Page 39 of The Sheik's Kiss

Tim’s dark eyes lifted to Zahir’s, his eyebrows furrowing into a frown. “Are you pressuring her in any way?” he demanded, his chest puffing up and his hands curling into fists.

“No!” Zahir emphatically replied, his tone indicating that he was offended by the question.

Another laugh sounded and this one was from Antonio. He was a tall, dark fellow with an even darker past. His father, the Marquesso del Campo, was now in prison for drug distribution. Mandy knew that Antonio was working diligently to remove all illegal activities from the family business, battling the criminals who would prefer to remain in play. She only knew this because Antonio was one of her newest clients. She was helping him weed out the bad elements that his father had allowed into the corporation.

“I believe that your friend,” Antonio began, “is in love with His Highness.”

Timothy looked at Antonio, then at Zahir and, finally, at Mandy. Of the three of them, Mandy was possibly the most shocked. But when she looked up at Zahir, Mandy suspected that he might be a close second.

“Are you in love with me?” he growled, shifting his body to shield her from the others’ view.

“I…” she stammered, trying to come up with some answer. “I…!”

Raven interrupted her pitiful attempt at a response. “You know, cookies are a bit like romance,” she began.

Everyone turned to face the dark-haired beauty with varying expressions of confusion. Raven merely smiled and tossed one of the brown blobs from her left to her right hand. “I’m serious,” she continued. “The basic ingredients in a cookie are flour, sugar, eggs, and some sort of fat, right?”

Mandy looked at the others, almost bursting with laughter at the uncomfortable expressions on the men. None of the men knew how to bake, she suspected as she unconsciously shifted closer to Zahir.

“Right!” Astra called out, crossing her arms over her chest. Obviously, Astra was just as confused as the others about the direction of Raven’s cookie analogy. But Astra was fully on board. Why was she glaring at Antonio? How did Astra know Antonio? When had that happened? Mandy turned to look at the darkly handsome man. Sure enough, he was glaring right back at Astra. Interesting!

Before Mandy could interpret the dual glowers, Raven pulled everyone’s attention back to herself.

“The difference in cookies is the flavoring. A peanut butter cookie uses eggs, flour, sugar, and butter, with the only additional ingredient of peanut butter,” Raven continued. “The same for gingersnaps. The only additional ingredient is ginger and maybe some cinnamon.”

"What are you trying to say?" Timothy demanded, mirroring Raven's defensive stance by crossing his arms over his chest. It was intriguing to note the intense glare he directed towards the dark haired woman.

Levi, for his part, leaned back against the wall, his hands shoved into his pockets with amusement lighting up his features. What did he understand that the rest of them were missing?

“My point,” Raven emphasized, fixing a piercing glare on Timothy, “is that cookies, at their core, share a fundamental similarity. It's the addition of a few distinct ingredients that sets them apart and gives them their uniqueness." She turned towards Astra, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. "For instance, adding peanut butter can transform the cookies into a delicious treat. On the other hand..." Raven walked over to Antonio and handed him one of the cookies. He immediately popped the brown blob into his mouth, only to struggle and nearly choke as the awful taste overwhelmed him. "When you add dates, well, then the cookie turns out rather unpleasant."

Despite the gagging sound created by Antonio as he spit out the cookie onto the napkin, everyone was staring at Raven.

Timothy lifted a dark eyebrow. “I’m not sure that your…logic…is getting through to our male minds, ma’am.”

With a wide grin directed at him, her eyes revealed an intriguing spark. "You may call me Raven," she informed Timothy, who responded with an even deeper scowl, rejecting her friendly gesture for some unexplained reason.

"Here's my point," she continued, shifting her gaze to encompass both Mandy and Zahir. "Humans and cookies, we're all fundamentally composed of the same basic ingredients. However, it's the varied spices of life that are thrown into the mix of our minds that give us each a unique flavor. When faced with adversity, if something negative happens, it can influence a person in a negative way." Her eyes briefly locked onto Mandy, then shifted to Zahir as she carried on. "But if life presents a balanced blend of the good and the bad, each individual has the opportunity to develop into someone fascinating, with a complex set of problem-solving skills. And if the core ingredients are inherently good, then that person is more likely to make predominantly positive decisions.” She turned to look directly at Mandy. “You’re terrified of marrying Zahir, even though you’re madly in love with him. Something happened in your past, probably something in childhood. And you no longer trust your judgment, because you’re afraid that Zahir is made up of dates.”

Someone snorted, but Raven ignored it. She walked over to Mandy, taking the hand that was hanging by her side. “I’ve seen the way you look at him, Mandy. You love Zahir. Be honest with him,” she whispered urgently. “If you could talk to him, trust him to respect your concerns, then I know that you’ll discover him to be a very good man who makes excellent choices.”

Mandy heard the words and her heart pounded. She looked up at Zahir to discover that he was watching her, a question in his eyes.

"We shall address your concerns in private," Zahir commanded, his gaze encompassing everyone in the room with a sweeping glance. "Please, let us all gather for dinner tonight." With that, he took Mandy's hand and guided her out of the office.

With a decisive manner, he led her into the nearest unoccupied room and firmly shut the doors, granting them privacy.

“What are your concerns, Habibi?” he asked, leading her over to an elegant settee covered with gold and cream damask fabric. The piece looked too pretty to sit on, but he ignored her lame protests and gently tugged her down next to him.

Mandy struggled for a moment, but in the end, she decided to be bluntly honest. Looking up at him, she started, “I gave you ample evidence about the extra funding that Hasan Isfara has diverted to his personal bank accounts in Switzerland. I also gave you evidence of how he is spending those extra funds.” She didn’t pull her hands out of his light grasp. Instead, she tightened her fingers around his. “Why haven’t you questioned him? Why is he hanging around the palace more often these days? I don’t understand.”

Comprehension lit up his dark eyes. “And you think that I’m ignoring his crimes, just as the executives of Dillbrook did with your father’s murder. Correct?”

“Yes,” she replied, nodding for emphasis.

“In other words, you want to love me freely, but because of your experience with the authorities in your past, you are worried that I’m the same?”

She cringed, looking down at their clasped hands. “When you put it like that, it sounds as if I don’t trust you.”

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