Ayesha At Last(27)

Clara’s hands gripped her laptop. “I should get back to my office,” she said, edging toward the door.

Sheila’s eyes narrowed. “Not a word of this to anyone,” she hissed. “Unless you want your life to become very uncomfortable.”

Clara nodded quickly and closed the door behind her with a gentle click.

KHALID had never blushed so much in his life. He felt grateful for his long beard—at least it covered up part of his face.

“I’m really not the right person for this,” he kept saying to the ladies—clients—from WomenFirst Design. “I manage e-business contracts and take care of the server and virtual machines. I need to talk to Sheila. She’s doing you a disservice by assigning me to your project.”

But the women insisted on showing him pictures of scantily clad plus-size models in teddies, bikinis and edible thongs, as they continued to talk about “accessibility openings” and their large array of fasteners.

“Please,” he said firmly. “I need to speak to Sheila.”

Vanessa stopped him at the door with a question.

“Khalid, is there really any point?” Brown eyes blinked at him behind large electric-blue frames. “She’s setting you up, honey. I don’t know why, but she doesn’t like you. Sometimes that’s just the way it is. Maybe she doesn’t like the way you look, or dress, or that fluff on your face. We know how that goes, don’t we, girls?” The women around the table nodded in understanding. “Same thing happened to us when we worked at a lingerie company we’d rather not name.” She winked at him and he stared back, confused. Khalid couldn’t name a lingerie company if he tried. Whenever he went to the mall, he always averted his gaze from the flashing neon bosoms in the window display.

“They didn’t like it when we told them you can’t make lingerie for a larger woman by adding more fabric. You’ve got to design with her in mind,” Lorraine said. “So when they showed us the door, Vanessa and I, we started from scratch. Livetech is the seventh company we’ve approached for our online business.” She looked around the table. “What do you say, ladies? We’re a democracy,” she said to Khalid. “We all have to agree on the big business decisions.”

There was a murmur of voices as eight women huddled at one end of the board table. A few of them glanced at him, scrutinizing his face, lingering on his white robe and beard.

Finally, the huddle broke and Vanessa said, “We like the look of you. I think we’ll try you on.”

Khalid was surprised. “You don’t know anything about me. I haven’t designed a website since high school, and I don’t know anything about women’s lingerie.”

“We like that you’re honest. It’s endearing in a man,” Vanessa said. “Livetech has a great reputation. We’ll get the contract started with HR. And honey, men never notice lingerie. It usually doesn’t stay on long enough.”

Khalid blushed an even deeper red. “I’ll have to take your word on that. I’m not married.”

Lorraine and Vanessa started laughing. “You are too much!” Lorraine said, wiping her eyes. “What does your girlfriend say about all this?”

Khalid shifted uncomfortably. “My mother will find a wife for me. In the meantime, I have many interests to keep me busy.”

Vanessa smiled slyly. “Are you telling me that a good-looking man like you doesn’t have someone in mind?”

Copper skin and sharp brown eyes flashed in Khalid’s mind. “No,” he said. “That’s not the way this works for me.”

“Oh, honey, nobody knows how this thing works. It just happens. Your heart and gut take over, and your mind has to go along with them, because it’s going to happen no matter what. Sometimes you get a sign, and sometimes the sign gets you.”

Khalid mulled this over while Lorraine and Vanessa discussed inventory and design.

Sheila strolled into the conference room. “Everything all right here, ladies?”

Vanessa’s face grew cold. “Khalid is such a godsend, Ms. Watts,” she said. “We’ll be sure to tell Dev how happy we are with his willingness to help us out with our little company. There’s really no reason for you to check up on us. We’ll deal with Khalid exclusively from now on.” The meeting quickly wrapped up and the ladies filed out with promises to be in touch.

Sheila glared at Khalid once the room had emptied. “They seemed happy.”

Khalid gathered his laptop and notepad. “I think we understand each other.”

“I hope so, Khalid,” Sheila said. She circled around to the other side of the conference table. “WomenFirst Design cleared twelve million dollars in profit last year. In fact, they’re so important I’m taking you off e-commerce to work exclusively with them. I hope that’s not a problem?”

Khalid thought about the existing projects waiting for him, the server upgrade and virtual machine testing he had planned for this week. Sheila expected him to drop everything and design the website for a product he didn’t even understand. His stomach clenched with disappointment and frustration, but he kept his face expressionless.

“No problem at all,” he said. “I look forward to the challenge.”

IT was probably the extra-large helping of chicken curry so late at night, but Khalid had trouble sleeping again. His biryani burps kept him staring at the ceiling for hours. When he did drift off, he dreamt of his father. He got out of bed at five, showered and drove to the mosque.