He can act as nice and sweet as he wanted, and I’d pretend to never notice.
Our Uber arrived moments later, and this time I knew better than to open the door for myself. The last time I tried doing it, I had paid for it dearly, with the sheikh tongue-lashing my pussy for what seemed like an eternity before letting me cum.
We didn’t do much talking once inside the car, not because we were busy or anything, but more because Raj had this thing about never saying anything about our private lives in public. This was non-negotiable, apparently, now that both of us had committed to make things permanent between us.
Honestly, I thought I knew all there was to keeping a low profile, but learning about the lengths Raj took to protect his privacy just made my whole life feel like a joke. Imagine a group of secret tycoons investing millions and millions of dollars just to buy themselves their own little town up in the mountains of Wyoming, make its GDP artificially low to discourage potential investors, and deliberately jam signals so no one within town could access the Internet.
And then there’s me, whose brightest idea was to keep my name out of social media.
Our Uber dropped both of us at uni: Raj was going to meet up with Professor L and her husband at the former’s office, and I was set to join them once I was done finalizing my leave of absence. After much discussion, both of us had agreed it would be better if I left Miami and spend the rest of my pregnant days in Hartland.
My phone started ringing just as I finished signing the last page of documents, and I didn’t know what to feel when I saw Johnny’s name flashing on my screen again. A part of me wished I could simply ignore the call, but since that would be impractical…
“Hello?”
“Hey. Where are you?”
“I’m—-”
But Johnny was already speaking again, his tone sounding a little too jovial – almost as if it were fake – as he added in a rush, “Dahlia and I are here at your dorm, but the guy at the desk tells us you’ve moved out almost two months ago?”
Your sister texted me.
She says you’re pregnant?
Message received at 1201h from Dad
Chapter Seventeen
Stay calm. Stay the fuck calm. The sheikh told me he’d take care of this, and I believed him. I had to believe him. Otherwise, we were fucked, so damn fucked, now that hormonally imabalanced Dahlia had seen for herself how not bad my life was.
We were in the sheikh’s apartment, with Raj having graciously agreed to take a rain check on his business lunch with Damen and say yes to Dahlia’s admittedly charming plea for “our” company. Afterwards, he had asked my sister if she had any place in mind, and of course she had a ready answer for this: a fancy-schmancy rooftop steak restaurant, and one so expensive that the only thing on the menu below $100 was a bottle of water.
Obviously, Dahlia had wanted to see if the sheikh would baulk at the prices, but he didn’t of course. Instead, Raj had simply acquiesced with a bland smile, and afterwards, when Dahlia had continued to very sweetly insist on having her way, the sheikh had once again agreed to her request.
Can I see where you guys live, she had begged, and so here we were now, having coffee next to the sparkling waters of the sheikh’s private pool. It was also here that I saw Dahlia’s eyes gradually hardening as she took in the quiet luxury of our surroundings and when she finally looked at me?
That split-second flash of murderous rage in her eyes nearly had me jerking. It was a given she’d be mad, and while I’d have been an idiot to expect Dahlia to be happy for me, I certainly had not expected she’d be so freaking furious she’d be inclined to kill me.
I had asked my therapist once, if she had any idea why Dahlia seemed to hate me from the moment we met, and Dr. Payne’s answer had been patently and frustratingly simple.
Some people had issues with themselves that they had difficulties confronting, and the only way for those people to get over such issues was to find a fake resolution for it. And according to Dr. Payne, I was likely to be that fake resolution for Dahlia. For as long as her personal devils tormented her, my sister would always want to torment me in return, and right now?
That was exactly what she had in mind, with the way she flicked this evil little smile in my direction, and damn if I couldn’t hear her sultry voice whispering in her mind, I’ll steal him, too.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I opened my mouth to tell her to fuck off once and for all, but then I saw the way her hand covered her noticeably rounded belly at the same time, and I forced myself to swallow the words back. The bitch was pregnant, I reminded myself doggedly, and however evil my twin was, I had to remember that and keep the baby’s safety in mind.