SHEIKH'S SURPRISE BABY: A Sheikh Romance (99 page)

“Hi,” she greeted him timidly. “Did you come to check on the roses before tomorrow? I haven’t quite got it right but I’ll keep working until I do.”

“Actually, I thought you might be a little hungry and would want to take a break.” Abdul held up the bags he’d been holding. Take-out spaghetti from his favorite Italian restaurant.

“Wow!” Her eyes widened in a pleasant surprise. “That was really thoughtful of you, thank you.” She stepped aside and let Abdul into her closed bakery.

“The only catch is I bought some for myself, so how about we eat together?”

A flash of uncertainty clouded her eyes and for a moment she looked as if she might tell him no. But before she did she looked into his eyes and he stared back into hers. Something passed between them, something he wasn’t exactly sure of, but it changed the air between them. A smile came across her lips and she nodded her agreement. It was as if both of them knew that things would be different after that night.

Without even thinking about it they walked over to their table in the corner.

This is the absolute best Italian food around, have you ever had it from Linguine?” He asked her.

She shook her head no as she took a bite of the spaghetti and meatballs he had bought her. Once the food hit her tongue he saw her eyes close in delight as she appreciated the savory garlic and herb sauce tossed with perfectly al dente noodles. Part of the reason he’d brought her this dinner was to watch her reaction, to see if she really appreciated food the way he did like he thought she might. Her reaction told him everything.

“I used to want to be a chef,” he admitted to her. He was surprised the confession came out, Nora didn’t even know that about him.

“Why didn’t you do it?” She asked him while her mouth was still of noodles. That could have been a very gross turn off but instead he found it adorable that she was not only enjoying the food that much, but also because she was completely comfortable around him. He loved that.

“Well, my parents are very traditional and they didn’t really believe a chef was a high enough….status.” He had to choose his words carefully. It wasn’t as if he was ashamed of who he was and the status he held, he just never liked to seem like he was bragging or that he believed that he was better than anyone else. In his opinion being a chef was a very excellent profession, but his parents had strongly disagreed.

Emily chewed as she thought over what he had just said.

“Well, it’s sad that you’re not able to do what you love, I can’t imagine not having my bakery. But it’s nice that you respect your parents’ wishes the way that you did.”

He supposed she was right, but it still felt like a disappointment in his own life.

“What do your parents say about your bakery? Are they supportive of it?”

For a fraction of a second he watched as Emily froze but recovered herself quickly. She took a piece of fresh bread that came with the spaghetti and dragged it through her sauce and he could see that she was lost somewhere in her own thoughts.

“My parents both passed away.” She finally said. “They were in a car crash and didn’t make it.”

Immediately Abdul reached across the table to take her free hand. What a horrible thing to have to go through, and so young. She looked up at him and tears clouded her blue eyes. She tried to shake them off but he could see that it was difficult.

“After paying for all of the funeral costs and taking care of the rest of their bills, the only money they had left I used to open this tiny space. I’d always dreamed of opening a chain of bakeries and my parents had always supported it so I knew that it was exactly what I should do with the money. It’s not a chain and truthfully I don’t see myself ever getting to be a chain, but this little space is at least a part of a dream that my parents were able to help make come true.”

Abdul couldn’t find any words for a moment. He admired her bravery so much, the fact that she took what little money he had and sunk everything into living the life that she wanted. Even if that meant having no savings, as he assumed she didn’t because of her need for an extra job just to stay afloat, and practically no support system. Living that way was something he truly couldn’t imagine. What would his life be like without the cushion of money, without the support of a strong and in-charge type of a family? Actually, without any family left at all. For a moment he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He took in the entire package, every little detail that he’d learned about her in the past several weeks. The way the he believed he knew her so intimately and that everything he didn’t know, he couldn’t wait to know about her. She was beautiful, strong, independent, kind, and creative. The list could go on further but he didn’t need to. He had already realized everything he needed to know. He was falling in love with Emily.

“Do you always do everything your parents tell you?” She asked him.

The question caught him off guard, but the answer that ran through his head surprised him even more. Maybe, he thought, it’s time to live the life that he wanted to live.

Emily couldn’t believe that Abdul had brought her dinner. It was one of the sweetest gestures anyone had ever done for her. She almost hadn’t accepted his offer for dinner. Her heart had fluttered when she saw him at her door and she knew that if she sat and ate a dinner with him, if she allowed herself to get any closer to him, she knew she wouldn’t be able to turn back. But when she looked up into his deep brown eyes, there was no way she was going to say no. Damn the consequences of being potentially hurt when all of this had to come to an end. She had spent enough of her life alone recently and for once it was nice not to be alone.

She hadn’t meant to reveal anything about her parents, that was usually a topic that was reserved for a strictly need to know basis. The tears that sprang to her eyes at their memory definitely wasn’t supposed to happen, but when she was around Abdul, she felt like melting chocolate. The moment he took her hand across the table, a shock of electricity shot through her. It was something more than physical, more than attraction. It was something that she felt down into the core of her. Something amazing that she’d never felt before.

For a second, when he looked at her, she thought he might kiss her. Her entire body buzzed with the anticipation of feeling his lips on her, finally learning what he tasted like. But she broke away from the possibility when she suddenly stood up and said she should really be getting back to work. Abdul startled as if out of a trance and stood up abruptly. Immediately she had wished she’d let him kiss her like she thought he might. But what good would that have done? It would have done nothing but break her heart, and hurt another woman in the process. She didn’t care what feelings were stirring up to life inside of her, there was no way she could let them out.

“Thank you so much for dinner, it was really sweet of you.”

Was it just her or did Abdul’s eyes look like they were in some sort of panic? A big part of her wished he would ask to stay, she really didn’t want the night to be over. But she knew it would be better for both of them if he just left.

“How about I help you clean up?” He asked her. “You have enough to do tonight and I clearly came and helped make more of a mess for you.”

Emily was about to turn down his offer but he started to pick up all of their garbage before she could say a word. When he looked around for the garbage can to throw everything away, she pointed to the kitchen as she wiped up the table.

“Wow, look at everything you have going on in here,” he called out to her from the kitchen.

With the table cleaned she walked into the kitchen and examined what she had left in there. She had pieces of shattered attempts at roses and pots that had had boiling sugar inside of them. Leaning against the doorframe, she felt disappointed in herself. She knew sugar work was very difficult but she had always been a natural when it came to anything having to do with baking and decorations. But for some reason, the roses just wouldn’t cooperate.

“Yea, I’m having some difficulties getting things right,” she answered sheepishly.

Abdul picked up one of the sugar creations that looked nothing like a rose and examined it. Emily felt embarrassed and frustrated and took it from his hand.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it. The sugar isn’t coming out that clear and I can’t get my fingers to shape it like a rose. I can’t even get one there’s no way I’m going to be able to get several done for the cake. Not to mention it’s looking doubtful that I will even have anything to show Nora tomorrow.”

The tone in Emily’s voice had immediately taken a tone that Abdul didn’t like. It made him hurt to hear her so down and doubting herself.

“Why don’t you show me what you’re doing?”

Emily looked at him skeptically. “You know how to do sugar?” she asked.

He laughed and shook his head no. “Sometimes though, when you don’t know exactly how to do something, if you show what you’re doing to someone else, you might see what you’re doing wrong.”

She’d never heard of this logic but decided to go with it anyway, she’d take anything she could get at that point.

“You don’t mind staying?” She was almost nervous to know his answer. If he said no or even looked like it wouldn’t be a good idea, she already knew she would be disappointed.

“Not at all. So start from the beginning.”

Abdul leaned back against the steel counter in the kitchen and casually crossed his arms in front of him. Suddenly Emily felt nervous. She had an open kitchen concept so that people could watch and she could engage with her customers while she was working and it had never bothered her before. Truthfully she enjoyed her open kitchen and loved when people could see her making their delicious creations. But having Abdul so close to her, watching her move, looking so casual with her as if the air around them wasn’t sizzling.

How was she supposed to focus with him watching her every move? Somehow she managed to muster up whatever courage she had and started to pour in her ingredients to melt together and create the sugar.

“What are you doing to start?”

Emily explained, as if she was teaching Kara, the ingredients that she was pouring in and how the needed to melt together and come up to a high temperature without burning. Abdul nodded along as if he was understanding every move she was making. His stare was intense and she felt like she might melt and boil like the ingredients in her pot.

Once the sugar was fully melted, she poured it onto a sheet pan that had a protective cover so that the sugar wouldn’t stick.

“What’s next?” Abdul asked

She explained that she needed the sugar to cool a bit when she poured it out because it was so scorching hot that she would burn herself otherwise. After it had cooled she started to roll sugar, keeping it pliable. She started to cut the sugar into smaller strips the size she needed for the roses.

“How do you mold the roses?”

Emily’s focus was sharp, taking her time to press the rose petals with her fingers making them the perfect shape.

“You have to shape each petal individually, it takes a lot of time to do each petal on its own and make them perfect. If one is wrong it makes the whole rose look wrong.”

For the next several minutes Emily didn’t say a word. She methodically cut and gently molded the sugar into petals about one inch in size. Her fingers were nimble and tentative, making sure to keep moving quickly so that the sugar didn’t seize on her. The pan with the sugar she kept under a lamp that was heated to keep the sugar warm but she still had to work quickly. Her fingers soon found a rhythm with the sugar and it soon seemed as if they became one. She had forgotten that Abdul was in the room and had even forgotten that she didn’t know what she was doing. Letting her instincts take over, her fingers guided the process.

Pressing the last petal together she held out her fragile flower. It was a perfect, glasslike rose.

“Wow,” Abdul breathed.

“Yea, wow,” she answered. There were no other words. She’d actually made the perfect rose. Sure the process had taken some time and it would be a grueling process to make as many as she needed to make for the cake but she knew she could do it and do it beautifully.

Emily looked up at Abdul to see what he thought of her creation, but he wasn’t staring at the rose. He was staring at her.

“I wasn’t talking about the rose, Emily.” His voice came out gravelly, as if something was caught inside that he didn’t know how to get out. “I was staring at you.”

Her breath caught at his words and her mind raced with hope that there could be any way that he felt the same about her as she did about him. After making the rose in his presence, something that was such an intimate process for her, she had immediately known that she’d let him in somewhere special to her, somewhere that no one got to go.

In two smooth steps he was in front of her. His strong hands gently cupped her face and he stared down at her with a fire in his eyes that she knew she felt inside of her. He parted his lips only slightly and leaned down to her, a lock of hair falling in front of his eyes. Emily could hardly breathe, she didn’t have a moment to think about what was about to happen. She tilted her head up and opened herself up to him.

When their lips met she instantly felt dizzy and exhilarated. It was almost as if she was watching herself from the other side of her kitchen, seeing the passion that was flowing between the two of them. When she’d daydreamed about hips lips and his taste, she never imagined it would be so divine. Her dreams hadn’t come close to experiencing the real thing. And when she always thought that sirens would go off in her mind, telling her that what she was doing was wrong and that she should back away, instead her mind stayed quiet, reeling only in the feel of him.

Abdul didn’t know what exactly had come over him while he’d watched her making her flower. It was something so unique, so intimate, and beautiful that he couldn’t help himself. His feelings for Emily had been building from the moment he found her covered in flour and had only intensified as they spent time together every day. The dinner had revealed so much between them that it had almost been too much to understand, but everything became clear when he watched her make the elegant flower.