Chapter Eighteen

Rachel and Emma had done well at their job of picking out my clothes. Owen's eyes practically popped out of his head when he saw me in the formal dinner dress they had chosen. It was a deep hue of blue that reminded me of twilight, right as stars start to appear but before the moon rises. The sweetheart cut would have been out of place for a conservative dinner, but with a skin-tight long-sleeve lace overlay the length of the dress, only discrete windows of my skin were exposed. I felt like something out of a fashion magazine. As we walked into the sheik's mansion, I knew that that was the point. I was here as Owen's arm candy tonight.

Sheik Mohammad al-Saffar greeted us warmly as we entered a large open room in the center of what I could only call a palace. Marble archways and lavish gardens made his home exactly what I had imagined the castle from Aladdin to look like in real life.

The older gentleman wore the traditional white dishdasha that I was already associating with the Mid