“You’re only making your argument even more inadmissible, Shaheen. Even if I wanted this, and I consider almost anything admissible in achieving my objectives, I would draw the line at exploiting the mousy, unworldly spinster you’re painting her to be.”
“Who says there’d be any exploitation? You might be a pain in the neck that rivals even Amjad sometimes but you’re one of the most coveted eligible bachelors in the world. Kanza would probably jump at the opportunity to be your wife.”
Maybe. Probably. Still...
“No, Shaheen. And that’s final.”
The forcefulness he’d injected into his voice seemed to finally get to Shaheen, who looked at him with that drop-it-now-to-attack-another-day expression that he knew all too well.
Aram clamped his friend’s arm, dragging him to the door. “Now go home, Shaheen. Kiss Johara and Gharam for me.”
Shaheen still resisted being shoved out. “Just assess the situation like you do any other business proposition before you make a decision either way.”
Aram groaned. Shaheen was one dogged son of a king. “I’ve already made a decision, Shaheen, so give it a rest.”
Before he finally walked away, Shaheen gave him that unfazed smile of his that eloquently said he wouldn’t.
Resigned that he hadn’t heard the last of this, Aram closed the door after him with a decisive click.
The moment he did, his shoulders slumped as his feet dragged to the couch. Throwing himself down on it, he decided to spend yet another night there. No need for him to go “home.” Since he didn’t have one anyway.
But as he stretched out and closed his eyes, his meeting with Shaheen revolved in his mind in a nonstop loop.
He might have sent Shaheen on his way with an adamant refusal, but it wasn’t that easy to suppress his own temptation.
Shaheen’s previous persuasions hadn’t even given him pause. After all, there had been nothing for him to do in Zohayd except be with his family, who had their priorities—of which he wasn’t one. But now that Shaheen was dangling that job offer in front of him, he could actually visualize a real future there.
He’d given Zohayd’s economy constant thought when he’d lived there, had studied it and planned to make it his life’s work. Now, as if Shaheen had been privy to all that, he was offering him the very position where he could utilize all his talents and expertise and put his plans into action.
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
