Sidra hugged the note to her chest and sighed with happiness.
“What’s that about?” Laura asked as she poured both of them a bottle of red wine while the sat out on her tiny little balcony that overlooked the woods.
Sidra considered how to answer, then carefully said, “If someone comes around looking for a way to contact me, I want you to feel free to give them my phone number or e-mail address, okay?”
Laura looked at her, startled. “What do you mean?”
Sidra’s smile grew wider. “Remember that man that brought me to your flat the first day?”
“The gorgeous one on the enormous horse?” she asked, her eyes wide with surprise.
“That one,” Sidra confirmed. “I’ve been meeting him each morning in the woods.”
Laura sat up and stared at her friend. A smile growing on her face now as understanding dawned. “And what has been happening in those woods out there?” she asked slyly.
Sidra refused to give her details, but only said, “We have spent our time talking and getting to know each other.”
Laura laughed. “After only a few days, you think you’ve gotten to know him?” She shook her head. “Sidra, you’ve dated a lot of guys. You should know by now that men really aren’t that easy to get to know.”
Sidra shook her head. “I don’t know all about him. But I know that he’s kind and wonderful, very gentle and one of the most interesting men I’ve ever met in my whole life.”
Laura watched her friend’s expression carefully. After several moments, she nodded her head. “I guess he’s pretty special then, huh?”
Sidra shook her head. “Yes. He’s very special. Just promise me that you’ll give him my contact information.”
Laura agreed and Sidra steered the conversation in a different direction, knowing that Laura would ask questions that Sidra would not be comfortable answering. At least not yet. Maybe in the future, when she knew Rashid better and understood where he was coming from and what he wanted out of life. She worked through the problems of a long distance relationship, knew that there would be a lot of issues to overcome. But in the end, she realized that there really wasn’t anything about the man she disliked. He was her ideal man!
Chapter 5
Sidra sat in her office and stared at the designs in front of her. She should be working out the details, contacting clients and finalizing issues on a current project. Instead, she was staring into space, wondering what Rashid was doing, where he was and if he thought about her at all.
And in her darkest moments, she hoped that, when he was thinking about her, he wasn’t laughing with his friends about what an easy conquest she had been.
At times, she couldn’t believe she was mooning after a man she had known for four days, and only part of those days was she with him. She was being ridiculous, but that last note when he said he would call her, it had made her think that he might be as invested in their relationship as she was. Their time together had been short and wonderful and, after receiving that note, she wanted so desperately to explore a possible relationship.
But after three weeks with no word, she knew that she’d placed her hopes in the wrong direction. She should be moving on, dating someone else or doing something to take her mind off of the time she’d spent in his arms. Instead, she was having problems sleeping because she thought about what it would be like to be in his arms, to fall asleep each night wrapped around him and wake up in the morning to his incredible smile and those wonderful eyes staring down at her.
She was working longer than normal hours so she didn’t have to go home to her lonely, empty apartment, a space that had seemed perfect before she’d visited Laura in England and run into the most incredible man she’d ever met in her life.
Now everything seemed flat, pointless and instead of the vibrant colors she’d decorated her apartment with, the whole area felt as if it were in black and white. She went through the motions each day, but with little enthusiasm. She woke up before the sun came up and fixed a cup of coffee, skipping breakfast because nothing appealed to her. Her drive into the office was now irritating because she was so annoyed with the traffic whereas before, her mind hadn’t focused on the traffic. She’d been too focused on what she would be doing during the day, what her clients might want in the rooms they’d commissioned her to redesign, or where she might find that one, perfect accessory for a coffee table that would make the whole room come together. That was all gone.
Work was the same each day and she found very little to be inspired about with her ongoing client list. She started to realize that all of her clients were asking for the same thing, slightly different but the rooms she designed all had the same feel to them. There weren’t any surprises or interesting details. She had to snap out of this because her boss was starting to look at her funny, as if she’d missed something very important.
Sidra hated this, prayed every morning that she could snap out of this depression but when night time rolled around, she knew she’d be up until the early morning hours thinking about Rashid, wondering what he was doing now, where he was. And why she hadn’t interested him enough to bother calling, if only to check on her and explain why he’d left so abruptly that last day.
The first week back from her vacation, she’d been walking on cloud nine, eagerly answering the phone and hoping to hear Rashid’s deep voice and laugh with him about whatever had taken him away from their last secret meeting. By the end of the second week, she’d been sad and confused. Why hadn’t he called? Had it been something she’d said or done? Or had the emergency he’d been called away to deal with actually been something that had hurt him? Was he in trouble and she was just sitting here, not doing anything to save him? To help him?
By the third week, her confusion had changed to anger and depression. She’d given herself to a man she hadn’t really known and this was the result. He’d moved on, damn him! And now she needed to do the same. She could maintain her righteous anger all the way until she fell into bed at night. Then she cried herself to sleep, wondering if he was hurt or if he was actually seeing another woman. She’d convinced herself that she had been a weekend fling, and that made her angry that she’d spent an additional two weeks waiting for him and worrying about his health and well being.
She’d been a fool to trust him! She’d given herself to a man who didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye. Rashid had been a coward who had avoided their last morning together simply because he thought she might put demands on him that he didn’t want. Or perhaps he was just one of those guys who prowled for women and played on their stupidity. She had no idea and wished she could just eliminate him from her mind.