Page 22 of Hired Husband

He widened his eyes at me and dragged a finger across his throat, miming how she was likely to kill me. I laughed and just shook my head at his theatrics, then turned back to my food and relaxed into dinner now that business was done.

The plates were finally cleared and both coffee and dessert were served. After, the Saads left the table one by one. Ashanti and Khaled left first, excusing themselves to take the little ones to bed. Tarek and Rami, another of the brothers, ducked out next.

I was just preparing to say my own goodbyes when Basel spoke up again. In English. Even though he was looking at Jasmine. I knew immediately that meant this concerned me too, so I stayed put in my seat, a little apprehensive about what he might have up his sleeve this time.

“I’ve taken the liberty of dismissing Rashid for the evening,” he said. “Isaac will drive you home. It won’t be any trouble, I’m sure. You do live in the same neighborhood now.”

She blinked hard. “You told my driver he could go home?”

“It was getting late.” Basel shrugged, sending her a rather indulgent smile. “He has a family, sweetheart. Best we not keep him out all night.”

“Isaac has only been here a week,” she said slowly. “Do you really trust him to drive me after such a short of amount time learning how to drive in Cairo?”

Basel chuckled. “I have driven with Isaac myself this week. He seems to enjoy the traffic. He’s already got a knack for it.”

Well, I’m not sure I’d take it quite that far. “It really won’t be any trouble and I promise to get you home safe.”

“Fine.” She blew out a very disapproving breath, shoved her chair back, and grabbed her purse. “Well, then, it looks like you’re my chauffeur. Let’s go. I’m ready to leave now.”

“Alright.”

She spun on her heels and stormed out, and Basel watched her go with amusement in his eyes before he turned back toward me. “You will drive carefully?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, then followed her out into the night.

She was already sitting in the car GlobalStar was letting me use for my time here, her arms folded tight over her chest and her gaze fixed on the window. She didn’t even look at me when I climbed in behind the wheel and turned over the engine, She simply huffed out another breath as I turned out of the driveway.

Since she seemed intent on not speaking to me, the drive back to Heliopolis was more peaceful than I had expected, but finally, she lifted her hand and pointed at a little bakery we were passing. “If you want the best pistachio pastries in the city, that’s where you’ll find them.”

“Good to know,” I said quietly. “Thanks.”

“Do you see that obelisk?” she asked as we neared our neighborhood. “It dates back to the Twelfth Dynasty, about 1950 BC, which makes it the only surviving piece of the Sun Temple of Heliopolis still standing in its original location.”

“The Twelfth Dynasty? Wow.”

She nodded, finally glancing over and surprising me with a small smile. “It really is wow. You should be able to see it from your balcony.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed it, but I didn’t realize it was that old,” I said. “I haven’t had a chance to look up even, like, a single percentage of the stuff on my list to look up.”

She chuckled. “There’s a lot of history here. It would take years of round-the-clock research to truly look up everything one wants to learn more about.”

“Yet you knew it right off the top of your head.”

She shrugged a shoulder. “I grew up here.”

“I bet most people who grew up here wouldn’t know exactly which dynasty it’s from.” I turned my gaze back to the giant stone jutting high into the night sky. “Can you imagine everything it’s seen?”

Another soft smile ghosted across her lips. “What do you think I do every morning when I sit on my balcony, sipping my coffee?”

My eyebrows shot up. “That’s what you do? You imagine everything the obelisk has seen?”

“Not only the obelisk. The streets. The palaces. Even the markets.”

My eyes widened, but I didn’t tell her that I’d thought she spent her time thinking about her next campaign or perhaps how to gain more Instagram followers. For the rest of the drive, however, I learned that wasn’t the case at all.

Jasmine kept pointing out little things, things I might not even have noticed, and explaining their significance to me. By the time I parked in my designated spot when we reached our building, I’d learned more from her in the last twenty minutes than I had in the whole week since I’d gotten here.

She reached for the door handle and tugged at it, but as soon as the door was open, she suddenly turned back to me. “It’s a nice night. Do you want to go for a walk? I can show you some more of the interesting things that are right on your doorstep.”