The Sheikh's Amulet (Sheikh's Wedding Bet Series Book 3)

by Leslie North

  Finally, he pressed his thumb against her clit and grunted as he released inside her. She held on tight as her own orgasm broke, and they both fell against the mattress and nearly rolled off.

  When her heartbeat returned to normal, she realized that she was still wrapped tightly around him. Scooting, she slid her legs off him, and he grunted under her. “God, Tamrin, if you do that again, we won’t be able to rest.”

  Covered in sweat, she laughed weakly. “I think I’ll die if you do that again,” she gasped. “Oh, my God. Jaymin. I lied. Let’s do it again.”

  As she licked the sweat off his neck, she wiggled her hips suggestively against him. He rolled them over and pressed her into the mattress with his body. Hooking her arms, he held them over her head and grinned down at her. “You are the devil.”

  “I’ll be whatever you want me to be if you’ll make me feel like that again.”

  Running one hand up her body, he pinched her nipple hard. Her whole body jerked under him, and she cried out. “You like that?”

  Unable to say anything, she nodded her head. The thin line between pleasure and pain excited her.

  “Then I think tonight will be an interesting evening,” he said with a wicked smile as he leaned down to kiss her again. Still cuffed by his hand, she was helpless against his touch and surrendered to him completely.

  10

  They lounged in bed all weekend, and when the sun set Sunday evening, Jaymin rolled over in the tangled sheets and stroked her cheek with his finger. “We have to leave soon or we’ll never make it back in time.”

  “I know,” Tamrin said as she snuggled even deeper into her pillow. “I’m okay if we’re late, but I have a feeling that you have something very important planned for first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “I feel like every minute of my life is planned,” he said with vague frustration. “So yes, I do have something important Monday morning. Believe me when I tell you that if I didn’t, I would extend our stay even longer.”

  Sighing, he slipped away from her touch and swung his feet off the bed. Standing, he stretched and yawned. Quadir wanted him to head a board meeting while he was stuck at the embassy. Normally, Jaymin would have jumped at the chance to run a meeting in place of his father, but spending time in Tamrin’s arms felt like a much better use of his time.

  “Well, we didn’t do much unpacking, so if you’ll give me a chance to shower first, I’ll be all set to go,” Tamrin said as she stood up. She looked over her shoulder and gave him a small smile. “If you shower with me, we’ll save even more time.”

  Jaymin chuckled. “Nice try. If I shower with you, we’ll never leave. Go ahead and hop in. I’ll shower once we get back.”

  “I can see that this weekend hasn’t changed you one bit,” she joked, but he could hear the underlying truth in her tone.

  Walking around the bed, he gathered her in his arms. “This weekend has changed me in more ways than one,” he said softly.

  She leaned into him and rested her head on his chest. “I like the sound of that.”

  Jaymin gave into the moment and held her in the silence. He knew that once he got back to the palace, things would change, but for right now, he completely belonged to her.

  Finally, she pushed herself away and walked quietly into the bathroom. Once he heard the water running, he walked around the room and began to collect the clothes that were still strewn about on the floor. His phone was still on the nightstand, and he had three missed calls.

  They were all from Kaz, and he’d left voicemails.

  Doom settled in the pit of his stomach as he put the phone up to his ear to listen to the first voicemail.

  “Sheikh Jaymin, I need you to call me back. I had someone else go back over the car from the shooting, and he managed to pull prints. They belong to two freelance hit men who work closely with someone you’ll be familiar with. Anton Negatin. Call me back. Now.”

  “Shit,” Jaymin muttered as he checked the call log. Kaz called yesterday. Frantically, he returned the call. If Kaz told his father, Quadir would pull the whole investigation away from him. “Kaz! Kaz, why the hell didn’t you try to keep calling me!” he growled when the man finally picked up.

  “And risk interrupting your romantic weekend? No, thank you. I enjoy my head right where it is.”

  “Enjoy that head while it lasts, because if my father takes this away from me, I’ll personally remove it myself. Tell me that you’ve kept this to yourself.”

  “My loyalties lie with the crowned sheikh, but I’m not stupid, Jaymin. I would never interrupt your father with such a small matter when he’s at the embassy. Letting you know is the second best,” Kaz said easily.

  Relief washed over Jaymin. Kaz was smart. “So you think Anton is behind the shootings. The problem is that he’s a thief, Kaz. He’s not an assassin unless there is someone standing between him and what he wants.” He closed his eyes. “You think he stole the amulet.”

  “I don’t have anything linking him to the family or the amulet except for the shooting,” Kaz said quickly. “I’m not making assumptions. But I did tell you that I have some reservations about the Lewis family, and when you get back, I’d like to talk with you more about it. Maybe you’ll actually listen this time.”

  Jaymin sighed and stared at the closed door where Tamrin was still showering. She would be standing under the water, rubbing her hands all over her naked body just like he’d ran his hands all over her. Like how she’d run her hands over him. How could she be naked in his arms, vulnerable, and still be hiding secrets from him?

  “Fine,” he said softly. “I’ll listen.”

  Kaz was quiet for a few beats. “Jaymin, we don’t have to do this. We can turn everything over to the authorities. You can oversee everything that they do.”

  Jaymin could turn it all over and turn his back on the whole thing. The investigators could look into the Lewis family with an objective point of view that Jaymin no longer possessed. But the fact that he couldn’t see the situation clearly was exactly why he wasn’t going to turn anything over.

  Maybe Tamrin Lewis was innocent and this whole weekend had really been the romantic getaway that it seemed. If that were the case, he wanted to protect her. If Sean Lewis was involved, he wanted to do his best to protect Tamrin.

  But if she did know, if she was involved, then she had used this weekend to make sure that he would protect her. And if that were the case, he wanted to personally bring her down.

  “We keep the case,” he said quietly as he closed his eyes. “I need to see this through. After what the man has done to my family, I intend to put this whole situation to rest.”

  He disconnected the call and slowly lowered the phone as he stared at the closed door. She wasn’t involved. She couldn’t be.

  But when the water shut off, he couldn’t shut off his doubts.

  Once they’d returned to the palace, Tamrin headed to her room to unpack, and Jaymin met with Kaz in his study. The open file on his desk showed the mug shots of the two men who normally worked with Anton. “If they are freelancers, what do you have that ties them to Negatin?”

  “The only reason they aren’t still in prison is that they rolled over on Negatin. They gave several pertinent details on several items that Negatin had stolen, so they were given a lighter sentence. Of course, if you look carefully at the reports, it looks like Negatin might have set the whole thing up. He wanted his favorite men back, and he managed to stay one step ahead of the authorities. And now they’re working for him again.”

  “This is all you have?” Jaymin said as he tapped his finger on the file and stared absently at the open door.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jaymin blew out his breath. “We need to know why, and the only way we can do that is to talk to Sean Lewis.”

  “He left a few hours ago to go home. We gave him a detail to the airport and released him after that.”

  “What?” Jaymin whipped his head around and stared at Kaz. “Who the
hell authorized that?”

  “Your father. When I couldn’t get ahold of you, I called him. At the time, we were only holding him to protect him, and the crowned sheikh said we could release him.”

  “It’s just as well. We probably wouldn’t get any information from him anyway. Get someone to escort Tamrin here. And when I say someone, I mean someone from the staff. She’s not a suspect until I say she is,” he said tightly.

  “Jaymin,” Kaz said softly. “I would strongly recommend that you order Sean Lewis back.”

  “When I want Sean Lewis brought back, I’ll have him brought back,” Jaymin said with a hard look. Kaz nodded and left the room. In frustration, Jaymin turned on the computer and brought up the file the family had on Anton Negatin. The man had plagued them for months now. First, the man stole Solomon’s Diamond from Masoud, and his brother nearly lost his life trying to retrieve it. Negatin was supposed to be in Interpol custody after that, but he escaped and stole Bathsheba’s Crown from Adil. Now Jaymin had to assume that the man also stole the Menalik amulet from Tamrin.

  Only he had a horrible feeling that it wasn’t that clear cut.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  He looked up to see Tamrin standing stiffly in the doorway. She had changed from her dress to a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. For some reason, she didn’t even begin to resemble the woman who’d made passionate love to him all weekend.

  “Have a seat,” he said in a gentle voice. He got up and leaned against the desk so that he could be near her again. “We’ve uncovered some information about the shooting.”

  “Really? You know who it is?”

  Reaching over, Jaymin spun the laptop around so that she could see the profile picture. “Do you know this man?”

  A flicker of recognition lit her eyes when they swept over the picture, but she shook her head. “No. Should I?”

  Angry, Jaymin pushed away. “Did you just lie to me?”

  Tamrin’s eye’s widened, and she bit her bottom lip. “His name is Anton Negatin, and he’s a collector of rare antiquities. A couple of months ago, my father sold him a set of scrolls that are supposed to date back to the early years of Christianity.”

  “So you do know him. Why the hell did you just lie about it?”

  “After my father made the deal, I did some research. The collector is also a thief, and he’s wanted across the world. I didn’t want you to know that we had associated with someone like that. My father made a mistake.”

  “Anton may be a thief, but he’s also a killer when someone stands in his way. There’s something that you’re not telling me,” Jaymin said as he tried to get control of his anger.

  Tamrin rubbed her hands together and looked down. “The transaction went smoothly, but after a few weeks, Negatin came back with a horrid accusation. He thought the scrolls were fake. My father thought he was trying to con more money out of us, but when he showed us the evidence, it was irrefutable. The scrolls were fake.”

  “And your father didn’t return the money.”

  “He told me that he did, but I guess he lied to me. I don’t know why he would try to kill us. It’s not like he can get the money back from us if we’re dead!”

  She was scared. Jaymin reached over to touch her and reassure her, but she recoiled as if he slapped her. “Tamrin. I said that I would protect you, and I meant it.”

  Instead of leaning into him, she stood and pushed her chair back. “I appreciate the offer, and I’m sorry that we’ve brought this to your front door. I’ll call my father and see if we can’t get this taken care of immediately.”

  She sounded so distant. “Tamrin, this isn’t the first time that my family has dealt with Negatin. He doesn’t only buy artifacts. There is a good chance that those scrolls are real. Negatin gets his kicks from stealing from people. Give me a chance to look into this, okay?”

  Tamrin nodded. “Thank you,” she said stiffly. Jaymin watched as she moved easily away from him and walked out of the office. He didn’t bother going after her.

  Kaz was right. There was something strange about that family, and he wasn’t going to rest until he got to the bottom of it. If Tamrin was using him, he would never be able to forgive himself.

  11

  Jaymin couldn’t sleep. It was well after midnight, and he did have a meeting in the morning, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something. Tossing and turning in bed, he finally sighed in frustration and got up. As he padded barefoot across the carpet, he made his way back to his office and opened his laptop. The light from the screen cut through the darkness, and he squinted at the harshness. Once his eyes adjusted, he opened the video footage from the event and settled back once again.

  When the woman with the black hair streaked across the video, he paused it and leaned forward. Her head was turned from the camera to hide her face, as if she knew the cameras were there, and she was dressed in a catering uniform, but Jaymin couldn’t help but think that there was something familiar about her. At the top of the screen, Tamrin was speaking to someone else while her fingers caressed her amulet.

  Turning off the video, Jaymin opened up the additional files that Kaz recently sent on the family. As he scrolled through her medical records, he stopped at the birth certificate, noting the name of her mother. Sari Lewis. Curious as to how she died, he typed the name into an Internet search box and sat back as he read the article that popped up. Sari Lewis had died in a car accident, leaving behind her husband and ten-year-old daughter, Tamara Lewis.

  It must have been a typo, but Jaymin pulled up the birth certificate just to make sure. She was indeed born Tamrin Lewis. Still, it seemed odd that the article would get the name of the child wrong.

  It was probably nothing, but it bothered him, so he shrugged and typed Tamara Lewis into the search box. There were way too many social media profiles and articles with the name Tamara Lewis to go through them all. Deleting the search, he instead pulled up the medical database from the local hospitals and typed in the name. There was no record of Tamara Lewis.

  Pursing his lips, he sat back and tapped his fingers on the desk. Just because the Lewis family had a run-in with Negatin didn’t mean that she was lying to him. He should just drop the whole search, pay them for their troubles, and send them on their way. But he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

  Almost absently, he typed Tamrin Lewis into the hospital records and pulled up the same birth certificate, vaccination records, and medical history. With a frown, he noticed some anomalies. She’d been vaccinated twice for mandatory shots before and during school.

  That was odd. Clicking on the records, he noticed that there were notes attached to the files. Apparently, Tamrin was somewhat of a con artist. As a child, she’d somehow skipped out on her first round of shots, and when her father found out, he stood there to make sure that she got her second round. The nurse even checked to make sure that there were no needle marks.

  Just once or twice would be one thing, but they were attached to all her records. It wasn’t unusual for nurses to give the shots without checking the records, but it seemed strange that her father wouldn’t have been more adamant about it during her first round.

  “Strange but not incriminating,” he muttered to himself. Clicking through, he checked out the rest of her history. She’d broken her arm when she was twelve, and her father rushed her to the hospital when she was fourteen with a high fever. When she was fifteen, she’d had surgery to get a cyst removed from her back, and her last trip to the ER was a sprained ankle when she was seventeen.

  Not unusual for a teenager, especially if she was active. Clicking out of the history, he leaned back and shook his head. None of that was helpful or incriminating.

  “Maybe nothing is wrong,” he murmured to himself. He couldn’t deny that he had feelings for her, and that was strange for him. Jaymin didn’t get close to anyone who wasn’t family. Maybe he was simply looking for something to be wrong so he could distance hims
elf from the situation.

  And now, he was self-diagnosing himself. He almost pushed away from the desk to head back to bed when he realized that he had an email that he hadn’t checked. Opening it, he saw that it was a quick note from Kaz.

  Sean Lewis mentioned that he has the Scrolls of King David.

  With a start, Jaymin straightened and stared at the email. He turned on the desk lamp, grabbed the key from the desk, and opened the filing cabinet in the corner. After a few minutes of digging through the folders, he pulled out a bundle of letters. Sitting back down, he adjusted the lamp and began scanning through them.

  Sure enough, there it was. Yasin Khalidizack was his great uncle and the black sheep of the family. During his time, he enjoyed the high life and played fast and loose with the family antiquities. They’d lost quite a few heirlooms during Yasin’s lifetime. Not only was he responsible for the loss of the Solomon Diamond, he’d also won the Bathsheba Crown necklace in a card game. They’d only recently found out that the necklace had been stolen from the original owners.

  Several years before his death, he’d gambled away the Scrolls of David, ancient scrolls that supposedly depicted the addition of several laws to his land. They’d even been verified by scholars, and they were worth millions.

  Khalidizack was not a name that someone forgot. If Sean Lewis won the scrolls from Yasin, he was hiding his tracks. And if he was keeping that a secret, it was likely that he was keeping something else a secret.

  History with Negatin was suspicious, but history with Yasin was something completely different.

  Hunching over the computer, Jaymin sent an email to his receptionist to cancel his meeting. He wasn’t going to sleep until he got to the bottom of it.

  12

  The first rays of light were just hitting the bed when Tamrin woke up with a start. A shadow hovered over the bed, and the sleepy haze over her immediately lifted. Without a thought, Tamrin struck out with her leg. The shadow grabbed it and flipped her, but Tamrin wasn’t done. Tightening her legs, she wrenched the figure to the ground and straddled it. Only then did she recognize the face.