***
The game, in the end, was a massacre. Hakim teased Anita relentlessly, up to the limit of what she could take, but no more.
By the time they got out, the night had calmed down considerably. The threatening clouds that had kept Hakim’s helicopter from him had cleared, and the sky above them was lit up with stars. The air had cooled just enough that Anita considered digging out her sweater, but didn’t quite feel the need.
Their eyes were adjusting from the constant bombardment of light and movement inside the crazy golf course. Out here everything seemed hard, and true, and real.
Especially him. Always him.
This had been the night of her life. She would never forget it, and she was glad she had gone for it, whatever Fadi would have to say about it.
“So where to, now?”
Hakim, apparently, wanted it to keep going.
Anita was at a loss. “I… I’m not sure. That’s all I had.”
Hakim looked around them. “It’s a beautiful night. How about we just pick a direction, and walk?”
Anita looked around her. Living in Houston since she was three, she’d gotten to know the city pretty well. But, still, the city seemed different to her tonight. It seemed like a different world entirely.
She agreed, and was expecting for Hakim to pick a direction at random, but instead she felt his hand over her eyes. How had he moved around to get behind her so quickly? She was disoriented by the night, and the memory of the lights and the candles, and the impossibility of her time with this man.
“Point straight ahead,” he told her, and for the first time she thought she could detect a hint of an accent in his voice. It must have been that she could only hear it when he was close to her like this, his lips just inches from her ear.
She did as she was told, and gave way as he began spinning around with her, his free hand on her shoulder. She thought he’d spin her around once, maybe twice, but he kept going. Anita felt herself begin stumbling, and losing control.
“Are you ready?”
His voice was still coming from close to her ear, but she was so dizzy that it was hard to place.
“Whoa there, featherweight,” she heard him say, as her arm collided with his face.
And then his hand was gone from across her eyes, and his other hand was gone from her shoulder, and the warmth of his body was replaced by the growing cool of the night.
Anita stumbled, confused and disoriented, trying to get her bearings. At last, she came to a stop. “That way,” she said, adjusting her arm so that it aligned with a street.
Hakim was still rubbing his jaw, but he took her by the arm anyway. “Right, let’s go.”
“Sorry about that,” she said, as he walked along beside her. “Did I hurt you?”
She liked how he leaned in to talk to her, now.
“You didn’t hurt me, no. Well, nothing that I can’t forgive.”
This road was darker than the others they’d been walking down, but a streetlamp illuminated his winning smile as they passed under it.
Anita hugged his arm close to her. Nothing about the evening had gone as she’d expected, but then, she hadn’t really known what to expect. The direction fate had chosen for them was little-traveled, which would have left them time to talk. But Anita didn’t want to talk. Not now. She just wanted to enjoy his presence, the night, and the city that felt like it was theirs and theirs alone.
Eventually, the path they were walking started to feel more familiar, and Anita found she recognized a few buildings.
“Oh, I know where we are!” she said quietly.
“Oh really?” Hakim asked.
Instead of answering, she took off at a faster pace, breaking to the left and dragging him along with her.
Hakim didn’t question her, only followed along. And when they arrived at a brightly-colored truck, a couple of minutes later, all became clear.
“Oh, I see,” he said. “You just want sweet things.”
“Always,” Anita said, looking up at him. “This is the best late night ice cream truck in Houston. That may not sound like much, but I swear it’s amazing.”
He took her word for it, and waited in line with her, telling the man behind the counter to surprise him, while Anita ordered the same salted caramel and chocolate concoction she always got when she and her friends found themselves in the vicinity of the truck late at night.
As they were walking away, a thought occurred to Anita. “You like surprises, don’t you?”
He seemed taken aback. It was a moment before he answered. “You know, there was a time when I didn’t. But tonight, I think they’re growing on me.”
They meandered, not walking anywhere in particular. Suddenly, Hakim pulled back and stared at his ice cream as though it had bitten him.
“What?” Anita asked.
“There are… there are leaves in my ice cream.”
Anita had to giggle. “What, really?”
He held his cone out to her to take a taste.
“Ohhh,” she said, when she’d found out what he meant. “That’s kale. I’m not sure what they’ve done with it to make it go in ice cream, but that’s definitely kale. The hipsters always sneak up on you when you’re not looking.”
He took another lick, thoughtfully. “You know, even with leaves in it, it isn’t bad.”
Surprises. Good ones. That’s what tonight was, wasn’t it?
They walked on until they found a fountain square. There were a few people milling about, but no one really staying there. Someone, maybe the city, or perhaps a prankster, had put soap in it, and there were bubbles piling up in the fountain.
They sat at the fountain’s edge, and finished off their ice cream. Anita found that her legs were getting cold, and instinctively leaned them into his.
Without a word, Hakim took off his suit jacket, and put it over her bare legs. She looked at him questioningly, but he only shrugged.
“You were cold,” he said, like it was a simple matter of cause and effect.
He took care of her. Or he wanted to, she thought.
The idea sent a wave of guilt through her; she wasn’t quite sure why at first, but then it dawned on her: Fadi was her protector. But Fadi thought she needed protecting from this man.
She looked at Hakim like she was seeing him for the first time that night. What was it about him that Fadi found so threatening?
He had a look to him like he could do some harm—if you were his business rival, that was. He seemed shrewd and smart, and willing to act decisively. But what harm would he cause her?
He wasn’t old-fashioned, if that was what Fadi was worried about. There was no way he was still clinging to the old rivalries of their homelands. Sure, he seemed to respect his family, in the way that he had talked about them, briefly, while they were playing crazy golf. But there was a reason that he had been dressed in a suit when the whole party around him had been wearing traditional Middle-Eastern clothes. He was a man of this century, with impeccable English and what seemed to be an American mindset.
And if they’d been followed around by any kind of security team all night, Anita sure hadn’t seen them. No, there was nothing about Hakim that made Anita think for even a moment he was a potential danger. But she knew her father thought differently.
“What are you thinking about?”
Hakim’s face was full of concern, and Anita realized she must have let the guilt and worry she was feeling show through.
She considered just shrugging it off, and telling him it was nothing. But she didn’t want to lie to him. Not now. She wanted to be honest with him.
She took the last bite of her ice cream for courage, and jumped into it.
“I’ve been forbidden from seeing you.”
He sat back in surprise. “Really?” he said. “That’s a first. Usually it’s my parents that disapprove, not the other way around.”
“Do you know why?”
He got the wrong idea. “No, why?”
br /> Anita shook her head. “No, I was really asking. Because I don’t. He says you’re dangerous. He says all of you are dangerous. But you don’t seem dangerous to me.”
Hakim put on a mock-serious face, and posed like a figure on a movie poster. “Oh, don’t I?”
She hit him lightly on his arm. “No, if you must know.”
She should tell him now, she thought. She should tell him she had been serious when she turned him down the first time, although she hadn’t shared with him the whole reason. She should tell him that her father meant the world to her, that, even if he was wrong, she couldn’t betray him. But even as she opened her mouth to say the words, she knew that she couldn’t betray Hakim.
“Well, then I guess you’re the one who’s being dangerous tonight. Breaking all the rules.”
She liked the way he teased her. At first glance he seemed to be carved out of stone, but when he teased her he seemed so much more approachable.
“Well, just one rule,” she said, wishing she had more ice cream left.
“I don’t know about that. Seems like a waste. If you’re going to break one rule, you might as well break a few.”
She could see an idea coming into his head, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.
“You may be above the law, but I’m not,” she said, trying to head the whole mad enterprise off at the pass.
“Oh, please… do you mean to tell me there’s nothing that you’ve been wanting to do that would get you in trouble?”
Anita didn’t want to answer his question, but her mind thought back, looking for an answer. When she thought of it, she groaned, but there would be no helping it now. It was going to happen.
“Oh, you have to tell me now. You can’t pretend you haven’t thought of something.”
He was on his feet, now, ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Anita hesitated. “It’s silly. It’s the most ridiculous thing…”
He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I like ridiculous things.”
She sighed. “Oh, all right. But you can’t laugh. Back in high school, there was… a kind of tradition. Every year, some of the seniors would sneak into the zoo at night, after it was closed.”
He didn’t laugh. “And what did you do?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t go with them. I was too afraid my father would find out. They looked at the animals, I guess?”
“Come,” he said, offering his hand to help her stand. “Which way to the zoo?”
It wasn’t far from the front entrance, but they had to sneak around the side boundary. There were security guards at the entrance, and huge, tall fences.
Anita knew where the easiest place to enter the grounds was. She’d gone with her friends that day, but hadn’t actually done it. It was only at the last possible moment that she had chickened out and walked home alone.
This time, her trouble was mostly in climbing the fence in the skirt she’d brought, but Hakim helped her over.
And there they were, only four years too late: standing after hours in the zoo.
She had been there before. Mostly when she was young, but a few times since. It wasn’t exactly a scintillating experience, usually. But this time, just wandering down the paths and looking at the mostly-sleeping animals, it had an unbelievable thrill to it. She was where she shouldn’t be, with a man she shouldn’t be with. And she’d never felt better in her life.
They held hands as they meandered around, and the nervousness that Anita had felt when they’d jumped the fence began to fade more and more, until it was all but nonexistent.
And then, with one call from a suspicious security guard, instantly it was back.
They ran, as fast as their feet would carry them, back to where they’d jumped the fence to get in. Anita was afraid, but she couldn’t stop herself from quietly giggling.
Hakim lifted her up and over the fence before she even had the chance to try for herself. She realized now how he had been letting her try before, only to make herself feel better. His strong arms raised her up as though it took no effort at all.
She slid along the tree branch that made entering possible, and then dropped down on the other side, watching Hakim as he did the same.
Then they stood, hearts beating hard in their chests, waiting to hear any sign that the guard had come after them.
When they heard nothing, Anita figured they’d gotten away clean. But the adrenaline of almost getting caught was still pumping through her system. She felt alive, in a way she never had before.
And then she felt Hakim’s arm, the one that had just lifted her so easily, slide around her back, and she felt him leaning into her, and she felt his strong, soft lips on hers.
She felt as though she was melting into him. She couldn’t feel anything in her body except for where she was touching him, and she couldn’t think of anything except for how she had longed for this moment her whole life without even knowing it.
When he drew back, she lay her head against his chest, listening to the way it rumbled when he spoke.
“Will you see me again?”
Her lips curled upward in a smile. “Does my prince command it?”
Her head bounced softly on his chest as he let out a quiet laugh. “Oh, he does. He absolutely does.”
The Sheikh’s Secret Princess is on sale now
And here are the first few chapters of my previous book, The Greek Billionaire’s Marriage Matchmaker.
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