Page 43 of The Sheikh's Fake Bride Scheme

“Leave that to me. Like I told you, I know how to make him see reason. You just worry about reaching out to Keira and letting her know that she’s welcome to come back.”

Kareem nodded, but he didn’t allow his hopes to rise. After all, Keira had blocked his number. Getting in touch with her would be all but impossible. And even if he somehow managed to do it, there was no reason to believe that she would want to see him. She had made it perfectly clear that she was finished with their relationship.

What his mother was saying was kind, and in a way, it was nice to hear. But, like everything else having to do with Kareem’s relationship with Keira, it was just too little, too late. They had squandered a good thing, and Kareem had little hope that they would be able to recover it.

He would try. He knew that his mother was right, and that if nothing else, Keira deserved to be here for the race. He would do his best to reach her, and he would ask her to come back.

But he didn’t believe that it would do any good.

CHAPTER 20

KEIRA

“So you’re still married to him?” Allie asked, her eyes wide.

Keira laughed, not because she felt like laughing, but because the whole situation was so surreal that sometimes laughing seemed like the only adequate response. “I am,” she said. “I’m sure he’s going to send the divorce papers for me to sign any day now.”

“This is wild,” Allie said. “Technically that means you’re still a sheikha of Qalmar.”

“Technically, yes,” Keira agreed. “But it doesn’treallymean anything. It’s not as if I’m ever going to visit Qalmar again. I don’t think I’m even allowed to go there. It would probably cause some sort of international incident if I did, since I was thrown out by the king.”

“I can’t believe my best friend was banished by a king,” Allie said. She grabbed a bottle of champagne from a display as they walked past. “We need to get this.”

“Allie, I invited you over to eat ice cream.”

“I know that, but come on, this is about to be the most gossipy night the two of us have ever had. Itneedschampagne.”

This time, Keira’s laugh felt more genuine. “I missed you while I was in Qalmar,” she said. “All right. We’ll get champagne.”

“Good. I want to hear all about it. And I want to know if he’s a good kisser or not.”

“How did you know we kissed?” Keira hadn’t mentioned that detail.

Allie smirked. “You just told me.”

“You are an absolute menace.”

“A menace who wants to know what it’s like to kiss a sheikh, so you’re going to have to tell me all about it. I mean it, Keira. You can’t have an adventure on the level of something like this and then not spill absolutely every detail to your best friend. It’s my right to know what happened over there.”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” Keira assured her. “Honestly, it will probably feel good to talk about it, after everything that happened. I never felt like I could be completely open with Kareem about how I was feeling, and obviously I can’t discuss it with my family. They wouldn’t understand.”

“Imagine telling Kevin that you’d been to Qalmar, launched a new international cup, and married a sheikh,” Allie giggled. “He wouldn’t be able to stand it. His whole identity is centered on feeling like he’s the most important person in your family. He would hate to think that you had done something cool that had nothing to do with him.”

“He’ll never find out about it.” Keira’s heart sank a little at the thought. There was a part of her that would have thoroughlyenjoyed the opportunity to tell her family about everything she had achieved. But now that things had ended the way they had, she knew she would never be able to tell them. They would see the situation in Qalmar the same way Keira herself did — as a failure. She would be lucky not to be mocked for it, and it would probably become one of those family anecdotes that was retold for years to come at her expense. Either that, or else Kevin would decide she’d made the whole thing up. It wasn’t hard to imagine him drawing that conclusion, even though Keira had no history of doing anything like that. It was easy for Kevin to imagine that someone might tell an egregious lie for no reason other than to get attention. It was the kind of thing he himself would have done.

Keira and Allie went through the checkout line, and Keira paid for their purchases. “You’ve got to let me give you some money for all this,” Allie insisted.

“No, I don’t,” Keira said firmly. “I’ll be getting a lot of money from Kareem before all this is over.”

“You think he’s still going to pay you?”

“Yes. He turned out to be a jerk, but he’s an honest man,” Keira said. “He won’t hold back on the payment he promised me. He might even pay me extra out of guilt.”

“Well, that would be cool.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” Keira sighed. “I don’t want him to try to buy my forgiveness. It isn’t for sale. I blocked him for a reason. I’m not interested in anything he might do to try to weasel his way back into my good graces. I should never have trusted him in the first place, and I regret doing it.”

“If you say so,” Allie said dubiously. “I think you’ve got feelings for him, personally.”

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