Chapter 8

The London office was a cathedral of glass and steel.

Aya stood in front of it, looking up at the tower, counting the floors to where she knew his office was. She had flown in that morning, on a direct flight she had paid for with her own money, from her own savings. She had not told him she was coming.

It had been six weeks since their walk in the park.

Six weeks of phone calls, of long silences, of slowly learning each other's rhythms. He had taken her to dinner – a quiet restaurant in the old city, far from the financial district, where no one knew who he was. He had told her about his business, about the years of building, about the wife who had left and the children who had never come.

She had held his hand across the table.

She had fallen in love with him.

It was a strange, quiet thing. It had crept up on her without warning, a feeling she hadn't expected and hadn't been looking for. But there it was, as real as the jacket she still wore on cold mornings, as real as the phone that rang every night at nine.

She had told her patients about him. She had told Leila, and the other nurses, who had laughed and speculated about what a shy, tired nurse was doing with the most feared tycoon in the region.

She had not told him yet.

Now she stood in front of his building, a small woman with a worn denim tote, and she wondered if she was making a mistake.

She pushed open the door.

The lobby was huge, all white marble and dark wood, with a massive security desk manned by a man in a suit who looked at her as if she were an intruder.

"I'm here to see Sheikh Al-Rashid," she said.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No."

The security man's expression flickered. "I'm sorry, miss. Without an appointment—"

"Please tell him that Aya is here. Aya Haddad."

The security man hesitated. Something in the way she said her name – the quiet confidence, the lack of fear – made him pick up a phone.

"Sir, there's a woman here. Yes. She says her name is Aya Haddad."

A beat. The security man listened, his eyes widening slightly.

"Yes, sir. Right away, sir. I'll send her up."

He hurried around the desk, and personally escorted her to an elevator, swiping a keycard that gave them access to the top floor.

The elevator rose, the numbers ticking by. Aya's heart was pounding.

The doors opened onto an executive floor, all floor-to-ceiling glass and minimalist furniture. A woman with a sleek bob and a severe frown stood behind a desk.

"Ms. Haddad? This way, please."