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  Willow

  Amira’s home was a large, regal mansion on the east side of the city, close to the university. It had been built over two hundred years ago and was patterned with mosaics, and despite having several modern-day renovations, felt like a different world than the bustling metropolis outside the door.

  Willow and Ibrahim walked up the brick walkway, toward the front door. Willow shivered slightly, watching as Ibrahim reached into his pocket and drew out his key. Sliding it into the lock, he gave Willow a meaningful look.

  “Are you ready for this?” he asked, giving her a comforting smile.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she sighed in return, giving him a shrug. “This is it.”

  Ibrahim opened the door and allowed Willow to enter ahead of him. This was only the second time Willow had seen the stunning foyer, with its marble sculptures and large oil painting of Ibrahim’s father. Green plants decorated every corner in terra-cotta pots, growing toward the skylight above.

  To Willow’s surprise, Amira didn’t call out for them. Ibrahim’s voice echoed in the large, empty space.

  “Mother? Are you here?”

  Reaching for Willow’s hand, he guided her toward the far edge of the foyer, glancing into the library. No one was there, but a single magazine was spread out across the desk at which Amira normally sat, its glossy paper reflecting the lamplight.

  As Ibrahim turned back toward the living room, calling out for his mother again, Willow took tentative steps toward the desk. Something about it had caught her eye.

  With her stomach clenching, she brought her finger to the outer edge of the magazine. She blinked several times, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.

  The magazine looked to be imported from the States, filled with glossy images and big, comic-book English lettering. At the top of the magazine were the words, “Sheikh Ibrahim: Con Artist of the Century?”, and beneath it was an image of Eva, his ex-fiancée, wearing only a bra and underwear beneath a lace robe. She had her arms crossed over her chest in the photo, pushing up her breasts, and looking at the photographer in an alluring way. Beneath her photo the text screamed, “Sheikh’s Ex-Fiancée Tells All!”

  Willow felt weak. Collapsing in the desk chair, she read the article from top to bottom, feeling her heart thumping in her throat. Behind her, Ibrahim continued to search for his mother, calling out her name. He didn’t yet know.

  “The Sheikh and I were never in love,” Eva had told the journalist. Willow could almost hear the evil cackle in her words. “The rumors are true about him; he’s absolutely incapable of love. He approached me and offered me millions of dollars, in return for pretending to marry him back in his homeland—Rebai, I think it’s called? Whatever.

  “Anyway, I’m sure he’s continued on with his con. I can’t imagine he would want to disappoint his mother. He talked about her so often. A classic momma’s boy, as you call them. He’s probably found some other bimbo to take my place, and to take the money…”

  Willow’s jaw dropped and she stared into the cavern of the foyer in front of her, waiting for Ibrahim to appear once more. When he did, his face was worried, pale.

  “Ibrahim?” Willow said, her throat dry. “We have a problem.”

  “I can’t find her,” Ibrahim said, sounding breathless. “I’ve checked the study, her bedroom, the living room—”

  “She knows about us,” Willow said, voice shaking. She lifted the magazine into the air, displaying the photograph of Eva. “I think she read all about Eva. About your original lie. And she probably put two and two together…”

  Ibrahim leaped forward, gripping the magazine. His eyes scoured the article. As he took in the information—of which Eva seemingly had spared no detail—his face turned increasingly grey with horror. When he was finished, he dropped the magazine to the ground.

  “I never should have trusted her. She was the worst person I could have chosen to—”

  “—help you lie to your mother?” This was the voice of Amira, coming from behind them. Her voice echoed out in the otherwise silent space. She stood tall, her hands on either side of her slim waist. She looked regal, powerful and enraged, with her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, highlighting her sharp, high cheekbones.

  “I can’t imagine how upset you must feel about poor little Eva right now,” Amira said, sounding snarky. “I can only imagine that it’s half as bad as I’m feeling, now. For learning that I’ve been deceived not once, but twice.”

  “Mother,” Ibrahim began, stepping toward her. “It’s not what you think…”

  His face was twisted in realization: the worst possible thing had happened. He’d been caught, moments before trying to rectify everything.

  “Oh? It’s not true, then?” Amira asked, her voice sounding increasingly incensed. “That you called me a few weeks ago and told me about your engagement, knowing I would throw myself into action and create a gorgeous wedding for you? That when things didn’t work out with Eva, you immediately…hired…whomever you could find next?!”

  Amira gestured toward Willow, who felt a stab of sadness through her heart. She cowered in the corner of the library, watching as Ibrahim tried to reason with his mother. He placed his hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her. But Amira ripped herself away, sobbing. She pointed a firm finger toward her son, almost screaming at him.

  “I know you think I’m a lonely old woman who only waits for you to call me on the phone when you can make time for me,” she spat, her shoulders shaking. “And maybe that is true, sometimes. It’s true that I’m over here alone. Your brother’s gone. And your father—well. I don’t have to tell you. I know you miss them, too. But that doesn’t give you the right to just manufacture my happiness. It doesn’t give you the right to lie to me about something like this.”

  She gestured toward Willow, her fingers spread wide.

  “And the tiara! You were just going to let me give it to her? You were going to let that heirloom be worn in a sham marriage? Shame on you, Ibrahim. I thought I raised you to respect your family more than that. I thought…I thought…”

  Tears raced down Willow’s cheeks, matching Amira’s. The happiness from the morning and early afternoon—cuddling close in Ibrahim’s arms on the hot air balloon and the beach—was falling away. She felt the desperation and pain in this woman’s heart, and wished she could take it all back.

  “I can’t even look at you right now,” Amira huffed. She whirled toward the staircase and stomped up the stairs, her gown swirling dramatically behind her. Her chin was high, and her angry footsteps echoed out across the hall.

  Willow watched her, unable to move. Ibrahim slid his fingers through his dark hair, rubbing at his scalp. A moment later, they heard the slam of a door upstairs. It shook Willow, causing her to slide into the chair beneath her. With her head heavy, she allowed it to fall into her palms. She began to toy with the idea of buying a plane ticket home.

  She couldn’t bear to be there a moment longer, stuck with the truth of what she’d done.

  But soon, Ibrahim was standing over her, rubbing his hands over the top of her back. He kissed her neck, her cheek, her ear, and then hugged her close against him. Pulling a tissue from a box on the desk, he tenderly dabbed it over her cheek.

  “Willow, I’m so sorry about this. I should have seen this coming…”

  Willow felt the tension begin to fall from her shoulders. Moving her head, she met his gaze and felt another wave of emotion—of love—fly through her. Perhaps this was a momentary speed bump on the way to their happiness. If only they could find a way to apologize, and to prove the depth of their feelings for one another.

  “Do you think she’ll ever speak to me again?” Willow asked, her voice tentative.

  Ibrahim’s eyes looked back toward the staircase, where Amira had just disappeared. Upstairs, they could hear her wails echoing.

  “It’s too soon, right now,” he told Willow. “She has to grieve the son she thought she knew, and then—hopefu
lly—make peace with me.”

  “We have to explain everything that has happened between us,” Willow said, clutching his hand.

  “I think the best thing to do right now,” Ibrahim began, “is to show her how serious we are about respecting her. That means calling off the wedding, no matter how embarrassing that is for us, for me.”

  He allowed his head to fall, his chin pressed against his chest.

  “Hey. Embarrassing isn’t what this is,” Willow said, standing up from her chair and pressing her small frame against his larger one. “This is solid ground. It’s the truth. It’s the way we’ll fight forward, together. Side by side.”

  Ibrahim kissed her fingers, his eyes closed. Seconds ticked past. Willow allowed images of their wedding to fall from her mind. It had never been their reality. It would have been a day of chaos, of her rushing off to the bathroom to cry. Now, they could plot a better story.

  Together, the couple searched through the wedding binder in Amira’s desk, finding all the phone numbers for the baker, the seamstress, the caterers, the venue operators—everyone. They informed them that the wedding would be postponed, and thanked them for their work. They were met with confusion, but when Ibrahim and Willow assured them that they would, of course, be paid for their services, they cheered up, telling the couple that they looked forward to the upcoming wedding.

  In the silence that followed the final phone call, Willow collapsed into Ibrahim’s lap and kissed the tip of his nose. She felt tired, strung-out, guilty. But then, she eased her lips down to his mouth and kissed him passionately, slowly, feeling her heart begin to hammer with lust for him.

  Ibrahim brought his hands to her face, caressing it, pushing his fingers through her blond hair. When their kiss broke, they stared into one another’s eyes, both sad with what they had done, yet ready to leap forward.

  “I don’t know how to explain it to her,” Willow sighed. “Every time I think about it, how we could help her understand…”

  “I know. It’s a mess,” Ibrahim said.

  A noise in the foyer made them turn their heads quickly, staring out into the candlelit hall. In the center of the room was Amira. With a tilted head, she gazed at the two of them: at Willow, seated on Ibrahim’s lap. At their desperate expressions.

  No one spoke for a minute. Amira pointed toward the staircase, stuttering to find the right words.

  “I just received a call from the caterers,” she began. “They told me that you called them and said the wedding was being postponed?”

  Ibrahim and Willow exchanged glances before rising from the chair, still holding hands. They walked tentatively toward the foyer, keeping a respectful distance between them and Amira.

  Ibrahim cleared his throat and nodded, saying, “We couldn’t go through with it. Not the sham marriage, at least. When we exchange our vows, we want it to be real.”

  Amira’s hands swung out on either side of her waist.

  “You want to get married for real?” she asked, incredulous.

  The couple nodded. They tightened their grip on one another’s hands, Willow taking strength from the man at her side.

  “I know what it looks like,” Ibrahim said, his voice soft. “I know it seems like I set this up, just to con you into—well. Some sort of misguided happiness. But the truth is, the minute I met Willow, I knew there was something special about her. The only reason she was in the newspaper at all was due to her fundraising for Jayne’s syndrome. Someone mixed up the photographs, leading me to find her. That blonde beauty you mentioned on the phone…”

  “Ah,” Amira sighed, a look of understanding coming over her face. Her cheeks looked more relaxed, almost slack. “I had such an expectation after that article…”

  “I know you did, Mother. Which meant, in some messed up way, I wanted to please you. I’m so sorry about that.”

  “Jayne’s syndrome?” Amira asked, her eyes moving to meet Willow’s. “I’ve read about it. Such a wretched disease.”

  “We lost my brother because of it,” Willow nearly whispered.

  “I’m so sorry,” Amira said, unable to look away from Willow’s eyes. They held one another’s gaze with intensity. “If you’re anything like Ibrahim, you’ve been fighting ever since your brother’s death to make everyone around you feel more comfortable in his absence. I know…I know that’s what this marriage was all about.”

  “But, Mother,” Ibrahim said, leading Willow closer to her. “The fact of it is, I’ve fallen in love with this woman. We’ve gotten to know each other, and I can’t imagine a better person to wake up to every morning. She’s a perfect life partner. I want to do right by her.”

  Amira’s nostrils remained flared, but her eyes filled with tears, as her compassion overwhelmed her anger. Reaching forward, she wrapped one arm around her son’s shoulder and one around Willow’s. She formed a tight circle with them, her breath staggering against the force of her tears.

  “You can’t imagine how it felt to learn the truth through that magazine,” she said, trying to laugh as tears cascaded down her cheeks. “And now, to learn that maybe it isn’t such a sham after all…”

  “We’re going to get married, Mother,” Ibrahim said. “We just want to give ourselves a bit more time. There’s no use rushing a beautiful thing.”

  With that, Ibrahim leaned toward Willow’s forehead, kissing it with tender lips. Amira beamed at this show of love, her eyes alight.

  “You can’t imagine how happy this makes me,” Amira sighed. “Seeing the two of you together, building something…and calling off the wedding, just to do things right.”

  “It happened so quickly, Amira,” Willow said, speaking up. “We know it’s fast. The stuff of fairy tales, maybe. But, honestly, I’ve never felt anything more true. It’s a gut feeling.”

  “And you have to trust those,” Amira murmured. “Your gut is the only thing that knows, sometimes.”

  With all of them exhausted, Amira guided them toward the cozy kitchen at the far end of the mansion and sat them at the table. She boiled the kettle and put on some classical music, her eyes warm as she watched Ibrahim and Willow cozy up to one another. After setting three mugs of tea on the round table and lighting a candle in the center, she spoke once more.

  “Ibrahim, Willow. I want you to know that I forgive you,” she said. Willow watched as she gripped both hands around her mug and lifted it toward her mouth, inhaling the steam. “Let’s start afresh, as they say. Let’s become a true family.”

  Ibrahim thanked his mother, then turned toward Willow and hugged her close.

  “And I only hope you can forgive me for dragging you through all this chaos, Willow. I love you. What we’re building together—it means so much more than all that.”

  “He means it, Willow,” Amira added approvingly.

  Willow leaned her forehead against Ibrahim’s, taking in the scent of his musk, his cologne. She loved the feeling of his skin against hers, the texture of his never-quite-shaven cheeks.

  “If you hadn’t asked me to come here in the first place, I would have never had the chance to fall in love with you. It was fate. And I wouldn't take anything back.”

  The three of them sat comfortably, speaking of their futures. With no more impending wedding, Willow felt easy and light: no longer the part of an elaborate con.

  Now, she was ready to adopt an entire nation, a grand city, and a brand new, billionaire boyfriend. While she sensed she would be the envy of all of Texas, she couldn’t care less about others’ jealousy.

  Rather, she felt eager to create a new reality with him. In her mind, she pictured the two of them moving in together, and her introducing him to her father and mother. She felt their future stretched before them like a grand and glowing sunlit field. And she couldn’t wait to walk through it with him, hand in hand.

  Chapter 17

  Willow

  Two weeks later, Willow slipped her hand through Ibrahim’s, guiding him through the graveyard. They wore casual clothes: h
im in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt (which looked just as good on him as his usual tailored suits), and her in a light summer dress. Houston heat beat down on their shoulders, just a bit less intense than the heat in Rebai.

  “I heard from my mother this morning,” Ibrahim said as they walked softly between the rows of graves, Willow guiding him. “She said that they’ll have three empty chairs at the wedding. One for my father, one for my brother. And, of course, one for Paul.”

  Willow squeezed his hand, feeling tears glistening in her eyes.

  “I used to play house with Paul. I’d pretend to marry one doll or another, and he’d be waiting in the wings, telling me not to get cold feet. But, of course, our favorite part of those silly ceremonies was the end: when I would play whatever cassette I was obsessed with at the time and we would dance and dance. And then, of course, we’d tell our mother that we needed cake. We’d smash it into each other’s faces, cackling. I always expected that he would be at my actual wedding…”

  “In a way, he will be,” Ibrahim said, squeezing her hand back.

  They arrived at the grave moments later, staring down at the engraving, the words surrounded by drawings of birds and animals.

  Here lies Paul Hart

  Brother, son and shining star

  Keep on laughing, sweetheart

  “He was great at math, but he could also draw whatever he looked at,” Willow explained, her voice soft. “I imagined him as an engineer, maybe, or an architect. He could have done anything.”

  “It’s so frustrating, thinking of what might have been,” Ibrahim said, pressing his hand to the small of her back.

  He rubbed at it, as if he knew that her muscles were filled with tension. Already, only two weeks into their relationship, they were falling into each other’s cues. They were understanding the nuances of one another’s bodies.

  Willow placed a bouquet of flowers at the center of the grave, rubbing two fingers around a soft, dark purple petal. She had hunted around the flower shop for flowers that resembled the roses back at the Rebai palace, but had come up dry. She’d resolved to one day have some of them shipped over to Houston, if only to share them with her parents, with Summer, and with Paul.