Rebecca felt a smile spread across her face. Given everything she had read in the reports, she was surprised at how quickly Zaid was to jump into action. She just hoped that his enthusiasm to make things right wouldn’t be short-lived.
“But will you keep this concern up after the tour goes home or once more money has been invested in the growth of Sharjah?”
Turning to glare at her, “Why would you even ask me something like that? You have gotten my attention, which was what you wanted and now I intend to do something about…all this,” he finished as he gestured to the cracked and crumbling buildings.
Hearing a small motor, they both watched what might have once been a motorcycle cruise slowly past them. The rider had two small children, one in front and the other in back, holding tightly to him as he rode past.
Shaking his head, he watched them go by. “Something is very wrong here and I intend to find out what happened.”
His deep, commanding voice stirred the desire she’d tried to ignore all day. She wanted to distance herself from him on a personal level and maintain professionalism around him, but it was hard to do when she started seeing how much he truly cared as opposed to the clueless Sheikh who hid inside the palace and pretended these problems didn’t exist.
10
Upon returning to the palace, Zaid escorted Rebecca to his private quarters, again, while he made several phone calls to start an investigative probe into the problems in Rajak and Timina. He wanted to know where the money was going, where the jobs were, and just how it was that so many problems had been overlooked for so long. He handed the job over to the same contact who was looking into the Sultan’s Chief Advisor. He felt it was only fitting since Alacabak was supposed to oversee both areas.
He briefly contemplated speaking with his father about his suspicions but Alacabak was a trusted member of his father’s staff and he would need to have considerable evidence against him before his father would listen.
He then called to order the water trucks and was assured that they could begin delivering water as early as that evening.
When he finally finished his calls, he walked into the bedroom to find Rebecca sleeping on his bed. She’d removed her suit jacket and stretched out on the bed in her white dress shirt with the first two buttons open, showing off the ivory skin that almost matched her shirt, and her dress slacks having already kicked off her shoes. He stared at her remembering kissing that skin. Pinning her petite body beneath him and kissing every delicious inch of it.
He’d been gentle with her initially, taking his time and taking care of her as if she had been a piece of fine china that he didn’t want to break, but he remembered the way she’d asked him to stop being so gentle.
“You won’t break me,” she’d said. “I’m a big girl.”
Every time he got close to her, his mind drifted back to that night. Now, sitting with her on the bed, he felt the magnetic attraction between them. The last night they were together, the night, she’d told him she was his; that he was all she wanted; and he caught himself staring at her now, wondering if she’d managed to keep that absurd promise. He wondered if she’d slept with anyone else since their son had been born, but it wasn’t his place to ask those kinds of questions.
So he just stared and let his imagination have its way with both of them.
Then, there was a knock at the door. They both jumped off the bed as if they were teenagers caught together. Rebecca threw her jacket back on quickly and walked into the living room behind Zaid as he went to open the door.
Zaid cracked the door open to find three people standing there: Hazim, the head of security; a woman who, from her red hair and blue eyes, could only be Rebecca’s younger sister, Amy; and peeking around her was Calum, his son. In that moment, the world stood still.
The photograph didn’t do Calum any justice. The child standing before him was so much more than what that picture had been able to capture, but it was still like looking in a child-sized mirror. His son’s features looked the same as his own.
He saw in Calum’s dark eyes a hint of recognition, as he, too, realized he was looking at someone who bore a striking resemblance to himself.
Rebecca gasped behind him and ran to their son, embracing him in the doorway and throwing an arm around her sister.
“Thank you, Hazim,” Zaid said to the security guard.
Hazim simply nodded and turned to leave.
“Oh my God, what are you doing here?” Rebecca cried out to her sister and their son.
“Zaid had us flown out here,” Amy said. “He insisted.”
Rebecca stood up and turned around behind Calum. She narrowed her eyes in anger at Zaid. “I told you no,” she growled lowly before kneeling down behind her son.