Ghosted

Luke

I hadn’t seen or heard from Sophia in two days, but when I walked into my favorite coffee place on Monday morning, a part of me still expected her to burst through the door behind me and beg me for an interview. She had done that when she first arrived in London. The American reporter had stalked me to my office and then to the one place I thought was special to me. If I had turned her down enough, she probably would have found a way to end up at my flat.

In hindsight, maybe I should have done exactly that.

Instead, I negotiated with her to pretend to be my girlfriend for a weekend so she could help get my mother off my back. That arrangement might have been my biggest mistake and the best thing that ever happened to me. Sophia was the most alluring and enigmatic woman I’d ever met.

She had agreed to come with me to my family’s palace in Qatar. Having a “girlfriend”—even if she was American—would halt all efforts from my mother about setting me up with someone. While my mother wa