The Sheikh's Virgin Bride(107)

Worse still, they were with her, the woman they’d brought to my birthday party.

In front of the host stand now, I paused. Sure, I had known that when my father had finally agreed to talk to me that our meeting wasn’t going be exactly smooth-running, but I hadn’t thought he’d make it a family affair. Or bring some woman he was trying to foist on me.

“Can I help you, sir?”

It was a hostess, her hair slicked-back, smiling a discreet smile. I shook my head.

“No, I…”

I walked out of restaurant. I couldn’t do this. No, not now, not with my family all gathered like a firing squad ready to take me down. What they were going to say, what they’d come here for was obvious; so why even bother making my case?

The answer stopped me in my tracks: Lucy. Lucy was why this was worth it, why I had to try—as doomed as it seemed.

Going back inside, I glided past the same hostess without a word. Although the room was beautiful, with tasteful hardwood pillars and floors and its expected classy clientele, I hardly noticed. All I could see was the family at the back, with the beautiful woman, all waiting for me.

When they saw me, my father stood up and smiled as if the last time we’d spoken he hadn’t called me a disgrace.

“Khabib.”

After we embraced, he held me in place so he could give me a good visual inspection.

“You look well.”

I nodded.

“Yes, the crash wasn’t bad. Lucy came right away.”

An awkward silence, then my father sat down and gestured at the only empty seat.

“Sit down; we were just talking about you.”

The seat was, of course, right beside the woman they had brought last time. No sooner had my butt hit the seat than had my mother clasped my arm.

“Oh, didn’t we introduce you to Aliya?”

Dutifully, I shook my head and my mother launched into an eager dialogue.

“Aliya is from Al-Jembar, too, and is here visiting family. She grew up in Al-Uyun, just like you!”

“What a coincidence,” I said dully.

Now it was my father’s turn to chime in.

“Yes, she comes from a most honorable family, and has been the perfect picture of decorum since she got here.”

I nodded, shooting the poor woman a cursory glance.

“Great.”

Gently, I extricated my hand from my mother’s grasp, then turned to my father.

“About my birthday party.”

He rose a hand magnanimously and shook his head.

“All is forgiven, my boy. We all make mistakes. And, as I understand from Mahir—” he gestured to my stony-faced brother, who’d I’d actually forgotten was there at all, “living here, so far from home, in a country so different, is not without its difficulties, its…temptations.”

Now, he was the one clasping my hand, taking Aliya’s with his other.

“What’s important, is that you’ve come to see the error of your ways, and have decided to do what is right.”

My gaze flicked from his eager face to Aliya’s subdued one. And, for a minute, I imagined it. Life as my parents wanted it for me: with this passive woman by my side, all of us chatting, laughing together in my penthouse, my smiles coming a second too late, though they wouldn’t notice.

Shaking my head, once again I gently pulled back my hand.

“I’m sorry, Father, but you are mistaken.”

His empty hand, now grasping air, had become a claw.

“What?”

“I didn’t come here to apologize for what you saw, or to tell you that I did the wrong thing. No, for the first time, I’m absolutely certain I’ve done the right thing.”

“Khabib, with Aliya here, please—”

“No, mother, no. I won’t pipe down or quiet myself; I’ve done that enough. I didn’t ask for Aliya here and, with all due respect, I don’t want her here. I have a girlfriend.”

My father, who was taking a sip of his water, spat it out.

“With that…woman? The one who was spying on you?”

I stood up, nodding fiercely.

“That woman is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And, I hate to break it to you, but she’s been bending the truth to you since the first week—a position you unfairly forced her into.”

My father’s face was one scrunched-up bundle of rage.

“Regardless, you, she…Khabib, this country has gotten to you.”

“You’re right, Father; it has gotten to me. In some of the bad ways you and Mother fear, true, but not all. No, I was saved from being swallowed by this hedonistic metropolis by none other than Lucy herself. She is kind, compassionate, and refreshing. Yes, this place may have changed me, but it has not changed my most basic values—those of family, hard work, and being authentic. Don’t ask me to sacrifice one for the other.”

My father banged his fist on the table, sending the waitress, who was cautiously making her way to our table, scurrying away.

“I am not asking you to sacrifice anything other than the lies this culture has infected you with. This woman has done nothing but made a ludicrous public expression of her affection for you, nothing more. What does that even mean? Over here, they do not hold the same values we do. This woman, these people—they are not your people, are not family, and never can be. To even imagine that you would disrespect your family so entirely, when we’ve given you everything, is unthinkable.”