Chapter 4
DEJA
Afew days after Jane and Alex’s party, my brother and sister-in-law had finally recovered from their hangovers and Khaled and I were up at the crack of dawn. Chicago was quiet at this hour, the streets largely empty as we made our way to a flower and botanical market several miles outside the city.
Despite the early hour, I was buzzing for excitement to visit this place. “I’ve been hearing about it for years. Do you know how many of our local supply chain partners have told me about it? Dozens. So many that I’ve lost count.”
Khaled stifled a yawn, but not even most of the world still being asleep could keep him from reminding me of our primary mission. “Just remember, we’re going there to network and possibly make some connections. Today is all about the research, not the formulas.”
I sighed. “You say that like those two things are mutually exclusive, but they’re not. Part of the research is considering different scent combinations. In order to consider that, we need to think about the formulas we’ll use to turn whatever we find into a scent our buyers will love.”
As the head of sourcing and design for White Water Lily, our mother’s perfumery, it was literally my job to focus on the flowers and the formulas.
My brother was a businessman right to the very core of his being.
He could focus on networking. I, however, was visiting this market to find out what American flora could offer to our existing range.
White Water Lily had always remained true to Egypt. We prided ourselves on using our local scents for our fragrances, but with our customer base expanding, I was truly eager to find out how we could incorporate what the States had to offer.
“Our buyers will love anything you give them,” Khaled said as we pulled into the parking lot, the sun only just beginning to lighten the sky above.
“Just take business cards of anyone who supplies anything you think you might want to use, okay? It’s not like we can just pop back in here if we don’t have contact details. ”
I nodded, but my attention had already shifted to the warehouse we’d come to visit. Before he’d even fully stopped the car, I was out, not slowing but knowing he’d catch up anyhow. I’d barely even made it to the entrance before he was next to me. Grinning, he shook his head.
“You always have been like a kid on Christmas morning about a flower market,” he said. “Have you got your phone on you?”
“Yeah, why?”
“So I can find you when you disappear.”
I chuckled but didn’t argue, already in awe of the place even as we walked in. The sheer scale of the market was stunning. Rows upon rows of flowers stretched out underneath industrial lighting, their colors popping against the gray walls.
On every inhale, I caught the scent of greenery, damp earth, and thousands of blooms at various stages of their journey from bud to arrangement. I practically squealed as we strolled down the first aisle, grabbing my brother’s arm as I glanced up at him.
“This is exactly what I was hoping for.”
Khaled laughed. “I was wondering how long it was going to take you to say that.”
We were absorbed into a crowd of wedding planners, florists, and buyers as we headed further in. They moved through the aisles discussing quantities and delivery schedules while workers loaded carts and pallets, but I was interested in entirely different things.
To me, it was all about variety and availability, growing regions and seasonality. I literally stopped to smell the roses—and many other flowers—and chatted to the vendors about their products.
“We drive this up from down south,” one older woman told me. “It’s difficult to source these from anywhere else.”
Another vendor explained their experimental cultivars while a young man enthusiastically walked me through the native plants, herbs, and greenery. Less than twenty minutes into our visit, I was already carrying a ridiculous collection of samples of sprigs and blooms.
Khaled eyed the growing bouquet suspiciously. “You’re not going to be able to carry everything, if you keep going at this rate.”
“I’ll make it work,” I said, shrugging him off as a pale pink blossom caught my attention. I bent closer, rubbing one petal lightly between my fingers before lifting it to my nose and inhaling its fresh, subtle scent.
It wouldn’t be particularly useful on its own, but it would be potentially interesting paired with citrus, cedar, or amber. My mind began building the combinations without me even giving it any conscious thought as I held the blossom out toward Khaled.
“What if you paired this with something like orange blossom?” I asked. “It could work, right?”
He took it from me, his eyes sliding shut as he inhaled the scent. “Nah, it’s too soft.”
“It wouldn’t be if the base was strong enough.”
He shook his head. “I still think you’d lose it after a few hours.”
“Only if you didn’t use the right fixative,” I argued lightly, plucking the blossom from between his fingertips and adding it to my growing stash. “I’m telling you, with the correct formula, that will be a winner.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said, smiling as we continued deeper into the market. “You could turn fresh cow droppings into an award winning scent if you wanted to.”
“That’s already a thing.” I smirked at him. “Look it up. I kid you not. Someone has already done it.”
He groaned. “I was trying to give you a compliment.”
“Yes, but knowledge and facts are better.” I flashed him a sweet smile and took off again, hearing his laughter ringing out behind me.
Once he caught up again, we stopped periodically to speak with growers and suppliers, but eventually, the crowds thinned out and the decorative displays disappeared, the warehouse becoming more industrial.
Loading bays lined one side of the building. Trucks were being packed with boxes destined for florists, wholesalers, and retailers across the country. The scent of flowers lingered here too, but it mingled with cardboard and machine oil, and I crinkled my nose, but Khaled just kept walking.
Once we found a quieter corner, he sat down on a bench and brought his onyx eyes up to mine. “So, uh, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
I sat down next to him, my heart starting to gallop in my chest. “What’s that?”
He inhaled a deep breath. “I might’ve found a connection who can help us get the ball rolling on a local production facility.”
My eyes widened as I stared at him. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” He nodded, leaning back against the bench as his gaze drifted around the warehouse. “Don’t get too excited yet, but this could be it, Deja.”
Despite what he’d just said, a smile started spreading on my lips and excitement sparked through my veins. “That would be amazing. Any sort of space your connection could offer us would be perfect. A perfumery doesn’t need to be large. At this point, I’d take a conference room over nothing.”
Especially since White Water Lily operated on a small, exclusive scale. Our business model was built entirely around seasonal scent releases. We produced limited quantities of each fragrance, and once it was sold out, it was gone forever.
No two scents were ever the same and we never tried to replicate anything, even our bestsellers. It was part of the appeal of our products, knowing it could never be repeated. Botanicals, weather, and even harvests changed.
Every year produced something different, and since we used only what was in season, we were dependent on what nature provided. The overwhelming majority of our ingredients originated in Egypt, but there was always room to experiment.
A processing facility in the United States would dramatically reduce shipping costs while also granting us access to entirely new botanical sources. It was difficult to find a downside. In fact, it was a win-win, considering the company’s savings would be in the millions.
“So you’re still onboard with the idea?” Khaled asked, breaking me out of my thoughts. “If we move forward, it would mean that you’d have to spend a good deal of time here in the future.”
“I’m okay with that.”
The idea didn’t bother me nearly as much as I might’ve thought it would. If anything, now that I’d spent some time in Chicago, where I would likely be based, I found myself oddly comfortable with it.
There was only thing in my way at present—my father, Basel Saad.
He supported White Water Lily completely.
He believed in the company, in me, and that I would take over from my mother one day.
She was the CEO of White Water Lily and she had been since its inception, but she was starting to speak about retirement more and more often and I was being groomed as her successor.
Unfortunately, Dad also believed in one other thing, and that was that I had to settle down and be married before I took over. Until that requirement was satisfied, there was only so much authority he intended to let me have.
I loved my father. Honestly. He was a loving husband, an involved, protective dad, and a brilliant businessman, but he was also old school.
With him, dating had felt like an endurance sport and I’d been dragging my feet on that front as a result. Out of the handful of relationships I’d had, every last one had disintegrated after only a single conversation between the guy and my father.
To this day, I wasn’t sure what he’d said to any of them, but none of the relationship had even progressed to one more date after that. They’d met him, gone into his office, and then run for the hills. It had not been a pleasant experience.
“I’ll handle Dad,” Khaled said, instinctively knowing exactly where my thoughts had gone. “He wants a branch here too and he likes that we have connections in Chicago. He thinks you’ll be safer with a community nearby.”
As we started making our way back to the parking area, I glanced up at him. “He’s not a routine administrative problem we have to solve, and the community I’d have is literally only Ashanti’s family, which is much smaller than our own family back in Egypt.”
“Maybe our connections will grow,” he said. “Who knows?”
Skepticism ignited in my veins. He turned away from me, sliding on his sunglasses.
We emerged from the warehouse, leaving with several dozen new business contacts, a stack of supplier information, and the samples I planned on putting in a vase for Gabrielle, which wasn’t bad for a morning’s work, but I still felt like I was missing something.
After loading it all into the car, we drove back in a semi-comfortable silence. I still hadn’t figured out what he was hiding when he finally spoke again, still very pointedly not looking at me.
“Hey, I forgot to tell you,” he said. “I’m heading home in the morning, but I’ll be back next week. Dad will be coming with me. We just have some business we need to settle before then.”
“What business?”
He shrugged. “Just some boring negotiations.”
I frowned. “I thought I was flying home with you in a couple days.”
“Nah. The plans have changed.” He offered me a strange smile. “You never take breaks and Ashanti could use the help with the kids while I’m gone. Plus, she’ll need extra hands on the flight when they come back to Egypt. I’ll be in Japan for a meeting then, so I won’t be able to join her.”
I sighed, resigning myself to the decision having been made for me, but not too put out by the idea of staying for a while longer. This would give me extra time to?—
My train of thought cut off when we turned into the driveway of Khaled’s house to find a car I didn’t recognize parked in front of the garage. That same suspicion that had been bugging me since the dinner party returned in full force, my mental defenses rising.
Something big was brewing. I just had to hope I didn’t get caught in the crossfire.