Wifed By The Sheikh (All He Desires Book 3) Read online

  Chapter 4

  The Sheikh guided Zelda by the hand, past the security checkpoint and through the gates at the harbor.

  She let herself be led, still reeling from the shock of his timely rescue. She’d heard more than one crew member talking about the owner of the yacht, Sheikh Zayed El-Sharabi, but she never would have guessed that the man who had taken her fancy was the one in question; she’d never really considered the question of who the owner of the yacht even was.

  Zayed didn’t say anything as he led her into the commercial area surrounding the harbor, and Zelda didn’t attempt to engage him. She was too busy taking in the sights and sounds: hawkers singing out in a variety of languages, trying to attract people to their stalls, brightly colored spices, flowers, fabrics, and people in unfamiliar garbs browsing and bustling around. It was so unlike Miami that for a moment Zelda wondered if she was in some bizarre kind of dream.

  Zayed came to a stop in front of a cafe, glancing at Zelda.

  “Let’s stop here,” he said. “We need to have a serious conversation.”

  “I see,” Zelda said, coming out of her bemused shock into a cold kind of dread.

  The Sheikh guided her into the little shop, and Zelda breathed in the scent of rich coffee, buttery pastries, savory cooking, and a bitter edge of tobacco smoke.

  She saw the probable owners of the cafe look up and acknowledge Zayed, smiling at him and gesturing for him to take any table he wanted. The Sheikh conducted her to one farther away from the rest, and Zelda’s sense of apprehension increased.

  “Please, have a seat,” Zayed said in his lightly accented voice, gesturing to one of the low chairs at the table.

  Zelda took a quick, deep breath and sat down, swallowing against the dry feeling in her throat. This is where he demands that I become his slave or something like that, she thought worriedly.

  The Sheikh called out to the owners of the shop in a language that Zelda didn’t understand, and they nodded, getting to work on whatever it was he’d called for.

  He sat down and for a moment just looked at her, his eyes not quite impertinent, but appraising. “You could have been in very serious trouble back there,” the Sheikh said finally.

  “I know,” Zelda said.

  The Sheikh smiled. “I rather thought it was interesting—seeing you amongst the crew.”

  Zelda raised an eyebrow, confused at that comment. “Interesting?”

  Zayed nodded, just as the owner of the cafe came to them, approaching the table with an ornate coffee carafe and a small platter of pastries. Zelda thought that both savory and sweet options were present, though she couldn’t be sure.

  “Help yourself,” Zayed said, as the cafe owner set the pastries down and poured coffee into two small, beautiful cups, placing one in front of Zelda and the other in front of the Sheikh.

  Zelda didn’t feel particularly hungry—her stomach felt as though it had twisted itself into an enormous knot—but she obediently plucked one of the pastries from the platter, choosing one folded around an orangey yellow filling that she thought might be citrus.

  The owner left the table and once more Zayed was silent, watching her.

  Zelda took a sip of her coffee—it was strong, thicker than she expected, and strangely sweet—and a bite of her pastry, under the Sheikh’s watchful gaze. She decided the filling was apricot, but it was also heavily spiced with something she couldn’t quite identify, but which thrilled her palate. “You said something about it being interesting to see me amongst the crew?”

  “Interesting because I personally interview every member of the crew who works on my yacht,” Zayed told her, smiling slightly. He lifted his coffee cup with deft fingers and brought it to his lips, inhaling the steam for a moment before taking a sip. “As I’m sure you’re aware, I never interviewed you for the job. So it was interesting.”

  “You mean….you knew all along that I was…” Zelda swallowed another bite of pastry with difficulty; her throat was sandpapery once again.

  “I knew that you had somehow managed to sneak aboard my ship,” the Sheikh finished with a shrug. “Wise of you to pretend to be a member of the crew rather than a guest.”

  “That kind of just...happened,” Zelda admitted. “When I sneaked on, I didn’t know where the yacht was going, how far.”

  “I gathered as much,” Zayed said, his bright eyes glinting with amusement. He set his coffee cup down and plucked a pastry off of the platter between them, eating it in a few quick, neat bites. “But it does present you with a very grave problem.”

  “Grave problem?” Zelda chose another pastry: one she thought would be savory, based on the reddish-brown color of the filling and the simpler folding of the dough.

  “Indeed,” the Sheikh said. “It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that the government here is not exactly fond of illegal immigrants.”

  “But I didn’t—don’t—intend to be an immigrant,” Zelda protested, and then looked around; she took a bite of the second pastry to cover for her discomposure. It was savory and sweet all at once, with meat, spices and some kind of fruit. She took another sip of coffee, trying to work her mind around the strangely appealing flavor. “I would be happy to leave anytime.”

  “If you’re caught by the officials while you’re lining up a way to get back, you may find that you are not be able to leave,” Zayed said. “The best-case scenario would be that you leave immediately. The more common scenario would be that they imprison you for at least a year—up to five—for entering the country illegally, before sending you home and banning you from the country for the rest of your life.”

  Zelda stared at him. “Five years in prison?! Just for not having my papers?”

  Zayed nodded. “We are a wealthy country, and we take our status seriously,” he said with a smile. “As an American, you would likely be made an example of.”

  “So what do I do?” Zelda finished the second pastry off in one bite, leaning closer toward him over the wooden table.

  “You’re safe for a few days at least,” the Sheikh said. “They won’t think to look for you right away; the officials at the harbor will keep their mouths shut. But as soon as any hotel in the city sees that all you have is a passport, they will demand a huge fee for not reporting you. That would make it very difficult for you to get out—and of course, you won’t be able to work in the country to get money for a ticket.” He shook his head. “You’re in a very sticky situation.”

  “That’s pretty abundantly clear to me now,” Zelda said flatly. “Is there anything I can do?”

  Zayed licked his lips and took another sip of coffee. “There may be something,” he said finally. “Obviously, you recall that I told those officials at the port that we were engaged.”

  “I figured that was just a story, something you came up with to justify…”

  Zayed smiled again, half-shrugging. “It was,” he said. “And you will never know how grateful I am that neither of those two men asked me your name or any details about you.”

  “Me too,” Zelda admitted.

  “What is your name, by the way?” Zayed tilted his head to the side slightly, his eyes glinting with interest.

  “Zelda Barnes-Scott,” she replied.

  “A very beautiful name,” the Sheikh told her. “In any case, it occurs to me that we each have a problem that the other could help solve, and that me telling those officials you were my fiancée might be part of that solution.”

  “What?” Zelda set her coffee cup down, scared to drop it.

  Without missing a beat, the Sheikh picked up the carafe and poured her more of the thick, dark brew. “I have a proposition for you,” he said, gesturing for her to have more of the coffee.

  Zelda felt as if she had somehow managed to plunge herself into waters so far out of her depth that they might as well have been the middle of the ocean. “Go ahead,” she said, dabbing at her lips with a cloth napkin.

  “You could marry me.”

  Chapter 5
/>
  Zelda was glad she’d managed to swallow both food and drink completely before the Sheikh had spoken, otherwise she almost certainly would have choked.

  “It would solve your immigration problems—because as my wife you would of course be granted citizenship—and it would solve a certain problem that I’m having.”

  “The problem of not having a wife?” Zelda stared at him, thinking that her dread of what he was about to tell her was not far off, no matter how politely he was phrasing his demand.

  “Yes and no,” Zayed said, smiling again. “There’s a company based here in Murindhi that I want to buy. I am being prevented from doing so by an arcane law which states that single men—and single women for that matter—cannot buy companies. We can start them, and we can sell them, but we cannot buy them.”

  Zayed shook his head, looking exasperated. “You would not believe how much I’ve already paid my lawyers to try and find a way around it.”

  “I can imagine,” Zelda said quietly.

  “In any case, if I can get married to a willing party, I can circumvent the law. I’ve been considering finding someone to arrange a marriage for me, but here you conveniently are.” The Sheikh selected another pastry, with a green-tinged filling, and ate it with the same quick grace that he had with the previous one. “And it would keep you out of prison.”

  Zelda looked down at her hands, trembling as she held her coffee cup. The idea of marrying someone she had only just met, without having feelings for him, was staggering.

  People do it every day, she thought wryly, thinking of Zayed’s comment about an arranged marriage. Even still, this had certainly been the last thing she had expected when she’d stowed away on his yacht.

  Oh God, are there laws about consummating marriages? Zelda’s anxiety intensified.

  “I don’t think I can do it,” she said quickly, shaking her head even as her heart pounded. “I don’t know if I can make myself marry someone I don’t have feelings for, or act as a wife to a stranger. Even if it’s a sham marriage just to get my citizenship, I don’t think I can do it.”

  Zelda worked up the courage to meet Zayed’s gaze, and steeled herself for a threat, or worse.

  Instead, she found he was smiling slightly, looking no different than he had the last moment she’d looked at him.

  “I promise you, there won’t be any need for you to act as my wife in private,” he said, inclining his head towards her. “This will strictly be a business transaction. You would appear with me in public, and for all anyone will know, we will be truly married. But you will have your own life, and you will be able to come and go just as you please.”

  Zelda pressed her lips together again, thinking that the coffee was stronger than she’d thought.

  “I’m not expecting you to fulfill any romantic role in my life,” the Sheikh said.

  “You’re sure about that? You just mentioned looking into an arranged marriage before.”

  Zayed shrugged. “It seemed at the time to be expedient,” he told her. “The arrangement would be largely the same with a wife I married by arrangement; she would not be romantically obligated to me in any way. I would, however, insist that she conduct any outside romances very, very discreetly, and she would have the same liberties that I’m promising you.”

  “Are you sure that it wouldn’t be better worth your while to get the law changed?”

  Zayed shook his head. “I looked into it, believe me,” he explained. “It’s just not possible. If I want to buy out my competitor, then I must first have a wife.” He held her gaze for a few moments. “I know you do not know me well enough to be sure that I mean what I say when I tell you this is strictly business, but I hope that you can trust me.”

  Zelda smiled weakly at that. “You’re right about not knowing you well enough,” she said.

  “Let me point something out to you, and forgive me if this sounds like bragging: if I wanted to simply buy a woman to be my wife, I wouldn’t have to look very hard to find volunteers,” the Sheikh said. “Plenty of women both here and in the US would be happy to marry me for my money. But I don’t want that.”

  “How do you know I wouldn’t be marrying you for your money, too?” Zelda wasn’t sure why she felt so contrary, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

  “A woman who stows away on a boat with nothing more than a backpack and goes to work in the kitchen is not the type of woman who marries a man for his money,” Zayed said. He smiled slowly. “You are an adventurer; it’s just that you’ve run into a snag on this occasion. Allow me to help you, and we can both profit from this.”

  Zelda thought about it for a long moment, plucking one of the few remaining pastries from the tray and sipping contemplatively at her coffee.

  She considered the impressions she’d gotten of the Sheikh while they’d been en route to Murindhi; she’d noticed him, of course, and he had always seemed to be surrounded by his guests on the boat, almost fawned on by them.

  In some respect, Zelda thought, the Sheikh was a demanding man—almost every night, he had insisted on huge, exotic banquets for himself and his guests. In other ways, though, she thought that he was clearly a generous person; the guests had all been extremely well looked after, and despite the long hours, the crew all seemed very happy, and well-paid for their work.

  Of course, Zelda thought, that was the way that he acted with people who he was already connected to; he had no real connection to her.

  He knew all along that you were an impostor, she thought. He could just as easily have let port authority handle you. He could have let them cart you off and throw you in jail to either end up in prison or get deported.

  He had to come to her rescue, and even if his motives were somewhat selfish—even if he’d done it mostly to indebt her to him—Zelda didn’t think it spoke poorly of a man to think quickly, and to be that up front.

  “How would this work?” Zelda asked, finishing off her pastry and meeting Zayed’s gaze.

  “You will be with me in public,” the Sheikh explained. “As soon as possible I will issue an announcement to the press about my recent engagement, and setting the date for our wedding. I think you’ll agree that two weeks from now is a good idea, since that’s what we told the authorities.”

  Zayed smiled. “Of course, as my wife, you’ll need to have an appropriate wardrobe and quarters, which we can see to quickly. We will have to plan a wedding; fortunately, I have enough staff at my home here to take care of that.”

  “So we’re going to have a wedding? An actual wedding wedding?” Zelda stared at the Sheikh. “Not just like...go to the courthouse or something?”

  He shook his head. “I’m a very wealthy man, Zelda, and it would raise suspicion if my wedding weren’t a very public affair,” he explained, his voice gentle. “We have to be seen to be truly man and wife by the media, by the people, and by those who will determine whether or not I can buy the company I’m interested in.” He poured her another half-cup of coffee.

  “So two weeks, and we get married, with a huge ceremony for everyone to see,” Zelda said. “And then what?”

  “You make some appearances as my wife, and we hold out long enough for the purchase of the company—and the determination of your citizenship—to go through, after which you can do whatever you like.”

  “And I could leave whenever I wanted?”

  Zayed nodded. “I travel often, and of course everyone will know that you are an American woman,” he said. “So, you leaving the country once your immigration status is settled will be nothing. Boring news to everyone. In fact, I’m sure many people will catch onto the fact that it’s a marriage of convenience, but as long as we don’t give them proof, there’s no reason for them to say anything.”

  The Sheikh extended his hand across the table. “Do we have a deal, Zelda?” his lips twitched in the start of an amused smile. “The press will certainly enjoy the alliteration in our names.”

  “We have a deal,” Zelda said calmly, re
aching across the table to shake his hand. She was surprised at how soft his palms were, and reminded herself that he was a monied man, and that he’d probably grown up wealthy. He had probably never worked in a kitchen in his life; he probably didn’t even know the first thing about doing his own laundry.

  “We will have to get you a wardrobe, and a suitable token of my esteem to mark our engagement,” Zayed said, thinking out loud.

  Zelda watched as the Sheikh took out his phone and began sending messages, making arrangements. He was clearly a man who liked to strike while the iron was hot; he hadn’t planned on making the offer to her, but he wasn’t about to give her time to change her mind about it.

  Just as she had more than a few times in the previous two weeks, Zelda wondered if she had overplayed her luck. She felt outside of her depth, in territory where the bottom was so far away that the water around her was dark, her feet impossible to see.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  She didn’t doubt for an instant that if Zayed were dating someone, he would have just proposed to his girlfriend and be done with it. Now that they’d agreed on the plan, he was every bit as implicated in fraud as she was.

  Yeah, but he’s rich and you’re poor. They’ll throw you in jail and invite him to speak to a group of policy-makers.

  It wasn’t bad; that much Zelda had to acknowledge to herself. If she could trust Zayed to keep his word, she would be able to stay in the country for as long as she wanted to, and once she wanted to go back to the States, it would be easy—or at least, she hoped it would. And once she was in the US once more, she could probably file for divorce without too much trouble.

  Would a marriage in Murindhi even be acknowledged in the US? Zelda filed the question away in the back of her mind to research later; she thought it would, but that shouldn’t stop her from being able to get a divorce, particularly if she tried for it after Zayed had completed his plans.