The Sheikh's Green Card Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

cruel man, but in his heart he always believed he was doing what was best for the most people. In the end, he tore that neighborhood down to make way for a skyscraper, and Bahir watched as his friends were relocated, never to be seen again.
     
    Bahir’s father died a few years later. Bahir and his mother had been eating breakfast together in their elaborate dining room, and Bahir was planning on heading back to university that morning.
     
    When Raji was noticeably absent from the breakfast table, the two of them decided to go see what the holdup was, expecting to find him on the phone somewhere, conducting business. When he entered his parents’ bedroom, his mother following behind, Bahir’s blood turned to ice.
     
    His father was lying facedown on the floor, his limbs bent at awkward angles, as though he had collapsed. When Bahir rushed to his father’s side, he found that the man on the ground was lifeless. Bahir’s mother let out a strangled sob, and what she said next burned into her son’s memory.
     
    “How will we be able to live now?”
     
    Bahir looked back at his mother in disbelief. There he knelt by the body of his dead father, and all his mother could think about were their finances. In that moment a part of him died, too.
     
    He rose and left the room, placing the necessary calls to wrap up Raji’s affairs cleanly and without fuss. The funeral was arranged in short order, held at the end of the week, before Bahir jumped on a plane back to college.
     
    From that day on he buried himself in his work. He was the head of the family, and would be expected to provide for his mother, who wrote to him regularly expressing her concern over their finances and the loss of his father. Bahir had never cared about the money, really. He’d never needed to. He didn’t want to be a part of what his parents had going on, even if he was bound by his family history to make a good name for himself.
     
    Bahir made his fortune because he wanted to do it his way, and he promised himself that he would always treat the people under his care with a respect his father had rarely showed. His mother would die not long after of a prescription drug overdose, leaving him completely alone in the world.
     
    In a strange way, Bahir liked being alone with his business; it kept him so busy that he rarely thought of the loss of his parents. The fact that Cassandra had had the power to bring up such emotions again annoyed him, and he turned his thoughts elsewhere.
     
    Nicole’s glowing blond hair was the first thing that came to mind after suppressing those memories again. There was a part of her that spoke to Bahir—the part that wanted to think about life outside of work.
     
    He was so grateful for the day, all those months ago, when he’d run into her in the hallway, and he wanted her to know that she was a big part of what kept him going. Her presence was soothing in a way he hadn’t experienced before. As he stretched out on his comfortable mattress, his thoughts remained fixed on Nicole.
     
    How excited he was to spend a day with his assistant. He couldn’t wait to thank her in some small way for all the endless ways she’d helped him.

 
     
    FOUR

Nicole could feel warm sunlight pouring across her pillow, and she rolled over, stretching languidly across her bed. She loved having a queen-sized bed all to herself. It wasn’t like she had time for a love life, so she figured she might as well enjoy the perks of being single.
     
    She cracked open an eyelid and stared out at the city, already awake and bustling. Glancing at her clock, she saw that she had thirty minutes to prepare for their excursion.
     
    Not having packed for anything other than work, Nicole dug through her suitcase as she searched for anything to wear that might be suitable for a day of sightseeing. She combed through the suits and skirts until she came across a white dress with blue flowers—an outfit she must have packed with hope for a break but