Sold to the Sheikh (21 page)

But this was progress. He was free. The Ambassador would want to debrief him, would want names, an explanation. But that would all have to wait.

He had to find Stella.

C
HAPTER 26

“Thanks, Lenny.”

“No problem, Ms. Spencer,” the gruff doorman said as he carried in a bag of groceries. “You sure this’ll be enough for you?”

She nodded, smiling at the older man’s fatherly instincts. He’d always told her that she reminded him of his daughter. “I’ll only be around a few more days.”

Lenny had been a lifesaver. He’d done more than keep out unwanted guests; he’d made sure Stella didn’t have to deal with anyone at all while she tried to figure out how to reassemble the pieces of her broken life. He’d even picked up a disposable cell phone for her when he noticed that she refused to turn on her phone and that the landline had been unplugged.

“Just in case,” he’d said.

It had come in handy. Stella had wallowed for a day, and then she’d come to a decision. A series of decisions, really. She’d sent her resignation letter to Volare, then she’d used the disposable phone to make a few necessary phone calls, and then she’d sent that horrible check to the Ras al Manas embassy.

It wasn’t that Sheikh Bashir had broken her. It was that he’d illuminated for her how she was already broken, and that showed her what she needed to do to fix it. She hadn’t been living her own life in New York; she’d been living Robert’s. And she hadn’t gone about building a real life for herself since the divorce. She’d just been in a holding pattern. Well, that was going to change.

Stella quelled a pang of anger and rummaged through the bag for the ice cream she knew Lenny wouldn’t have forgotten. She laughed. Nope, he hadn’t forgotten: there were three different flavors. She grabbed a pint of cookie dough and went hunting for a spoon.

But even cookie dough couldn’t make her forget Sheikh Bashir. It would be easier if her body didn’t still crave him. It was humiliating, really, how much she still wanted him, and ice cream was a poor substitute. And as much as he’d hurt her—which was enough to literally take her breath away every time she thought about it—as much damage as he’d done, he’d still managed to succeed at one thing, despite his eventual epic villainy: he’d convinced her that these relationship disasters weren’t really her fault.

Well, they were her fault in the sense that she kept picking losers. But there wasn’t anything actually wrong with her—she knew that now. Even if Sheikh Bashir did turn out to be a bastard, he was a useful one.

Stella just wished she believed he really was a bastard, through and through. He had behaved like one, obviously, but that just didn’t jibe with everything else she knew about him. No matter which way Stella turned it around in her mind, she couldn’t reconcile what he had done with who he had been to her.

And you never will,
she told herself.
Sometimes things just don’t make sense, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

So instead, she’d made a plan. No more relying on men. No more relying on love. And no more New York.

The buzzer rang, and Stella ran to get the door, feeling bad that Lenny had to do so much for her. Well, she couldn’t have stopped him if she’d tried. He’d been looking out for her since he’d heard about the divorce.

“Ms. Spencer, it’s Linda Carlton.”

“Cool, send her up. Thanks, Len.”

This was the final step. She was on her way. Stella tried to feel excited, but there was still that lump of grief and loss in the pit of her stomach. Funny how Sheikh Bashir had hit her as hard as Robert had. One weekend versus seven years of marriage; yet she would be hard pressed to decide which one had hurt her more.

It just takes time, Stella.

Stella was more than a little relieved when she heard the knock on her door. Being alone with her thoughts was kind of dangerous.

“Hi, Linda. Thanks for making it on such short notice,” Stella said, opening the door wide.

Linda Carlton waltzed right in, her eyes big as dinner plates as she took in the tasteful designer furnishings, spacious rooms, high ceilings, and pre-war details.

“This place,” she said, turning to look back at Stella, “is
amazing
. Even better than I thought when you described it over the phone.”

“Thanks. Wish I could take credit for it.”

“Well, I know the building. The address will sell it, no problem. Did you have a ballpark figure in mind, or…?”

Stella set her jaw. “I’m a motivated seller.”

The real estate agent looked at her. “I’m sorry, hon, I have to ask…”

“Divorce.”

Keep it simple. No one needs to hear the details of your dumb life.

Linda Carlton was obviously practiced at just this sort of situation. She looked genuinely sympathetic. “I get it, hon, I really do. You know I got the shaft after fifteen years?”

“I’m sorry,” Stella said.

“Don’t be. Screwed him out of the condo.” Linda had started busily making notes, and was inspecting the moldings like a trained appraiser. “A classic six, this address? Honey, you’ll be fine. The biggest issue I see is getting a sale past the co-op board, but I’ve worked with them before. We’ll get it done, don’t worry.”

Stella was surprised at how relieved she felt. It was as if someone had just told her that the last cord tying her to her old life would be easy to cut.

“Thank you,” she said with real gratitude, collapsing into one of Robert’s expensive designer chairs. He’d gotten upset every time someone had sat in them. What else were you supposed to do with chairs? “You have my attorney’s contact info, right?”

“Are you leaving town?”

Stella nodded. It sounded good already. “I don’t think I’ll stay more than a few days. Might even leave tonight, if I feel like it. I still have some settlement money, so I might just…wait it out in a hotel somewhere, ‘til the apartment sells, you know?”

After that, it would be easy. She could buy a house out west with the cash from the apartment and still have enough left over to be comfortable, even if it sold for a rock-bottom price. She could find a place to work with people at the end of life, people who didn’t want to be alone. Maybe a hospice. All on her own terms.

Linda looked up from her notepad. “Men are such bastards, aren’t they?”

Stella sighed, and scooped up another bite of cookie dough. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, they are.”

And maybe if I say it often enough, I’ll start to believe it.

But Stella’s gloomy thoughts were interrupted by the buzzer from downstairs for a second time. Maybe Lenny was as telepathic as Sheikh Bashir had been. The thought made her smile a little, just before it made her sad again.
Buck up, Stella.

“What’s up, Len?” she said into the speaker box. She wasn’t expecting anyone besides Linda Carlton.

“Sorry to bother you, Ms. Spencer, but they say they’re calling from a hospital, and you’re the only emergency contact they could get a hold of.”

“What? For who?”

“A Ms. Kincaid.”

Stella’s blood froze. How could she be the emergency contact for Ms. Kincaid? The only way that was possible was if the Sheikh had added her. Would he do that? It was true that she’d had a rapport with Ms. Kincaid, but a rapport was a far cry from an emergency contact. And why would he entrust her with something like that if he were just planning on…

No, don’t think it
.

None of it made sense. But whether it made sense or not wasn’t the priority. Ms. Kincaid was.

“Did they say what was wrong? Or where she was?”

“They left an address.”

“Tell them I’ll be right there.”

It was amazing how quickly you could run out the door when you’d already decided that you had no attachments to the place where you were. Stella just grabbed her keys, told Linda to let herself out, and run out the door. She’d taken the address from Lenny, and, as luck would have it, there was a yellow cab waiting right outside the building.

Perfect
.

“Carthage House, on Kraft, up in Westchester,” she said. “I’ll pay extra for the trip on top of the fare; I know it’s way out of the city.”

In retrospect, she realized that she should have been suspicious when the cabbie didn’t object. It was at least thirty minutes out of Manhattan, plus another thirty minutes where he wouldn’t be able to pick up any extra fares on the way back. But, as it turned out, the cabbie wasn’t particularly worried about that.

Stella didn’t think anything was wrong until the cab turned toward the park.

“Shouldn’t you take the FDR?” she’d said.

No answer.

But she didn’t get really worried until the cab pulled onto one of the side streets, just off Fifth Avenue, and into one of the few working garages in all of Manhattan. It was attached to an old, beautiful limestone townhouse.

The cab rolled to a stop in the gloom of the garage, and they sat in silence. Stella was too afraid to speak. Finally the cabbie cleared his throat.

“Please get out of the car, miss.”

“I asked you to take me to Westchester.”

“Someone else paid me a lot of money to take you here instead,” he said, turning around with a baleful expression. “I got kids, miss. And he seemed like a nice man. You give him another chance, yeah?”

Stella closed her eyes and tried to think calm thoughts. This was…

Nope. No calm thoughts.

“No tip,” she said, and slammed the door as she got out of the car. The cabbie peeled out of the garage as fast as he could, and the motorized garage doors closed quickly behind him.

Now she really was trapped. Well, not for long. She did not have to take this. This was twenty-first century America, not some crazy tribal kingdom from the Dark Ages. She moved purposefully towards the garage doors, her heart pattering in her chest, telling herself that she’d be able to open them, no problem, of course she would, and she’d just find another cab and go back to her plans…

She was only a few steps from the door when an iron arm encircled her waist.

“No,” that deep, rumbling voice said.

“Let go of me!” she screamed, fury and grief and hurt overtaking her as she beat fruitlessly at the arm that held her fast. He lifted her effortlessly, and though she kicked hard as he flipped her around and slung her over his shoulder, it was to no avail. He held her pinned and helpless as she battered his back with her tiny fists.

“You
bastard!
Let go of me!”

“Not until you promise to listen,” he said. “And be reasonable.”

She still hadn’t seen his face.

She stopped fighting as he carried her through a servant’s entrance and up a flight of narrow stairs to one of the grand areas of the house, but she definitely wasn’t going to promise to be ‘reasonable.’ As far as she was concerned, her reaction
was
perfectly reasonable.

Well, part of her reaction, anyway. The other part, where her body hummed everywhere he touched her, and the part where she felt herself getting wet when he restrained her…

That was less reasonable.

“You can’t treat someone like this,” she said into his back, wondering where the hell he was taking her.

“I can do whatever I want,” he said mildly. “I own you, remember? The transaction has not been completed.”

She gritted her teeth. Now he really
was
a bastard.

“So you got my letter, then.”

“It wasn’t a letter. It was a check in an envelope.”

“
Your
check.”

They’d entered another room now; this one had what looked like traditional Arab or Bedouin furnishings: tapestries, ottomans, rugs, lamps. Suddenly Stella was pitched backward. She landed on something soft, and bounced slightly: a bed.

And there was Sheikh Bashir, standing over her, eyes glowing. He looked amazing in a crisp white shirt, his hair loose, his shoulders bulging.

“
Listen
,” she began angrily, and tried to scoot off of the bed. Sheikh Bashir caught her wrists easily.

“No, no, Stella,” he said firmly, dragging her to the head of the bed. “First, you will listen.”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

But Stella could plainly see what he was doing; she just couldn’t believe it. He’d had some sort of silk scarves within reach of the bed, and was lashing her wrists to the headboard.

He ignored her question, but caught her ankle when she tried to kick him. “Do you want me to tie your legs, as well?” he asked, eyebrows raised. He looked at the posts of the large bed, so wide apart. “That could be interesting, indeed.”

Stella blushed. Again, she had to remember to remain angry while her body screamed for him. She hadn’t been able to forget what it had felt like to have him inside her. She doubted she ever would.

Sheikh Bashir looked at her with that penetrating stare, and an evil smile played across his lips. “It’s not time for that yet, Stella,” he said. “First, we talk.”

Oh, that is just not fair.

“Screw you, Sheikh. Seriously.”

He burst out laughing, which, obviously, infuriated her. He said, “That can be arranged. But first I would like to tell you about my week. Then you can tell me about yours. And then we can discuss how we’ll spend the rest of the day.”

Stella fumed silently. She couldn’t move, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of her acknowledgement. She watched as he moved to the enormous multi-paned windows and drew the heavy, dark red curtains, giving the room an intimate, secluded feel.
He wants me to forget about the rest of the world
, she thought.

Well, he was in luck. It was damned hard to think about anything else with Sheikh Bashir standing in front of her. He rolled up the cuffs of that crisp white shirt to expose his dark, muscled forearms, and she almost groaned. It was cruelly unfair.

“Stella,” he said seriously. “Will you listen?”