With love from Abu Dhabi

Chapter One: The Blue Mercedes

I was twenty-seven years old, Ugandan, and living a life that was very different from the one I had known back home.

I had left Uganda and found myself in Abu Dhabi, working for a Turkish family and taking care of their three-year-old twin boys. I lived with the family, and most days revolved around the boys—feeding them, playing with them, keeping them safe, and taking them to the park.

The place where we lived, Al Rayana Compound, was beautiful.

For someone who had just arrived from Uganda, it felt almost unreal. There were beautiful apartments, carefully maintained surroundings, and people from different parts of the world moving through the compound.

But underneath the busy routine of my new life, I carried a quiet prayer.

I wanted a husband.

Not simply a man.

Not someone to pass time with.

I wanted the man who would light me up. A man I could love deeply. A man who would choose me, marry me, and build a life with me.

Even while I was working as a nanny, part of my heart felt as though I was on another journey altogether.

A journey to find my soulmate.

I didn’t know his name.

I didn’t know where he was from.

I didn’t know what he looked like.

But I prayed for him.

And then, one ordinary day at the park, something extraordinary happened.

I was playing with the twins when I saw a blue convertible Mercedes sports car pass by.

It was beautiful.

My eyes followed it almost instinctively.

There was something about that car.

I don’t know how to explain it even now.

I hadn’t seen the person inside.

I didn’t know who was driving.

But I felt something.

A strange pull.

A force.

It was almost as though my attention had been taken from me without permission.

I watched the car disappear.

Then, moments later, the man stepped out.

And suddenly, I understood why I had been drawn to that car.

He was tall.

Extremely handsome.

Muscular.

There was something about the way he carried himself that made him stand out from everyone around him.

I stared.

Not because I wanted to be obvious.

I simply couldn’t help it.

I was magnetized.

I wanted to see him again.

I wanted to know who he was.

Who was this man?

Where had he come from?

Why had I felt something before I had even seen his face?

And then something even stranger happened.

For a moment, looking at him felt strangely familiar.

It was as if I knew him.

I didn’t know his name.

I had never spoken to him.

I didn’t even know whether he had noticed me.

Yet something inside me whispered that this man was not completely new to me.

It made no sense.

And perhaps that was what made it unforgettable.

He continued toward his apartment.

And I stood there with the twins, watching him disappear.

That was it.

No hello.

No introduction.

No exchange of names.

Nothing.

Just a blue Mercedes, a stranger, and a feeling I couldn’t explain.

I went home that day carrying the memory with me.

I told myself it was nothing.

Just a handsome man.

Just a beautiful car.

Just one of those strange moments that happen in life and disappear as quickly as they arrive.

But Eddy didn’t disappear.

Every time I took the twins to the park, I began seeing him.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Sometimes I would catch sight of him around the compound.

Sometimes he would pass by.

Sometimes I would see him from a distance.

And every time, something inside me would quietly come alive.

But I never imagined he would ever speak to me.

Why would he?

I was simply the young Ugandan nanny taking two little boys to the park.

He was this incredibly handsome, confident man who seemed to belong to an entirely different world.

I didn’t know that he was French.

I didn’t know that he was a soldier.

I didn’t know his story.

And most importantly, I didn’t know that the mysterious man from the blue Mercedes was about to become one of the most unforgettable chapters of my life.

At that time, I only knew one thing.

Whenever I saw him, I wanted to see him a little longer.

I would pretend to be completely occupied with the twins while secretly wondering where he was.

I never went looking for him.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

But somehow, whenever we went to the park, my eyes would search the surroundings.

And when I saw him—

my heart noticed before my mind did.

Still, I never imagined he would talk to me.

I certainly never imagined that one day, the man I had watched from a distance would become the man I would fall in love with.

Ten years later, I can still remember that blue Mercedes.

I can still remember the feeling.

And sometimes I wonder whether that was the first moment my story with Eddy began.

Maybe love doesn’t always begin with a conversation.

Maybe sometimes it begins with a feeling.

A passing car.

A stranger stepping out.

A pair of eyes meeting across a beautiful compound in Abu Dhabi.

And a twenty-seven-year-old Ugandan girl quietly wondering:

“Who is that man?”

She had no idea that she was about to find out.