Chapter 22
DEJA
Istared out the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office at White Water Lily, looking out at Cairo shimmering under the afternoon sun.
As always, the city was bustling with the familiar rhythm I’d grown up with, bumper-to-bumper traffic snaking down the streets and the sound of horns blaring filtering through the open windows in the corner even up here.
As I raked both hands through my hair, I inhaled a deep breath and glanced back down at the letter I’d rewritten four times. I hadn’t even skimmed through the whole of the first paragraph before I crumbled up this attempt too, tossing it into the wastebasket next to my desk.
It landed on top of a mountain of its predecessors, but Colin was supposed to be here in a week and my time was running out. In all the letters I’d written him over the past month, I’d avoided giving him the one answer he’d actually asked for and I couldn’t stall any longer.
Technically, I still had a week to decide, but practicality dictated I didn’t let him fly all the way out here if I was going to say no. That would just be cruel.
A knock sounded at my door before it swung open. Rami, my brother, poked his head inside. He was only one year younger than me, the E-Commerce executive for GlobalStar who, ironically, didn’t have a serious or boring bone in his body.
“Is your fiancé here yet?” he asked cheerfully.
I reached down, slipped one of my heels off, and threw it at him. He caught it in one hand without even flinching. “Your reflexes are getting better, sister dear.”
I sighed. “Give that back.”
He tossed the shoe neatly onto the sofa before stepping inside and shutting the door behind him. Despite still being absolutely capable of wreaking havoc when the mood took him, Rami had also accidentally matured over the last few years.
Compared to our younger brothers, at least.
As he strode into my office, he turned his attention to my computer monitors. “You filed three IT tickets in two days, so I decided to come in person before you burn down my entire department.”
“I filed one.”
“Three times,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “That’s only because they kept closing it. What kind of lazy operation are you running over there anyway?”
“They’re not lazy.” He pulled out his tablet and read aloud from the screen. “They kept closing it because you described the problem as, Computer possessed by gremlins. Please advise steps for exorcism.”
I folded my arms and leaned back in my chair, my chin held high. “Well, what was I supposed to say? That’s the problem. I described it accurately.”
“Gremlins is not a technical term.” He sat down behind my desk after I stood up. “Alright, show me what’s going on.”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t need you,” I said. “My computer is simply not cooperating.”
Rami tapped a few keys, frowned thoughtfully, and looked up at me. “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”
“If that’s the best advice you’ve got, I’m throwing my other shoe. Or firing you.”
He arched a steep eyebrow. “Oh, okay. Sure. Except, you can’t fire me.”
“No, but I can ask Dad to it.”
“You could, but he’ll side with me. He has to.
No one else is allowed to touch any of his devices.
” He grinned, opened another official IT ticket with such flourish it was like he was about to reboot the entire universe, then typed several lines and my computer shut down. “Okay, let’s see if that works.”
The monitor went black, but a few seconds later, it restarted and everything appeared exactly as it should. I blew out a heavy breath through my nostrils as I glared at the stupid machine. “I’m going to pretend that didn’t just happen.”
“It happens every day.” He updated his ticket, pushed the chair out, and stood up again. “People neglect to turn their computers off for years at a time, then act all surprised when things don’t work like they should.”
“I hate technology.”
“Don’t worry, it hates you too.” He laughed, but before he moved out from behind my desk, he shut the computer down again. “There, it’s fixed, but you should go home. Blame it on me. Tell whoever asks I’m still working on it.”
I frowned. “What?”
“You’re not even supposed to be here, Deja.”
My eyebrows swept up. “That’s funny. I could’ve sworn that I work here. I have a contract and everything.”
“Mama has half of Cairo planning for Colin’s grand arrival.” He dropped into the chair across from my desk, his eyes soft and understanding as he looked up at me. “You should be with them. At least that way, you’ll get maybe half a say in maybe one thing that’s going to happen.”
“I doubt it.”
“When I left the house this morning, there were florists, caterers, and decorators pulling up. Mom and Aunt Farida were arguing about seating arrangements for a wedding that might not even happen, and Jasmine was on the phone to a travel agent saying something about a bachelorette party. You should be there, Deja.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re hiding.”
“Okay, but I’m doing it at work.” I sighed and looked down at the latest crumpled letter lying in my wastebasket. “I really was working on something, though. It just might not have been for White Water Lily. Well, it is, but?—”
Rami followed my gaze, promptly cutting me off. “What’s really going on?”
“Colin asked me for an answer,” I admitted after pausing for a long beat, my stomach tying itself into knots all over again. “Before I left Chicago, he told me to take the month until he got here to decide whether I wanted to marry him.”
“It’s an arranged marriage,” he said slowly. “What’s to decide?”
“Whether I’m going to go through it.” I sat back down in my chair and rubbed my temples, my eyes sliding shut as I thought about the fallout I’d have to deal with if I told my father I wouldn’t do it.
“Colin doesn’t want me to feel trapped. He said he’s already made his decision, but that it’s up to me if it’s actually going to happen or not. ”
Rami’s eyes widened, but mercifully, he didn’t tell me I didn’t have a choice. “That’s a very honorable thing for him to have done. If it goes through, this will be the deal of a lifetime. The fact that he’s willing to risk it says a lot about his character.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” he asked. “I’ve seen the numbers being thrown around, Deja. The possibilities being discussed are endless. Dad is talking about this like it’ll allow us to take over the world.”
“I know that, too.”
“Well, then, what’s the problem?”
“Once I say yes, our marriage and the prospect of spending the rest of our lives together becomes real,” I said slowly. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
Rami blinked rapidly. “I don’t really know what to say here, sis.
You might not like the guy, but Dad and Khaled do.
More importantly, they trust him and you know how rare that is.
I’m just not sure how much it’s going to matter that you don’t think he’s the one for you.
Or whatever else is going on in your head. ”
“No, it’s not that,” I said. “I’m all for marrying him. Colin is an amazing guy. I’ll happily spend the rest of my life spending every waking minute staring into his eyes, but that’s the issue. I think I like him too much to say yes.”
Confusion flickered across my brother’s features, his brow furrowing as he groaned. “Okay, that’s it. You’ve officially lost me. You like him, so you don’t want to marry him? See, this is why I’m still single. I really don’t understand women.”
“Colin is thoughtful, and kind, and I want him?—”
“I don’t need to know that.”
I snorted. “I was going to say that I want him to have everything he can possibly get out of life, but you’re not wrong about the other thing either.”
Rami scrunched up his entire face. “I’m leaving if that’s what you’re going to talk about.”
“You’re the one who brought it up.” I pumped my eyebrows at him, but then moved on, knowing he was probably the most reliable sounding board I was going to get around here.
“Business-wise, our marriage is a match made in heaven. White Water Lily gets a foothold in the States, GlobalStar cuts shipping costs, and Thayer expands into an entirely new sector. It all makes perfect sense.”
“So you like him, you want him to have the best, and he could have that, at least professionally, if you marry him, but you’re not sure you should because you like him too much? I’m still not really getting it.”
“I’m worried about his assimilation into our family, Rami,” I finally said, exasperation and frustration wound tightly into my tone. “I know that’s a very corporate way of putting it, but we’re us and the Thayers are… not.”
Rami barked out a laugh. “Yeah, but that’s why you’re allowed to marry him. If the Thayers were Saads, you hooking up with Colin would be illegal, and gross. Although, it’s gross anyway, so there’s that.”
I groaned out loud and buried my face in my hands.
“What you just said kind of proves my point. We’re loud, and we’re busy, and we tell each other whatever is on our minds.
There are always at least twenty people in the house and most of them communicate primarily by shouting at each other across the entire compound. ”
“So?”
“In our lives, privacy is basically a myth and quiet time might as well be folklore.”
He shrugged. “I’m still not getting it.”
“The Thayers seem much, much quieter. Colin currently lives alone in a big old townhouse and he has all the privacy he could ever need. He does not, at all, say what’s on his mind without a lot of needling, and even then, he’s always cautious about how he phrases things. He’s just…”
I trailed off for a beat. “He seems like an extremely private person and he won’t get to be that here.”
Rami shrugged. “The Thayer family is almost as big as ours. Who cares if he lives alone now? He lived with them for a long time, and once you guys are married, you’ll be in your own place anyway.”
I frowned. “You really don’t get it.”
“You’re right. I really don’t.”
“They’re a big family, and sure, I haven’t even met all of them yet, but they’re just not the same as us. It’s not only about the number of people, it’s also about the volume of living. I’m not sure Colin will ever want to fit in with us.”
Rami chuckled. “The volume of living. I love that. It’s the most accurate thing anyone has ever said about us, but look, if you’ve got cold feet, it’s not like you’ll see him much over the next couple of weeks anyway.”
“I know. The engagement events will be keeping us busy, but that’s part of what I’m worried about.
Colin will barely have time to recover from meeting one branch of the family before another descends on him.
Throwing a quiet, serious, utterly kind man into the fire that is this family seems wholly unfair. ”
Rami waited until I looked up at him again before he smiled at me. “I think he’ll survive. Give the man a little bit of credit. He comes from a big family of his own and maybe they’re quieter, but he’ll adapt.”
He started back toward the doors, but his eyes remained locked on mine.
“Besides, all this worrying might be too little, too late. He’s already met Dad and Khaled.
If he didn’t want to have to deal with them, he should’ve told them he wasn’t doing it.
Now go home, Deja. Take a break and for the love of God, stop stressing so much about a man who, from the sounds of things, coped just fine with the worst members of our family back in Chicago. ”
With that, he spun on his heels and left my office, and I begrudgingly headed home. His whole attitude about all this had given me a lot to think about, and I planned on doing just that until I walked into the house to find my sister practically flying down the stairs.
“Deja!” Jasmine came thundering toward me with a letter in her hand. “This just came for you. Don’t worry. I haven’t opened it yet.”
For one, irrationally terrifying moment, I thought that maybe he’d changed his mind. I hadn’t been expecting another letter before his visit and the fact that he’d sent one could be either good or very, very bad.
My heart skipped, then started pounding. The possibility that he might decide not to come at all truly hadn’t occurred to me until this very moment and it stole all the air from my lungs when I realized that if he’d decided against our marriage, I might not ever see him again.
Jasmine skidded to a stop in front of me, grinning from ear to ear as she held the envelope out to me. “For you, but read it out loud.”
I broke the seal carefully, my head suddenly spinning. Oh, God. I don’t want to lose him. I mean, I know I don’t even have him yet, but?—
“Open it already,” Jasmine said impatiently when I paused with my finger only halfway along the seam. “What did he say?”
“I don’t know yet. Just give me a minute.” I finally just tore the envelope open and pulled out the letter, unfolding it with my heart bouncing in my throat and dread forming a pit at the base of my stomach. “It says…”
I stopped speaking as I read it silently to myself before I looked back up at her. “It says that he can’t wait for his visit and that he’s been thinking about me.”
Dizzying relief spiraled through me as I read what turned out to be a letter that was just a little bit more romantic than all the others so far.
Colin wasn’t pulling out of the deal. He was coming to Cairo and the way I’d felt when I’d thought he might not be had told me everything I needed to know.