She stared in wonder. “There are so many things I don’t know.”
He laughed, hard. “Well, I could have told you that!”
“Hey!” she laughed, smacking him lightly on the chest. She smiled and stared into his hazel eyes as some unwholesome feelings once again began stirring inside of her.
She looked away from him and stared up at the ceiling above, changing the subject quickly. “So, your mother wants to take me shopping for a wedding dress. Do you think I should I go with her?”
“Of course,” he smiled, “Whatever makes it more believable.”
“I like your mother,” she said plainly.
He laughed, as though there was no need to say as much. “I know,” he said with his brows raised. “You talk about her all the time.”
“Be nice! That’s your mama you’re talking about,” she joked.
“And she’s a lovely woman with many achievements under her belt,” he said dutifully. “I just don’t need to hear about it every minute.”
She stared at him for a moment and wasn’t sure whether or not he was joking. Feeling this, he finally turned his head to her and offered a playful wink.
“So… are you in a relationship back home?” Amie ventured.
Malik chuckled. “We went straight from my mother to my sex life?”
“Actually, no one mentioned your sex life,” Amie said, her voice betraying some annoyance. “I just asked if you were seeing anybody.”
“I’m not, currently. Are you?”
She pursed her lips and shook her head. “No…”
What right she had to know about his relationships, she had no idea. Would he even call them relationships? Zafina sure did like to rub in how many women her brother had been with, or how many women in Rabayat were hopelessly in love with him.
“Does it make you feel bad?” she asked quietly, her heart suddenly pounding as she wondered if what she was about to say would land her out of a job.
“Does what?” he asked quietly, looking into her eyes and absent-mindedly taking her hand in his.
“Lying,” Amie said plainly. “To your mother—to your whole family—about all this.”
“Actually, it doesn’t,” he laughed. “What I was doing before made me feel bad. This… this feels right.” He lifted her hand into the air and looked on as their fingers intertwined. “I’d rather they not be disappointed in me, or worry that I’m shaming the family. It’s not ideal, of course, but it’s better this way.”
“It’s a mother’s right to worry,” Amie teased.
He shrugged, finally releasing her hand from his. “Well, I have to say I’m a little tired of it. I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”
“Or, you know, hide them,” she laughed.
He stared for a moment before relenting to a chuckle. “Or that, too. Now come on, to bed; we’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”
“We do?”
He nodded and gestured as if to tell her to scoot her back to bed. “I’ll tell you in the morning.”
Amie would have protested, but no sooner had her head touched the pillow, she was already asleep, dreaming of pyramids, desert vistas, and handsome pharaohs.
TEN
The next morning, after breakfast, the pair left Ali and Selma’s home for a camel ride across the plains of Giza, southwest of Cairo. Giza was a necropolis for ancient pharaohs, and a tourist haven for tombs and historical tours. The journey to the three famous pyramids took Amie by surprise, as they moved from bustling city to stark, beautiful desert.
The desert was hot, but no discomfort could take away from the feeling Amie got in the pit of her stomach when they started approaching the pyramids. The ancient structures towered over them, and the closer they got, the less real everything seemed.
These ancient tombs had been around longer than most other things on the planet. The tallest standing at 481 feet, these living monuments told a story.
Malik hopped off his camel and, with a bit of assistance from their tour guide, Amie soon followed suit. They began walking closer to the largest pyramid, Khufu, where they could see tourists climbing on top of the rocks and taking photos. It seemed wrong to her, somehow, that just anybody could touch such a sacred thing.