Chapter 2
DEJA
Iwoke to the soft hush of bare feet moving across the guest room at my brother’s house in Chicago, but I kept my eyes closed.
While there could’ve been quite few reasons for movement so early in the morning, I guessed that these particular feet did not belong to someone bringing me tea or breakfast.
Experience told me that they belonged to a small, curious, seven-year-old girl who had developed a slight obsession with my makeup bag. Her name was Amari, and she was my niece.
I kept my breathing even, letting my body stay heavy against the mattress.
There was a brief pause before the movement continued, like she’d been waiting to see if she’d woken me up.
I could picture her perfectly, her dark hair still messy with sleep and her beautiful little face scrunched in serious concentration.
A smile ghosted across my lips, but I bit it back until I heard the soft rustle of fabric that said she’d located her target. Amari’s fascination with my makeup bag had been building for two days, ever since she’d discovered it contained magic creams and powders that changed faces.
Apparently, mine was more impressive than her mother’s, which made sense. Ashanti was gorgeous. I doubted she owned more than mascara and perhaps some lip gloss. She didn’t need anything else.
When I heard the soft sound of the zipper being slid down, I opened my eyes and sat up, already laughing. “Got you!”
Amari froze, her hand still hovering on my makeup bag for a second before she yanked it back and screamed, a full, blood-curdling scream that had me in hysterics in no time.
The next second, she bolted out of the room and I fell back against the bed, still chuckling as I listened to the rapid patter of feet disappearing down the hallway.
No doubt she was about to go tell her parents that she’d had absolutely no idea I was even in the room, let alone that she had once again been on her magic potion treasure hunt.
As the sound of her footsteps faded, I smiled and stared up at the ceiling, proud to be keeping the Saad family tradition of pranking alive.
Heaven knew, my brothers had gotten me more than enough times. As had Amari herself. Even her five-year-old brother, Zain, had managed to pull one over on me a few times.
Soft voices drifted up downstairs, followed shortly after by the clinking of glasses, but I stretched out instead of jumping out of bed immediately, allowing myself to wake up lazily for a change.
When I eventually made my way downstairs, the scent of tea and sweet pastries drifted from the kitchen, and I let out a contented sigh.
I hadn’t been sure about joining my brother and his family on this trip, but Ashanti’s mom’s cooking would’ve made it worthwhile even if we hadn’t done anything else during our time in America.
Khaled, my brother, was already in the kitchen when I got there, sitting at the table with bleary eyes and messy hair. Ashanti didn’t look particularly happy to be awake either, slumped at the counter next to my brother, both of them clearly regretting their wild night at Jane’s party.
Or at least, it had been what counted as a wild night for two already exhausted parents. I wasn’t feeling any worse for wear myself, but to be fair, I had gone into it well rested and with slightly more of a tolerance for alcohol than my notoriously lightweight sister-in-law.
Ashanti’s mom, Gabrielle, lived here full-time and had been baby-sitting last night. She stood near the stove, smirking and apparently as amused by their condition as I was. “You both look terrible. Honestly, I thought you would’ve learned by now.”
She poured them each a cup of tea before going back to whatever batter she was mixing. Ashanti picked up her cup and grimaced at her mother. “White wine always looks so pretty and harmless. Why didn’t anyone stop me?”
“I was too busy letting Alex drown me in whiskey,” Khaled muttered, slightly green at the gills after taking a single, small sip of his tea. His gaze drifted to me. “Why don’t you look like death warmed over?”
I shrugged and strode into the kitchen, accepting a cup of tea of my own from Gabrielle. “I didn’t drink white wine. Or whiskey, for that matter. The pink wine is prettier and kinder.”
Technically, this was a vacation, though, so I decided to cut them some slack. “Just go back to bed and sleep it off. You’ll be okay. I’ll watch the kids for a bit.”
As I said it, I glanced at little Amari, who was standing at the edge of the kitchen island, scowling like she still hadn’t forgiven me for the fright. Her arms were crossed, her expression stormy, and she stuck her tongue out at me.
I stuck my tongue out right back at her, and her eyes widened as though I’d violated some unspoken rule of adult behavior. With a loud huff, she turned on her heels and stormed out of the kitchen, probably already plotting her revenge.
Gabrielle chuckled and slid a plate across the island toward me. “It’s a good thing you found her when you did. I once walked in on Ashanti when she was four, about to put nail polish on her sister’s eyelids.”
I winced. “How would you even get that off?”
Gabrielle shook her head. “I have no idea, but luckily, I never had to find out. I did have a few nightmares about what Child Protective Services might’ve thought if I hadn’t gotten there on time, though.”
My eyes widened in agreement and I nodded enthusiastically, but the back of my mind drifted again to what it must’ve been like for Ashanti as a child, growing up here in the States.
Gabrielle had moved here long before her children had even been born, and regardless of how many times my brother had offered to buy her a house in the same gated estate in Cairo where the rest of us lived, she insisted that this was home.
As I dug into the stack of American pancakes she’d handed over—with a side of muffin and some other kind of pastry—I thought about what I’d seen of the city so far. It was my first time here, but I liked it.
I loved the lake and the modernity, the people and the parks.
I could easily have stayed here with Ashanti until she headed home at the end of August. She had family here that she’d be visiting with the kids until they had to go back to school, but I had no such convenient excuse.
I would be heading back to Cairo next week with Khaled.
This was simply a few days break for me. Then it’d be straight back to work. As I tried to figure out if there was a way I could extend my trip by even just a few days, I noticed Ashanti and Khaled exchanging yet another glance.
“Did you enjoy the party last night?” Ashanti asked when she looked back at me, her tone suspiciously light.
I chewed the bite I’d just taken slowly, then washed it down with a sip of tea as I tried to figure out what they might be plotting.
“It was interesting. Your old friends are pretty nice, even if most of them seem rather fond of talking business at a party. Maybe that’s a cultural tradition I wasn’t aware of, but I found it a bit jarring. ”
Khaled laughed. “As if the same thing doesn’t happen in Egypt.”
Ashanti pointed at me with her fork. “It’s a cultural tradition, alright. It simply belongs to the upper class rather than to any particular place.”
Gabrielle cackled from the stove. “Youth truly is wasted on the young. My lord, in my day, kids knew how to party without bringing work into it.”
Ashanti rolled her eyes. “In your day, the stock market referred to a market where one could purchase livestock.”
Gabrielle laughed and presented a counterargument on behalf of her entire generation. My brother leaned back in his chair and sighed, his gaze drifting to the windows. I frowned, worry winding through me.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “The hangover can’t be that bad.”
“It’s not.” He brought his eyes to mine. “Thanks for offering to watch the kids for us today, but Alex invited me to go golfing with him and some of his brothers, as well as Colin Thayer.”
Ashanti brightened instantly at the sound of his name, as if not even the aftereffects of white wine—or an active argument with her mother—could keep her from singing his praises.
“Ah, Colin. I’m just so proud of how successful he’s become, regardless of what happened with his family.
” Before I could ask what she meant, she smiled.
“Do you remember him? I introduced you last night.”
“Sure,” I said, about to ask what had happened with his family, but Ashanti slipped an arm around Khaled’s waist and leaned into him, still looking only at me as she kept going.
“Jane said he’s become the kind of man the family depends on when everyone else is panicking. It sounds like he’s doing well, but he’s always been the stable, responsible type, so I’m not surprised. That’s just who he is, the man with the plan. He’s very smart too.”
Khaled interjected with a few facts he’d learned about Colin, but my mind was already wandering again. I definitely remembered the man they were talking about. In fact, I’d spent the better part of the night thinking about him.
Despite what Ashanti had said, Colin hadn’t struck me as the steady or stable type when we’d first encountered one another in the kitchen.
As soon as he’d laid eyes on me, he’d frozen and turned beet red.
Then afterward, I could’ve sworn he kept looking back in my direction for the duration of the evening.
A tiny bit of a tingle passed through me at the memory. Smart, capable, and successful as he might be, he was also very much human. Not at all like the polished businessmen I dealt with on a daily basis.
Those were a dime a dozen, all of them practically the same person just in a different suit. I’d always thought of them more as robots than men, but not Colin. He might’ve been wearing a suit, but he’d blushed, he’d stammered, and he’d sneezed, for goodness sake.
That made him as human as they came, but he’d also stood tall. He’d laughed and joked around with Ashanti and he certainly knew how to wear that suit instead of letting it wear him. Despite how he’d acted in the kitchen, I’d gotten no sense that he was feeble, helpless, or even awkward.
I’d simply gotten the feeling that he was taken aback, by me, and I liked that.
I liked people who were genuine about their emotions and reactions, and I had more than enough cool professionalism in my life.
Maybe it was just my creative, artistic side coming out, but what I enjoyed in my free time was authenticity and discovering what made people tick.
Especially when those people were handsome, broad-shouldered Americans with gray eyes the color of a morning sky and hair as rich as dark chocolate. It didn’t hurt that his features were pretty either, delicate but not feminine, and sharp.
The man was gorgeous. Even when beet red.
Khaled’s phone rang, interrupting both my thoughts and Ashanti’s continuing praise of Colin.
He glanced at the screen and abruptly stood up, moving toward the window as he took the call.
“Alex.” He paused to listen for a beat, chuckling before he turned to glance at me.
“Would you like to come golfing with us?”
“Have you had a stroke?” I asked politely, my eyebrows hiking up. “I’ve never golfed in my life, nor do I intend to start now.”
Ashanti choked on her tea, but Khaled ignored me, still listening to whatever Alex was saying on the phone. A few moments later, he spoke again. “Unfortunately, my sister won’t be able to join us, but that’s fine. I’ll see you in an hour.”
When he hung up, he came back to the counter and kissed Ashanti on the forehead. “I have to go get ready. I’ll be home by dinner. Have a good day, ladies.”
He strode out of the kitchen without so much as another glance in my direction, and as soon as he was gone, I turned to face my sister-in-law. “What is he really up to?”
She lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “I prefer to stay out of family business.”
With that said, she took another sip of tea as though that had settled the matter, but it had very much not.
Ashanti and Khaled were up to something, and I had a sinking feeling that it concerned me.
I also strongly suspected that neither of them intended to let a word slip until whatever it was had been absolutely set in stone.