The Sheikh's American Daughter (2 page)

The sheikh’s wife stood there pale-faced. She stared at Olivia as though as she was a ghost. She was tall and elegantly dressed. Her black hair was pinned up neatly. She had an unfriendly face. It made Olivia feel uncomfortable.

“Daaliyah, she looks like who?” the sheikh asked as he gently touched her arm.

“Elizabeth,” she answered quietly. The sheikh’s hazel eyes opened wide. He whipped his head in Olivia’s direction and stared at her in shock.

“You know my mother?” Olivia asked the sheikh’s wife.

“You are Elizabeth’s daughter?” the sheikh asked her. He looked at Olivia slowly from head to toe.

“Yes. I guess you know my mother.” Olivia started feeling strange. She had come all this way to find her father but she suddenly wanted to run away. The sheikh and his wife both knew her mother. The sheikh’s wife knew her mother by her first name and well enough to see her features in Olivia.

“This is weird,” Jacob mumbled.

“Please come in, so we can talk,” Sheikh Solomon said to Olivia.

“We have somewhere to be,” said Daaliyah.

“You can go ahead without me.”

“No, I will just phone them.” Daaliyah looked as though she did not want to miss out on that talk. Sheikh Solomon turned on his heel and headed into the house. Olivia and Daya followed him in. They both gasped when they saw the interior.

There were brown double doors straight ahead. They were open and led outside. Olivia could see the lawn and some flowers. She assumed that it was a garden. The floors were white and clean. There was a wide staircase to the left of the entrance, and to the right, there were more brown double doors leading to another room. The sheikh was walking towards it. 

They followed Sheikh Solomon through the brown double doors into a large sitting room. He gestured for them to sit down in the expensive chairs. A maid rushed in. “Shall I get you anything?” she asked Sheikh Solomon.

“Some tea.” He looked at Olivia. “Is tea okay?” he asked her.

“Tea is fine,” Olivia answered, although she did not like tea. The maid nodded and rushed out. Olivia and Daya sat opposite Sheikh Solomon. Daaliyah and Jacob walked in and joined them at the sitting area.

Sheikh Solomon stared at Olivia for a while. He did not say anything. He just looked at her. He studied her silently. It made Olivia feel uncomfortable. Daya could not stop fidgeting. She kept looking at around and shifting in her seat.

The maid reappeared with a tray. She placed the tray on the table and poured out the tea into the cups. She quickly walked out when she was finished. Olivia sighed. She did not like the silence. It was too uncomfortable. She squared her shoulders.

“My name is Olivia Grant. I am Elizabeth’s daughter.” She paused for a second. Everyone in the room was staring at her as she spoke. Sheikh Solomon looked confused and in shock. Jacob looked curious. Daaliyah looked nervous, which was unsettling. “My mother passed away and left me your address,” Olivia finished off.

“What?” Sheikh Solomon spat out. “Elizabeth is dead?” he asked. His face immediately went pale.

“Yes,” Olivia replied.

“How?” His right hand started shaking.

“Cancer.” Olivia took a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She was still grieving. She did not want to talk about her mother’s last few months.

“Oh God.” Sheikh Solomon touched his right hand and tried to stop it from shaking but it was useless. Both his hands started shaking.

“She left me your address and said that I should come to find you. Apparently you are my father,” she said. Sheikh Solomon barely reacted. He had been paralyzed with the news of her mother’s death.

“Father, are you okay?” Jacob asked as he touched Sheikh Solomon’s arm.

“That is not possible. You cannot be my husband’s daughter,” said Daaliyah.

“Aunt Lizzy had no reason to lie,” said Daya. The sheikh rose to his feet.

“Excuse me,” he said and stalked to the exit. Olivia and Daya looked at each other.

“Is he just going to leave in the middle of the conversation?” Olivia said to Daya.

“He’s not taking the news well,” s
he replied.

“If he cared about my mother so much, then why did he leave her to raise me all by herself?” She felt frustrated. She had come thinking that she was going to vent at him about neglecting his fatherly duties. However, none of that had gone to plan.

Daaliyah rose to her feet and walked out of the room. Jacob was still sitting down. He seemed like he did not know what to do. “This is awkward,” he said. He picked up his cup of tea and took a sip. All the other cups were still on the tray.

“It’s really awkward. I think coming here was a mistake,” said Olivia. A maid walked into the room.

“Sheikh Solomon has asked me to come show you to your rooms,” she said.

“Show who?” Daya asked.

“The two of you.”

“I don’t think I want to stay,” said Olivia.

“You haven’t gotten a proper chance to speak to him yet. You can’t just leave,” Daya said to her.

“We can stay in a hotel.”

“He already had your luggage brought in,” said the maid. “If you could please follow me.”

“You came from America, right?” Jacob asked. Olivia nodded. “Long trip, you might as well stay here a night and get everything sorted before you return.” 

Daya stood up. “Let’s at least see the room,” she said. Olivia stood up. The two of them followed the maid out of the room. They headed up the staircase. When they reached the landing, they turned left and headed down the hallway.

When they reached the end of the hallway, there was a sitting area. There were sofas and a bookshelf. “That is a guest room.” The maid pointed at one of several doors. “And that is also a guest room.” She pointed at another door.

“I’m going to have a look at my room for the night,” said Daya. She headed to the room on the left. Olivia sighed and headed to the other room. She opened the door and walked in.

The room was big, bigger than her bedroom at her small apartment in Atlanta. There was a four-poster bed positioned in the middle of the room. It was big enough to fit four people. The room had high ceilings and large windows that overlooked the driveway. The room looked like a hotel room. It was beautiful.

There was a knock on the door. Olivia went to open the door to see who it was. There was a maid standing there with her suitcase. “Thank you,” Olivia said to her. She took the suitcase and put it by the door. She figured that she was not going to unpack because she was not going to be there long. She had only packed clothes for one week. She hadn’t really thought anything through. She was not sure how long she wanted to stay or how long she was supposed to stay.

Olivia went to Daya’s room. “Daya!” she called out as she walked in.

“This bedroom is beautiful,” Daya replied.

“So we are just supposed to wait until Sheikh Solomon is ready to speak to me?”

“Do you think he is crying? He looked like he was going to cry.” Daya crossed her eyebrows. “I think he really is your father and he really cared about aunt Lizzy,” she added.

Olivia placed her hands on her hips. “He didn’t care enough for me.”

“What about his wife? Her reaction was interesting.”

“Tell me about it. She went pale in the face when she saw me.” Olivia ran her hand through her long, wavy hair. She was feeling anxious. She just wanted to get her answers and get out of there.

“Do you know what I realized?” Daya asked her.

“What?” Olivia replied.

“You, Jacob and Sheikh Solomon all have hazel eyes.”

Olivia narrowed her gaze at Daya. “Hazel eyes are not uncommon,” she said.

“You have the same eyebrows.”

“This is weird,” she said. She may have had the same eyes and eyebrows as Jacob and the sheikh, but she was different from them. She was five feet three inches. The sheikh was about five feet ten inches and Jacob was about six feet tall. Her skin tone was different, too, more golden, less olive. Olivia shook her head. She did not want to think about the differences and similarities between herself and them.

Olivia looked at her watch. It was 7 p.m. “I’m tired. I think I will go lie down,” she said. It had been such a long and eventful day. She needed to rest.

Olivia woke with a fright. “What!” she breathed. Daya was standing over her.

“Sheikh Solomon is outside,” she said.

Olivia sat up. 

“He’s what?”

“He came a few minutes ago and said that he wanted to speak with you.”

Olivia looked at her wrist. It was six in the morning. “Why are you awake at this time?” she asked.

“I was on my way back from the bathroom when I saw him pacing around in the waiting area,” said Daya. Olivia said nothing. She just climbed out of bed. She was still wearing her leggings and a T-shirt. Her hair was messy.

Olivia walked out of the room and into the sitting area. Sheikh Solomon was sitting on the sofa. “You wanted to see me,” she said as she sat opposite him.

“I am sorry to interrupt your sleep,” he replied.

“It’s fine. The sooner we speak, the sooner I can return home.” Olivia wondered how smoothly the talk was going to go. The first one had not gone so well.

“It was hard hearing about Elizabeth’s passing.”

“If you cared about her so much, then why did you not come after her?”

“It was complicated.”

“So complicated that you let me grow up without a father? Maybe you are not my father.”

“I did not know that she was pregnant.”

Olivia raised her eyebrows. “You are lying,” she said.

“I am not lying. She never told me. She just left.”

“You slept with her? There is a chance that I am actually your daughter?”

Sheikh Solomon looked at Olivia’s left wrist. “Jacob has the same birthmark on his left wrist,” he said to her.

Olivia looked at her wrist. She had a small almond-shaped birthmark.

“That does not prove anything,” she said.

“My mother has the same birthmark.”

Olivia was silent for a moment. “I did not come here for recognition. I just wanted to understand how it was possible that my father was still alive and never came for me,” she said.

“If I knew about you, I would have come for you,” he said.

“I guess it does not matter anymore.” She rose to her feet.

“It matters.” Sheikh Solomon also rose to his feet. “I loved Elizabeth.”

Olivia wanted to walk away. She just wanted to get her stuff and leave but she could not. She was filled with mixed emotions. Part of her did not want to believe that Sheikh Solomon did not know about her mother being pregnant, but she could see it in his eyes. He was not lying. His expression softened every time he said her mother’s name. It made her wonder what had happened between them.

“How did you even meet her?” Olivia asked.

“She came here for a work placement,” he replied. He folded his arms over his chest.

Olivia raised an eyebrow again.

“What kind of work?”

“She was on a scholarship. She was so intelligent and bright. Her university sent her over for a placement at my father’s oil refinery.” Sheikh Solomon smiled a little. Olivia could not believe her ears. Her mother had never told her about attending a university or going to the Middle East. It was all news to her.

“My mother studied engineering?” she asked.

“I guess there is a lot you do not know.” Sheikh Solomon looked at his watch. “I have matters to attend to outside the city. Will you stay for a few days?”

“Here?” Olivia’s eyes flew open.

“Yes. We have a lot to talk about.”

“When will you return?”

“Tonight.”

Olivia took a deep breath. “Fine, I’ll stay. Just until tomorrow,” she said. She really wanted to know about her mother’s past. So she was willing to stay. Sheikh Solomon nodded. He turned on his heel and left.