The Moroccan Riad | الرياض المغربي
"She's renovating her dream riad in Marrakech. He's the architect who says her plans are impossible. Their arguments become attraction."
The Moroccan Riad
الرياض المغربي
The riad is falling apart.
Three hundred years of history crumbling in the Marrakech medina. I bought it with inheritance money and a dream.
Omar says the dream is impossible.
I'm Beth.
Fifty-one, retired teacher from Colorado. I came to Morocco on vacation and never left.
Omar is the architect my lawyer recommended.
"This is not a renovation," he says, studying my plans. "This is a resurrection. The foundation alone—"
"Can it be done?"
"Yes. For three times your budget."
"What if I don't have three times my budget?"
"Then you have a very expensive pile of beautiful rubble."
I like him immediately.
Which is annoying, because he's infuriating.
Forty-eight, Casablanca-born, educated in Paris. He treats me like a naive American with more dreams than sense.
He might be right.
"Why are you even doing this?" he asks at our third meeting. "Why come to a country that isn't yours and buy a building that's falling down?"
"Because it's mine. Something I chose, not something that happened to me."
"What happened to you?"
"Thirty years of teaching. A divorce. A life that felt like someone else's."
"And a crumbling riad feels like yours?"
"It feels like potential. Like something I could make beautiful."
He stares at me for a long moment.
"I can get you to double your budget. Not triple. But we'll have to make compromises."
"I can compromise."
"I don't think you can. But we'll try."
We work together for months.
Fighting about tiles, arguing about structure, debating whether traditional methods are worth the extra cost.
"You're impossible," he says.
"You're the one who keeps saying everything is impossible."
"Everything is impossible with you. That's the problem."
"What's the actual problem?"
"The actual problem is that I like you. And I shouldn't like my clients. It clouds judgment."
"Your judgment seems fine."
"My judgment was fine. Before you."
The first kiss happens in the unfinished courtyard.
Surrounded by scaffolding and centuries-old tile. He tastes like mint tea and frustration.
"This is unprofessional," he says.
"I'm your client."
"You're my headache." He kisses me again. "The best headache I've ever had."
We don't stop at kissing.
Not that night. The riad is a construction zone, but we find soft places—borrowed cushions, draped tarps.
"This is crazy," I say.
"Crazy is what you've been since you bought this place."
He undresses me by lamplight.
The American woman who invaded his country, his work, his carefully ordered life.
"Beautiful."
"I'm old—"
"You're alive. So few people are anymore."
We make love in my half-finished dream.
The walls watching, the stars through the broken roof. When I come, it echoes off stone that's heard centuries of such sounds.
"Ya latif," he groans. "You're incredible."
"The riad or me?"
"Both."
One year later
The riad is finished.
Transformed from ruin to boutique hotel—eight rooms, a rooftop terrace, a courtyard that made Architectural Digest.
"Impossible," Omar says, looking at the final result.
"Exactly."
We married six months ago.
He moved into the riad. We run it together—his design sense, my hospitality.
"Happy?" he asks.
"Happier than Colorado ever made me."
"That's not a high bar."
"It's the only bar that matters."
He makes love to me in every room.
The riad we built together, argued into existence, brought back from the dead.
"Which room is your favorite?" I ask.
"Wherever you are."
"That's cheating."
"That's truth."
Alhamdulillah.
For riads that resurrect.
For architects who argue.
For dreams that prove everyone wrong.
The End.