in New York.

EIGHTEEN

Ella smiled broadly when Princess jumped into her arms, the moment she arrived home. Hannah had stopped by earlier that morning and dropped the cat off to save Ella making the trip to her place.

“Hello, Princess,” Ella said, glad to see that someone had missed her. “Yes, I missed you, too.” She pet the cat furiously and rubbed noses with her. Princess jumped down a moment later and ran to her favorite spot to bask in the sun under the wall of windows.

“Tough life,” Ella said sarcastically. She rolled her luggage into her bedroom and returned carrying her laptop. She set it on her desk, plugged it in and turned it on. While she was waiting for it to start up, she went to the kitchen and fixed a plate of fruit salad that she had brought back from the farmer’s market in Rhode Island.

“Mmm,” she said, popping a forkful of juicy strawberries and pineapple into her mouth. The laptop whizzed as it started up and Ella munched on the ripe fruit as her programs opened. First her email popped up, followed by her spreadsheet with all of the vendors' and venues' names and addresses. Finally, her electronic calendar opened. Ella preferred using her old-fashioned paper planner, but she was trying to convert everything over to her electronic calendar so that she could operate from her smart phone more efficiently.

“Well, what have we got here…” she said slowly as she chewed on a large piece of papaya. Several small pop-up boxes appeared on her computer screen, each reminding her of upcoming appointments. She had one for the final fitting of Corinne’s bridesmaids’ dresses. There was another to confirm the music selection for the wedding, an appointment to confirm Hannah’s cake, and a reminder for an upcoming vet appointment for Princess. Ella looked over at her cat and frowned.

“You’re not gonna like that one,” she said, knowing that Princess would be getting shots.

She cleared all of the boxes one-by-one, stopping when she got to the last one. It was a reminder for an appointment with Nadia and Karim: a final confirmation of their menu choices, a week before their wedding.

Ella’s hand froze on the mouse, the cursor hovering above the X. She felt her breath heavy in her throat. She had forgotten to remove all of their wedding items from her calendar and now here it was, reminding her of the inevitable. She closed her eyes and clicked the box, making it disappear from her screen.

Without hesitating, Ella opened her email and began filling her electronic calendar with appointments for potential baby shower clients. She scoured her old client list and scribbled down some ideas for a host of new marketing projects so that she could drum up new business fast. It wasn’t that Ella needed the money; she needed the distraction.

An hour or so later, Ella sat back and looked at her computer. She had successfully managed to completely fill her calendar with projects and appointments, focusing specifically on two Saturdays away—the day of Karim and Nadia’s wedding. She made sure she wouldn't have a moment to spare that day, not a moment to think about what would be going on in the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel.

When she was satisfied that she would be completely distracted on that day, she sat back and read through her emails. She felt a dull pang of sadness when she realized that she hadn’t received any emails from Karim or any vendors related to his wedding. Apparently, the new wedding planner had already gotten all of the correspondence switched over. That was good as it meant that the new planner was on top of things, but it still felt like a small slap in the face to Ella.

She exhaled and sat back, letting her eyes wander to the expansive view from the windows. She walked over to them and cracked the top half open, letting in a nice warm breeze and the sounds of the city below. Ella looked down at Princess and shook her head, wishing she too could be back in a state of pure laziness, as she had been in Rhode Island. But the paper had snapped her out of that. In fact, Ella realized that even though she had been gone for nearly two weeks, it felt as if she had never left.