Sheikh's Ex-Girlfriend (Khayyam Sheikh Series #1) (12 page)

She set the manuscript down and laughed until her sides hurt. It was a joyful moment, and she knew that she had to make two calls. The first was to the writer to inform them of the novel's acceptance.

The second was to Nasim, to tell him how she would love him every day of their lives together.

Chapter 9

 
The snow was falling quietly out the window, and Ella paused to watch it. It was the first snow of the year, and it was gently covering Brooklyn with an idyllic white shimmer.

“Do you think you're going to miss this?” Emmaline asked from behind her.

She turned back to her sister, carrying over another armful of clothes. She hadn't realized quite how much stuff she had until she came to New York to get it packed up.

“In some ways, I'm missing it already,” she admitted. “But if I'm honest with myself, I'm missing Khayyam more. I'm happy we got away, but there are things we should be taking care of at home.”

Emmaline smiled, even if there was a shade of darkness to it.

“You're already calling it home,” she said with a sigh. “Well, I suppose that Brooklyn's loss is Dalal's gain. You look so happy, honey.”

“I am, happier than I have ever been.”

Emmaline had been almost comically suspicious of Nasim after he and Ella had declared their engagement. Once Ella had come in to find her sister grilling her fiancé over the phone, demanding that he make his intentions clear.

Ella had been embarrassed beyond words, but Nasim had only smiled at her.

“It is good that you have someone who is looking out for you and who cares about you so well,” he said, taking her into his arms.

“She'll understand this more when she falls in love herself,” Ella said with a shrug. “She doesn't really get how crazy love can make you sometimes.”

Nasim had fallen silent, and when she asked him what he was thinking, he only shook his head.

“I think that when she does fall, your sister will fall hard. I hope that we can protect her as well as she has protected you.”

Shortly after the museum opening, they had announced their engagement, and Ella had made her plans to start moving permanently to Khayyam. She knew that she could afford to replace all of her things, but there was a deep drive within her to return to New York, to retrieve the items that could not be replaced, and to see her sister.

 “You look … well, you're glowing,” Emmaline said ruefully. “And I'm sorry if I was a jerk to Nasim when I called and he picked up that one time. I just want you to be okay.”

“I'm going to be better than okay,” Ella promised, pulling her sister into a hug.

It struck her how alike they were as they embraced. They could have been twins, but their lives were pulled in such different ways.

“Come with me to Khayyam,” she said impulsively. “You can have my old apartment, we're keeping it open for at least a little while. You may miss the snow, but I'll know that you'll come to love the storms. And the things that they do with fabrics out there, Emmaline! You really won't get bored. I have so much planning to do until the wedding in June, you could come help me.”

Emmaline smiled a little, pulling away.

“You're worried about me,” she said teasingly. “You're worried that I'm going to be lonely and lost without you.”

Ella tried to find a way to counter it, but Emmaline shrugged.

“I'm going to be lonely without you, but then I knew that. I have been. And I can't come with you right this moment because I have commissions to finish up, but after … well, how about we say we'll see?”

 Ella grinned, because it was more than she had been expecting from her willfully stubborn sister. She started to say so, but then the door opened.

 It was Nasim, looking shockingly handsome in his leather coat. His face was ruddy from the cold, and when she came to kiss him, she shivered at how chilly he was. He dropped a sweet kiss on her cheek, and then he started unloading the food he had picked up from the deli.

“I brought us plenty so that if things shut down tomorrow, we'll have a lot to choose from,” he said cheerfully. “And well, you really can't have too many donuts from Kitchners.”

Ella came to wrap her arms around him as Emmaline dug into the bags.

“We're going to be done in just a few days, I think,” she said softly. “After that, we'll be able to take off for home.”

He relaxed into her embrace, and she could feel the tension leaching from his body. She knew that he had work waiting for him in Khayyam, but he had insisted on coming with her. Since they made their announcement, they had not often been apart.

“Home … it sounds like music when you say it,” he murmured, kissing her ear.

 She wrapped her arms around him, catching a glimpse of the falling snow as she did so.

It didn't matter whether she was looking out at the snow or the sand, whether she was at an ancient stone fortress or an apartment in Brooklyn.

She had wandered the world for years and now she finally came to realize that home wasn't a place at all. It was a person.

“You're my home,” she whispered, and deep in her heart, she knew that it was true.

The End!

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Sheikh’s Arrangement

by Sophia Lynn

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Sheikh's Arrangement

By: Sophia Lynn

All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2015-2016 Sophia Lynn

CHAPTER ONE

Six Months Ago, Chicago

It was a cold and windy day in downtown Chicago, and Meghan Peluso was quickly realizing that she needed a change. It didn't make sense. She was doing everything right. She had gotten into one of the most prestigious law schools in the country, she was interning at a well-known firm in Chicago for the summer, and she was acing her classes.

So what was the matter?

She set the heavy box of files that she was carrying on the cold radiator, looking out the window. Chicago was in her blood—in many ways. Her parents had been born there. She and her brothers had grown up there. It was as much a part of her as her sleek black hair or her pale blue eyes.

Still though, it felt like there was something missing. There was something in her that craved something else.

For the first time in years, she found herself thinking of her grandmother. Angela Peluso had come to Chicago as a young girl from Palermo. She had been a feminist, was independent and wild, long before there were even words for such things. She’d been somewhat of an embarrassment to Meghan's straitlaced father, but until her death when Meghan was twelve, she had been one of the most influential people in Meghan's life.

“Remember this, my little love,” she had said more than once. “Go on as you mean to continue. If you don't mean to continue like this, you shouldn't go on like that.”

It had made sense at the time, but then again she was only twelve; an age where all of her problems could be resolved by going to her parents, a teacher, or by learning something new.

“Hey, Peluso, no time for daydreaming. Get back to work.”

Meghan jerked out of her reverie, looking up at the lean and sardonic face of Sam Armitage. He was a firm partner, and she blushed to be caught off guard by someone of his importance.

“Sorry, sir. I was just setting this down for a minute.”

He shook his head. “In my day, the interns were made of sterner stuff. Tell you what, darling, if it's too much trouble for you, why don't we get Paul or Michael to do it?”

She stiffened. “I'm pretty sure that I can handle this, sir,” she said frostily. She knew it was a dumb move, talking to a senior partner like this. Armitage only laughed, patting her shoulder a little more companionably than she liked, before moving on.

She was almost to the archives when Paul Gilhooly poked his head out into the corridor and waved her down. “Come over here, you've got to see this.”

Wary but curious, she walked over, setting the files down by the door.

Paul and Michael, the other two interns, were standing by the door as Niall Calderson, the head of the firm, talked expansively on the phone.

“What's going on?” she whispered to Paul.

“Calderson's shutting someone down,” Paul said with barely restrained glee. “He thought he'd give us a chance to see how the pros do it.”

And he called Michael and Paul in here but not me,
Meghan thought. She shook it off. She crossed her arms over her chest, and listened as Calderson grew louder.

“Well, that's funny, real funny, McPherson. Here's the thing, though, the rest of us don't live in fantasy land, all right? The rest of us have to live in the real world, and that's what you need to deal with, my friend.”

Calderson was a big man, more than six feet tall and all muscle. Right now, there was a predatory avarice to his face that made Meghan's stomach turn. She realized that the McPherson that was on the phone with him was likely Glen McPherson, the head of Homes for Holidays. Homes for Holidays bought houses, fixed them, and put local families in need into them. They had been riding a rough edge for the past year or so.

“Right, right … well, let's put it this way, McPherson. There's no goddamn reason in the world that those properties should be turned over to housing, right? Technically, they were zoned for that when you got them, but guess what? Things change. Times change, and if you don't keep up, well, there's really not much I can do for you, is there?”

This was followed with a laugh that made Meghan clench her fists.

 “Oh, please. If you think that you, and any lawyer that you can hire, are willing to go against me, you're pissing up a rope and you know it. They couldn't even get the right forms together to fix your zoning problem …”

Calderson chuckled, a self-satisfied sound.

“Well, maybe we did have something to do with it. Totally legal, of course. Best interests of the developers. Right. Right. Well, you believe that if you want to. And hey, next time we see each other, drinks are on me, all right?”

He ended the call with a flourish, turning to Michael and Paul. He seemed a little startled to see Meghan standing there, but he ignored her in favor of gesturing to her fellow interns.

“And that, boys, is how it's done. Remind them where they belong, and never let them forget it.”

Paul smiled politely, but Michael grinned widely, nodding like a marionette.

“Damn straight,” he said.

The moment he said that, it was as if the skies opened up for Meghan.

Go on as you mean to continue,
she thought.

She could see what would happen if she continued like this. She would be in for a long career of men just like Michael and Calderson. If she was lucky, she would end up with a few like Paul, who didn't approve, but probably wouldn't speak out against anything either. She would grit her teeth, try to do the good that she could do, and more often than not find herself balked at by people like Calderson.

Or even worse, she would find herself turning into someone like him.

“I'm getting out of here,” she said suddenly, her voice bright and bladelike in the stuffy room.

The minute she said the words, she could feel an enormous weight roll off her shoulders. She started to smile for what felt like the first time in years. When she realized that her smile was only making Michael and Paul nervous, she smiled even wider.

Calderson scowled at her. “Now what do you think you're doing, missy?” he growled. “You beat out more than two hundred applicants to be standing right where you are right now. You're going to throw away the opportunity that we've given you?”

There was a diplomatic way to handle this. She knew there was. She could do it, falling over herself with gratitude for being allowed to work for free. She could avoid burning bridges, and perhaps if this was only just a moment of temporary insanity, she’d still be able to return.

“I'm going to do just that,” she said sweetly, “because the opportunity you are offering is crap, and I don't want to say thank you for it because I'm pretty sure that would be the first step in turning into someone like you.”

She turned to Michael and Paul, who were staring at her dumbstruck. “I'm getting out while I still can,” she told them. “I'd suggest that you do the same if you want to do any good in this world at all.”

She spun on her heel, ignoring the files she had carried. She gained speed as she hit the doors, and by the time she made it to her car, she was grinning fiercely. It felt as if she was lit from within with a kind of righteous glow.

She climbed into her car, thinking absently about how much she hated Chicago in the winter, how she was ready for a change.

“I'm going to do some good in this world,” she whispered, and somewhere, she could feel her grandmother nodding in approval.