Sheikh Without a Heart

“I’m still having trouble with Spanish,” she said, “which is pretty sad, considering that I took a year of it in high school. Of course that was a long time back.”

“I’ll bet it was,” Karim said as seriously as possible. “What was it? Twenty years ago? Twenty-five?”

Rachel balled her fist and punched him lightly in the belly.

“Oof! Okay, not twenty-five.”

“I was in high school seven years ago, Sir Sheikh,” she said, trying to sound indignant.

“Sir Sheikh, huh?” He smiled, brushed a strand of glossy hair back from her cheek. “I’ll bet you were an honors student.”

A cloud seemed to darken her eyes.

“I wasn’t.”

“Too busy being the homecoming queen to study?”

She stared at him for what seemed a long time. Then she rolled away, sat up, grabbed the comforter and wrapped it around herself like an oversized cloak.

“Rachel.” Karim moved fast, caught her hand before she could get to her feet. “Sweetheart, what did I say?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t do this. If I said something that hurt you, tell me.”

The tension in her damned near radiated through his hand.

“Remember what I told you? That there are lots of things you don’t know about me? Well, here’s one of them. I didn’t graduate from high school. I finally qualified for an equivalency diploma a couple of years ago and that’s how come I’m still struggling with Spanish—because I only began taking it again in night classes at college. So, no, I don’t speak six languages, and, no, I don’t have a university degree, and, no—”

Karim swung her toward him and stopped the flow of angry, pained words with a kiss.

“I couldn’t stay in school,” Rachel said in a low voice when he lifted his lips from hers. “I had to take care of my sister and me.”

“Your parents?” Karim said, trying to sound calm.

She shook her head. “My father died when Suki and I were little. My mother—my mother liked to have fun. She went away one day and we never saw her again.”

“You see?” he said, trying to conceal the rage he felt at a woman he had never laid eyes on. “We have something in common. My mother left Rami and me, too.”

“It’s hard—it’s hard to know how a mother could—could—”

Karim cursed, pulled her into his lap and kissed her.

“Habibi,” he whispered. “Habibi. Ana behibek—”

“What does that mean?”

He swallowed hard.