Sheikh's Command (12 page)

Olivia murmured a protest as he pulled back, but it was only to reach for a velvet box in his pocket. As she stared with disbelief, he opened it to reveal a ring mounted with an enormous pale green pear-shaped diamond.

“Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” he asked, and as the airport erupted into applause, she sobbed out a barely coherent yes.

They kissed deeply, and to Olivia, it was perfect because it was only the first of many that would come after.

She pulled back after a moment, looking up at him with concern. “Makeen … I signed a contract for an orchestra in Berlin …”

With a grin, he held up his own bag. “The country can get by without me for at least a little while. There is a lovely townhouse that my family owns in Berlin, I think you will quite like it.”

Olivia started to laugh. She felt as light as the bird that he sometimes compared her to. She was in love. She was loved. She knew that it would be perfect no matter where they were.

EPILOGUE

Olivia was aware of the audience; in particular, she was aware of the presence of the man in the VIP box. She didn't let herself look towards them. Like the other members of the orchestra, she kept her eyes on her music.

Finally, the lights dimmed slightly, and the announcer came on.

“And tonight, in her first solo in Berlin, we have Olivia Majors al-Hamidiya!”

The applause faded as the first strains of the piece were plucked out of the air. She could hear the music weaving like a beautiful tapestry around her, and even as she started to play with the other violins, it made her think of the last few months.

The threads of her life were separate and strange. She was born to a family of criminals; she was a violinist who had sometimes gone hungry and begged for food when busking didn't cover the bills. Suddenly she had been plucked out of obscurity to fall in love with one of the most amazing men she had ever known, the one whose eyes she knew were upon her from the box.

They had come a long way in the four months since their airport reunion. During the days, she worked on her music, and he oversaw his country from afar. When evening fell, they came back together, meeting in a passionate embrace that never seemed to cool.

They explored the ancient city of Berlin, they found pockets and pieces of it that would always belong to their first years together. They talked. They learned about each other. They comforted each other, they loved, and they grew.

Olivia reflected that she had never thought much about love. There was nothing for her before Makeen besides her music. If she thought about it at all, she would have thought that love inevitably got in the way of music, but now she realized that that wasn't true.

The first time she had sat for the orchestra director, he had been wide-eyed. When she finally set down her violin, he shook his head.

“I was impressed by your tape, Fräulein, but this is something else altogether. Something has happened to you in the months since. You have attained a greater understanding of your instrument. It is showing itself ingeniously.”

Not her instrument, she could have said. No, it was a better understanding of life, and of love. It was the man who waited for her outside the building, carrying a paper cup of coffee so that she could have it to settle her nerves when she got out. Before Olivia had gone in, Makeen had given her a kiss.

“You are amazing,” he whispered. “Now show them that you are.”

Now she played with one of the greatest orchestras in that region of the world. She listened to the other skilled musicians around her, wondering if they had their own passions, and if their love fed into their music as much as hers did.

She played in that sublime place between knowledge and power, and when she heard the last of the French horn die away, she brought her bow to the strings.

Her eyes were closed, but she could imagine Makeen's bright eyes, the way he leaned forward in the booth. He had heard her rehearse this piece over and over again at home, but hearing it played in concert would be far different.

The notes rolled out over her, a bright and glittering cascade that rang through the halls like a woman's voice, perfect and golden.

When her solo ended, the rest of the orchestra came in, and she rejoined them. She wasn't even fully aware of what she had done until the piece ended and the people began to clap furiously.

With a gentle hand, the conductor led her to the front, where roses were being tossed up on the stage. For a moment, it was too strange, too much. She was a girl who had busked for spare change. Now she stood on a famous stage, and they threw her roses.

“Well done, my dear,” the conductor whispered. “You deserve every bit of this.”

Somehow, the applause ended, and she stumbled backstage. Amidst the congratulatory calls of her fellow orchestra members, she heard her name being called in a voice she would always recognize.

She turned and saw Makeen beaming at her, his hands full of white roses.

“Perfection,” he grinned. “And of course, the music was wonderful.”

She laughed, taking the flowers long enough to set them down alongside her violin.

“Did you hear me?” she asked, and he took her in his arms. As exhilarating as the stage was, she realized that there was nowhere else she would rather be than with this man, in his arms, looking up into his dark, dark eyes.

“I did,” he said. “I have never heard a songbird I loved more …”

As he bent his head down to kiss her, Olivia knew that this was forever. The Sheikh's command had brought her here, and it was perfect.

THE END

Click here

to subscribe to our newsletter & get EXCLUSIVE updates on all offers, secret previews, and new releases!

ANOTHER STORY YOU MAY ENJOY
Sheikh's Possession

By: Sophia Lynn

Free preview below!

Sheikh's Possession

By: Sophia Lynn

All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2016 Sophia Lynn

CHAPTER ONE

When Berry Caine turned the corner of the souk, dodging a man who was laden down with boxes of pastries and skirting a woman who wanted to sell her a beautiful gold necklace, she laid eyes on one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.

It was a brass statue of a camel, and from the designs that she saw on its saddle and its tack, it was well over two hundred years old. Just because something was old, however, didn't mean that it was valuable, and she had more than three years as a Farnsworth Antiques curator to know that.

With a look of polite interest on her face, she wandered up to the stand where the brass camel was sitting. There was the common detritus of junk that she had come to associate as standard in an Alamun vendor stall, including small ceramic dancing figures, brass flowers, and vivid blue soapstone carved into balls. However, among the junk were pieces that would perfect for the store in Brooklyn, smaller and not great for the gallery, but perfect for the weekend antiquer with time on their hands and a willingness to pay a great deal for something no one else had.

However, right now, that camel was the one that Berry decided was absolutely not going to escape her grasp. The older woman working the stall came to meet her with a wide smile, following her glance to the camel easily.

"Ah, you picked the best of the lot," the woman said in slightly British accented English. "That one, my great-great-grandfather brought out of the desert, and it has been in the family for some time."

"Oh? And why are you selling it?" Berry asked politely. It was probably best to get the sob story out of the way early, and she was right. The woman spun a truly impressive tale about a granddaughter who wanted to go to school and a sick daughter, and how it would break their heart to part with the camel, but it had to be done.

Berry looked over the camel, pretending to think, and then nodded.

"I will give you two hundred for it," she said, and the woman cried with surprise and offense.

"Oh, two hundred if you wish to melt it down for brass!" she exclaimed. "For a thing that came out of the desert on my very ancestor's back, you should be ashamed to spend less than two thousand!"

Berry allowed herself to laugh with dismay. "Oh, surely not!" she protested. "When your ancestor brought it out of the desert, I'm sure he was thinking of melting it down himself …"

"Ah, perhaps I overstated then. Eighteen hundred, then, and break my grand-daughter's heart …"

"Five hundred, and I'd be happy to write her a referral letter."

"From an American tourist? Would that do any good?" scoffed the woman, but Berry could see her eyes growing brighter.

Later on, perhaps, they could get to know each other and form a relationship over shipment of some of the other goods. Right now, though, Berry knew that she wanted that statue and that nothing was going to get in her way.

"Well, maybe not that much, but to make up for it, six hundred …"

They went back and forth like that, drawing amused glances from the people passing by. The Great Marketplace of Alamun had been a famous Middle Eastern trading post for more than five hundred years, and from the first time that two travelers traded pure glass beads for a handful of small copper ingots, very little had changed.

It was an international place, where Berry, tall, chestnut haired, and slender, didn't raise an eyebrow. Unlike in other places in the emirates, women wore what they pleased, and today, Berry was dressed in a long sleeveless black dress, her bright hair covered with a diaphanous drape of fabric that kept off the sun.

She and the vendor finally seemed to settle down somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve hundred dollars. Berry could feel the statue in her hands, and she imagined the way her boss would adore the camel when suddenly a new voice entered the proceedings.

"Five thousand for the camel statue."

Both Berry and the vendor turned to gape in surprise at the newcomer, but the vendor recovered first.

"Sold," she cried, before glancing at Berry triumphantly. "There, you see?" she said. "That is a man who knows what value is."

The man who had stepped in to snipe her purchase was tall, at least two inches over six feet, and in the designer slacks and silk shirt he wore, she could tell that he was muscular. He was clean-shaven, but she couldn't see his eyes, which were covered with a pair of heavy black shades. What she did know was that his grin—bright white and sharp— was maddening.

"It's a beautiful piece," he said as the woman wrapped it up for him.

"Yes, it is," Berry said reluctantly. "I hope you enjoy it."

The man made a noise of agreement, but the moment the woman gave him the neatly wrapped package tied with string, he turned to Berry.

She had been waiting until after he had left to speak with the vendor some more—at the very least, there were the smaller pieces that were of quite a good quality—but then the man offered her the statue.

"Here," he said, his voice low and amused. "A beautiful present for a beautiful woman."

Other women would have been flattered or perhaps flustered by his extravagant compliment. Other women might have gasped at the gift. Berry just felt a tide of rage coming up over her.

"Seriously?" she hissed, and to her dismay, the vendor was watching them very curiously now. Berry could see her chance for getting a good deal going right out the window.

After all,
she could imagine the woman saying,
with a man who will spend so much cash on you, why are you even haggling?

There might be something to salvage here later, when she could come back without the infuriating man grinning after her, but Berry could tell that it was a lost cause right this moment.

"No, I think not," she said, her words brutally clipped, and turning on her heel, she strode off.

To her dismay, he followed her until she stopped at a stand selling limeade, where she bought a tall glass of the overly sugary drink.

"That's very sweet," he observed, the camel package still tucked under his arm. “I wouldn't have thought that a foreigner would have a taste for it."

"Well, there's perhaps a great deal you don't know," Berry said through gritted teeth. When she sat down at a bench under the shade of an old tree, she rolled her eyes when he came to sit down next to her.

Instead of being offended by her irritable words, he only looked curious instead. "Oh? So why don't you tell me what it is I don't know? Perhaps you can start with why a woman might turn down a gift that was bought with the sole purpose of simply pleasing her?"

Berry laughed, because after all, she was a Boston girl who had been fending off catcalls and sexual propositions from the least appealing men since she was a teen.