The Billionaire Sheikh Ch. 04

Someone here on Literotica mailed me and asked if I could write about a billionaire. Others said they liked my Sheikh stories. Someone else reviewed my earlier stories and claimed they were degrading and using the F-word way too much. So this time I want to try to write an old fashioned romance story with no sexscenes (at least not in the beginning) but what still will have you ladies (and maybe gentlemen) dreaming hot dreams.

Feel free to comment, to suggest improvements or to point out factual errors. Or to suggest a storytwist. Bear with me that English is not my motherlanguage even if I am able to understand at least three others.

The setting of the story will be the fictious oil emirate Al Dahaab, famous for its golden beaches (hence the name Gold)

SO FAR: This is chapter 4. Dutch paralegal Lisa, single and in her twenties, has been seconded to Al Dahaab. Her consultancy firm did a lot of visa requests for local companies and institutions as the university whose personnel had to travel to the Schengen area (Western Europe). While it had been done from Amsterdam, recently the firm had thought it better service to let those cases be handled from their local branch in Al Dahaab. But that had turned into chaos. Hence Lisa trying to save thing so their clients would not switch to another firm.

One of their biggest clients is Khalid Enterprises, a big shipping multinational owned by the brother of the local ruler. Sheikh Khalid is a workaholic who is impressed with the work of the young woman and offers her a lift home in his jet to see her grandmother over the weekend. He is looking for a new office in Amsterdam as he wants to move his European headquarter to the mainland because of BREXIT. Lisa suggests however another city. The next weekend he picks her up at her grandmother's farm to check out potential new headquarters.

Khalid is a widower in his late thirties who realises how lonely he has been over the last few years when he is accepted as a kind of family friend by Lisa and her grandmother.

Lisa is a paralegal but about to get her law degree and is thinking of leaving the consultancy firm to become a trainee barrister. Khalid thinks it will be a solid business decision to go and hire her himself.

The sky was a vivid mix of yellows, orange and pinks but in the twilight of the Western-European evening the orchard of the farm that was owned by Lisa's grandmother was filled with shadows.

Under the pear and apple trees, laden with fruit, stood a picnic table. Lisa walked towards it. She turned around to the sheikh and gestured for him to sit on one of the benches.

"Please sit down sheikh Khalid", said Lisa.

While the sky was still light it was difficult for her to see the emotions on his face. She wondered what he was doing here. Why had he come all that way to give them the food served at the opening party at his office?

"How is your thesis coming along?", asked the sheikh.

"I just have to do some alterations. My professor has promised that I will receive my law degree at the end of this month".

"Any luck with the job applications?" asked to sheikh.

"I had a couple of invitations by some law firms. One of them is a local one but they are the normal rural law firm. I don't think my experience in immigration will come in handy there. It will be like starting at zero. The other one is a big city law firm in Rotterdam. They specialise in immigration law and labour disputes. However they are as far away from my grandmother's farm as my current job is now."

"So if I understand you correctly, you are not enthusiastic about both of them are you?" asked the sheikh.

She shook her head. "No not really".

"I want to hire you," he said.

"Me? As what?"

He put his finger to his full lips. "Hush hear me out."

"My company has grown a lot in the last couple of years. My in-house legal council, Mustafa Celebi, is getting older and he can use some extra hands. The money I save by not hiring your consultancy firm but you directly will coving hiring you full time."

"But sheikh I do not have enough visa cases for your firm to work all week."

"Be quiet woman! I appreciate your honesty but do you really think I had not realised that?"

Wow that guy could look stern! Better to hear him out.

"I am sorry sir please continue."

"I was thinking to hire you to do the immigration work. Not only what you do now but also the workpermits for my international workers who work in Al Dahaab and on my ships. Mr Celebi will train you in labour law and contract law. You will also get private lessons in Arabic. When your language skills are up to par we can see into doing a PhD at the local university or something like that. In time when all is satisfactory you could become the senior legal consultant in my firm when the old man retires. However part of your work will be what I might consider giving you non-legal work like accompanying me on business trips"

He then mentioned a salary that had her drop her jaw. WOW!

Her mind went spinning. What non-legal work? Oh yes but it would not be possible. Her grandmother...

"I am sorry sir but Al Dahaab is even further away from my grandmother than Amsterdam. You have seen how frails she is getting."

"Just bring her with you. I can arrange for a place for you to to stay."

"She cannot stand that kind of heath Sheikh. Her heart..."

"So how can we solve this? Does the offer appeal to you?"

"Yes it does. I will broaden my horizon. Maybe even get me a PhD... What other duties?"

"Sometimes it helps when you have someone from a European country with you. Sometimes a woman works better. I would take you with me to meetings."

"Oh.... I understand. But thank you very much for thinking of me but I cannot leave Omi all alone here. It was hard as it was while I was seconded to your country."

She reached out and placed her hands on his on impulse. "I really appreciate it that you thought of me".

When she moved them away again, he grabbed both her hands.

"Lisa what can I do to solve this problem? Suppose I would offer a grant for some female students to study here but live on the farm and do the shopping and keep an eye out? Their fathers would feel save that their daughters were looked after and no family honour getting in trouble and your grandmother would have help. You could take the jet and visit each time I had to go to Rotterdam."

She looked at her hands in his large paws. The feeling of his warm skin against hers. He was offering her a great adventure and it would also be an impressive career move. She was sure a future job as a lea council in a big firm as his would pay big time. And she had loved to work with him that day they had gone office hunting. To be honest she realised how she had missed talking to him in the last weeks.

She looked up into his dark eyes. The man was calm as always. She wished they could just sit here. Her hands in his hands. The brilliant red sky and the apple trees.

"We need to talk to Omi. She is the one who has the final word in this Sheikh."

--- 000---

The elevator pinged open. The young man at the reception desk beamed a welcoming smile. "Good morning miss Lisa. Welcome to the team. Let me call the manager. He is expecting you."

The stern sour faced old man she had met the last time she was at Khalid Enterprises walked into the reception area. His mouth turned even more grim.

"Why are you not appropriately dressed?"

Lisa looked down and the long flowing floral maxi dress that fell to her shoes and had long sleeves. She had bought it on purpose thinking she now was going to work in a predominantly Middle Eastern company and should dress non-revealing.

"Sorry what did I do wrong?" she asked the man.

"It is my fault. I forgot to tell her", set a familiar baritone voice behind her back. The lift had opened again and there was Sheikh Khalid with his bodyguard Omar and another man.

"My Sheikh", greeted the office manager.

"I forgot to tell miss Lisa that my brother the ruler proclaimed last month that all governmental personnel should wear local dress to work. He says it is a sign of cultural pride. Well most did already. But also companies now want to promote it. He is my brother so we follow suit here."

"What is it I am supposed to wear?" she asked.

"Just an abbaya, that long thin robe, over your cloths. It is like a coat or a long bathrobe.. As you are not a Muslim I would say you do not have to cover your head. Let mr .... (he mentioned a name she did not get and the old fart had not introduced himself) show you your office and settle you in with the PC and all that kind of stuff and then Omar is going to brief you on security matters and show you your place to stay and you can take a long lunchbreak on the clock to go and shop for office attire."

He nodded to her and to the men and turned round in a whirlwind of robes and walked away to his corner office.

Omar explained security protocol and she came to understand that he was not so much bodyguard as the head of security matters of Khalid Enterprises. After the briefing he then drove her to a posh neighbourhood on an artificial island. They stopped at a gate where she was put on a list of people who were allowed to pass. The car stopped at a villa on the waterfront. Omar helped her out of the car.

'This is a home owned by the Sheikh but he never lived here. He hopes you will decorate it for him. Not now. Later when you have hours to spare. But there is a working kitchen and a shower for the housekeeper. He said you could just pick a room to sleep in."

Lisa looked in awe. It was a beautiful house with a place for a yacht to dock and a veranda and balconies on the water side of the building. But it was totally empty.

"Why does no one live here", she asked.

"When the area was developed the mother of Sheikh Khalid bought these plots. But the sheikh's wife died and he never moved in."

She looked like a neighbouring similar villa.

"So who lives there?"

"His mother, SheikhaFarah, and the one on the other side of that his baby sister with her family. Come let us find you a room. "

The both of them strolled the empty house. The rooms were still bare. The floors concrete, no curtains. Upstairs were a few big bedrooms with balconies -- supposedly for the lord and the lady of the house -- and smaller ones that could be children's rooms or guestrooms. Omar and Lisa picked one of these. It would be easier to turn that into a functional bedroom by just buying curtains and a rug on the floor and a bed. And maybe a table and chairs to put in one of the big empty rooms downstairs.

When Omar called an elderly Indian woman came over and explained that she was Sheikha Farah's housekeeper and she would make sure there would be a meal to microwave and some other food stocked in the kitchen. She just had to go and order a bit of furniture but in the meantime could borrow a camp-bed.

Omar drove her to a local mall and she had herself outfitted with a few of those abbayas. They were mostly black but as the lady in the shop explained the difference was in the beading of tassels and the type of material. She hated polyester but luckily they had some in a cotton mix as well. She ended up with one with a beautiful lace lining along her sleeves and collar and one with git beading all over one side of torso and tassels along the hemline. Well in the lawfirms in Amsterdam all the guys wore black, dark grey or navy suits and the women something along the same dresscode so what the heck.

It seemed Al Dahaab was more conservative than Dubai and more like a lite version of Saudi. Omar explained in the car on their way back to the office that the Sheikh's brother, the local ruler, was getting more conservative each day and was planning to marry the daughter of a religious leader from neighbouring Daranistan.

Back at the office Omar handled her a set of car keys and pointed to a small Japanese car parked in the underground car park. "You can use that one."

-0-0-0-0-

She settled in working with mr Celebi and following her Arabic lessons and in the evening drove her car to the house the Sheikh had borrowed to her. She had bought a patioset and would sit on the veranda in evening eating her dinner.

She did not speak that often to the Sheikh. She would sit in on the weekly department head meetings with mr Celebi at the table and junior people like her sitting in chairs along the walls. Sometimes his eyes would rest on her or he would flash a sudden smile passing her in the hallways.

Mr Celebi was a nice old man. He was the son of a Turkish engineer who had come over to develop the oilfields in the seventies. He had insisted she just called him mr Mustafa in the office. With all the local names being first name son of someone, grandson of someone and tribe it was quite normal to call everyone by their first name with mister or miss or madame added to it.

Today was one of those meetings again. Lisa was taking notes listening to mr Mustafa giving an update on their legal work. She looked at the mostly men in the room. While some were overweight others were really thin and scrawny. If someone would ask her she would say that dark sculpted Omar and tall and wide shouldered Khalid were the only handsome guys. The women were often very good looking but while they covered almost everything had a lot of make up on what made their faces look quite hard.

She had made a stopover in Jordan on her way out and there most men looked really good. There there was a lot of old culture. Al Dahaab seemed to be so new. A kind of American city in the desert. What she had discovered were small pieces of the historic fishers enclave the town had been but it seemed the locals were in awe with modernisation. She liked the things in the museum a lot more.

--00—

A few weeks into her new job she was walking over to the Sheikh's office with the new labour contracts so sign when she caught him in the middle of a Skype chat. She was about to turn away when he noticed her through the glass wall and waved her over

"Come over here Lisa. Say hello to my friend Roberto."

He waved her towards the back of his desk and she saw a smiling dark haired man on the screen.

"This is Roberto. I have a share in his shipyard. He builds luxury yachts near Venice."

"Hello Lisa," said the man with a heavy Italian accent. "Nice to meet you. Yes this guy wanted a pirateship and we were good at building wooden ships. But big money is now on posh yachts for billionaires. He did not want that but he invested and now we build big one."

"I told Roberto I hired a fellow European", smiled Sheikh Khalid. "He taught I was pulling his leg."

"Did you see the brig?" asked Roberto.

"What is a brig?" she asked.

"He should take you and play pirate captain!"

"We rebuilt a blockade runner of the days of the Revolution", explained the sheikh. "A big sailing ship. We also rebuilt a dow, one of the local ones. Like the ones that were used here for piracy. But those brigs were faster. The dow is a museum. You can go and visit it. But the brig is my personal version of a yacht. People are not allowed on it."

"You should see what we built now Lisa. She is called 'The singing mermaid' and is a dream of a luxury yacht. The sister of the Sheikh was to baptise her and then we hope to sell her to a Russian mobster or a Saudi prince or something".

"Yes and that is the problem", said Sheikh Khalid. "That sister informed me I am about to become an uncle again and she is puking her head off."

"Well", said Roberto, "You can dress up Lisa as your princess and ask her to do the honours. She is very pretty."

Lisa felt herself blush feverishly. "No, no, I am a no one. Ask a famous actress. They will do it when they are paid handsomely."

"I agree", said the Sheikh. "But I will bring you anyway. Let them wonder who the beautiful woman is at my side. And you can chat with the wives and mistresses and find out about the potential buyers' reactions to the luxury of 'The singing Mermaid'. We will know who is willing to bid at the auction.

-0-0-0-

A few weeks later Sheikh Khalid and Lisa stepped out of a car in front of a chic designer's store in the middle of Milan. They walked inside where they were met by an overly enthusiast fashion designer.

"So good to see you my dear Sheikh Kalid. I have your suits ready for you."

He escorted them to the fitting area and had Lisa installed on a sofa with a cup of fizzy wine while he was as busy as a bird around the Sheikh.

She was enjoying the sight of a gorgeous man in his sleeve shirt who was looking very uncomfortable with the man fuzzing around him.

The sheikh had explained on the plane his need of a set of new Italian suits. That men's fashion also had its yearly trend and that you could see if a suit was from London Seville Row or the more fashionable Italian fashion houses and that American wore horrible ones same as the Russian oligarchs and mobsters.

Roberto and the Sheikh wanted to get the most for their new flagship so he wanted to be dressed to the nines. That he was more into British quality suits that you could wear for a decade but did not want to have one person think he was wearing a suit of a few years old.

She had asked why he was not donning his traditional gold rimmed cloak and white robe. He had said that he did not want to look like a moviestar off set. She had pondered that indeed in Europe he always wore dark suits.

The Italian man was ready with the navy pinstripe suit with the lightblue with small dark details tie. The pants were tight and Lisa thought the Sheikhs long legs and delectable buns were accentuated nicely in them. Buckled brandy collared shoes gave it a Southern swung.

"I also want to buy a dress for my sister," said the Sheikh. "She is expecting and then always a bit conscious of herself. Do you have some nice maternity evening wear? We have a wedding to attend to in three months' time. Our half-brother the ruling sheikh is planning to marry again."

"Of course dear Sheikh Khalid. My models can show you some of the ones in my ready to wear collection."

They were treated to a line of bored looking girls wearing beautiful dresses. The sheikh pointed to a black one that was covered with shimmering glass beads.

"Would this young lady also be interested in a dress?" asked the man hopeful.

Lisa looked shocked and shook her head. "No thank you. I am just accompanying the Sheikh today."

That sheikh however looked at her with a kind of guilty look on his face.

"I completely forgot to ask you if you needed something to wear to the event. Please Salvatore find some of your artwork for the lady."

She could see the badly veiled surprise on the look of the fashion guru. He must have thought her a girlfriend of a mistress.

"I did bring a dress my Sheikh," Lisa said. "and I am not exactly a size 0."

"Salvatore can you give us 5 minutes?" asked the Sheikh.

When they were alone he explained he was happy to buy her a dress. She ran to the car and came back with a small bag.

Inside she got a dress from the bag. It was definitely an Arabic dress. A long shirt drifted down from a high waist with plaints in the front. The material was made from a gorgeous cobalt blue velvet and the front was embroidered with little glass beads that looked like sunlight shining on water. That and the velvet however made it look like an evening dress.

"I wanted something with a hint of your culture", she explained.

"It is beautiful", said the Sheikh, holding the soft marital in his hands.

"Guess how much it costed", she grinned. "20 euro's from the Moroccan stall on the market in Aachen".

He let his head fell back at the leather couch and bellowed with laughter.