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She groped for breath. “OK, you can start now. What do you wear where you come from?”
“Most men wear white taub and ghotrah or red-and-white-checkered shmagh with black eggal headdress. They add a black abaya if it gets cold. I wear modern clothes, except in formal functions. Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t always go around looking like I’ve just stepped out of Arabian Nights.”
“It does disappoint me.” And she had to tell him that? Then she told him more. “Which is weird, really. I’ve never much cared for that kind of getup, or even seen the Arabian Nights connection. But then, I’ve never seen you in one…”
It was hopeless. She was doomed to tell him everything just as it formed in her mind. She just prayed it didn’t put him off.
He seemed anything but put off as his eyes devoured her. “Yagummari, I have an extensive wardrobe right out of my culture’s rich past and I’ll dress up in whatever takes your fancy. I bet I’ll learn to love these intricate outfits when you’re undressing me, layer by layer…” Then he sighed. “Until then, I must settle for fantasies and anticipation.”
Blood shot to her face before splashing through her body.
He shook his head as he took in her condition. “Hours ago you were ready to let me make love to you, and now you’re blushing to your toes at my mildly erotic innuendoes?”
“Mildly? Yeah, right. But that aside, wouldn’t you be embarrassed out of your skin if it was sinking in that you’d almost done something so out of character with a virtual stranger, and but for his clout, it would have been plastered all over the tabloids for the world to see?”
“Don’t you think ‘out of character’ is too mild a description for anything I’d do if the stranger were of the ‘his’ variety?”
She glared at him. “You’re laughing at me!”
His shook his head again. “With you.”
It didn’t placate her. Her brain felt scrambled, would remain so as long as he kept “…making me make a fool of myself.”
Shehab watched her in rising confusion.
Was she telling him she didn’t go for sex with strangers? Didn’t indulge in one-night stands? Or literally few-minutes stands, as she’d begged him to be?
The last of the ease in her pose, the softness in her lips and the dreaminess in her eyes evaporated. “Sorry I said that out loud. No one makes you do anything you don’t want to. I made a fool of myself and I got caught. And I have to face the music sooner or later. So, listen, when we land, forget about what I said about going to a hotel. I’ll take a taxi home, get it over with.”
For some reason the spell kept being interrupted and this unpredictable woman kept swinging between opposites while he was left reeling. First the uncharted reaction to the paparazzi, then that empathic episode. And now. What was it now? Was she coming to her senses, envisioning possible damages from their liaison?
But if she was, why wasn’t she trying to get away with it? So far there was no incriminating evidence against her.
Had she decided he wasn’t worth the trouble of risking anything further? Was she cutting him off?
“You promised to see me again, and again.”
“Yeah, that was before I remembered I was a paparazzi magnet. And I can’t let you be plastered all over the tabloids.”
Was this just an excuse to get rid of him? Or could it be she was really worried about causing him a scandal? Her words did have the inimitable ring of truth to them. Not that, after tonight, he’d recognize the truth if it punched him in the gut.
“You’re concerned for my privacy?”
“It takes one who has none to know how valuable it is. You’ve been very wise to keep your anonymity. Nothing is worth endangering that.”
“You are. Worth that, and far more.”
She winced. “Don’t exaggerate, please. You barely know me. How do you know what I’m worth? And from the way I behaved with you so far, I know any man would be thinking I’m not worth much. But you of all men… So I believe you want me, but I’d hate to peek inside your head and read what you really think of me.”
“I, of all men? What’s so different about me?”
“What’s not different about you? And then, you come from a culture that glorifies feminine modesty and virtue, and is cruel to women who don’t abide by its strict rules, and I—I…”
“Your mind is taking off on tangents again. You’re punishing yourself for a nonexistent misdemeanor. I don’t believe so-called virtue is required of women any more than it is of men. Do you consider me to be a degenerate for letting our first encounter take an erotic turn that fast?”
“You know I don’t. It was you who stopped, you who had control over yourself, while I—I…”
“You were over your head.”
She nodded, her eyes downcast.
“I was, too. The one thing that made me stop was my fear of this exact situation, after your blood cooled and you couldn’t defend your actions to yourself, driving you to push me away in shame and discomfort at what you consider a lapse.”
“I didn’t say it was a lapse. I said it was out of character. So much so, I don’t know how to handle it, don’t know what to think…”
“Well, I do. I think I’ve never known desire like that existed. But it is so pure, so powerful I don’t know how to handle it, either. The one thing I could think to do was to slow down, savor it…savor you. Though you’re making it almost impossible to do that. Everything you say, every breath you draw is making me want to unwrap you and swallow you whole.”
Her color brightened, her gaze wavered. “Are you sure seeing me again won’t jeopardize your privacy? I’m overexposed and quite often maligned, and it would be awful if any of the venom I inspire from the media spilled into your life. I can’t let it.”
He was suddenly incensed. With the people who caused such upheaval in her life. With himself for ever devising the plan that had injured her so much. That could end with him losing her.
He rose from his armchair and joined her on the couch. “The paparazzi can’t touch me,” he bit off. “And I will convince them to collectively forget you ever existed.”
She blinked at his ferocity. Then she did another totally unexpected thing. She giggled. “I assume you’d use methods harsher than what’s fully sanctioned by the law to obtain this miraculous result?”
“I wouldn’t be doing anything they didn’t richly deserve,” he rumbled. “Breeching others’ privacy, shattering their peace.”
“You come from a culture that advocates an eye for an eye, don’t you? Uh…there I go, putting my foot in it again…”
“Never worry about saying anything to me. I have no sensitivities for you to tread on. Even if I did, you shouldn’t censor your words, anyway. I think political correctness is becoming reverse persecution, and I refuse to bow to its unreasonable demands. Anyway, you’re right about my culture, and me, advocating an eye for an eye. But I believe the rest of this decree is the relevant part. The aggressor is to blame.”
Her smile died as she digested his words. He was thankful to note that her agitation hadn’t returned with the dimming.
Then she sighed. “God, that’s tempting. But now that I realize what kind of power your possess, I can’t use it for my own ends. With great power comes great responsibility and all that. I’d feel I was nuking someone for spitting in my face. No, leave them be. They’ll get bored with me sooner or later.”
“You’d be that merciful when they’ve shown you no mercy? When they make their livelihood by preying on your life?”
“I don’t know about merciful. I just can’t be party to the ugliness they propagate, and by retaliating I’d just be poisoning the world more, not to mention muddying my own karma.”
He clamped his jaw on the need to pulverize her reticence, wanting her to give him carte blanche to remove the vultures from her path once and for all.
He wrestled the urge down, if only by coming to a decision that he would do it, if with less-than-harsh methods to honor her choice. He still couldn’t stop himself from saying, “I will keep on hoping that you’ll change your mind, let me use my…discretion in dealing with them. Until then, they’re coming nowhere near you. We won’t go back to your home. And I certainly won’t take you to a hotel. Come be with me, ya jameelati.”
After a stunned moment, she stammered, “I know I gave you the impression—hell, I asked you to—to…but I really am out of my depth here, Shehab.”
“I’m not asking you to come to my place to share my bed. I said we’d go slow, and we will, as slow as we need to. I’m offering my protection and hospitality as long as you need it.”
“Oh, God, Shehab, I don’t think…”
“How about you stop thinking for a while?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “But that’s the problem. I stopped thinking at all since I met you.”
His fingers feathered her eyes open. “And why is that such a bad thing? The past hours have been a roller coaster. Take the next, and all the time you stay at my place, to settle down, relax, enjoy my company, savor me as I intend to savor you.”
“But I have to…to…I don’t know what I have to do, OK? Whatever it is, I can’t do it with you around. Please, Shehab, just take me home. I need to wrap my head around tonight, around what happened between us, the way I—I…”
And she fell silent.
He was losing her. She was coming to her senses. He couldn’t afford to let her. He had to move into a higher gear.
He slipped his cell phone out of his pocket, gave a twofold order. The first part was another improvisation in his plan. He told her the second part. “I ordered the plane to land.”
She nodded, looked anywhere but at him. He put the phone on the couch between them, gritted his teeth and counted down…
A buzz went through her. It took her seconds to realize it wasn’t another jolt of awareness. It was his phone’s vibration.
He answered it unhurriedly, his eyes on her.
After the first seconds his eyes shifted away and his face closed. Her heart contracted. Bad news? Personal?
He bit off a string of Arabic before he snapped the phone shut. She watched him with a thudding heart as he placed it on the table before them, his moves deliberate, as if to delay a reaction to something big. And bad.
Then he finally sought her eyes and her heart lurched. “An unforeseen crisis has blown apart the business deal I mentioned earlier.”
She stared at him, held her breath, hoping he’d elaborate. Next second she wished she hadn’t hoped. She should have known whatever she hoped for would happen in reverse.
He went on. “I can’t predict how long it will take to perform damage control, to reestablish matters. Weeks. Maybe months.”
“Oh.” That was all she could say.
What was there to say when he was telling her it had been too good to go any further? He’d go back home, for weeks, maybe months. And he’d forget all about her.
It was over before it had even begun.
Five
“So—this is goodbye?”
Farah heard the disembodied voice. It was hers.
Shehab looked away, his face an empty mask now. “I guess it is.” After a moment’s crushing silence he added, “I would have asked to see you after I’ve dealt with the crisis, but I guess there’s no point anymore.”
Her heart twisted. So she’d still been hoping that he’d contest her verdict. But he was too truthful to say something he didn’t mean, even for courtesy’s sake. He knew he’d forget her in that time, probably thought it would be good riddance anyway.
But what had she expected? Her behavior might have intrigued him at first, or at least entertained him. But after her candidness and abandon had turned to agitation and accusation, after she’d behaved like an insecure fool wrapped in a moronic virgin following her impression of a nymphomaniac hours ago, too, it must have been a major turnoff to him, a man of a level of sophistication and self-possession she hadn’t dreamed existed.
But he’d still been so accommodating, so patient, had tried to talk her down from her unreasonable state, tolerated her yo-yoing moods, up until she’d turned down his offer of sanctuary.
She’d wanted to hide until she came to terms with what he’d made her feel, want, do. But she hadn’t turned down his offer, had only been postponing accepting until she was ready.
She’d thought she’d be ready tomorrow.
Now there would be no tomorrow. Now she would have nothing. Nothing but the memories of this unbelievable man and night. And the discoveries about herself she’d been mercifully oblivious to. At least her previous resignation to her status quo, her ignorance of what she was capable of feeling had resembled peace.
But as usual, she had no say in anything. He’d disappear from her life and she couldn’t do anything about it.
There was one thing she could do, though. Give him his dues, tell him how she wished she’d used their precious time better and given him as fond memories of her as he’d given her of him.
“Shehab, I want to tell you how sorry I am, for everything—” He raised one hand in a cutting gesture. “OK, so you don’t want to hear it, but I have to say it. You gave me a night out of time, one nothing will ever come close to touching in my life, and I gave you only a headache in return.”
He snapped his eyes back to her then, the harshness there directed at her, no doubt. “You’ve been so incredibly candid so far, so please, don’t you start acting now.”
“Acting?”
“Yes, to assume the blame for how things have turned out, so you’ll soften the blow. I won’t pretend it is a disappointment I can come to terms with, as it isn’t and I can’t. But please don’t add insult to injury and think you need to placate me now. It’s your right to change your mind at any point.”
“You’re the one who changed your mind.” Her voice quavered.
He shot to his feet. “I did no such thing.”
“But you said there was no point in looking me up anymore.”
“Only because you’ve made it clear you don’t want to see me. And since you seem horrified by what you let happen between us, after your earlier doubts, I don’t want to give them credence by imposing my desire where it isn’t wanted, adding the charges of stalking and harassment to…” He stopped, stared at her as she gaped at him. Then his stiff face broke into slow elation that made her feel like the sun had broken through barricades of clotted clouds and a heavenly orchestra had broken out to fill the world with poignancy and beauty. “You weren’t telling me you didn’t want to see me again?”
“If I in any way implied that, then my communication skills, as stunted as they are, have totally disintegrated.”
Something tight, watchful, still hovered in his gaze. “But you said you wanted to go home.”
“I only wanted to go home tonight. I was hoping to be with you again tomorrow, when I hoped also to have retrieved my misplaced balance and borrowed some much-needed discretion.”
And the tension in his eyes, his stance, disappeared as he leaned closer until he had her imprisoned between his arms, lowered his head to hers until his breath singed her cheek, her jaw. “I pray no one ever lends you any. In fact, I’ll do whatever it takes to ensure no one does. You captivate me with your frankness, you elate me with your spontaneity.”
She sounded as if she’d sprinted a mile as she said, “Even when they took a turn into frank and spontaneous paranoia?”
He raised his face. “I would bear anything to have them. But I’d also do anything never to have you flinch away from me or see pain and doubt fill your eyes again.”
“Oh, I’ll never do that again. And you’ll never see those—” she gulped as she realized how stupid that sounded, how futile “—for the whole whopping hour I have left in your company.”
He took her by the shoulders, his eyes brooking no argument. “But I will see you again. When this crisis is over.”
“Yeah, sure.”
He came down beside her again, turned her to him. “What does your sarcasm signify here, ya jameelati?”
“Just that in a few months you probably won’t remember meeting me, let alone take the trouble to come and see me again.”
He shook his head. “How can you underestimate your effect on me to that extent? You think I’d forget you?” He clamped her shoulders again, his eyes filling with what looked like a vow. “These months away from you will be like serving a sentence. I’ll count down each minute until I can come to you again.”
