AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She smiled and sat, and then placed the box on the ground. She was rummaging around in her desk drawer when she felt someone’s presence close to her. She snapped her neck around and then held onto it as pain seared through her.
“Ouch,” she cried, and instantly sat upright in her chair. “Mr. Ahmad,” she said when she realized it was one of the senior partners.
“Can you come to my office?” he asked.
Normally she would have gotten a phone call from him, and the fact that he walked to her desk to notify her of an ad hoc meeting was alarming. “Sure thing,” she replied.
She eased herself from the chair, and with her hand on her neck where she feared she had gotten whiplash earlier, she followed him. Her heart was racing, especially in light of her recent conversation with Nathan. Maybe he had a promotion planned for her. The whiplash now forgotten, a smile crept onto her face and she closed the door behind her and sat down in the chair he indicated.
“Take a look at this,” he told her and slid a file across the marble top table he occupied. He folded his arms and watched her as she reluctantly took it up and opened it.
“What is this?” she asked, when she saw what it was about.
“The elder Sheik Ramadan has requested our services in defending his son,” he replied. “I would like you to handle that.”
Jameela pored over the sheets more carefully, and then closed it. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to decline that Sir,” she told him.
“This would be good for your reputation. Plus, imagine the publicity you would receive to be handling this case. You are one of our brightest and best, and you have handled similar cases before, plus the retainer is higher than most cases with this level of profiling and…”
“I can’t do this,” she replied and pinched her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “Excuse me,” she said and got up.
“Just think about this,” he told her.
Jameela nodded and walked out. There was no way she was taking on a case with Sheikh Al-Hafeez Ramadan. The man was a total snob and his ego pervaded the entire United Arab Emirates. She had not been personally introduced to him, but she had been aware of the way he flaunted his wealth and his position, and she felt it was against her better judgement, and nature, to defend him.
“What was that about?” Selena asked as she approached Jameela. “Ahmad doesn’t normally ask for guests.”
“Nothing. He just wanted me to handle Sheikh Ramadan’s case,” she replied.
“The Sheikh has a case? And you said no? Are you crazy?” the woman asked.
“It’s somewhat personal to me,” she told the girl. “I told him I’d think about it.”
“I hope you do take it, but if you don’t, please recommend me,” she laughed.
“Will do,” Jameela smiled. She got back to her desk, and spent most of the day catching up on her filing. Each time Mr. Ahmad walked past her desk he would stare at her, as if pulling a response from her, but she found it difficult to work with the Ramadans at present.
“Just think about it,” Ahmad urged again at the end of the day, and Jameela faked a smile as she nodded and cleared her desk. She needed to get home and away from the ghosts that haunted her. She got to her car and tossed everything onto the back seat and then slid behind the wheel. But she didn’t move off at once. She banged her head on the steering wheel and gritted her teeth as she remembered what they had done to her.
She started driving, and instead of going home, she went in the opposite direction. She drove for about ten miles before pulling over next to a huge property along the coast. She parked the car where she could survey the property, and switched off the ignition. She saw a little girl in the distance, playing with a dog, and a man not too far off watching her. In that moment her life flashed before her, and she remembered her grandfather, living on an estate, with servants and butlers and coachmen. She remembered visiting him as a child, and of her father telling her that the property would be hers when she came of age. Except that her grandfather had a gambling problem, and by the time Jameela was fifteen, he had gotten in too deep. He owed the Ramadans more than he could afford to pay, and though he had offered to make a deal with them, the elder Ramadan had opted for immediate payment. There was only one thing her grandfather could give, and that was his home. And they had had no problems accepting the deed to the property, even if it meant her grandfather no longer had a home. Business, they had said. What was even worse was that they didn’t even want the estate. Two years after the acquisition they had put the property up for sale and had callously sold it to the highest bidder.
Ironic how the same problem that had befallen her grandfather had so quickly turned on them. It had not been Sheikh Al-Hafeez, but it may as well have been him. She still wasn’t sure he hadn’t committed murder to escape his sins. She sighed and switched on the ignition. Ahmad was right; she was thinking about the case, but not in the way he would have wanted. Her mind was racing as she cruised home, trying to wrap itself around the circumstances of the case, but the only thing she remembered seeing was that it had evolved from a gambling debt into murder. Her guess was that the family wanted to keep it quiet. But she had no inclination to do so.
She decided to swing by the office before she got home and retrieve the file. She wanted to know the full details of her potential client. She also had a friend who worked as a reporter at the local newspaper; she might like to get wind of this budding story.
“Hey is Ahmad still here?” she asked when she passed the security post.
“I have not seen him come down as yet,” the guard replied.
“Great. Thanks,” she said and smiled at the man. She couldn’t stand still as the elevator climbed all twenty floors, and when it stopped, she all but pried the door open. He was just leaving the office when she caught him. “Mr. Ahmad,” she shouted from the hall.
“Jameela? I thought you had already gone,” he replied when he recognized her.
“I did, and I have given your proposition some thought, so now I’m back” she replied. “I would like to take that case.”
“The Sheikh Ramadan case?” he asked with surprise.
“Yes. I’ve decided that it would be good for my career to take it on,” she said and folded her arms before her.
