Page 29 of The Sheikh and the Single Mom

“Thanks, Rashad.” Miles dimpled, suddenly the picture of angelic sweetness. “We’re very well-behaved. Right, Kate?”

“Yeah!” Kate grinned, and Rashad noticed that she had sand on her cheeks. It was adorable.

Everyone finished up their lunch, then the twins took another dip in the ocean under Nina and Rashad’s careful observation. Eventually, both kids grew tired. Kate fell asleep in her mother’s lap, while Miles insisted that he wasn’t sleepy at all. They took the dinghy back to the yacht, where Miles promptly flopped across a shaded lounge chair and fell asleep. Nina laid Kate down beside her brother, and Rashad fetched a thin blanket to cover the sleeping twins. Then he sat next to Nina on another pair of chairs.

“Do they always sleep so hard?” he asked. The twins looked as tired as if they’d run an iron man triathlon or gone three days without sleeping while working on an important project.

“They’re very tired from playing.” Nina smiled. “And from running around in the sun and water. Just wait, though. They’ll wake up in an hour or so full of energy and ready to play more.”

“Where does all that energy come from?”

“I have no idea. When they were younger, they always managed to run around all day after sleeping just a few hours and eating half a grape each. I could never understand how they did it — especially since I was exhausted from sleeping the same amount they did, even though I had coffee!”

“I guess we were the same way as children — we just don’t remember. Although how we lived without coffee, I’ll never know.”

“Me neither.” Nina grinned. “I can’t go a day without coffee now, but I suppose I must have gotten my energy from somewhere else when I was a kid. My parents always said I was very energetic. Did yours say the same?”

Rashad hesitated. Perhaps it was time to be honest — at least a little. “I wasn’t around my parents much as a kid. Nannies did most of the work of raising my brother and me.”

“Really?” Nina bit her lip. “That sounds difficult.”

“It was all right, because I didn’t know anything different. We saw our parents for weekend dinners sometimes, but they were always busy with the work of running a country, and they didn’t have a lot of time for us.”

“I’m sorry.” Nina reached out and took Rashad’s hand in her own. Warmth spread up his arm from the places her fingers touched. “I know I’m busy, and I leave my kids with babysitters sometimes, too, but I never want them to feel like I don’t care about them.”

“They clearly know that you love them.” Rashad smiled at her as he threaded his fingers between hers. Her hand was smaller than his, softer, too, but they fit together perfectly. “It wasn’t the same with my parents — we always felt like a burden.”

“You should never have felt that way.” Nina shook her head. “No child is a burden. And I’m sure you were a little angel.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. My brother and I got up to plenty of mischief when we were young.”

“Like what?” Nina leaned closer, her blue eyes gleaming at the prospect of a story of childhood mischief. Not wanting to disappoint her, Rashad selected a story carefully.

“Well, once, we swapped out all the candles at a formal dinner for fake ones. It might sound silly, but it caused quite a commotion. Another time, we sneaked out of bed because we wanted to get cake from the kitchens. The whole palace was in an uproar until one of the cleaners found us, covered in chocolate frosting and sitting under one of the kitchen tables.” Rashad grinned at the memory.

“I can imagine Kate and Miles doing something like that.” Nina glanced at her sleeping children, a smile playing across her rosy lips. “Are you and your brother still close?”

“Not really. We were close as kids — after all, we were only two years apart. But as we grew older, and Khalid was trained more and more to be the sheikh, we grew distant.”

“That’s too bad.” Nina bit her lip. “I always hope that Miles and Kate will stay close, but I can’t imagine what it would be like for them if one became the ruler of a country and the other didn’t.”

“That’s a good thing about not being the ruling sheikh,” Rashad told her. “If I do ever have children, I never have to put them through that. And I don’t have as much pressure to marry or have children as Khalid did.”

“Does your brother have children?”

“Yes; he’s married with an eighteen-month-old son.”

“So, you’re an uncle.”

“I am, but I’m not very close with my nephew.” Rashad could see this conversation going down a difficult path, so he quickly changed the subject. “Do you want more kids?”

Nina released his hand and sat back in her chair. “That’s a difficult question. In theory, I would love more kids, but I thinkit would be almost impossible to raise more than the twins as a single mom and do a good job. If I ever have more kids, I’d want a partner by my side.”

“That makes sense.”

“Anyway, I don’t have enough time to think about more kids. I barely have time to work and look after the twins.” Nina grinned and laid her head back against the reclining chair, her hair pooling around her as her eyes fluttered shut. “My friends all sew or go bowling or watch movies, but I have time for exactlynoneof that.”

“I’m the same way.” Rashad grinned. “The only hobby I have time for is running, and that’s more about exercise than fun.”

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