Then came that one snag in what could have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The get-married-to-become-Zohaydan one.
But…should it be a snag? Maybe convenience was the one way he could get married. And since he didn’t want to get married for real, perhaps Shaheen’s candidate was exactly what he needed.
Her family was royal but not too high up on the tree of royalty as to be too lofty, and their fortune was nowhere near his billionaire status. Maybe as Shaheen had suggested, she’d give him the status he needed, luxuriate in the boost in wealth he’d provide and stay out of his hair.
He found himself standing before the wall-to-wall mirror in the bathroom. He didn’t know how he’d gotten there. Meeting his own eyes jogged him out of the preposterous trajectory of his thoughts.
He winced at himself. Shaheen had played him but good. He’d actually made him consider the impossible.
And it was impossible. Being in Zohayd, the only place that had been home to him, being with his family, being Zohayd’s minister of economy were nice fantasies.
And they would remain just that.
*
Miraculously, Shaheen hadn’t pursued the subject further.
Wonders would never cease, it seemed.
The only thing he’d brought up in the past two weeks had been an invitation to a party he and Johara were holding in their New York penthouse tonight. An invitation he’d declined.
He was driving to the hotel where he “lived,” musing over Shaheen dropping the subject, wrestling with this ridiculously perverse sense of disappointment, when his phone rang. Johara.
He pressed the Bluetooth button and her voice poured its warmth over the crystal-clear connection.
“Aram, please tell me you’re not working or sleeping.”
He barely caught back a groan. This must be about the party, and he’d hate refusing her to her ears. It was an actual physical pain being unable to give Johara whatever she wanted. Since the moment she’d been born, he’d been a khaatem f’esba’ha, or “a ring on her finger,” as they said in Zohayd. He was lucky that she was part angel or she would have used him as her rattle toy through life.
He prayed she wouldn’t exercise her power over him, make it impossible for him to turn down the invitation again. He was at an all-time low, wasn’t in any condition to be exposed to her and Shaheen’s happiness.
He imbued his voice with the smile that only Johara could generate inside him no matter what. “I’m driving back to the hotel, sweetheart. Are you almost ready for your party?”
“Oh, I am, but…are you already there? If you are, don’t bother. I’ll think of something else.”
He frowned. “What is this all about, Johara?”
Sounding apologetic, she sighed. “There’s a very important file that one of my guests gave me to read, and we’d planned to discuss it at the party. Unfortunately, I forgot it
back in my office at Shaheen’s building, and I can’t leave now. So I was wondering if you could go get the file and bring it here to me?” She hesitated. “I’m sorry to take you out of your way and I promise not to try to persuade you to stay at the party, but I can’t trust anyone else with the pass codes to my filing cabinets.”
“You know you can ask me anything at all, anytime.”
“Anything but come to the party, huh?” He started to recite the rehearsed excuse he’d given Shaheen, and she interjected, “But Shaheen told me you did look like you needed an early night, so I totally understand. And it’s not as if I could have enjoyed your company anyway, since we’ve invited a few dozen people and I’ll be flitting all over playing hostess.”
He let out a sigh of relief for her letting him off the hook, looking forward to seeing them yet having the excuse to keep the visit to the brevity he could withstand tonight.
“Tell me what to look for.”
*
Twenty minutes later, Aram was striding across the top floor of Shaheen’s skyscraper.
As he entered Johara’s company headquarters, he frowned. The door to her assistants’ office, which led to hers, was open. Weird.
Deciding that it must have been a rare oversight in their haste to attend Johara and Shaheen’s soiree, he walked in and found the door to his sister’s private office also ajar. Before he could process this new information, a slam reverberated through him.