Page 49 of Earned Husband

“Who isthis?” he asked.

“No.” I shook my head, looking him right in the eyes. “That’s Jasmine. JasmineSaad. Deja’s younger sister.”

He grinned. “I might have to go to Egypt with you. Your flight is in, what, ten days?”

I rubbed a hand across my jaw and shook my head again. “You’re not coming.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s Basel’sdaughter, Isaac.”

“So is Deja,” he countered. “Besides, I’m interested in international relations.”

“And by that, you meanhaving relationsin a different country.”

He smirked, lifting his gaze to the window as he nodded slowly. “Unlike you, I happen to enjoy the advantages of being unattached.”

“You’re still not coming with me.”

“But—”

“No.”

Isaac chuckled, his head shaking as he finally let the photograph flutter back to the desk and sat down, his expression a little more serious when he looked up at me again. “I still can’t believe you’re going to Egypt. Do you actually even know yet how long you’re going to be there?”

“I don’t, but for what it’s worth, I can’t believe I’m going either.”

In ten more days, I would be boarding a plane and taking off to a country I’d never visited before, to meet the family of a woman I could be spending the rest of my life with, and I didn’t even know if she had an answer for me yet.

If she did, she definitely hadn’t given it to me. Despite all the letters, photographs, and gifts, I still didn’t know if she was actually going to go through with this. I’d been searching all her letters for the concrete answer I wanted, but so far, she’d been completely silent on that front.

“Are you ready?” Isaac asked.

I arched an eyebrow at him, finally moving around my desk and lowering myself into my chair as I considered the question. The honest answer was probably no, but no sane person could be ready for what I suspected was waiting for me.

Strangely, however, it wasn’t the thought of spending my life with Deja that was making me nervous. It was the knowledge of how closely everyone else would be watching.

All those traditions I’d read about surrounding Egyptian engagements? None of them involved the two of us spending much time alone together.

The events were all family and community-centric, and there were supposed to be chaperones if we did go out on a date or to run errands. Traditionally, the couple didn’t really get any unsupervised time at all, which meant that possibly for the entire duration of my time there, we were going to be surrounded by her family and their friends.

“Yeah,” I finally said. “I think I am. I just, uh, I’m going to have to get creative if I want to actually eventalkto my potential bride without a dozen other people listening in.”

Isaac groaned, picking up a few more photographs from my desk and looking through them. “Good luck with that. They do seem to be pretty close. There are almost always people with her in these pictures.”

When he moved onto another, he frowned, looked again, and then handed the photograph to me. “Who arethey?”

I took it from him, realizing I must’ve missed this one before. It was a picture of five men sitting around a pool, and not one of them was smiling. They were all scowling at the camera, looking as tough as bouncers at an event attended by every A-lister known to man.

Large with broad shoulders and half-clenched fists even though they were apparently in a relaxed setting.

They didnotlook friendly, and these were the guys I was going to be spending the foreseeable future with. Khaled’s presence right in the middle of the pack confirmed it.

“They’re her brothers,” I said, glancing up at him and wondering if this was a mistake after all. “Also known as some of the chaperones who’ll be with me for every single step I’m going to take on Egyptian soil.”

CHAPTER 22

DEJA