by Allen, Jewel
Inside, Alliyah met them. Reese let Alliyah take her other arm. Samir’s sister was a smart woman. Her eyes glittered with speculation as well as sympathy for Reese. Samir owed her big for bringing them back together.
At the door to one of the receiving rooms, Reese hesitated.
“You don’t have to see him,” Samir offered.
Reese closed her eyes. “He’s my brother, my flesh and blood. He raised me.”
“But he’s also changed, perhaps?” Samir asked, trying to be hopeful.
It was a stab in the dark, but her expression indicated to him that, no, Quinn had not changed over the years.
As they entered the room, a man of stocky build came forward.
He was a handsome devil, cocky with a smile. “Hello, Reese,” he said.
41
Reese’s panic had blown out of proportion. She’d worked herself up to this moment so much that when it finally came, her knees nearly buckled from her apprehension.
She loved her brother. She knew that with every fiber of her being. Without his help, she wouldn’t have survived the tough streets of New York.
But his smile, his hardened look, and the years of indulgence were evident in how his shoulders were hunched, how his eyes shifted from side to side as though scoping the palace for valuables.
She wouldn’t put it past him to pilfer a few things here and there that hadn’t been bolted down.
Some things simply didn’t change.
“My dearest sister,” he said, opening his arms to Reese.
Like a sleepwalker, Reese walked to him and let him envelop her in his arms. He reeked of cheap cologne and cigarettes.
Quinn looked like an ex-con, sporting tattoos on his now-flaccid muscles. A young man turned old prematurely from his lifestyle choices. He used to take care of his appearance, and one could still argue he seemed dapper—with that slicked-back hair and glinting capped tooth—if one didn’t look at him too closely in the light.
“You don’t seem too happy to see me,” Quinn said.
Reese tried to clamp her teeth down so they didn’t chatter. “I am,” she said. “I’m just surprised you’re out; that’s all.”
His eyes shifted toward Samir, as though sizing him up. “And this must be my honorable brother-in-law.”
Samir nodded cordially but wasn’t gushing. Reese couldn’t blame him.
The two men exchanged pleasantries. Quinn could be charming when he wanted to.
He gave out an exaggerated yawn. “Reese, do you mind coming with me while I unpack so we can talk and catch up.”
Reese didn’t want to, but his eyes compelled her to say yes. She was as a little girl again, saying yes to anything her older brother told her.
“Okay,” she said. To Samir and Ali, she murmured, “If you will excuse us.”
Reese glided up the stairs in Quinn’s wake. He had a small duffel bag with him. At the landing, he stopped and looked at a little statue on a circular table.
Don’t do it, she thought.
Quinn’s eyes shifted toward her. “You look like a sourpuss,” he said. “Where’s your sense of fun anymore? You used to egg me on.”
“Things are different now, Quinn.”
He didn’t respond, just looked at her with those eyes that missed nothing. His mouth formed a thin line, indicating his displeasure with her, but he moved on without the loot. They came to his door, three bedrooms from the second-floor landing, and entered.
As soon as the door closed behind her, Reese’s throat tightened with anxiety. But it may have been because the room had been dark. Quinn turned on a lamp, illuminating a well-appointed room. With despair, Reese thought of the rest of the palace, filled with little knickknacks for a thief to paw.
Quinn’s grin unsettled Reese. She couldn’t wait to leave the room and return to Samir so they could have his promised talk.
Samir. Her oasis in the desert. The way he held her hand assured her that perhaps they had a future together. She wondered what had brought it on and wished he had made the move sooner.
She focused her eyes on her brother. He was taking something out of his duffel bag. A pair of black gloves that filled her with dread.
“How did you get out from prison?” she asked.
“One of my girlfriends came through and posted bail.” His glance narrowed. “Unlike my sister.”
She shivered. “What are you going to do?”
“You are going to lead me to that engagement necklace.”
She raised her hands to her throat. “No.”
“No?”
“This is just like any con job, Reese,” he said.
“This is stealing!”
“And since when has my sister grown a conscience?” But a nerve ticked on his jaw.
“Since I was old enough to know right from wrong.” She pushed back her hair, tired of this conversation they’d been carrying on the past ten years.
“You promised me this was the last job,” she said.
“And it is. Literally. I just need this one, and we could retire on the French Riviera.”
“We don’t need to live on the French Riviera,” she protested.
“Stop being a wet blanket on my dreams, sissy,” he scowled. “Have I ever done anything selfish like that in my life?”
She could easily think of several instances. “Yes.”
“Well, I made the decision to keep you, didn’t I? To raise you so you didn’t have to end up on the street?”
She hung her head because he was correct.
“Show me where the necklace is,” he said.
“No.” Her voice was firm, her courage coming from someplace unfamiliar to her, a place she’d tucked away in the back of her mind and heart forever.
“No?” he mimicked. “Show me, or else.”
She stared at him, her legs turning to jelly. “Or else what?”
Quinn smiled, revealing tobacco-stained teeth.
42
Samir waited for Reese downstairs for a long time. Alliyah had already gone up to her bedroom, so he was alone. Anxiety crawled through his veins. He hoped all was well with Reese and her brother, but he knew that was a naïve hope.
He still recalled that one time when she’d cried out in her nightmare, asking her brother to stop.
The hairs on the back of his head stood on end. He had a bad feeling about Quinn. Maybe Samir should have had the heart-to-heart with her before he allowed Quinn to stay in the palace.
But he was family, and with family, you opened your doors to them, even if they’d had a run-in with the law.
There were steps in the hall. Samir turned to the sound and saw Reese first, followed by her brother. Her face showed strain from the past couple of hours.
“Samir,” she said, her voice shaky.
“Yes?” He looked from her to her brother, who was smiling amiably, as though nothing were wrong. Instantly, Samir knew something was wrong.
“I’m leaving.”
The words bounced around in his head. He wasn’t sure he had heard correctly, but he also innately knew she meant them.
She was leaving.
This was not the time nor place for Samir to grill her on her intentions, but of course he had to ask, “Why?”
Her glance flicked toward her brother and then back. She pursed her lips, unable or unwilling to answer.
“Quinn,” Samir said agreeably, as a brother to a brother. “Do you mind giving us a few minutes of privacy? Surely this…decision…warrants us having a serious conversation.”
“Of course,” Quinn said, but his eyes were cold and held a warning as he turned and left.
“What’s going on?” Samir said, striding over to her and holding her hands.
She wouldn’t look him in the eye. “My brother needs me.”
“But I thought you and me…that we were going to make things work.”
“I thought so too. But Quinn needs me more.”
“You’re serious?”
&nbs
p; She raised cool eyes to him. He hardly recognized this woman. Where was the Reese who had looked at him with soft eyes filled with love?
In desperation, he reminded her, “You’d agreed to stay for three months.” As soon as the words escaped his lips, he knew he’d made a mistake.
She raised her eyes to his. “What are you going to do? Jail me?”
“At one time, I seriously thought that, fool that I am. I’m sorry. I should never have held that necklace incident over your head. You have proven yourself over and over, and I have misjudged you. I thought I’d made that clear on the island.”
She shrugged. “How could I trust you?”
“Because I love you,” he choked out in a hoarse voice.
She closed her eyes as though pained and then opened them once again, looking calm.
“I don’t know what to believe, Samir.”
Was she really second-guessing his love for her? How much more did he need to prove himself when he was willing to forgive her and take her back?
Obviously, he had been so, so wrong.
“Do you have paper in this room?” she said.
He was surprised by her request. And chilled because she acted cool and collected. Wasn’t her heart breaking like his?
“Yes,” he replied in a daze. “I think.” He walked over to the desk and pulled open one drawer and then the next. He returned with a stationery pad and pen in hand.
Her blue eyes sparkled with what looked like unshed tears. “Thank you.”
Even as she said that in a calm voice, her demeanor puzzled and alarmed him.
After she wrote down a note, she folded it and bit her lip. He thought she was going to give him the note, but she held on to it.
“Reese.” He searched her eyes. “Is there something wrong?”
Her brother barged in. “Ready?” he said.
She stood, looking frail and yet oddly strong. For both of them. Samir’s heart was breaking into a million pieces.
“I must say goodbye to Alliyah,” she told Quinn.
“Hurry up. We don’t have all day.” Quinn’s voice was flippant, but there was a layer of steel under it.
Reese raised her eyes to Samir’s. He thought he saw love in them, and despair in equal measures. He wanted to hold on to that, to coax her to stay, but she stepped back, and he knew she had made her decision.
She was choosing her brother over him.
After they left the room, Samir listened for her footsteps until he could no longer hear. He reeled back from the pain that came then in waves, like a mirage in the desert, hot and burning.
Taking a deep breath, he decided he would go to his bedroom and get ready for bed. It was late.
As he entered his bedroom, he noticed his wardrobe door was partially opened. Odd. He usually had it shut firmly. The only other time he’d been in there lately was to put the royal engagement jewels away.
The jewels.
With shaking hands, he opened the wardrobe and a drawer. The lock had been forced open. He pulled on the drawer and confirmed his guess. The space that held the black velvet box was empty.
He felt hot and cold, blinded with anger at her betrayal.
Picking up his phone, he called Axel. Once he arrived, Samir explain the situation quickly.
Axel’s eyes didn’t register surprise. “And if I find her?” Axel asked.
“Don’t hurt her. Bring her back, and I will press charges.”
“And him?”
“Try not to hurt him…too much.”
43
With unseeing eyes, Reese sat in the passenger seat of the rental car Quinn was driving. They had driven all night, with Reese mostly asleep. But now she was awake, her senses sluggish from the despair that swirled from the pit of her stomach.
Guilt weighed heavy on her as she recalled Samir’s slack expression at her declaration that she was leaving. She hoped he would fight for her, but with Quinn there, they didn’t stand a chance.
She had agreed to go with Quinn to keep Samir safe.
Quinn’s words returned to her. “Or else Samir will get smeared. Do you think he’d want the world to know that his sweet, beautiful wife was a thief? I could pull out all sorts of evidence—”
She had clamped his mouth with her hand to shush him.
And then she told Samir she needed to leave. She was surprised he had let her go so easily, after his concern for his kingdom being unstable if they weren’t married, but there had been no time to talk. Quinn had made sure of that.
Samir could have their marriage annulled and easily marry someone else. He deserved someone who had no baggage like this.
The car reeked of cigarette smoke and empty food cartons. In the dawning light, Reese flinched at the sight of trash and junk on the car floor. Quinn had always been a neat freak when they were growing up, but as he got older, he seemed to regress to bad habits.
The hope she’d held out long ago came crashing into the cold reality that he would most likely never change for the better.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Marrakesh,” he said. “I’m in the mood to pawn some jewels.”
She closed her eyes in pain and then opened them again. Those jewels were the source of all this trouble. She wished she’d never agreed to meet Samir Al-Hana.
Even as she told herself that, she recalled the kisses they’d exchanged and the love they’d vowed to each other. She recalled his tenderness and their deepening friendship.
Even with all she knew now, she had no regrets.
She wished she could have convinced Samir to put away the jewels somewhere else so she could have told Quinn the jewels weren’t in the house. But she also knew there was no stopping Quinn once he got it in his head to do something.
Quinn had stayed awake mostly on energy drinks, and he appeared jittery and out of sorts. He had circles under his eyes. His black hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in a long time.
He leaned forward to read street signs and grinned. “There we are.” They passed a sign that said, Welcome to Marrakesh.
Marrakesh was a contrast of old and new, with desert-colored houses on the outskirts of town and the walled medina where dwellings of long ago had been turned into refurbished riads or boutique hotels. Quinn parked, and they got out of the car, surrounded by a mass of humanity.
The main plaza swarmed with people. Most of the locals wore the traditional djellaba robe. A few people, especially young adults, wore western clothing—ripped jeans and shirts with tennis shoes. Three-story buildings towered with restaurants overlooking the plaza.
It was a place to get lost in.
A performer was showing off his pet monkey. Quinn, shrugging his duffel bag onto his shoulder, stopped for a few minutes to watch and squatted to put money in the jar.
Reese scoped her surroundings. At one time, this would have been a place for her to pilfer something valuable from someone—a watch, a wallet, a purse.
But this time, she searched for an escape route.
As though Quinn could read her mind, his hand shot out and gripped her arm.
He pulled her away from the monkey and walked toward a souk, a maze of stores. Stopping, he turned to Reese. “I have to show you something,” he said.
He revealed the money that had been in the monkey performer’s jar. The glinting of the coins taunted her.
She crossed her arms over her chest, her mouth forming a disapproving line.
Quinn entered the souk, stopping in front of a lamp seller’s stand. The little pocket of mystery and the exotic seemed to hold secrets. There were all sorts of lamps in various sizes. Reese wished she could rub one and a genie would appear so she could get everything right as it should be.
A man came out from the back of the lamp store and spoke to Quinn in French. Quinn had learned the language when he used to base his operations in France, before the authorities wised up and discovered his crimes.
“We have that trade,” Quinn said, this time
in English.
The man’s eyes bulged wide with delight. “Ah, yes. I have a buyer. A man in a high place of government.”
“Good.” He opened his duffle bag and took out the black velvet box.
Reese’s heart thudded with fear.
Quinn opened the box. It was empty.
He turned to Reese, rage filling his eyes.
44
Samir woke up, bleary-eyed. He’d slept in his clothes and ached all over. The clock on the wall said it was eight, but he felt like it was much earlier. He forced himself to get up. He needed to in case Axel found the brother-sister thieves and Samir needed to speak to the authorities.
His heart weighed heavy with a dullness he couldn’t shake.
He had trusted her, and yet…
He took a punishingly hot shower and then changed for the day. As he finished shrugging on a button-up shirt and slipping on a pair of slacks, someone knocked on his door.
It was a servant with a message from Alliyah that she needed to speak with him urgently. Could he please come down to the receiving room downstairs?
Samir frowned when he saw her pacing the room. “What’s wrong?”
She held out a paper sack. “Reese left this in my room last night. I didn’t see it until this morning. It’s addressed to you.”
At the mention of her name, Samir stiffened. Taking the bag from Alliyah, he took his time opening it. He almost dropped it when he saw the contents.
The jewels. The necklace and earrings were all there.
On the bottom, there was also a folded-up note in Reese’s handwriting. He unfolded it, read its contents quickly, and groaned.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The note simply says that she loves me. She loves me more than all the jewels in the world.” Anguish squeezed his chest.
“Why would she leave you and go with her brother?”
“I don’t know.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I just know that I misjudged her again. I thought she stole the jewels for her brother. Last night, I put Axel on her trail, and now she’s in danger. Axel called me this morning to tell me he’d tracked them in Marrakesh, specifically the souk.”