Page 40 of The Sheikh's Fake Bride Scheme

Even thinking about her was hard. Kareem revisited the memory of the night she’d left Qalmar several times a day, wondering what, if anything, he could have done to get her to stay.

“Don’t do this,” he had said as they’d sat in the car outside the entrance to the private airfield. “Don’t leave like this.”

She had stared out the window, avoiding his gaze. “What’s the point in anything else?” she’d asked. “This is already over. You made that clear, so why would I stay? Why would I want to hang around in Qalmar when there’s nothing left for me here? I would just be running out the clock. Besides, you let me know that your father hates me, and that definitely doesn’t make me want to stay here. It will be better for everyone when I’m gone.”

“My father doesn’t hate you,” Kareem had protested.

“Then why have the two of you aligned against me?”

“That isn’t what’s happening.”

“Spare me. You’re not on my side, Kareem. If you were, you would actually do something, and you haven’t. You’re just sitting there asking me not to go without giving me any kind of reason to stay.”

It was the last thing she had said to him. She’d gotten out of the car and grabbed her luggage from the trunk before Kareem could muster his thoughts to go and help her, and he had watched through the windshield as she’d crossed the tarmac and boarded the plane.

He hadn’t driven away at first. That had felt too final, and a part of him had held onto the hope that she might change her mind and come back. But eventually, one of the air traffic controllers had knocked on his window and told him that he was very sorry, but that the pilot was requesting that the tarmac be cleared so that the plane could safely take off.

He had heard from Keira one more time. She’d texted him to let him know that she had arrived safely at home. But when he had tried to text her back, he had received an error message, and he’d understood — she had blocked his number. She didn’t want to hear from him again.

Kareem had been torn between feelings of anger — how dare she shut him out that way? — and grief. It did hurt to lose her. He had always known that she would leave eventually, but even in his worst, most painful imaginings, it had never looked like this. He had never imagined that their parting would be filled with such anger, or that the door would close on the possibility of their ever speaking to one another again.

He missed her. Every moment of every day, he missed her. That wasn’t supposed to happen either, but it had.

With a sigh, he took his phone out of his pocket, pondering the possibilities.

He couldn’t text or call her — she had his number blocked. But there might be other ways of reaching out. Perhaps he could find her brother’s phone number somehow. Kevin Harding was a public figure, and there must be ways of contacting him, especially for someone in Kareem’s position. He was unused to feeling so powerless, unable to contact the people he wanted to reach. It wasn’t a problem he’d ever had before. And for the person he was attempting to contact to be someone so importantto him — it was a problem he had been entirely unprepared to face.

He left the arena and drove back to his office. His thoughts were a thousand miles away, in the United States, with Keira, and his mind lingered on the kiss the two of them had shared.

Had it meant nothing to her? How could she have cut him out of her life so easily after something like that?

Did she simply kiss people all the time? Maybe that was the reason it hadn’t mattered very much to her. Maybe it was a regular occurrence.

Kareem sighed. It wasn’t as if he never kissed women. That was one of his father’s main criticisms about him — that rather than settling down, he had chosen to live a life of fun and freedom.

Could he fault Keira if she had done, and continued to do, the same thing?

Of course he couldn’t. She was free to live whatever life suited her, and it was Kareem’s own fault that he had different expectations. He had always known that their arrangement was a temporary one. He had gotten into this knowing that it would end.

The fact that he had realized now that he didn’t want it to end… that didn’t matter. The realization had come too late, and there was nothing he could do about it now. He had to let her go.

He pulled up in front of his house and went inside.

Because it was the middle of the day, the place was bustling. The staff members he kept were in the middle of their daily routines — cleaning, polishing, making sure everything was as it should be. Kareem walked right past them all. He didn’t wantto speak to anyone. He had not explained to the household staff the reason for Keira’s sudden departure. He knew they were speculating about it behind his back — gossip was only to be expected — but they had been diplomatic enough not to let him hear a whisper, and he was grateful for that. He didn’t want to know what was being said, what they were guessing might be the reason for the sheikha’s choice to leave.

He went up to the room that had been hers while she had been here and paused outside the door.

He hadn’t been into this room since before Keira had arrived. While she had been here, he had stayed out to respect her privacy, and once she’d gone, he had struggled with the idea of going in, knowing that he would feel the lack of her more acutely.

He needed to start getting past this. The entire reason for her presence in his life had been to help get the race off the ground. The race was going to be a success now. He had nothing to complain about.

Opening the doors, he stepped into her room.

Immediately, he was hit with a familiar scent — a scent he wouldn’t have said he recognized until this moment. It was her. It was like hibiscus — it must have been some product she used. He couldn’t believe it had lingered. But then, the room had remained closed all this time. Perhaps that was the reason why.

He should make sure to leave the doors ajar when he left so that the aroma would fade.

But instead, he found himself hurrying to pull them closed. He was reluctant to lose this last little piece of her. He wanted to hold onto it, as if it would serve him as proof that she had been here at all.

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