The Hijab Shop Secret

My shop is my kingdom.

Nuuran Modest Fashion—named after my grandmother, built with my savings, decorated with my dreams. Three years ago, it was just a market stall in Upton Park. Now it's a proper boutique on Green Street, with a website and an Instagram following and customers who fly in from Dubai.

All because of Jamal's designs.

"The new collection is ready," he says over the phone. "Come see it tonight. After close."

"Your studio?"

"Too many people there." His voice drops. "Come to your shop. I'll bring everything. We can have privacy."

Privacy. The word makes my stomach flip.

"Nine o'clock," I say. "I'll be here."

Jamal arrived in London three years ago.

Mogadishu-trained, Milan-polished, with hands that can drape fabric like water and eyes that see things others miss. His modest fashion line—Hufan, meaning "covered" in Somali—revolutionized the industry. Suddenly, Muslim women didn't have to choose between faith and fashion.

I was his first UK stockist.

Now I'm his exclusive partner.

Business partner, I remind myself. Just business.

But the way he looks at me when he's pinning fabric—the way his fingers brush my skin when he's taking measurements—that doesn't feel like business.

He arrives at 9:15, garment bags over his shoulder.

"You're late."

"Traffic."

"Liar."

"I was nervous." He sets down the bags, looks at me. "I've been nervous about this meeting all week."

"About showing me designs? You've done that a hundred times."

"This is different." He unzips the first bag. "This collection—I made it for you."

The dresses are stunning.

Deep burgundies and forest greens, fabrics that flow like liquid, cuts that suggest without revealing. Each piece is modest and magnetic, traditional and modern, everything a Somali woman wants to be.

But it's the final piece that stops my breath.

"This one," he says, pulling out a gown of midnight blue, "is not for the shop."

"Then who's it for?"

"You." He holds it up. "I've been watching you for three years, Nasra. The way you move. The way you carry yourself. I designed this for your body. Only yours."

My mouth goes dry. "Jamal—"

"Try it on." He hands me the gown. "Please."

The fitting room in my own shop feels different with him here.

I strip out of my work abaya, stand in my underclothes, and lift the dress over my head. It settles on my body like it was born there—hugging my curves, draping my hips, making me look like a woman from a fairy tale.

I step out.

Jamal's expression makes every doubt worth it.

"Subhanallah," he breathes. "It's perfect."

"It's—" I look in the mirror. "I've never worn anything like this."

"You should." He walks toward me. "Every day. You should wear beautiful things, Nasra. You deserve beautiful things."

"Jamal—"

"I know." He stops in front of me. "I know this is complicated. Business partners. The community. Your reputation."

"Then why are you saying this?"

"Because I'm tired of pretending." He reaches out, touches the fabric at my waist. "Tired of acting like these fittings don't mean anything. Tired of leaving your shop and wishing I could stay."

His hand moves from fabric to skin.

I don't stop him.

He kisses me against the mirror.

The glass is cold against my back; his body is hot against my front. The dress he made bunches between us as his hands find my hips, my waist, the zipper he knows exactly how to work.

"Wait—" I gasp. "The dress—you worked so hard—"

"I'll make another." He slides the zipper down. "I'll make a hundred."

The fabric pools at my feet. I'm standing in his arms in nothing but my bra and underwear, and the way he looks at me—like I'm the most beautiful thing he's ever created—makes me feel powerful.

"Your turn," I say.

I reach for his shirt.

His body is lean and strong.

Designer's muscles, I think. The kind you get from lifting bolts of fabric, from working standing up, from expressing yourself through movement. I run my hands across his chest, feel him shiver under my touch.

"Nasra—"

"The couch." I nod toward the velvet settee in the corner—the one customers use while waiting for alterations. "Now."

He lifts me. Carries me. Sets me down on fabric so soft it feels like clouds.

Then he drops to his knees.

"Let me—" He hooks his fingers in my underwear. "Let me show you what I've imagined—"

"You've imagined this?"

"Every fitting." He pulls the fabric down. "Every time I touched you with fabric between us—I imagined what you'd feel like without it."

His mouth finds me.

I cry out—too loud for an empty shop, but I don't care. His tongue is skilled, creative, just like the rest of him. He designs pleasure with the same precision he designs clothes, finding every line and curve that makes me respond.

"Jamal—oh God—"

He doesn't answer. His mouth is too busy.

I come on the velvet couch where customers sit, in the shop I built from nothing, under the hands of the man who made me believe I could be beautiful.

"More—" I pull him up. "Please—"

He covers my body with his.

When he pushes inside me, I understand what he meant about designing for my body.

We fit.

Perfectly. Like he measured this too, calculated angles and depths and movements that would bring us both to the edge. He moves in me like music, like fabric, like everything beautiful he's ever created.

"You feel—I can't—"

"I know." I pull him deeper. "I know."

We build together. Rhythm increasing, pleasure mounting, both of us climbing toward something inevitable. The couch creaks beneath us. The mirrors reflect our tangled bodies from every angle.

"I'm going to—"

"With me—" He reaches between us. "Come with me, Nasra—"

I shatter.

He follows.

We collapse together on the velvet, breathing hard, the smell of fabric softener and sex filling my kingdom.

"This changes everything," I say later, wrapped in the midnight blue dress because it's the only thing within reach.

"Does it have to?"

"People will talk. If we're together—the designer and the retailer—they'll say it's just business. That I only stock your pieces because we're sleeping together."

"Let them talk." He kisses my shoulder. "We know the truth."

"What is the truth?"

"That I would design for you if we never touched. That your shop would sell my work if you hated me." He pulls me closer. "And that I've been in love with you since the first time you argued with me about hem lengths."

"I was right about those hems."

"You were." He laughs. "You're always right. It's infuriating."

"Is that love?"

"The best kind."

We keep it secret for six months.

Then, at London Modest Fashion Week, he introduces me from the stage.

"My partner," he says. "In business. In creativity. In everything."

The room applauds. The community whispers. My mother calls demanding explanations.

I don't care.

The man who designed my dreams is holding my hand.

And together, we're building an empire—one beautiful dress at a time.