Sheikh's Stand In
Authors: Sophia Lynn
Sheikh's Stand In
By: Sophia Lynn
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2015-2016 Sophia Lynn
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
Viviana Johns was pleased when she heard that her sister Charlotte was marrying the man who would someday be the sheikh of Khutal. She was impressed when she discovered she would be flown out to Khutal for the wedding via private jet. She only realized that she was in an altogether different realm when the private massage therapist appeared as the jet leveled off at a cruising altitude.
"Would madam care for a massage?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, madam would," Viviana said with an enormous grin, and she set about stripping and lying down on the massage bed.
She was a tall woman with lush autumn-russet hair that fell a bit below her shoulders. In most ways, she was her sister Charlotte's opposite; the only thing that they really shared was the vivid blue shade of their eyes.
Those eyes were drifting shut as the massage therapist worked at the knots in her shoulders and her back. She had always been a woman who demanded the best but this was beyond what she was able to afford on her own.
Viviana always knew she was a high maintenance kind of girl. It had started out as part of her personality, and as she had gotten older, it had become a part of her brand. She was a tastemaker, a fashion icon, and a dyed-in-the-wool party girl. If she didn't think it was exciting, it wasn't, and if she said it was cool, it was.
Sometimes, just thinking about the silly things she had sold and presented was hilarious. Other times, it was almost depressing, but she was Viviana Johns, and she had no room for depression in her life, none at all.
As the private massage therapist started working on some of the deeper knots that seemed as if they were buried deep in her bones, her mind started to drift.
She was a woman who had always craved the limelight. By comparison, her sister was someone who delighted in the pulling of strings. They had worked well together for years, going through Charlotte's contacts at Brooks, but a few years ago, they had parted ways. Since then, Viviana wondered if there was a space between them. It wasn't a chill; when Charlotte had found herself unexpectedly dating the son of the current Sheikh of Khutal, Viviana had been the first person that Charlotte had called. She had been lukewarm on the inauspicious way the two had met, but at the end of the day, she could see that her older sister had done well for herself.
Khutal was part of the UAE, a mountainous country that was as rich in oil as it was in tradition. The name had struck a bell for her when Charlotte had mentioned it, but it was only now, in the sheikh's private jet, that she remembered why it had.
Mikal ben-Arie.
The name brought along a fond smile and a rather sad shake of the head.
When she and Charlotte were young, they had gone to an exclusive all-girls boarding school in the Catskills. Of course, just because it was an all-girls school did not mean that there were no boys. In fact, there was a brother campus across town where movers and shakers from all over the world sent their sons, and that was how she had met Mikal.
Mikal was a diffident young man almost two years older than Viviana, and he had always had his nose buried in a book. It was, Viviana had thought at the time, a bit of a shame. Despite his lanky physique and his nearsighted squint, he had the handsomeness that seemed to be a trademark of the ben-Arie family, and those green eyes of his were rather arresting.
She remembered swanning through town, her entourage in tow, and she remembered walking by a tall, gangly young man with a political text under his arm. Viviana still didn't know what had compelled her to do it, but as she passed by him, she winked at him—a sweet and saucy thing that froze him in his tracks. The look on his face was utterly stunned and surprised, and she had had to hurry into a store to avoid laughing at him in a way that even she would have thought was cruel.
Poor Mikal, she thought, rolling her shoulders into the massage therapist's hands. I wonder what he does when he has to stand next to his brother?
She had seen pictures of Aladdin, Charlotte's fiancé and the father of Charlotte's four-month-old daughter. He was a tall, muscled man, arresting in a way that would have stood out no matter where he went. In the pictures that Charlotte had sent, he looked completely at his ease, a master of his world who, with the discovery of Charlotte, had gained everything that he wanted. They were a beautiful family, and Viviana couldn't have been more pleased for her older sister.
She wondered if such a fate was in the cards for her, and then she dismissed the idea. She was twenty-five, and between her product placements and her spokeswoman positions, there was absolutely no time to look for a one-night stand, let alone something more. She was content with that, or at least that was what she told herself.
"You seem very tense here," the massage therapist said, prodding at a point on her lower back. "In the past, mystics would have said that this is the center of longing, a place where what you need lets itself be known."
"Oh really?" asked Viviana with a smile. "Well, if that little piece of flesh tells you anything worth anything, make sure that you tell me. As far as I know, I'm not longing for anything at all."
The massage therapist made a sound of approval, but Viviana was left to wonder if that was truly how she felt. She kept a big smile on her face for the cameras and the people who came to see her be her, and sometimes, she wondered whether it was an honest smile. Sometimes, she wondered whether it ever had been.
Those thoughts had perhaps been pestering her more than she really wanted them too. It was probably just as well that she was going to see Charlotte. Charlotte was family, and Charlotte would keep her grounded. She couldn't wait to see her new niece, and to really get to know her brother-in-law to be.
When she looked ahead to Khutal, all she saw was fun, and she settled in to enjoy the ride.
***
When the jet landed, Viviana had been massaged, given a facial, and provided with her favorite white wine. She strongly suspected that it was Charlotte who was behind the five-star treatment, and she reminded herself to thank her sister as soon as she saw her.
A deferential man escorted her from the plane, and she was further impressed when she was waved through customs and immigration with barely a second look.
"I see the Sheikh's word goes a long way here," she murmured, and the man who was escorting her gave her a wide smile.
"You are the sister of the woman who is marrying our Prince," he said, beaming. "Of course we want to give you all due deference."
"This is going to go straight to my head, and after that, there will be no living with me," she said with a laugh. "My sister is going to blame you."
From the tinted window of the Bentley, she realized that she was getting a beautiful view of Khutal. Khutal's oil had made it rich, but the mountainous country had never lost its roots. The large city was modern in a way that was seen only in a few places throughout the world, with glass and steel that blinded the eye. However, in the middle of all the modernity were men wearing the traditional tunic and trousers, tailored to perfection, and unchanging over the course of the centuries. She noted with a curious eye that there were fewer women on the streets. Some of those women went garbed in the long multi-colored wrap that came up over their heads and then swirled around their bodies. Other women were dressed in a western fashion and would not have been out of place on a runway in Milan or Paris. Still others combined the two for a style that was all their own.
As they got away from the city, the buildings were still quite fine, but they took on a kind of antique dignity that touched Viviana in a strange way. She realized with some amusement that there were no public buildings in the United States that Khutal and the other emirates would bother to rank as old, let alone antique. The United States was a very young country, comparatively, and it made her feel as if she was seeing everything with fresh eyes.
The car rolled into the countryside, and she could see the blue mountains on the horizon that protected the country to the west.
"If you'll notice, madam, we are arriving at the palace now."
Alerted, she looked ahead just in time to see the palace of the Sheikh of Khutal and his family rising up out of the horizon. It was a gorgeous building, reminding her at once of a French château and some of the more palatial mansions in Los Angeles. If someone had described it to her, she might have suspected it of being a real mess, but as it was, traditional lines blended amazingly well with modern luxury, creating an end effect that took her breath away.
The Bentley pulled up to the broad staircase in front of the house with a gesture that could only be described as a flourish, and the driver hurried out to open her door. As he got her bags, she could only look up at the house with wide eyes.
"Big sister has done very well for herself indeed …" Viviana murmured, and she went to go find Charlotte.
Charlotte must have been alerted to her presence, because she had barely cleared the doorway before Charlotte was coming forward to greet her, an alert baby cradled in the sack strapped to her chest.
"Viviana! Oh my god, you're finally here! It felt as if it took you forever to find your way to Khutal!"
"My fault entirely," Viviana said with a wince. "The last time I saw little Annika here, she was about half this size."
Charlotte and Aladdin's courtship was like something out of a fairy tale, but no one was going to call it traditional. Charlotte had been attracted to Aladdin for his strength and his kindness. Aladdin had been entranced by a modern woman who knew what she wanted and who wasn't afraid to say so. It was a little shocking to the Khutal people that Aladdin's wedding was going to be attended by his tiny daughter, but there were plenty more people who were impressed that he was getting married at all.
"Come here, let me see my big pretty girl …" Viviana crooned. With a nod from Charlotte, she expertly swung her niece out of her sling, cradling her in her arms. There were fashion moguls and financial CEOs alike who would have been shocked that Viviana knew how to handle an infant, but as Viviana herself liked to say, it never hurt to keep them guessing. More than one of her friends had children, and she had always loved playing the doting auntie.
Annika was an exceptionally lovely little girl. Though she was as drowsy and happy as any infant, there was already a stubborn set to her tiny features, a stamp of determination, and a fiery will in her green eyes. With her ben-Arie eyes and her mop of thick black hair, it looked at first as if there was nothing of the blond Charlotte in her until you saw the delicacy of her features and saw her smile.
"So big in such a small amount of time," Viviana said a bit guiltily. "Charlotte, I'm sorry that I've not been to see you in so very long."
Charlotte laughed, dismissing her concerns.
"We've absolutely missed Auntie Viviana around these parts. That was why Aladdin sent the jet; we thought it might sweeten the pot a little bit."
"Oh god, Charlotte, please don't tell me that you thought I was going to miss your wedding! I would never, and I don't care how many contracts I had to break to get here."
Charlotte looked a little alarmed. "Not that you broke any, right, Viviana? Seriously, I want to have you here, but I don't want it to cost you …"
Viviana chuckled, bouncing her tiny niece on her hip. "Don't worry about it. I might be just another pretty face, but I'm a pretty face with a very good idea of where I need to be and when I need to be there. I'm not in any trouble at all, I promise."
Charlotte nodded, relieved. "That's good. And now I've noticed that I've been keeping you standing here in the grand hall instead of taking you to your room. Come on, you must be dead on your feet."
