10. Kareem
CHAPTER 10
KAREEM
“ T his will be your suite while you’re here,” Kareem told Keira, opening the double doors that led to his best guest accommodations.
She let out a gasp. “All of this? Are you sure? I don’t need this much, Kareem. I would be fine with a single room.”
“I don’t have a single room,” he said. “Not unless you want to go and stay in the servants’ quarters.”
“There are servants’ quarters?”
“They have to live somewhere, don’t they? There is space there, if that’s what you’d like, since I let a lot of the staff go after moving in. But I don’t think it would be a very good idea. If anyone found out you were living in that part of the house while we’re allegedly married to each other, it would raise questions we don’t want to have to answer.”
“No, no,” Keira agreed, walking around the room. She let her fingers come to rest on the marble vanity, on the thick velvet curtains, on the gossamer canopy over the bed. “This room is… it’s perfect. I’m very happy with it. I’m a little surprised, that’s all. But it’s good.”
“You’ll be comfortable here?”
She turned to face him. “I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? You did tell me that I would be coming to live in a manor. I should have known it would be this nice. But I can’t help it. I’ve never lived in such an upscale place before.”
“You’ll have a maid assigned to you while you’re here, and if you need anything, she’ll be able to get it for you.” He indicated the call button on the wall. “Just press that button and she’ll come to see to your needs.”
Keira rocked from one foot to the other. “I don’t think I’ll ever use that,” she confided. “I can’t imagine summoning a servant to wait on me. I would feel so awkward about it.”
“Remember that your maid is being paid to do a job,” Kareem advised her. “It’s really no different from allowing a waiter to tend to your needs in a restaurant. And remember, too, that you are currently in a country that is entirely unfamiliar to you. You don’t know our customs. You don’t know anything about the ways of Qalmar, so you are going to need help. You should take advantage of the resources at your disposal, even if they do feel somewhat uncomfortable at first.”
“You’re right,” Keira agreed. “This has just all been so much so fast.”
“I’ll leave you alone to unpack, if you’d like. And I know you’d like to get some rest.”
“Actually, I don’t think I would,” Keira confessed.
Kareem turned back to her, eyebrows raised. “You’re not tired? I thought you would surely be exhausted after our trip.”
“I’d have thought that too, but with all the excitement today, I just don’t think I could sleep,” Keira confessed.
“Would you like to come with me to my office? I was going to go over some of my ideas for the racing event. I had intended to share them with you tomorrow, after you’d gotten some sleep, but if you’re really feeling alert, we could do it now.”
“I think I’d like that,” Keira said. “I did think I would want sleep, but now that we’re here… I don’t know. I think I’d like to work, strange as it seems.”
“Well, by all means.” Kareem’s heart fluttered with excitement. He had also anticipated that Keira would need some time to herself, and he had resigned himself to the fact that he’d have to wait to show her his ideas. The fact that she wanted to see them right away after all had him churning with excitement.
He led her from the suite and down the hall to the room that served as both his office and his library. Her eyes went wide all over again as they stepped inside. “You have so many books!”
“You’re welcome to borrow any of them as long as you’re here.”
“Are they in English?”
“Many of them are,” he said. “That shelf there is in Arabic, and that shelf is in Qalmese, but the rest are English, and you’re welcome to any of them.”
“That I might take you up on.” She grinned.
“Yeah? No moral qualms about that one?” He smiled back at her.
“It’s definitely easier to accept a book loan than it is to be waited on. Besides,” she added, “I’ve borrowed books before. Dozens of times. I’ve loaned them out myself. That seems normal to me.”
Kareem nodded. Their lifestyles were very different, and yet, on occasion, they found things they had in common. Now, in addition to racing, it seemed that they were both lovers of books.
It made him think of his parents, who had had an arranged marriage. They had often recounted fondly how little they had known of one another on the day they had married, and what an exciting journey it had been for them to learn more about one another and fall in love slowly throughout the course of their marriage.
Kareem had always sworn that he didn’t want what his parents had had. As much as he respected them, an arranged marriage wasn’t right for him. And when he had gotten older, he had been sure that he didn’t want to marry at all.
Now, though, standing here with Keira, he could see the benefit of it for the first time. It was a pleasant thing to be tied to someone and to discover gradually that you were compatible.
But wait — what was he thinking of? He and Keira were here on a business arrangement, not in a real marriage. Any personal compatibility between the two of them was meaningless. In two months’ time, this would all be ancient history, and it would no longer matter what had existed between the two of them. Their story would be over.
He cleared his throat and went to his desk. “Here are my plans,” he said, pulling out the notebook he had used to write them down. “You can feel free to look over them.”
Keira picked up the notebook and flipped it open. “You’ve done so much already.”
“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”
She nodded, her eyes on the pages. “You want to have a musical guest?”
“Well, I’ve been paying attention to American sporting events,” he explained, “and I’ve noticed that something you often do is to have a performer come and put on a pre-show or a halftime show.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Keira said. “Still, I don’t know if that’s the kind of thing that will work at an event like this one.”
“Well, I’ve made up my mind about it already.”
She looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “You’ve made up your mind?”
“Like I said, I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
“I thought you brought me here to advise. What if I don’t think your ideas are good ones?” she asked him. “Are you saying I should just keep my mouth shut?”
“Of course I’m not saying that. I’m just saying… well, obviously I’m going to be the public face of this venture, so what I want is what’s going to happen.”
“Wait a moment.” Keira put the notebook down and folded her arms across her chest. “ Obviously you’re going to be the public face of this?”
“You’re here in an advisory capacity. I thought that was clear.”
“Kareem, the whole reason I agreed to come was that I thought it might benefit my career. How is that going to happen if I have to stay behind the scenes all the time?” Keira demanded. “I’m trying to make a name for myself doing this, not hide in your skirts.”
“Hide in my skirts?” Kareem raised an eyebrow.
“You know what I mean. When this is all over, I want it on my resume. I want people to know that I had a hand in it. If all you wanted was advice , I could have stayed at home. I could have not gotten married .”
“Are you regretting the marriage?” Kareem wasn’t sure quite how to account for the pang he felt at her words.
“I’m only regretting it if you’re saying I can’t be involved in the decision-making and put my name on this project, the way I thought I would be able to,” Keira said. “You have to understand how important this is for me, Kareem. I like you, but I didn’t come all the way over here as part of some philanthropic desire to help you achieve your dreams. This is about my dreams too.”
“It’s also about being practical,” Kareem said. “Remember, this is only going to work if my family doesn’t discover what we’re doing. You’re going to be background checked if you marry into the royal family, and it’s only a matter of time before someone discovers that you have a racing background. We have to maintain some deniability, and that means keeping you as far removed as possible from anything to do with racing while you’re here. If we’re not careful, someone will piece all this together, and our plans will be ruined before they can get off the ground.”
“Well, I’m not willing to take a backseat in all this because you’re afraid of getting caught,” Keira said.
Kareem sighed. “It’s not fear ,” he told her. “I’m being sensible, and you should be too. If we’re discovered, the event won’t take place at all. Is it so important to you to take credit for it that you’re willing to sacrifice that?”
Keira stared at him. “You’re asking if my work is so important to me that I don’t care about getting credit for it? Not really, Kareem. I’m passionate about racing, but I’m not so passionate that I’m willing to abandon all thought of recognition for my work. I’m trying to make progress.”
Kareem gritted his teeth. The truth was that he knew she was right, even though it inconvenienced him. She had come all the way to Qalmar, and she had a right to be as involved as she wanted to be, and to have her name on everything the two of them achieved together.
“All right,” he said. “I’m leaving for Monaco tomorrow. I was going to have you stay here, since it’s a short trip and it would be better for you to keep a low profile, but why don’t you come along with me?”
“Monaco? What’s there?”
“A couple of high-profile drivers that I’m hoping to persuade to enter our race,” Kareem told her. “There’s a private event taking place — you have to qualify to enter, and the criteria are demanding. I think we might be able to meet with the drivers and tell them what we’re planning to do, though, and if we could get them to come to our event as headliners, we’ll be able to bring other people on board a lot more easily.”
“Of course I want to come with you,” Keira said at once. “That’s the kind of thing I should be included in.”
She probably had a point. Still, Kareem was nervous. It was difficult enough bringing home a surprise bride and telling his parents that he had gotten married without their knowledge. When his father discovered that Keira had an interest in racing — which was beginning to seem inevitable — what little approval he had extended to the two of them so far would go up in smoke.
But Kareem didn’t need his father’s approval, he reminded himself. All he really needed was to make sure his father didn’t find out about the racing event he was planning — until it was too late for him to put a stop to it.