The Sheikh's American Daughter
Read The Sheikh's American Daughter Online
Authors: Kate Goldman
The Sheikh’s American Daughter
Published by Kate Goldman
Copyright © 2016 by Kate Goldman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems – except in the case of brief quotations in articles or reviews – without the permission in writing from its publisher, Kate Goldman.
Table of Contents
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“What?” Olivia spat out, with eyes widened to the size of olives. Surely she had heard wrong. The shock of her mother’s passing was messing with her senses. Even though her mother had been battling cancer, she could not come to terms with her death. She felt it was too soon. “Please repeat what you just said,” Olivia said to her mother’s lawyer, Mr. Jackson.
“The only thing I can leave you is the identity of your father. He is alive and well in Lebanon. Please go to him. My last wish is that you meet your father,” Mr. Jackson read out the will. Olivia’s wavy brown tresses shook as she shook her head in disbelief.
“My father?”
To her knowledge, her father had died before she was born. Twenty-three years later and after her mother’s passing, she had found out that he was alive all this time. It made no sense to her at all. Her best friend Daya took Olivia’s hand into hers.
“Her father died a long time ago,” Daya said to Mr. Jackson.
“He is still alive.” Mr. Jackson pulled a piece of paper out of the folder. “When your mother left this will for you, she also left your father’s name and address.” He handed Olivia the paper. She just stared at him in disbelief. Daya took the paper instead.
“Solomon Habib,” Daya read out. She crossed her eyebrows. “Lebanon!” she spat out.
“What about Lebanon?” Olivia asked.
“He is from Lebanon.”
“Let me see.” Olivia took the paper from Daya. “Okay, let me get this straight, my father is still alive and he is Lebanese.”
“Yes.” Mr. Jackson nodded. He handed Olivia a white envelope.
“What’s this now?” Olivia could not handle any more surprises.
“A plane ticket.”
“Why should I bother going to look for him? He did not bother to look for me all this time.”
“Exactly. Where has he been for all this time?” Daya interjected.
“You must be feeling confused and angry right now. However, if you do not go, you will regret it. You will still be wondering why he was never present in your life,” said Mr. Jackson. He made sense but Olivia did not want to listen. She was not done mourning her mother, and then she was hit with such a surprise.
***
“Are you ready?” Daya asked Olivia as they buckled their seatbelts ready to land in Lebanon. She was accompanying her to Lebanon. The two of them had been inseparable since they were five years old. So of course Daya was going with Olivia.
“I wish my mother had told me about him when she was alive. Why did she have to wait until she was dead?” Olivia was full of mixed emotions. She was still grieving over her mother, and she was angry about her father. Where had he been when her mother worked two jobs to support them? Where had he been when she had to take a part-time job at the age of fifteen to help her mother out? She needed him to answer those questions.
“I guess we are going to get your answers pretty soon,” Daya replied.
After the plane had landed smoothly, the passengers took their hand luggage and exited the plane. They went into the airport to collect the rest of their luggage. Olivia felt as though they waited for their luggage for too long. She was a little impatient. She looked around as she waited. Foreigners exited the airport; some Middle Eastern men dressed in expensive suits walked past her. It made her wonder about her father’s identity.
After getting their luggage, Olivia and Daya went to look for a taxi. She fished the address out of her pocket and showed it to the driver. “We want to go here,” she said to him. The older grey-haired man looked at the address and then nodded. He put their luggage into the trunk of the car.
“Are you here to visit?” he asked.
“Yes,” Olivia replied as she got into the car.
“Have you ever been here before?”
“No.”
“It is very nice here.” He started the engine.
“And very hot it seems,” Daya replied. Olivia just sank into the backseat and stared out of the window. The city looked nice indeed. It was a shame that she was not there to enjoy the country.
They finally arrived at their destination after what seemed like forever. Olivia paid the driver before she hopped out of the car. “Maybe we should have checked into a hotel first,” Olivia said to Daya.
“Maybe.” Daya laughed a little. They walked towards the security guards standing outside the tall gates.
“Excuse me, we are looking for Solomon Habib,” Olivia said to them. They looked at each other and then back at her.
“Who are you?” one of the security guards said to her.
“Olivia.”
“Appointment?”
“No, we do not have an appointment.”
“Then you cannot come in.”
Daya frowned. “Why not?” she asked him. Just then, an expensive Bentley pulled up. The window rolled down and a man sitting in the backseat asked the security guard something in Arabic. The security guard responded in Arabic.
“What business do you have with the sheikh?” the gentleman in the car asked.
“Sheikh?” Daya and Olivia said at the same time. They looked at each other in shock.
“I heard that he was my father. So I need to speak to him,” Olivia replied. The dark-skinned, handsome gentleman in the car raised his dark eyebrows.
“That's ludicrous,” said the man.
“I think so too but I need to speak with him in order to find out the truth.”
The man did not say anything for a moment. He just looked at Olivia from head to toe. He said something to the security guards in Arabic and then rolled up his window. He drove into the compound.
“He says you may enter,” the security guard said to them. “But leave your bags here.”
“Fine,” Olivia agreed. It wasn’t like she was planning to stay anyway. They walked into the compound and headed up to the large house. The house had grey stone walls and cream windowsills. There were large brown double doors in the middle.
“This place is magnificent,” said Daya as she eyed the neatly cut green lawn and the tall palm trees.
“Tell me about it.” Olivia stopped walking and placed her hands on her hips. “But this guy, couldn’t he give us a lift to the house or walk with us?”
The man that had stopped at the gate was standing at the front of the house, leaning against his car.
“He is clearly waiting for us. He should have given us a lift. It’s a long walk from the gate,” said Daya.
“Tell me about it.” Olivia started walking again.
“Goodness, you walk so slow,” the man from the Bentley said to Olivia and Daya when they reached the house.
“You could have given us a lift, you know,” said Olivia.
“Why would I do that?” He slipped his hands in his pockets. “Let me go speak to the sheikh and see if he knows anything about this atrocity.”
“Can’t I just go in and speak to him myself? I just flew all the way from Atlanta, and I am not going to leave until I have spoken to him,” said Olivia.
“Not just anyone can enter the house.”
“Then can you call him?”
“The sheikh can’t come out just because you summoned him.”
“The two of you have the same eyebrows,” Daya pointed out. Olivia looked at her with a frown on her face. If she was trying to be funny, this surely wasn’t the time for it.
“Daya?” Olivia questioned.
“Sorry, I just noticed.”
The man just shook his head. “There’s the sheikh now actually,” he said and gestured towards the tall older man walking out of the house with an elegant-looking woman next to him. Daya gasped.
“It's him!” she whispered. Olivia started feeling nervous.
“Jacob, is everything okay?” the sheikh asked the man from the Bentley.
“Father, there is someone here to see you,” Jacob replied.
Daya gasped again. “I knew he was your brother,” she whispered.
“Shh,” Olivia hushed Daya.
“Without an appointment?” the sheikh asked.
“She says that she is your daughter,” Jacob said and pointed at Olivia. The sheikh raised his dark eyebrows and looked at Olivia.
“My daughter?” He laughed sarcastically. “That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s what I said.”
“My God, she looks just like her,” said the woman next to the sheikh, with a face as pale as a ghost.
“Mum, are you okay?” Jacob asked her.
“She looks like who?” the sheikh asked his wife.