The weekend passed too quickly, despite how heavy it was with things she needed to get done. Detta returned from Georgia on Sunday evening and eagerly showed Tracey photos of her daughter and newborn granddaughter over coffee.
"You should have seen her the first time she opened her eyes," Detta said rapturously. "She's the most beautiful thing I ever saw."
"Mm-hmm," Tracey said, staring into her coffee cup.
Detta frowned and raised an eyebrow before continuing.
"And that's when we ate the placenta," she said. "Now normally that's just the mother, but we decided to make it a family affair this time. Even the doctor had some."
"Mm-hmm," Tracey repeated, having not heard a word, stirring swirls into her coffee.
"Tracey Anderson!" Detta said sharply, and Tracey sat up quickly, nearly spilling her coffee.
"What?" she asked, startled.
"What's gotten into you?" Detta said, leaning forward. "You haven't heard a word I said since we sat down. Is everything all right?"
"Everything's fine!" Tracey replied too quickly, flustered. "I mean, nothing is wrong. I just..."
She paused, unsure she wanted to put it into words.
"I have a crush on my boss," she admitted, sighing.
"Lorraine?" Detta asked, looking a bit startled.
"What?" Tracey was equally confused for a moment, and then she waved her hands quickly to dismiss the misunderstanding. "No, no, not Lorraine. My client. The one whose house I clean. The Sheikh."
"Oh!" Detta put a hand to her heart, relieved. "Well, that makes more sense. If I spent all day around that much money, I'd probably have a crush too."
"It's not about the money," Tracey said quickly. "He's incredibly nice, and generous, not to mention gorgeous."
"And rich," Detta said, laughing.
Tracey's face heated with embarrassment, and she gave in.
"Okay, the money doesn't hurt. But that's beside the point."
"Which is?"
"That I don't have a snowball's chance in hell," Tracey said, as though it were obvious. "He's so far out of my league, I shouldn't even be talking to him. Having a crush on him is a ridiculous waste of time."
"Well of course it is," Detta said. "I know enough housekeepers to know falling for the husband is a bad idea."
"He's not married," Tracey said, pushing her hair away from her face tiredly.
Detta scoffed. "That you know of. He's probably got a harem full of women back in the Middle-East."
"Detta!" Tracey was offended on the Sheikh's behalf. "First of all, the whole harem thing is an invention of Hollywood. The harem is just the parts of the house strange men aren't allowed into, not a hookah bar for concubines. Secondly, he's not Saudi. There are a dozen countries along the Persian Gulf besides Saudi Arabia. Bahrain, Iran, the United Arab Emirates—"
"All right, all right, I get it." Detta held up her hands to stop the tide of information. "No insulting your boyfriend."
"Detta!"
"More importantly," Detta went on, "he's rich. And more important than that, he's royalty. If he isn't betrothed to some cloistered princess somewhere, I'd be damn surprised."
"He isn't," Tracey insisted. "It came up last night. He would have told me. Not to mention I've been working in his house for a year. If there was someone in his life, I'd have heard of it."
"Well, then he's probably a playboy who just sees you as another conquest,” she said. “He's probably tried every maid who's been through there. I know your service only sends him the pretty ones."
"He's not like that," Tracey said, getting more worked up by the moment. "He's incredibly respectful. He's thoughtful and gentle. He's just busy because he works so hard."
Detta kept pushing. "Is he working, though? Or just flying off to exotic locations to lie around on the beach with beautiful women?"
"He's working," Tracey said firmly. "Lorraine keeps track of his schedule so we can organize cleaning around it. He hardly takes a day off. There's an article about his projects in the Financial Times every other day."
Detta leaned forward, folding her hands on the table. "So what you're telling me is he's gorgeous, kind, generous, rich, hardworking, trustworthy, and available?"
Tracey floundered, realizing she had more or less said all those things.
"And he's interested in you," Detta said.
Tracey started to protest, but Detta held up a hand to stop her.
"He personally babysat your son while you worked all day," Detta said. "A man that rich doesn't just do something like that for kicks. He's after something, and I'm going to take a wild guess and say it's you. So what's stopping you from going after him?"
"I'm his maid," Tracey said, exasperated.
"You're a human being," Detta said, her voice as firm as her posture. "So is he. Money doesn't change that. Where you're born doesn't change that. Nothing does. What happens when two human beings find each other and connect is the same no matter who they are or where they came from. I don't know what there is between the two of you, if there's anything at all, but don't deny yourself the chance because you think you don't deserve it just because your paycheck is smaller than his. You didn't earn the circumstances you were born into any more than he did."
Tracey was silent, stunned by the directness of Detta's words and forced to stop and wonder why she was resisting. It was only a crush. It might go nowhere at all. Or, it might bloom into something incredible. Wasn't it better to take the chance that could lead to something beautiful instead of the one where nothing changed at all?
"Now, that's settled," Detta said, pushing a handful of photos toward Tracey. "Look at these pictures of my grandbaby and tell me she doesn't have my nose."
Tracey went to bed that night still contemplating what the Sheikh's actions meant, and whether she should allow herself to continue indulging in this crush. It was probably a terrible idea, but she couldn't resist. Even if was only ever a little crush, it made her happy in a way few things had in a while.
The next week she returned to work, thankfully sans Charlie, whom she'd left with Detta as usual. She threw herself into her work with every intention of focusing on it to the exclusion of all else. She couldn't let this crush interfere with what she needed to get done. If she ran into Adil while she was working, she might stop and say hi like he'd asked her to, but she wouldn't go looking for him. She certainly wouldn't languish around in the foyer hoping for him to come home.
"Tracey!"
She'd been dusting in the foyer, definitely not lurking, when Sheikh Adil burst through the doors shouting her name, startling her so much she nearly dropped her duster. It was still very early, but he'd been out all morning.
"Sheikh!" Tracey said, her eyes wide.
"Tracey, I need your help," he said, taking her by the arm. "Are you busy? What size are you? How are you at acting?"
"Uh…" Tracey stared at him, confused. "Not very, dress size ten, and I took a drama class in high school for an art credit. Why?"
"My personal assistant quit out of the blue last night," Adil said, letting her go to pull his phone from a hidden pocket of his formal white dishdasha. "I have an incredibly important meeting this afternoon, and I need you to stand in for her. Can you do it?"
"I-I've never done any PA work," Tracey said, more confused than worried. "I wouldn't want to make you look bad."
"You won't, trust me," Adil said, looking up from his phone to smile at her. "Fifty percent of the job is just standing there looking beautiful, and you already have that mastered."
Tracey turned scarlet from her collar to her ears. She was speechless. He winked and went back to his phone for a moment, busily tapping out a message. Then he put it away and pulled a thick binder from under his arm, which he offered to her.
"Familiarize yourself with the names of these files," he said. "Don't worry too much about the content. I just need you to be able to hand me what I'm after when I ask for it. Other than that, you'll just be fetching coffee and other small errands to keep things running smoothly. I promise you can handle it."
"I don't know," Tracey said, biting her lip as she looked at the heavy binder full of files. "I'm really not that good at acting. And I still have work to finish here."
"I will pay you triple what you would have made today," Adil said without hesitation, his gaze intense. Tracey's eyes widened, imagining the dent she could put in her student loan debt.
"I'll call my babysitter," she said, and Adil's shoulders relaxed with relief.
"Thank you, Tracey," he said warmly. "I promise you won't regret this. I have to go prepare. I'll see you in an hour!"
He hurried off, and Tracey, feeling a bit weak in the knees given the speed at which this was happening, stumbled off to the nearest quiet seat where she could start speed-reading through the binder.
Tracey had a naturally studious mind. She'd considered regular medicine before deciding veterinary medicine was more her calling. Memorizing the titles of the files wasn't difficult, and with her little extra time, she scanned the content, familiarizing herself with the project.
She’d known the Sheikh had been investing in a public development project for the city for several years, attempting to reduce crime and improve conditions in low-end neighborhoods while avoiding gentrification. She'd only begun to pay attention to it recently as her interest in the Sheikh grew. The articles in the Financial Times about it had mentioned little more than his funding of the project, but she could see from these files just how incredibly involved he really was, and how passionate he was about not driving residents out of their neighborhoods with his building projects.
This meeting would be a review of franchises looking to join the project. The Sheikh insisted on strict control of this, knowing how easily big franchises outside the price range of the residents could drive out more accessible local businesses and kill a community. Tracey was frankly shocked by the amount of care and consideration that seemed to have gone into the project. It was no wonder the Sheikh was so busy.
She was still reading an hour later when she heard Adil calling for her. She gathered up her file and hurried to meet him.
"Oh good!" he said when he saw her. "Here! I had it rush delivered. I hope it fits you all right."
He handed her a dry cleaning bag, in which sat a beautiful skirt suit set that could easily have cost the same as a car payment. She felt a little dizzy.
"Change quickly," Adil urged her, nudging her toward a bathroom. "Do you have makeup? I can have some brought for you."
"No, that's fine!" Tracey assured him quickly, worried he would buy her more things. "I have some with me."
"You're going to look fantastic," he said as he urged her toward the bathroom again. Tracey obeyed, glad she really did have makeup with her. She generally kept a few basics and a hairbrush in her purse just in case. Part of her job was looking presentable, after all.
The suit fit like a dream and was nicer than most anything she'd ever worn before. She was fairly certain it would have put her wedding dress to shame with its price tag alone. It was a beautiful deep navy blue pencil skirt and matching jacket with a soft scoop neckline over a bright white collared shirt. It was simple, but striking and stylish. Understated and professional. Tracey twisted her blond hair into a quick updo, glad she'd brought bobby pins, and fixed her makeup, keeping it as subtle as the suit. Looking at herself in the mirror, she could almost imagine she'd never left that internship, derailing her career to cope with Derek's gambling debts. Might she have ever owned a suit like this if she'd made different choices then? Back then, it hadn't felt like she'd had much of a choice at all.
When she left the bathroom, Adil was waiting for her, looking elegant and exotic in his white robe and red keffiyeh. He looked almost surprised for a moment, and then he smiled.
"I was only half right," he said, offering her a hand. "You look more than fantastic."
Tracey looked away, tempted to contradict him, but the truth was she felt good. She thought she looked great. Instead, she said thank you as she took his arm and he led her to the sleek black car waiting out front. Andre, the bodyguard, huge and silent as ever, took the front passenger seat next to the driver. In the back, Tracey's heart raced as she sat next to the Sheikh, her senses filled with the scent of the rich leather seats and the smooth, ghostlike hum of the engine as it pulled away with nary a bump.