Chapter 9
ISAAC
Dinner with the Saads was an experience I would never forget.
Colin had told me how every meal turned into a loud family affair often lasting until nearly midnight, but I hadn’t quite understood what he meant until I sat at their table with Basel, Layla, Jasmine, all six of her brothers, Ashanti, and her and Khaled’s kids.
It was raucous and chaotic, everyone talking at the same time while the kids often squealed and ran around, leaving either Khaled or Ashanti to race after them and bring them back.
The dining room overlooked the gardens. Warm evening air drifted in through open French doors.
I couldn’t blame the kids for wanting to be out there. Hell, part of me wanted to join them.
Not that I wanted to leave the table. As it happened, I loved the loud chaos of the Saads. I’d met the brothers when I’d been here for Colin’s wedding and I’d gotten to spend some actual time with them, since I’d arrived early enough to join them for his bachelor party.
Tarek, Jasmine’s twin, sat beside me now, constantly cracking quiet jokes while Basel entertained me with plans for my work with GlobalStar. I’d been brought on to help his team design an industrial compound, but I doubted Tarek had ever a conversation he could take seriously.
“It needs a games arcade,” he muttered. “Tell Dad it’s too boring right now.”
My lips quirked into a smile, but I stayed on track, focusing on Basel when he pointed a fork at me. “My people have let you have the plans, yes?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, grimacing a little as I leaned back in my chair.
His dark eyes swept across my face. “What do you think?”
“Oh, uh, I think they’re great, but…” I trailed off for a moment, steeling myself to tell a multi-billionaire titan of industry that I wasn’t at all impressed with a design he seemed to love. “To be honest, I don’t agree with the direction the team currently seems to want to go in.”
Basel’s eyebrows shot up. “What? Why not? It’ll be a marvel of engineering when we’re done.”
“Maybe so.” I shrugged. “It’ll also be a marvel of engineering that already exists in a dozen other countries.”
He frowned, eyes narrowing as he thought it over. “This is true. We’ve taken our inspiration from several other international complexes. They’re all highly efficient and extremely profitable. What is disagreeable about that?”
“There are ways to incorporate everything that makes them work so well while maintaining elements of traditional Egyptian design,” I said.
“I would encourage you to embrace that, sir. It might be an industrial complex, but it seems a waste to construct it as just another gray, steel blemish on the landscape. Especially in such a beautiful country.”
“A blemish?” he asked, scoffing lightly as he shook his head. “I don’t understand. Your family business is steel.”
“Yeah, but if you remove the Arabic signage from the current plans, your complex could be in Dallas, Frankfurt, or Manchester. I’m not suggesting we remove steel from the equation all together.
That’s simply not a viable option, but the gray cladding, glass curtain walls, and steel and concrete exterior strip it of all personality. ”
“It’s a building.”
“So is this,” I said, sweeping a hand around the room and noticing Jasmine looking straight at me, clearly listening in on our conversation.
But when I tried to meet her gaze, she looked away, acting as if she hadn’t been listening at all.
I would’ve smiled if I didn’t still have a point to make.
“This house is also a building, but it has character. It adds to the skyline instead of detracting from it.”
Basel nodded. “Go on.”
“We’re building one of the most significant industrial campuses in the region, but in one of the oldest civilizations on Earth.
Why are we ignoring where we are? We shouldn’t build something we’re going to be ashamed of and we don’t have to.
Efficiency doesn’t have to mean stripping away a place’s identity. ”
As I spoke, I felt Jasmine’s gaze on me again, but I didn’t turn away from her father, who looked back at me with a thoughtful gleam in his eyes for a long moment. “Before I agree to change anything, I will need to see plans.”
“Of course, sir.” That spark deep down inside I hadn’t felt for so long flared to life and I grinned. “I’m thinking we use local stone where it makes sense. We could?—”
“The lots where we will be constructing this complex are about an hour from Sharm El-Sheikh,” he said, cutting me off. “You will go there next week.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “I’d love to see them.”
“Once you have your feet on the ground, you can start talking to me about traditional Egyptian design. This is exactly why I wanted you on my team, but there are restrictions to what is freely available there. It is not Cairo and I will not triple the cost of construction by having to source materials from the four corners of the country.”
“No, sir,” I said immediately. “That’s not what I’m aiming for at all, but does this mean you’ll consider the direction I’ve suggested?”
He chuckled. “Isaac, I brought you here to be my head structural engineer. The construction phase is yours. For roughly the next year, I will consider any direction you suggest as long you don’t try to blow my budget to kingdom come.”
I laughed, but that spark was burning brightly inside me, fueling my creative fire. It had been years since someone had spoken to me about being part of the construction phase of anything. Let alone for an entire year.
This was exactly what I’d come here for. It had only been a week, but Basel was already living up to the promises he’d made. I looked him right in the eyes and nodded my agreement. “Yeah, I’m in. It’s me and Sharm El-Sheikh next week.”
Basel smiled before he looked down at the table. “You will need inspiration, of course. Jasmine will be your guide. She loves traveling. If anyone can show you the sites that will ignite your imagination, it’s her.”
Jasmine finally met my gaze, and when she did, I could tell she was just as uncertain about this as I was. But Basel had issued a decree, and when he leaned back in his chair with a satisfied grin on his lips, I knew there would be no getting out of it.
I nodded. “Yeah, sure. I wouldn’t mind someone to show me around.”
She sighed, but said, “Fine. I’ll do it.”
As I looked back at her, I almost tried to tell Basel I could also just show myself around. At least that would get her off the hook, but I definitely didn’t want to get roped into any Saad family drama, and pushing Basel about this seemed like a surefire way of doing just that.
The thing about Jasmine, however, was that she was a notoriously tough nut to crack. She might’ve agreed to this, but that didn’t mean she wanted to do it and it definitely didn’t mean she’d make our time over there easy for me.
Which could make my job that much harder.
Colin, Deja, and her brothers had all warned me in their own ways about interacting with her. To my mind, the impression I’d been left with was that they saw her a bit like a tornado that happened to bake excellent desserts.
She had her strengths and she could be pretty sweet when she wanted to, but she also knew exactly what she wanted at all times and she went after it with a ferocity that would flatten anyone foolish enough to stand in her way.
Logically, that meant that I should probably have at least tried to get her out of it, but logic had begun losing the battle where Jasmine was concerned. I’d been getting more and more curious about her, and while that kind of thing was new to me, it was also a little bit exhilarating.
So I kept my mouth shut and turned my attention to Tarek when he muttered something else under his breath. “Good luck, man. She’s going to make your life a living hell for this.”
“That wasn’t a joke,” I said quietly back to him. “It’s not funny at all.”
He chuckled. “Maybe not to you. I find it hilarious.”
He widened his eyes at me and dragged a finger across his throat, miming how she was likely to kill me. I laughed and just shook my head at his theatrics, then turned back to my food and relaxed into dinner now that business was done.
The plates were finally cleared and both coffee and dessert were served. After, the Saads left the table one by one. Ashanti and Khaled left first, excusing themselves to take the little ones to bed. Tarek and Rami, another of the brothers, ducked out next.
I was just preparing to say my own goodbyes when Basel spoke up again. In English. Even though he was looking at Jasmine. I knew immediately that meant this concerned me too, so I stayed put in my seat, a little apprehensive about what he might have up his sleeve this time.
“I’ve taken the liberty of dismissing Rashid for the evening,” he said. “Isaac will drive you home. It won’t be any trouble, I’m sure. You do live in the same neighborhood now.”
She blinked hard. “You told my driver he could go home?”
“It was getting late.” Basel shrugged, sending her a rather indulgent smile. “He has a family, sweetheart. Best we not keep him out all night.”
“Isaac has only been here a week,” she said slowly. “Do you really trust him to drive me after such a short of amount time learning how to drive in Cairo?”
Basel chuckled. “I have driven with Isaac myself this week. He seems to enjoy the traffic. He’s already got a knack for it.”
Well, I’m not sure I’d take it quite that far. “It really won’t be any trouble and I promise to get you home safe.”
“Fine.” She blew out a very disapproving breath, shoved her chair back, and grabbed her purse. “Well, then, it looks like you’re my chauffeur. Let’s go. I’m ready to leave now.”
“Alright.”
She spun on her heels and stormed out, and Basel watched her go with amusement in his eyes before he turned back toward me. “You will drive carefully?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, then followed her out into the night.
She was already sitting in the car GlobalStar was letting me use for my time here, her arms folded tight over her chest and her gaze fixed on the window.
She didn’t even look at me when I climbed in behind the wheel and turned over the engine, She simply huffed out another breath as I turned out of the driveway.
Since she seemed intent on not speaking to me, the drive back to Heliopolis was more peaceful than I had expected, but finally, she lifted her hand and pointed at a little bakery we were passing. “If you want the best pistachio pastries in the city, that’s where you’ll find them.”
“Good to know,” I said quietly. “Thanks.”
“Do you see that obelisk?” she asked as we neared our neighborhood. “It dates back to the Twelfth Dynasty, about 1950 BC, which makes it the only surviving piece of the Sun Temple of Heliopolis still standing in its original location.”
“The Twelfth Dynasty? Wow.”
She nodded, finally glancing over and surprising me with a small smile. “It really is wow. You should be able to see it from your balcony.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed it, but I didn’t realize it was that old,” I said. “I haven’t had a chance to look up even, like, a single percentage of the stuff on my list to look up.”
She chuckled. “There’s a lot of history here. It would take years of round-the-clock research to truly look up everything one wants to learn more about.”
“Yet you knew it right off the top of your head.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “I grew up here.”
“I bet most people who grew up here wouldn’t know exactly which dynasty it’s from.” I turned my gaze back to the giant stone jutting high into the night sky. “Can you imagine everything it’s seen?”
Another soft smile ghosted across her lips. “What do you think I do every morning when I sit on my balcony, sipping my coffee?”
My eyebrows shot up. “That’s what you do? You imagine everything the obelisk has seen?”
“Not only the obelisk. The streets. The palaces. Even the markets.”
My eyes widened, but I didn’t tell her that I’d thought she spent her time thinking about her next campaign or perhaps how to gain more Instagram followers. For the rest of the drive, however, I learned that wasn’t the case at all.
Jasmine kept pointing out little things, things I might not even have noticed, and explaining their significance to me. By the time I parked in my designated spot when we reached our building, I’d learned more from her in the last twenty minutes than I had in the whole week since I’d gotten here.
She reached for the door handle and tugged at it, but as soon as the door was open, she suddenly turned back to me. “It’s a nice night. Do you want to go for a walk? I can show you some more of the interesting things that are right on your doorstep.”
“Yeah. I’d love that.”
I didn’t question why she’d asked or why I’d accepted, simply following her out on the street instead.
It surprised the crap out of me, but I quickly realized we shared a passion for arts, design, and architecture.
While we wandered around without any destination, she pointed out a bookstore that had been around since the dawn of the last century, a palace that had been converted into a hotel, and a dozen other things.
When we finally circled back to our building, she glanced up at me, pausing outside the door.
“I’ll only be your tour guide if you can keep up with me.
We’ll stop for food and disappear down side alleys.
I’ll climb any random old staircase if the view might be worth it and I will not be rushed in a market. ”
I looked down into her eyes and nodded. I could travel the world with you if that’s what it would be like.
She looked back up at me like she’d heard the thought, not moving toward the door or looking away, but before either of us could say anything else, the doorman interrupted the moment. “Good evening, Ms. Saad.”
“Hey, Hassan.” She blinked a couple times, like she’d greeted him on autopilot and was only now realizing where she was. “Good night, Isaac. I guess I’ll see you soon.”
Without another word, she disappeared through the front doors, pausing only to wait for the elevator before vanishing.
I stood rooted to my spot for a long minute after she was gone, wondering why the hell I’d never realized how much Jasmine and I had in common, and even more worryingly, why it suddenly felt like that mattered.