“Jiran, you need to come down here,” Ava said through the phone lines, warily keeping an eye on her three sons as she spoke. Her husband, Sheik of Kilar, was going to have to deal with this mess. She considered herself to be strong and independent, but when her three sons got into this kind of mischief, Jiran had to take over. She couldn’t…it wasn’t…nope. Jiran had to be here for this.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “I have a meeting in a moment.”
Ava shook her head. “No. You don’t. Come here now. I’m in my office and…” she stopped, not sure how to explain what she was looking at. “Well, just come here. Fast.”
Ava put the phone down and continued to stare. Three boys in seven years and they’d been the most wonderful, amazing and shocking years of her life. Before she’d met Jiran, she’d honestly never thought that this kind of happiness could ever exist, but hers was proof that life could be one amazing adventure after another.
Staring at her sons, all of whom were looking at her with…well, she couldn’t very easily tell what their eyes were telling her. It was the color. It was such a contrast.
“What’s wrong, honey?” Jiran asked when he stepped into her office a few moments after their phone conversation.
Ava looked up at her husband, amazed once again that this strong, powerful man could love her. He’d given her a love so strong, so amazing, she was stunned some nights.
This particular moment, she could definitely characterize as stunned, even horrified, surprise as well, although for a completely different reason.
Jiran stood behind their three sons, hands on hips and trying hard to be patient. “Well? What’s going on, honey?”
Ava looked down at her boys. Ramzi was seven years old this month, Turk was six and their little guy, Rais (who wasn’t little by any standard) was five. All three of them were crazy smart and ready to take on their future roles with enthusiasm. Which only made this moment more precious in her mind.
She lifted her hand and silently commanded her children to turn around and face their father. Reluctantly, they did so, but she could tell that their eyes were lowered in embarrassment. It was one thing for their mother to see them…like this. It was a different matter for their father to witness their childish antics.
Jiran glanced as his watch then down at his children…then did a double take.
He couldn’t take his eyes off of his three sons. “Honey…why are my children….” He stopped, not exactly sure what to say. He looked at his boys, then at his wife, then back down at his children, still…stunned. “Why do they look like Smurfs?”
Ava covered her mouth with her hand, trying very hard not to laugh. This really wasn’t funny. She had no idea what her sons had done this time to make their skin this color, but all three of them were blue. Not just a tinge of blue, either. Nope, they were a deep, startling, electric blue. Even their fingers were blue! There was a blue tinge to their dark hair and their lashes. They were each wearing long sleeved shirts, but she suspected that their chests and stomachs were blue as well.
At the mention of the cartoon characters, she nearly lost it. She struggled to smother her laughter, to regain her composure sufficiently to respond to her husband’s question.
It wasn’t working, but she cleared her throat and managed a short reply. “Um…that’s a good question. Ramzi, care to explain?”
The oldest and future Sheik of Kilar, Ramzi, shifted slightly as if he suspected he should be embarrassed, but then that innate pride kicked in and he lifted his chin and pulled himself up as tall as he could. “I read a story about a way to change one’s skin color,” he started to explain. His eyes glanced up nervously when his father’s arms crossed over his chest. “Well, and I wanted to try it.”
Jiran nodded, then looked to his next son. “And you, Turk?”
Turk shrugged his shoulders. “I wanted to be like Ramzi,” he said with a confident voice.
Jiran looked towards his youngest. “Rais? You had to join in the party?”
Rais might be the youngest, but he had a solid dose of that inherent arrogance about him. “I like it,” he claimed as only a five year old could. He even added a grin at the end, not fully realizing the trouble he was in at the moment. His white teeth were even brighter against the blue background of his face and lips and Ava wanted to burst out laughing.
Ramzi shook his head. “Rais went a bit overboard with the dye, Father. Turk and I had stepped out of the bathroom and found him washing himself with the colored water.”
Jiran looked down at his youngest and nodded. “I think you won the competition.” He looked back at his oldest. “How did you do it?”
Ramzi pulled his shoulders back. “We stole the chef’s food dye, put it in a bowl and…” he shrugged. “It was pretty easy.”
Jiran nodded his head. He couldn’t look at Ava because he knew that he would start laughing. He knew she wanted him to take this seriously but…
Hell, his children were blue!
His boys really were too young to have figured out how to do something like this, but he wasn’t willing to take their books away in order to stop their curiosity. A punishment would be appropriate at this moment, but…what in the world did a parent do to punish their children for turning themselves blue? This was definitely one of those moments when…well, when he’d like a manual!
Seriously? Blue?
“I see,” he finally said. “Well, shouldn’t you be in class right now?”
The boys all sighed with relief.
Ava wasn’t as relieved. “Is that all you’re going to say?” she demanded. She’d been an only child growing up so dealing with boys was a mystery. But she wasn’t going to let this kind of incident go unpunished.
Jiran almost laughed when he saw the amusement in her brown eyes. She was just as stumped as he was and he knew exactly what she was doing. She didn’t have any idea how to deal with her intelligent, curious children so she was dumping this on his shoulders.
“What do you think should happen?” he asked her smoothly.
Ava looked down at her three boys, still not sure what to do. And then brilliance hit her. “Isn’t it time for another formal picture?” she offered out.
Jiran looked at her with admiration. He knew exactly what she was doing and, if they’d been alone, he would have pulled her into his arms and kissed her silly. “I believe it is time.” He looked down at his sons. Ramzi was looking horrified, Turk was a bit confused, expecting a worse punishment and Rais was grinning from ear to ear, excited about having his picture taken while he was blue.
Ava nodded her head. “I’ll have the photographer here this afternoon.”
“Excellent,” he said and kissed his wife. He then looked down at his three sons with a stern expression in his eyes. “Off to school. I’m sure your teachers are waiting for you.”
The three boys walked out, only Rais excited for the day.
When they were alone again, Jiran turned to face Ava and was surprised when she angrily poked a finger in the middle of his chest. “I want a girl!” she told him with finality.
Jiran laughed and shook his head. “I thought you were finished having children,” he pointed out. “In fact, when Rais was born, you specifically told me that you weren’t giving me any more boys.”
“I’m not,” Ava asserted firmly, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring up at him. “I want a girl. And we’re going to keep trying until you give me a girl,” she told him.
Jiran’s eyes flared with that lust that was never far from the surface when his wife was around. “Is that so?” he asked and pushed her back against her desk.
Ava instantly knew what he was about to do and pushed at his shoulders. “Not here, Jiran! You’re not doing this to my desk again!” But it was too late. His hands were around her waist and her mind was already mush, anticipation surging through her as she thought about how wonderful it was to create a baby with this man.
He laughed, a sexy sound that never failed to make her body react. “Why not here?”
She slipped out from his arms and put several feet between them. “Because you made love to me on the desk in my other office years ago. Remember?”
“I can’t forget,” he told her as he continued to stalk her, not letting her get too far. “And it wasn’t just once.”
“Okay!” she held her hands out in front of her. “Fine! But all those times on my desk, they distracted me afterwards! I had to keep trading out desks!”
“It didn’t work,” he replied, moving towards her once again.
She laughed at his lustful expression, her heart speeding up as the memories hit her, too strong to ignore. “Because you kept making love to me on my new desk.”
“Yes. Are you saying you didn’t like those activities?”
She opened her mouth to tell him no, but she’d never been able to lie to him. “That’s not the point!” And she once again slipped to the side, avoiding his hands. “Jiran, you have a meeting. You told me that yourself.”
“It can wait. My wife has given me an order. I’m always happy to follow my wife’s instructions.”
Ava laughed and decided that she’d better run. Unfortunately, or maybe it was a good thing, but she never even made it to the door of her office. Within moments, she was on her new desk and Jiran was helping her to get that little girl.