Page 3 of Earned Husband

I kept my breathing even, letting my body stay heavy against the mattress. There was a brief pause before the movement continued, like she’d been waiting to see if she’d woken me up. I could picture her perfectly, her dark hair still messy with sleep and her beautiful little face scrunched in serious concentration.

A smile ghosted across my lips, but I bit it back until I heard the soft rustle of fabric that said she’d located her target. Amari’s fascination with my makeup bag had been building for two days, ever since she’d discovered it contained magic creams and powders that changed faces.

Apparently, mine was more impressive than her mother’s, which made sense. Ashanti was gorgeous. I doubted she ownedmore than mascara and perhaps some lip gloss. She didn’t need anything else.

When I heard the soft sound of the zipper being slid down, I opened my eyes and sat up, already laughing. “Got you!”

Amari froze, her hand still hovering on my makeup bag for a second before she yanked it back and screamed, a full, blood-curdling scream that had me in hysterics in no time. The next second, she bolted out of the room and I fell back against the bed, still chuckling as I listened to the rapid patter of feet disappearing down the hallway.

No doubt she was about to go tell her parents that she’d had absolutely no idea I was even in the room, let alone that she had once again been on her magic potion treasure hunt. As the sound of her footsteps faded, I smiled and stared up at the ceiling, proud to be keeping the Saad family tradition of pranking alive.

Heaven knew, my brothers had gotten me more than enough times. As had Amari herself. Even her five-year-old brother, Zain, had managed to pull one over on me a few times.

Soft voices drifted up downstairs, followed shortly after by the clinking of glasses, but I stretched out instead of jumping out of bed immediately, allowing myself to wake up lazily for a change.

When I eventually made my way downstairs, the scent of tea and sweet pastries drifted from the kitchen, and I let out a contented sigh. I hadn’t been sure about joining my brother and his family on this trip, but Ashanti’s mom’s cooking would’ve made it worthwhile even if we hadn’t done anything else during our time in America.

Khaled, my brother, was already in the kitchen when I got there, sitting at the table with bleary eyes and messy hair. Ashanti didn’t look particularly happy to be awake either, slumped at the counter next to my brother, both of them clearly regretting their wild night at Jane’s party.

Or at least, it had been what counted as a wild night for two already exhausted parents. I wasn’t feeling any worse for wear myself, but to be fair, I had gone into it well rested and with slightly more of a tolerance for alcohol than my notoriously lightweight sister-in-law.

Ashanti’s mom, Gabrielle, lived here full-time and had been baby-sitting last night. She stood near the stove, smirking and apparently as amused by their condition as I was. “You both look terrible. Honestly, I thought you would’ve learned by now.”

She poured them each a cup of tea before going back to whatever batter she was mixing. Ashanti picked up her cup and grimaced at her mother. “White wine always looks so pretty and harmless. Why didn’t anyone stop me?”

“I was too busy letting Alex drown me in whiskey,” Khaled muttered, slightly green at the gills after taking a single, small sip of his tea. His gaze drifted to me. “Why don’t you look like death warmed over?”

I shrugged and strode into the kitchen, accepting a cup of tea of my own from Gabrielle. “I didn’t drink white wine. Or whiskey, for that matter. The pink wine is prettier and kinder.”

Technically, this was a vacation, though, so I decided to cut them some slack. “Just go back to bed and sleep it off. You’ll be okay. I’ll watch the kids for a bit.”

As I said it, I glanced at little Amari, who was standing at the edge of the kitchen island, scowling like she still hadn’t forgiven me for the fright. Her arms were crossed, her expression stormy, and she stuck her tongue out at me.

I stuck my tongue out right back at her, and her eyes widened as though I’d violated some unspoken rule of adult behavior. With a loud huff, she turned on her heels and stormed out of the kitchen, probably already plotting her revenge.

Gabrielle chuckled and slid a plate across the island toward me. “It’s a good thing you found her when you did. I once walkedin on Ashanti when she was four, about to put nail polish on her sister’s eyelids.”

I winced. “How would you even get that off?”

Gabrielle shook her head. “I have no idea, but luckily, I never had to find out. I did have a few nightmares about what Child Protective Services might’ve thought if I hadn’t gotten there on time, though.”

My eyes widened in agreement and I nodded enthusiastically, but the back of my mind drifted again to what it must’ve been like for Ashanti as a child, growing up here in the States. Gabrielle had moved here long before her children had even been born, and regardless of how many times my brother had offered to buy her a house in the same gated estate in Cairo where the rest of us lived, she insisted that this was home.

As I dug into the stack of American pancakes she’d handed over—with a side of muffin and some other kind of pastry—I thought about what I’d seen of the city so far. It was my first time here, but I liked it.

I loved the lake and the modernity, the people and the parks. I could easily have stayed here with Ashanti until she headed home at the end of August. She had family here that she’d be visiting with the kids until they had to go back to school, but I had no such convenient excuse. I would be heading back to Cairo next week with Khaled.

This was simply a few days break for me. Then it’d be straight back to work. As I tried to figure out if there was a way I could extend my trip by even just a few days, I noticed Ashanti and Khaled exchanging yet another glance.

“Did you enjoy the party last night?” Ashanti asked when she looked back at me, her tone suspiciously light.

I chewed the bite I’d just taken slowly, then washed it down with a sip of tea as I tried to figure out what they might be plotting. “It was interesting. Your old friends are pretty nice,even if most of them seem rather fond of talking business at a party. Maybe that’s a cultural tradition I wasn’t aware of, but I found it a bit jarring.”

Khaled laughed. “As if the same thing doesn’t happen in Egypt.”

Ashanti pointed at me with her fork. “It’s a cultural tradition, alright. It simply belongs to the upper class rather than to any particular place.”

Gabrielle cackled from the stove. “Youth truly is wasted on the young. My lord, in my day, kids knew how to party without bringing work into it.”