Page 6 of The Sheik's Vow

Kaia glanced at him over her shoulder, then sighed and lifted the silver serving utensil, taking a large portion of the egg and vegetable frittata. It looked, and smelled, divine. She added several spoonfuls of fruit as well as a muffin.

Taking her full plate over to the table, she sat down across from him, then pulled the linen napkin out and slid it over her lap. Only then did she look at him, silently asking him to continue.

“Do you want some coffee?”

She shook her head and took a sip of the orange juice the waiter set down by her plate, smiling her thanks.

“Please,” she prompted, gesturing with her fork. “You were going to tell me how a powerful man who was presumably brought up with everything he could possibly want, was bullied.”

He stared at her, his hard lips curling upwards slightly, almost as if he were amused by her sarcasm.

“You don’t think that rich kids can be bullied?”

She shrugged and took a bite of her frittata. “I doubt that your childhood and mine were similar.” Kaia found it difficult to believe that someone like him could have endured anything as traumatic as what she’d gone through, but she was trying to keep an openmind. She knew that there were monsters masquerading as saints everywhere.

“I was spoiled by my parents, I’ll concede that much.”

Immediately, Kaia lost interest. She didn’t want to hear a poor little rich man’s sob story. She took another bite and looked up at him attentively, trying to be polite for Tara’s sake. Kaia was a guest and this man was obviously a very important visitor.

“I had a series of tutors, many of which only lasted a year or two before they had nothing more to teach me.”

She sighed and stabbed a grape.

“By the time I was twelve,” he paused when Kaia’s eyes jerked up. Slowly, he continued. “I was sent off to university.”

“At twelve?” she hissed, horrified but for other reasons.

“Yes. I was a freshman at Oxford at the age of twelve.”

“You were all alone?”

“I had bodyguards, but I was bullied for having them by a group of male students.”

She put her fork down, wiping her mouth with the napkin. “That’s…cruel,” she replied.

“I was constantly tripped in the hallways when leaving class, had acid dumped on me in chemistry class, even though the professor claimed it was an accident. I had some sort of rodent slipped down the neck of my shirt during a Latin class. And a series of similar cruelties.”

“Why?” Kaia gasped, truly horrified by the thought of a twelve year old boy being treated in such a miserable fashion.

“Because I was smarter than the group of boys. And they hated me for being wealthier and smarter. And since they had no one else to pick on, so why not annoy the rich kid?” He sipped his coffee. “They hadn’t yet learned that making future connections during their university days was a far more intelligent move.”

“What did you do?”

“I asked my body guards to hold back, become a bit less visible, hoping that the bullies would ease up.”

“Did that work?’ she asked, more focused on the story now than her meal, but she kept eating without thinking about it.

“No, it encouraged them to even more cruelty. It wasn’t until one of them tripped me and broke my arm that I decided to stop ignoring them in the hopes that they’d get bored.”

“What did you do?”

“I asked my bodyguards to teach me how to fight.” He poured himself another cup of coffee, then continued. “I learned as much as I could, as fast as I could. Since I was a pretty quick learner, and I was tall, which allowed me to add muscle quickly, it took very little time before I was able to stop their abuse.”

“That’s…a horrible story,” Kaia finally replied. “I’m very sorry that you went through that.”

“It taught me a great deal.” He set his coffee cup down and leaned forward. “Not just about fighting back, but also about bullies and about the terror in another person’s eyes when they are being threatened.” He stared at her for a long moment. “I can help you, Kaia. If you’d let me.”

She stared at him, her heart thudding painfully against her ribs. Help? He could help her? No. No one could help her.

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