marry me any longer." Joseph lied. "She is not the subservient Muslim daughter that she was. She is out there going to school learning to be a doctor."

"And what about you, what will happen if you two don't get married. It looks as if Fazzi will kill her if you don't become his son-in-law. From what I can see he already treats you as his son."

"He has no son. He always wanted one, but it was not in the cards. Now what I am going to tell you is just between us and you are to keep it that way. Cassandra and Mary have gone back to their church. She will not marry a Muslim. Fazzi has almost disowned her. He still has hopes that I will convert, but that would not make any difference because he has already drawn up and signed papers making me his son. I argued with him on this but he insisted. He told me I was his son and heir and that's the way he wants it. With or without his daughter. He still has hopes that I will convert, but he no longer insists on it. When I told him that I would just turn over everything to his wife and daughter, he said they were already taken care of for the rest of their lives. Anyway that it did not matter. What I did with the money after his death was my business. He trusted me to make the right choices."

"I don't know what to say, except that this is all unbelievable." Ibrahim said, "When I think that this could have been my lot. If I had bartered for her hand, it would have been me..."

Hey you ass hole.... Do you know how many men would kill for a chance to bed Dina?" Joseph smiled and slapped Ibrahim on the back. "You know you still have to buy me that big bacon sandwich."

"That stuff will kill you- all that fat is not the best thing for you."

"I'm still young. I'm in good shape and I can afford the luxury of having the best gym equipment in the world installed on the estate... So don't you try to get out of the deal, you owe me and I intend to collect."

"It's your life but since you saved mine; I was just trying to return the favor."

They all started to pile into the van to return to the estate when Fazzi had a fit and started cursing in Arabic. His watchband had broken and the watch fell to the concrete sidewalk. It was one of those old and very expensive Rolex types. The ones that had so many hands and buttons that made it difficult to tell the time. Picking it up and seeing the crystal smashed he was almost beside himself.

Joseph looked at the watch and said, "It can be repaired. It looks like you can use a new watchband. A metal one this time so it won't break."

"Yes I know that, but do you know how hard it is to find a real jeweler these days?" Fazzi moaned. "The only one I know of is a friend of Summaya. He's an old Yemenite and he is always busy with repair work. Whenever I enter his shop, it is like going back in time. You can always hear the tick tock of all the old clocks he has on display. It reminds me of the past. Maybe I should get one of