Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
If only...God, if only he could give her more than his name –
If only.
But some things were beyond even Al Afea.
Ten
With Rayyan turning thirty the next day and Hyacinth wanting to make it the best birthday ever, she had thought long and hard before deciding on the best gift she could give to the man who had everything.
“Ta-da!”
She turned the laptop around so Mrs. B. could see what she had secretly burned the midnight oil on for the entire week.
Her homeroom teacher’s brows shot up to her hairline. “What in the world...”
“Fuck Being Politically Correct.” Hyacinth read the name of her blog with pride.
“And that is your gift for the sheikh?” the older woman asked blankly.
“It’s the best way I can serve him,” she explained simply. “The sheikh’s the only one who doesn’t have his own public relations team—-”
“By choice,” Mrs. Bauer reminded her.
“Which is stupid, don’t you think?” she retorted. “It’s almost like he deliberately wants the public to see him as flawed.” She shook her head in disapproval. “Well, I don’t care what his reason is. It’s time for someone to make all his critics shut up—-”
“And that someone would be you?”
“No other person could be more suitable for the job,” Hyacinth bragged. “I’m the one closest to him, being his secret girlfriend and future bride—-”
“Until you have his ring on your finger, you can’t be certain of anything.”
“Mrs. B.!”
“I’m just being truthful.”
“You’re being pessimistic, that’s what you’re doing. As always.” Hyacinth stared at her homeroom teacher in exasperation. “Honestly, Mrs. B. Why do you have to be so...so...so like Deadpool?”
The older woman choked. “Excuse me?”
“You’re just so snide all the time even though we both know you’re a marshmallow on the inside.”
A shudder of disgust wracked the other woman’s slender frame. “I am no such thing.” And because such talk was beginning to grate on her nerves, she quickly changed the setting of her alarm, and a moment later, her phone started beeping loudly.
Hyacinth let out a gasp. “I saw that!”
Mrs. B. blinked innocently. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You changed—-”
“Oh, look at the time.” The homeroom teacher began pushing her to the door. “I’m so sorry, but I have an appointment with another student in the next few minutes.”
“Liar. I’m the only one who can tolerate—-”
“Please say happy birthday to the sheikh for me.” And then Mrs. B. slammed the door on her face.
Hyacinth grinned. There really was no one like Mrs. B., and she wondered if it was possible to convince the other woman to teach in college, too, once she graduated.
As soon as she got home, she scrawled a note for Anisah and pinned it to the fridge before quickly making her way to the finance department.
Everyone in the finance department started grinning the moment they saw Hyacinth. “Someone’s super happy,” one of the encoders teased her. “What did you get the sheikh for his birthday?”
Before she could answer, a senior accountant piped up, saying wickedly, “Herself, what else?”
Hyacinth let out a gasp of feigned dismay. “What a malicious thing to say!”
But not one of the sheikh’s staff bought it, with everyone snickering as Hyacinth went on her way.
While the rest of the world still remained thankfully blind to the growing closeness between Rayyan Al-Atassi and his young intern, the members making up the finance department were not as dense.
Or rather, such a thing was impossible not to notice, seeing how the sheikh and Hyacinth were at work. The sheikh never smiled as often as he did when the girl was around, and the palace ward only seemed to turn into a little tigress when defending her beloved master. Both individuals were deeply private: the sheikh with his aloof reserve and Hyacinth able to fly under the radar with her sunny smiles and feminine gestures; they were not the kind to call other people in public with terms of endearment, and yet...with each other, they were different.
Within the walls of the finance department, the sheikh had taken to calling his intern majamira while Hyacinth was the only one brave enough to teasingly call the sheikh ‘alsyd’. The word translated to ‘master’, and just how it was in English, the term meant one thing in its traditional context and then another thing altogether when used by a certain type of female...for a certain type of male.
Hyacinth couldn’t help whistling to herself as she used the secret passageways to sneak into the sheikh’s bedroom. It would be her first time to do so, and it was yet another thing she had secretly worked on in the past week.
Naughty or not, ever since Rayyan had mentioned about the tunnels also having a direct connection to his bedroom, the thought of enjoying forbidden trysts in his very bedroom had never left her mind.
And now, definitely, the time had come to make that particular fantasy a reality. Whether it was making out or making love – it didn’t matter. She just knew now was the right time to take things to the next level.