Temptation in Istanbul, page 8
For a while Maryan remained silent. Then she was quiet for so long, he resigned himself to getting nothing in return for his vulnerability. Not that he’d expected her to reciprocate.
Still, it would have been nice to hear from her.
Surprisingly, she finally dispelled the silence with a breathy sigh.
“My parents sent me away because they couldn’t feed the whole family. My father owned a corner store, and he’d taken on too much loan from the bank. It was causing an immense strain on them. Then my aunt Nafisa called my mother and suggested that I live with her and her husband, my uncle Abdi, in California.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve. Old enough to be asked an opinion on whether I wanted to go or stay.”
He heard the sharp bite to her words. She’d been hurt by a decision that clearly hadn’t been fully hers to make. A choice that had altered her life immensely. It was making more and more sense to him why she was fiercely protective of Zara. She was fighting for the little girl she’d been who had no voice.
“To be fair, I didn’t tell them how I felt.” She spoke quietly, a decibel above a whisper if it could be called that. Lowering her arms, she huffed a brisk sigh and angled her head to the sky, her chest rising and falling with her even breathing. “At the time I couldn’t think but how selfish it was to speak of my own feelings. My younger brothers and sisters needed my help. That was how I saw it. That, and my parents were relying on me to do something they couldn’t do themselves. They had to stay behind and care for my siblings, and I had to go.”
“Still, it’s okay to feel hurt, too.”
Maryan slowly lowered her head, blinking the sorrow clear from her eyes.
He knew she was done when she steered the conversation back to Zara.
“For someone who was so sure he couldn’t do this on his own, you handled that well.”
A blush brightened his face, her compliment lighting up places he didn’t know could be lit. “I understand why she’s upset. I’d be, too, if I were in her position right now.”
“It’s good for her to know that she can talk to you when she’s feeling down.”
“I know that. I’m also well accustomed to sadness.” Given how he’d been raised, he had to be. He hadn’t thought he was going to tell Maryan this, as she’d be gone in another week, but he was opening his mouth and talking faster than his brain was processing. “My mom lives with depression.”
Maryan didn’t say anything, and it was different from what he was used to. Usually, the few people he’d told in the past tripped and tumbled over themselves to try to fill the air with condolences, apologizing as though they’d been responsible for his mother’s mental health turn. It was the strangest response. But apparently the most natural or obvious one.
It wasn’t helpful, though. None of those people had stuck around by his side.
Salma had been one of them. Like most of the women he’d dated, she’d listened, gone through her rote sympathy, and moved on to the glitzier parts of what his wealth could offer her. Such as access to an elite nightlife and a leg up in networking to expand her career. They’d gone after him for his money. His chest pulsed around the spectral dagger stabbing his heart and hammering the hilt to drive the pain home. He struggled to speak around the emotional suffering.
“My mom’s one of the strongest people I know. My father comes in a close second.”
“She sounds inspirational. They both do.”
Faisal smiled, his pride for his parents rivaling that for Zara. He could talk about them for ages. But he spared Maryan the boringness of it. “She’s the reason I’m successful today. When I couldn’t kick this idea of starting my own business and, seeing as my parents knew a thing or two about being entrepreneurs, I’d gone to them for advice. It was my mother who suggested I go for it. She never liked it when my sister and I held ourselves back from achieving whatever we set our minds to, not especially when her depression was stronger. She talked my father into early retirement. They sold the bakery and invested half of its sale in my company. All without my knowledge or input. They knew I’d stop them because I wasn’t convinced that I would be fortunate in my endeavor.”
“They believed in you and your vision.”
He liked that Maryan got that. And it reminded him of what she’d said the day she arrived in Istanbul, about how she trusted in his ability to raise Zara alone. She had repeated herself at the bazaar a few days ago. His family knew him. They loved him. Their support meant the world, and he didn’t take it for granted, but he expected it.
Because that was what family was. A steadfast support unit.
Unlike his family, Maryan didn’t owe him her encouragement.
She’d given it freely.
Faisal pulled a hard swallow. “I never did get to thank you.”
“For?” She raised her brows, looking appropriately perplexed.
“I’d given you reason not to trust Zara’s care to me.” He’d arrived late to the airport, and late to the bazaar. He had confessed about his fear of being a single dad when he’d been a bachelor for too long. He’d been the kind of bachelor who’d lived and seen many parties in his lifetime and all the sin that came with it. Showing her what the media thought of him as a so-called playboy had taken courage because...
I care what she thinks of me.
Despite falsely convincing himself he didn’t at first.
Faisal couldn’t say what it was he felt around Maryan, but it was harder to remember why bottling his emotions was the best recourse for so very long.
Feeling his throat closing from a sudden spike in anxiety, he babbled out the rest of what he wanted to tell her. “It might not seem like much, but to me, it was kindness. A kindness I didn’t feel I deserved at the time because I couldn’t see where the trust in me was coming from. Now that I do, it means even more.”
Maryan’s lips parted slightly, presumably to reply.
He tensed his muscles in anticipation.
Whatever her response might have been was swallowed up by the call to prayer, the undiluted sound of the muezzin’s voice reverberating through the courtyard. The crowds thronging around the mosque split into two groups, those who weren’t religiously observing and remained unruffled by the call, and those who hadn’t entered the mosque earlier but were now moving toward it to observe prayer indoors. They fell into the latter group.
He’d be separated from Maryan now.
“I’ll need my hijab, and Zara’s, too.”
He held still while she stepped behind him, opened the backpack, and rummaged through for the shawls they’d need to enter the mosque. She looked the same with a hijab on. Just as beautiful in the pearl-and-lace headscarf as she was without it.
“Is it on crooked?” Maryan’s hands rose automatically to her head to right an imagined wrong.
And he was to blame because he’d been gawking at her rudely.
Embarrassed, he shook his head quickly. Too quickly. “No!” On his second attempt, he managed a more subtle, albeit hoarse, “No, you look...perfect.”
It was her turn to color from shocked to abashed. She looked as flustered as he felt.
Zara raced over to them, her cheeks glowing from her run, her eyes wide with wonder. “Daddy, Maryan, can we go inside the big masjid now?”
Maryan helped Zara wrap her hijab, then pulled the small girl into a side hug and smiled quickly at him before turning them toward the mosque for their tour. As they walked before him, he noticed they appeared like a family.
One big happy family.
Stricken by how perfectly normal that thought felt to him, he rid it from his mind and forced it from his thundering heart. Because as much as he liked Maryan, and as wholly unlike the women he’d been romantically engaged with as she was, she couldn’t mean anything more to him.
For that he would have to risk his heart.
And he’d decided love wasn’t worth its weight in joy and pain.
CHAPTER SIX
TWO DAYS LATER, Faisal arrived home late, exhausted from working overtime but his spirits soaring at the thought that he’d be seeing Maryan and Zara soon. He hadn’t liked breaking their plans today to tour more of Istanbul, but he’d had no choice in the matter. His board had called for an emergency meeting. They’d had questions about his leadership and direction in steering investors. Springing it on him hadn’t made it any easier. Though in the end he’d been able to talk them into his confidence again, the onus fell on him to handle his board’s fragile trust delicately. They wouldn’t give him a second chance to secure this oil and natural gas partnership.
Groaning softly, he keyed in the pass code to his security gate when his driver pulled up. Faisal thanked his driver from the back seat as the car slowed and parked in his drive. Instead of heading up above his garage to his apartment for a much-needed workout, shower and change of clothes, he walked toward the main house.
Funny how nothing had changed at work. He was still flogging this same horse.
And yet everything has changed at home.
He no longer arrived at his house and anticipated spending the short hours of night into dawn trapped in his office, where he’d squeeze in more work. Nor was he answering any of the invites from his usual social circle to meet up at their typical haunts. He’d pushed all that aside these days, knowing full well that he would be winding down the evening with Maryan and Zara. They’d taken over his life in a way that had him smiling more and more. Even now he felt his lips spreading synchronously to the warmth pouring out from the center of his chest. If he’d gulped a big cup of black coffee, he would feel the same lively jolt.
The jolt peaked when he opened the front door. Voices rang out from deeper inside the house. It sounded like Maryan and Zara weren’t alone.
“Maryan? Zara?”
He followed the voices to the kitchen.
Maryan and Zara were there, along with his diligent housekeeper, Lalam.
Zara noticed him first, her loud, cheery, “Daddy!” grabbing the attention of Maryan and Lalam.
He approached them slowly, curious as to why their faces and clothes were covered in flour. Zara appeared the messiest, her small cheeks caked white from the flour, and even the ends of her braids were chalky white from the stuff.
“What are you baking?” he asked, his intrigue intensified.
“Maryan’s teaching Lalam how to make Somali candy, and I’m helping.”
“Somali candy?” He looked to Maryan for clarification.
“Kac kac,” she said, wiping her hands with a tea towel. A towel she soaked the end of before swiping it over Zara’s cheeks. She cleaned her up as best as she could, but the damage required Zara to shower. She’d need to wash the flour from her hair.
“We’re not done yet, Daddy. You have to wait to eat it,” Zara was telling him.
“I’d like that.” He hadn’t had kac kac in a long while. Less of a candy and more doughnut, the soft, subtly sweet Somali fritters had been a staple in his house, especially during Ramadan.
“You look tired,” Maryan remarked, her hands kneading into her portion of the dough. Beside her Lalam rolled out a second portion. Zara clung to the edge of the counter and stood on tiptoes to watch them work. It was a wonder how she managed to get the most flour on her when she wasn’t doing much.
Scooping Zara up and helping her to a seat on the counter, Faisal said, “That’s putting it mildly. I’ve certainly had better days. But it’s nice to see friendly faces.” He tickled his daughter then, and she broke into a fit of breathless giggles.
Maryan was frowning at him when he glanced in her direction. “You’ve got flour on you now, too.”
“I guess I do.” He regarded his shirt front and navy blue herringbone suit jacket. Flour dusted parts of his sleeves. It hadn’t occurred to him that it’d be a problem. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a walk-in closet full of similar-looking costly suits. Zara’s laughter and happiness were worth so much more. “I think we’ll all need to clean up after this.”
“Actually, I’m almost done here. I’ll take Zara up for a bath.”
Lalam stopped Maryan. “I will help Zara.” The housekeeper slipped off her apron and lifted Zara off the counter. They left the kitchen hand in hand, Zara still wearing her apron and her flour-caked braids bouncing up and down as she skipped beside Lalam. Their carefree chattering floated farther away until silence filled the kitchen.
“Isn’t it Lalam’s day off?” he asked, shrugging off his suit jacket and rolling up his sleeves.
“It is, but she came in to bake with us.”
“I see. Who taught you to make kac kac?” He washed his hands at the sink and dried them before taking up the dough that Lalam had been rolling. Feeling Maryan’s questioning gaze, he laughed softly and said, “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. I won’t make the dough too thin.” He rolled precisely, pressing on the rolling pin lightly and evening the dough to a quarter-inch thickness. Just about the right size for it to puff nicely in the frying oil.
“I could ask you that question.”
He laughed again. “My parents owned a bakery, remember?”
She flashed him a small smile. “My hooyo taught me.”
Faisal wasn’t surprised to hear her mother had passed on the essential skill. In Somalia, women handled much of the cookery. It was thought to prepare a young girl for when she was old enough to be married and manage her own household. His parents had raised him in Turkey, though, and they’d expected him to know his way around the kitchen as much as his sister, Yasmin, did.
Not that this was about him or his opposition to patriarchal society’s inherent sexism.
Anything he learned about Maryan was good information in his books.
“Your mom must have been a great teacher.”
“She was.” Maryan pressed her dough between her hands and the counter, flattening it into a round shape before accepting the rolling pin he passed to her and rolling it as he’d done. She worked faster than him and achieved the same result. Clearly, she’d practiced more than he had.
She swiped flour onto her cheek, the curly black strand of hair she’d been trying to unstick from her face persistently remaining fixed to her. She had her hair in a messy bun, yet she still was attractive to him. Her beauty was unblemished by the flour spotting her cheek and the sheen of perspiration making her forehead glow. He wished he felt differently about her. His life was complicated as it was without throwing in the odd thoughts he’d had lately of family, love and romance.
None of it worked for him before. He’d tried family with Salma when she’d sprung her pregnancy on him, and then he’d depleted his endurance for dating seriously—with all intent to marry someday—on his heartless past partners. Without his money, he’d have meant nothing to them. It was tiring to pretend like the vultures hadn’t chased him out of the dating scene. He’d gone from being hopeful to a cynic in a short time after hitting his first million. And for years he had been happy to date for pleasure instead. One night or a few months, it didn’t matter because it never lasted long-term. Salma had given him pause only because their short-term pleasure had resulted in the miracle of new life.
When she arrived in the world, Zara held his heart alone. His adorable little girl.
Considering his rocky history with romance, it sat oddly with him whenever his eyes strayed to Maryan. It was a hard feeling to fight, too. She captivated him. He had this strange compelling urge to watch her work the dough evenly on the counter.
She wore a pale green petal-sleeved tee and black jeans that molded to her thick thighs and shapely legs.
He tracked his eyes up to find her looking back, her lips tilting downward.
Groping for words, he ended up bumbling, “You’re good at being a nanny, good at baking, what else can you do?”
“Yoga.”
“Yoga?” he parroted, images of her in fitted workout gear flitting through his mind and warming his body. He wished she hadn’t answered. He wished he hadn’t asked. Harmless as it sounded, it was wreaking havoc with his senses. A familiar yearning heated his groin. Disgust curled above his lust, rising like froth to the top of his simmering emotions. He’d been raised better. Objectifying her felt...perverted. Disrespectful. Wrong.
It was worse because he knew nothing more could come of it were they to fall into bed together.
And Maryan came across as faithful. The type who’d want chocolate hearts and commitment, and flowers and wedding vows. Family.
The things he couldn’t give her.
He didn’t want to give anyone. At least that was what he’d believed until she came into his world.
“I relax with yoga. What do you do to unwind?”
Her question pinged off him. “What?”
She paused in rolling the dough. “I asked what your hobbies are. Work doesn’t count.”
This he could answer. Chuckling, he replied, “I read when I can.”
“I’ve seen your library. Zara loves the fairy-tale collection you chose for her.”
“They were the ones my parents used to read to me and my sister when they weren’t telling us the old Somali folktales.”
“The fox and the hyena?” She grinned knowingly.
He laughed. “I think it’s a rite of passage.”
“They were violent, though. Humorous, but more Grimm than Disney.”
“Good point. It won’t hurt Zara to grow a little older to hear them.”
“What else?” she encouraged, brushing flour from her hands and reaching for a paring knife. She sliced the dough into quarters. Each piece was then transferred to a clean, dry plate.
“Well, you’ve met my Turkish drama addiction.”
