Rami licked his lips. “The charity is a subsidiary of one of my father’s former companies,” Rami said quickly. “And before you say it—no, it wasn’t me.”
“Yeah, now that I think about it,” Mia agreed, raising an eyebrow, “It wouldn’t make sense for it to be news if you’d done it yourself.”
Rami nodded. “I think—the only thing I can think of—is that it must have been my mom.”
Mia’s eyes widened. “What makes you think it was her?”
Rami sat down on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle his son.
“My mom didn’t know a whole lot about my dad’s businesses, but there were a few companies she had some personal connections with.” Rami paused. “So what I think she did was funnel the last of the money she had in her savings through the company to a one-off charity subsidiary. She must have invented the name ‘Hope’ to try and throw us and Amie off the scent.”
“That seems like a lot of effort to go to just to make an anonymous donation,” Mia said, sounding skeptical. “Did you even tell her about what was going on with my mom?”
Rami shook his head. “No, but I think she must have overheard us talking about it. I mean we saw her in the next room almost right after, you know?
” Mia considered that point and nodded. “What I want to get your opinion on is whether we should talk to her about it—or if we should tell your mom.”
“You didn’t tell her today?”
Rami shook his head. “I said it must have been a coincidence of some kind—or that maybe someone at the company wanted to do a good deed for the family, as a parting thing before they changed hands, something like that.”
Mia chuckled softly. “Well if she went to that much trouble keeping it anonymous, do we really have the right to go and tell my mom about it?”
“What I don’t understand,” Rami said, “is why she’d want it to be anonymous at all.”
Mia shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t want anyone to worry about it, or try and talk her out of the donation.”
“But why would she still want no one to know now the treatment is over?” Rami watched as Mia caught up her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it for a moment.
“Maybe she just doesn’t really want the credit for it,” she suggested finally. “Remember a while back when she said she wanted to make amends for how she treated me when you introduced me to her. Maybe she felt like something like this goes towards making it even—but she doesn’t want to make a big deal about it? Especially since we told her we didn’t want anything.”
Rami considered the possibility. Even after spending years of his life as her child, Rami felt he didn’t really know his mother well enough to say whether a such a gesture would be in character for her. Certainly, every time she’d ever given him a gift, Amal had made sure that Rami had known where it had come from. But he hadn’t known anything about his mother’s charity work. He sighed finally, resigning himself to the only option at hand.
“If she doesn’t want anyone to know, it’s not our place to tell on her, is it?” He said, and Mia nodded slowly in agreement. “I guess if she ever wants your mom—or anyone—to know about it, she’ll tell them. In the meantime, we can’t confront her about it.” Rami sighed again, reaching out to play with his son’s kicking foot.
“It does kind of suck that we can’t thank her until and unless she’s ready to admit that she did it,” Mia said, leaning down onto her side next to the baby. She frowned, and Rami knew that his fiancée was trying to think of some way that she could thank his mother without telling her what the thank-you was for.
“You’ll think of something,” Rami reassured her. He picked Aziz up off of the bed and held the infant securely in his arms, despite the way the baby squirmed. “In the meantime, you should get some rest. I’ll play with our little boy in the living room.
Mia frowned again. “And here I was hoping we could put our little boy in his nursery for a little while and you could show me how much you love me until it’s time for dinner,” Mia said with mild protest in her voice. Rami chuckled lowly, picking up Aziz carrying him to the crib in the adjoining room. They would still be able to hear the baby if something happened to him, but if Aziz wanted to play with the colorful attached toys, or take a nap for a little while, he would be very welcome.
Rami put the baby down and rejoined his fiancée, quickly sliding under the blankets with her as they immediately started to tear at each other’s clothes. They might only have fifteen minutes before it was time to go eat dinner and Rami wanted to make sure each one counted. As his hands wandered over his lover’s body, Rami kissed her over and over again, glad that he had managed to turn his life around enough to keep Mia in his life—even if their current circumstances were less than perfect.
NINETEEN
Mia’s stomach felt as though it had been tied in knots, but despite her nerves, she felt she was happier than she could remember being in a long time. As she sat at the hair and makeup station, obediently closing and opening her eyes and tilting her head under instruction, she couldn’t help but feel relieved that her big day had finally arrived.
It had taken months of planning, and even though the ceremony and reception were relatively simple, they had required saving up some money as well. Rami hadn’t wanted Mia to pay for any of the wedding costs; he had wanted to earn the money himself since he had proposed to her, and since he had promised to take care of her for the rest of her life. The few businesses Rami had managed to keep going out of his father’s once-vast empire were beginning to stabilize, and they had turned enough profit to be able to justify taking home a little more money.
“Oh my God, Mia, you’re already looking so beautiful, and you aren’t even ready yet.”
Mia resisted the urge to open her eyes at Karima’s comment. Rami’s eldest sister was her maid of honor, while his younger sister and Becky, one of Mia’s few long-time friends, and her five-year-old daughter, completed the bridal party. At ten months old, Aziz was not quite old enough to walk dependably yet, but his uncle, one of Rami’s groomsmen, would help him down the aisle as the ring bearer.
“Oh my God, she does,” Becky agreed. “Oh—can you imagine how she’s going to look when she gets the dress on?”
Mia felt her face heat up and tried to make herself breathe slowly to still the jumping nerves in her body and slow her pounding heart. “Guys, I don’t know why we’re all making such a big deal out of this,” she said in between dabs of makeup being applied her face.