Temptation in Istanbul, page 16
Faisal brushed the back of his hand over a cheek, coming away with a wetness that matched the love he was feeling from his mother. And not just her. He had a chance to speak to his father, and then his sister, both in congratulatory moods over the news of his lucrative partnership. After he bade them farewell, he rubbed his chest above his heart and relished the tremendous weight that vanished sometime during the call to his family. Their support was all he ever relied on. Their love strong enough to banish the negativity that had been weighing him down.
And keeping him from realizing that his mom’s advice aligned with his heart’s deepest truth in that moment.
I love Maryan.
He saw that so clearly now and wanted to thump his head over his desk at the obviousness. Everything he’d been feeling. All the confusion surrounding his emotions when he was near her, the clawing worry of what she thought of him, the heartache at her departure, and the surety that nothing would feel right for him without her. Each was a sign that he loved her.
But she had no idea of how he felt about her truly, and he’d have to remedy that first.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MARYAN THOUGHT SHE’D settled the matter of the party.
But she was exiting Faisal’s luxury sports car, lifting the voluminous, tiered skirt of her crystal-and-tulle designer ball gown, and climbing the endless stone steps to the opulent mansion at the top. Behind her Burak shadowed her dutifully. He’d come bearing the handwritten note from his boss, along with the expensive dress in its dress bag. She had left the gown behind when she fled Faisal’s home for a hotel.
I might be the last person you want to see, but I would love if you could attend the party tonight.
Faisal had been right about her not wanting to see him. At least that was how she felt when the note and dress arrived at her hotel suite by way of his security. Then as the day passed, and she reread his message, she sensed a shifting in her heart. It wasn’t as stony and unimpressed by Faisal’s quiet plea.
Then her curiosity ran away with her.
Had he changed his mind possibly? Did he, in fact, not want her to leave Istanbul? And if so, why?
She was resolute that she wouldn’t be a booty call to him. Fantastic as it was, sex alone wasn’t fulfilling for her. She wasn’t in the market to be an au pair, either. As much as she loved Zara, being her nanny with Faisal as her boss was a recipe for disaster. She’d abandoned one unhealthy relationship, and she wasn’t trading her ex-boyfriend for fast, fun times with Faisal.
I’m not asking for a proposal, either.
She wasn’t ready for that leap of faith. Marriage was serious business. When she imagined her wedding day, it was opposite the man she loved and felt confident was her soul mate. She didn’t know if Faisal could be that—and she realized she wouldn’t ever know because she hadn’t told him she loved him.
That was why she’d come to his party.
She needed to get her truth off her chest, once and for all. He had to know.
It doesn’t matter if he feels the same.
All her life she’d learned to not question the people she cared about and who supposedly cared for her. She had done it with her parents when they’d packed a small suitcase for her one-way trip to America. She hadn’t loved her ex-boyfriend, but she’d trusted him, and she hadn’t thought to question that bond of trust.
They had made their decisions. Left her with the mess. And now—
Now Maryan had a chance to speak up where Faisal was concerned. And if he didn’t reciprocate her love, then at least she’d get to see Zara in person one last time...
“Is he inside?” she asked Burak, looking back to find him waiting on her. For once he had his sunglasses off. Possibly as the sun had long set, and it wouldn’t make sense to wear shades right then. But with nothing obscuring his eyes, Maryan could see him squinting through a study of her. He almost looked as though he had something to tell her. “What is it?” she wondered.
“It’s not my place to say anything, but he’s not been himself today.”
“Pardon?” She could tell herself whatever she wanted, but her heart wasn’t beating loud enough to drown out Burak’s observation.
Not elucidating on what he informed her, he simply said, “Yes, he’s inside, waiting for you.”
With a look down at the line of luxury vehicles snaking up to the front of the waterside mansion, their headlights shining brighter alongside the Bosporus’s dark, still waters, she fortified herself for what awaited inside the shining windows of the mansion.
And who, she thought with a nervous gulp.
* * *
“A toast, to our partnership. May it see us weather the challenges and celebrate the victories ahead.”
A chorus of clinking glasses spread through the spacious salon from the dais in the center. Faisal raised his glass of raki after his speech, first to his new business partners, Aydin and Erkin, and then to their guests, including a curated group of media representatives. This was one piece of news they wouldn’t doctor into a scandal of his personal affairs.
Stepping down from the dais, he smiled wide and laughed on cue, working the room as he was expected before he found refuge in the corner where Zara waited with Rukiya. Nodding his thanks to his executive assistant, he abandoned his untouched drink and lifted Zara into his arms and spun with her in place, thrilling in her laughter.
“May I have this dance, little princess?”
She bobbed her head, but the luminous silver flower crown threaded to her braids didn’t budge.
It was as Maryan said. Faisal thought Zara adorable in her cap-sleeve dress and strappy party shoes. He set her down and showed her how to balance on the ends of his feet, not caring if her shoes scuffed his. Then he duck-walked, turning circles carefully to the music and creating their own beat when the couples around them swayed to a different melody. When the band switched to a lively folk song, Faisal popped Zara off his feet and he twirled her around and around, her glee casting out the darkness glooming his mind, but also forcing him to face what he’d lost.
He didn’t mean to think of her, but it was hard not to see Maryan in every part of his life now.
At his home, at work—when he couldn’t stop from thinking about her—and now, here, at this party that she refused to come to, while he was dancing with his daughter and crafting another amazing memory.
He’d sent her a note and had Burak deliver it.
But it wasn’t enough, he surmised bitterly.
None of the bitterness targeted at Maryan. This was on him. And now he had to nurse his hurt and disappointment alone.
“Daddy?” Zara tugged his hands to get his attention. Once she had it, she gestured for him to crouch. Then when he did that, she hugged him, her small arms squeezing around his shoulders and prompting him to embrace her just as tightly.
“What was that for?”
She touched her hands to his clean-shaven face, looking as solemn as an energetic seven-year-old could. “You look sad, Daddy.”
“Do I?”
He hated that it was obvious even to her.
“Are you sad because of Maryan?”
They’d discussed her nanny’s departure, and Faisal comforted Zara as best as he was able. Finding that he wasn’t half bad at it without Maryan to guide him.
“It’s okay to be sad. I miss her, too.”
“I know you do, sweetheart,” Faisal murmured, kissing her forehead. “I also know that she misses and loves you very much.”
“Can I talk to her tonight?”
“Remember what she told you? She said you can call her whenever you like.” It was exactly what he expected from her. Maryan had to be grieving the change of not seeing Zara every day as well. And he’d caused their pain, unnecessarily so. All he had to do was tell Maryan how he felt. Tell her that he loved her, and though marriage was far from his mind still, he had a strong feeling that with time it could be in their future.
Not that it mattered now. That ship had long sailed. Her flight home three days away. And she hadn’t spoken to him when she’d called Zara earlier today. Besides a short text letting him know she’d arrived at the hotel safely, she hadn’t reached out to him at all.
The worst part being she didn’t respond to his note.
Since leaving to deliver the note an hour ago, Burak hadn’t reported anything, leaving Faisal with the understanding that he’d have to learn to live without Maryan because she wasn’t willing to forgive. Regardless of his efforts to make his grand declaration of love and try to sweep her off her feet.
“Daddy, don’t be sad. I’ll love you for both me and Maryan.”
Zara’s proclamation earned her another bear hug from him. At the end of it, his daughter wriggled free and grinned, asking, “Can we spin again?”
He spun her a few more times before swinging her up into his arms and swaying with her in his embrace.
“Maryan!” It wasn’t so much Zara squealing in his ears or her bouncing in his arms that stopped Faisal. It was what she said and who she called to.
Sure enough, when he turned his head to where Zara smiled, he spotted her nanny walking past. Maryan seemed not to have heard Zara over the din of the party, her back to them as she retreated deeper into the mansion. These old Ottoman-era waterside houses were sprawling and mazelike. Throw in a guest list of nearly two hundred people and the sinking dread of losing her was in the realm of possibility.
Setting Zara on her feet, he walked her back to Rukiya.
Burak was there, too.
“Is she here?” Faisal knew what his friend’s answer would be, but he was further reassured that he wasn’t imagining Maryan when Burak nodded.
“She wanted to explore the house.”
Of course she did. It sounded just like her.
Leaving Zara to their care, Faisal went to search for her. Having Maryan so close, knowing that she had come after all, was the kick in the pants that he needed to see his mission through. By the end of the night she’d know that he had fallen in love with her, and if she deigned to have him, he would seriously attempt to be the man she desired. A man who was worthy of her, body, heart and spirit.
Scouring the house for a sign of her was more of a challenge than he had prepared for.
People crowded every room and corner. Erkin had overseen the guest list, and with Aslihan, they had seemingly invited the whole of Istanbul’s elite. Faisal encountered politicians to pop stars, and even an actor or two from one of his favorite Turkish dramas. Stopping to chat wasn’t an option for him right then, no matter how much the idea of an autograph was appealing. Finding Maryan was his single-minded pursuit. She wasn’t in any of the lavish salons, their gilded ornamental walls and theatrical furnishings lovely, but nowhere close to being lovelier than her face. The rooftop terrace shone with countless string lights, but their radiance was dimmed without the presence of Maryan. He even tried the Turkish hammam with no luck. The resplendent architecture of the bathing rooms standing empty.
Naturally, as his search area dwindled, his concern of having lost her again began to set in. By the end of his tireless searching, he walked slower, dejection slumping his shoulders. That was it. He’d looked high and low, literally. Maryan wasn’t in the splendid waterfront Turkish manor hosting his party.
Faisal brushed a hand over his head, remembered he’d had his curly hair shaved for a cleaner, professional look, and groaned loud, his frustration echoing off the darkened walls of the lonely room he’d ended his search in. He couldn’t even indulge in tugging at his hair. Missing his curls, and missing Maryan even more, he gazed mindlessly out the floor-to-ceiling windows wrapping the far side of the room. The view was of the front of the house, the obsidian strip of the Bosporus separating the row of Empire-style waterfront properties from the rest of Istanbul on the opposite side of the strait’s waters.
No natural lighting gleamed off the ink-like surface of the waterway. Instead, it reflected the lights from the mansion’s many narrow windows and the lampposts irradiating the private port...and Maryan.
Faisal did a double take, but she didn’t vanish from where she paced alongside the Bosporus down below.
He pulled himself away, realizing that he had to seize this opportunity while fate was so generously offering it. Getting down to her was another obstacle to surmount. It took a while to cross the more crowded areas of the mansion before he strode out a back door and into the night. Then it was all about how fast he could jog to where he’d seen her last.
It felt like an age had passed when he halted a few feet from her, her back to him again, his heartbeats pounding in his ears from a combination of his jogging to her and from the exuberance that he hadn’t lost her.
Not yet.
A series of vibrations from his phone hummed in his inner coat pocket. Faisal halted his movement forward just as Maryan whipped around to face him. Her eyes rounder than ever before, one hand clutching her phone and the other her sparkling sequin clutch.
“Faisal?” She sounded as if she couldn’t trust that her eyes weren’t deceiving her. As though he were a figment of her imagination.
He knew that feeling all too well.
“You came,” he said.
“I did.”
“That means you received my note.” He had asked her to come, leaving out everything of import that he wanted to tell her. Chiefly that he loved her, and he didn’t want her flying from Istanbul without knowledge of how he’d grown from simply admiring her to adoring her completely.
“You look wonderful,” he noted, his gaze roving her curvaceous figure appreciatively. He hadn’t expected any less. Maryan could likely transform a paper bag into a couture gown in his eyes. She wore a dress of burgundy clouds, her bodice twinkling as if inlaid with the stars that were missing from the light-polluted night sky, and her jewelry challenging the effulgence of the sun itself. A goddess. That was what he was made to think when he looked at her. His reverence for her pairing with that glorious image.
“Zara liked this one best.” Maryan slid her phone in her clutch and then pressed the purse with both hands to her center. “What are you doing out here?”
He could ask her the same. “I needed a breather. What about you?”
“Same,” she uttered quickly.
A quietude closed over them, and then Faisal grasped for his straws, a now-or-never mentality rearing up in his head.
“I thought you left.”
She frowned lightly, the corners of her mouth drooping but her eyes dark and clear and reflecting the lighting around them. “Why would I leave?”
A few reasons popped into his mind, but he said, “I haven’t given you a strong reason to come, that’s why. I wouldn’t have held it against you if you didn’t stay.”
She shrugged bare shoulders prettily. “Your message was vague... I was curious why you invited me after we decided that I wasn’t coming.”
“I never wanted you to stay away,” Faisal said.
“You didn’t say that,” she snapped, and then breathing herself to a calm state, she continued, “I don’t want to argue.”
“Neither do I.”
She lowered her clutch, looking far less defensive and far more curious. “Why did you invite me?”
“I wanted to see you.”
Her clutch rose again, higher this time, above her heart.
“And I needed you to hear something,” Faisal clarified. Taking courage that she wasn’t running away or shutting him down, he relinquished the final traces of doubt about this approach and opened his heart to her.
“I tore this mansion apart looking for you. When I couldn’t find you, I thought I’d lost you twice over. I felt double the anguish for my loss. Seriously, I thought the pain of losing you once was bad.” He blew a shaky breath. “Then I saw you and it was like being given one last chance to set everything right.
“Because I realized as soon as you left my place that I shouldn’t have let you leave us. That I was a fool to allow you to walk away. And I’d be a bigger fool not to tell you that I do care about you. Far more than I’ve let on. Vastly more than you’ll likely believe.
“The thing is, I wasn’t sure I could love you freely without mucking it up with my trust issues. But that’s the thing: I love you.”
Maryan was frightfully still, looking prettier than any painting by an old master, but appearing as though she’d checked out of his short speech.
Fear wormed its way into his blood and gouged his heart.
“Maryan?” he called out, taking a step closer to her.
She mirrored him, her eyes bigger, her mouth slightly open, her throat shivering with fast pulls of air and her chest heaving. She’d have scared him with concerns for her health if she didn’t whisper, “What did you say?”
“I love you,” he repeated.
“You do?”
He smiled fully, exquisite relief eradicating his worries. “Yeah,” he drawled, laughing huskily, and saying it again for both their certainty, “I love you, Maryan.”
* * *
He loved her.
All her hand-wringing and heart palpitations to make the same declaration, and he’d beat her to it.
Does it matter who said it first? He loves me!
“I’m not proposing marriage...yet,” stressed Faisal, his eyes soft with the love he professed.
No, he was right not to propose. She didn’t want to be married—at least not yet.
“I am asking you to give me a chance.” He stepped closer, the gap between them sealing quickly when she met him halfway. “I want you to stay if you want, but if you need to be in America, I’ll let you go. Whatever you desire, I’ll try to be that for you.”
“You want me to stay?” She was finding it hard to process all that he was telling her.
