“It’s not what it looks like.”
“Miss Amun tried to explain that as well, and she failed miserably,” Addison continued, her words coming out in a fearsome torrent, so fast that she was beginning to lose track of them. “You were using me this whole time, doing all of this to find the great weakness for Clayton McDermott. I told you so much, about what a jerk he’d been, and how stupid was I to think that you were any better.” She started to pace, throwing her hands up in the air and wishing she had more at her disposal to wear than her rumpled dress from last night. “You know what? It has to be true. You all think you’re masters of the universe, that you’re all so ready to move people around like chess pieces on a board. Well, guess what, my sheikh, I’m not playing anymore.”
Zahir moved forward and grabbed both of her shoulders. She tried to pull away, but he held her there forcefully. She knew he wasn’t trying to hurt her, just stilling her so he’d have a few more seconds to spin whatever bullshit he was going to try peddling her way today, but she could no longer deal with any of this. She’d heard every pretty lie and half-truth, one after another. Addison was just no longer interested.
“I’m serious, Addy. Just let me explain. I did hire you because of your connection to Clayton. I’m trying to arrange a merger with his company, and at first, he was backstabbing me. I needed the right…”
“Leverage?” she asked, her voice keyed up. “Is that the word you’re looking for?”
He looked away, those gold eyes burdened with sadness and regret. “At first it was business. I wanted to take you to dinner that first night just so I could get you to speak more freely, but then we connected so well in the limo.”
“Oh I’ll say!”
“And I can’t even explain it. You’re going to think it’s a line,” he said, loosening his grip on her shoulders, at least enough so that Addison could wriggle free of him again. “But I swear it’s not. After we first started kissing in the limo, it felt like I’d known you from before, like I’d even known you my whole entire life. Then I fell for you so hard, especially by the time we left Al Ain. I didn’t want to get the information from you, definitely not in bed and not like it happened.”
“But you still got it, and you couldn’t wait till even the next day to run off to your sister so she could start the calls and all the subterfuge, right?”
“The final deadline for the merger—if it’s going to happen at all and help keep us competitive in certain areas—well, yes, it is drawing rapidly near. If there were more time to deal with it, I’d have done the reporting of the facts more covertly. I’m so sorry. I just need you to understand that you weren’t some deal, Addy. It wasn’t all about machinations and collusion,” he said, stroking her chin with his hand.
Addison pulled back and scrubbed hard at the skin there, as if it could remove the heat of his touch. “Don’t.”
“Addy, please.”
“No,” she said, feeling the tears flowing furiously down her cheeks now. “Just don’t. I’m going back to Boston, and if you care about me at all, then you won’t try and contact me. Good-bye, Zahir.”
Chapter Eight
“You might want to shower sometime soon, sis,” Will said, offering her a cup of cocoa.
She grumbled a bit in bed but sat up anyway and gladly accepted his treat. Addison didn’t know who she was kidding with her surly guest act. Will was a godsend for her. He’d welcomed her home with open arms and an offer he couldn’t deliver on to hunt Zahir down—security be damned—and deck the other guy. Or maybe it was possibly beat him with a shovel. Either revenge fantasy sounded great to her right about now. However, she’d been home two weeks and had maybe left her bed all of eight times, and none of those times had been to even journey as far as the fridge. And, yes, now that he’d reminded her, she was pretty sure that she hadn’t showered in two days, at least.
Wait, it was still Monday, right?
Oh crap, what day is it?
Frowning up at her brother (she dared not incriminate herself by giving her body a test sniff), Addison sighed. “I don’t reek that badly, do I?”
“You do know it’s Friday right? You smell beyond ripe, sis, and that asshole doesn’t deserve it.”
“I got duped big time by him. You don’t understand at all. It was like every fairy tale I’d ever heard of. I was suddenly Julia Roberts, and he was Richard Gere. It was the best experience of my life, and yet all of it was a lie. I can’t even breathe. I don’t have a job or a boyfriend and now I’ve been used utterly. You must think I’m the biggest idiot,” Addison finished, taking a deep sip of the chocolatey goodness he’d brought for her.
At least that would make her feel better. It felt these days like nothing would make the pain in her chest stop. Just as she set the mug down on her bedside table, the agony erupted again, like a gaping wound in her chest that just wouldn’t let her go.
Will shook his head. “I feel like the biggest idiot. I never should have let you take the job.”
“Excuse me? You let me?”
“No, but I was worried that he had an interest in you that was more than about your secretarial experience. I didn’t want to say anything because I didn’t want to undermine your confidence. I know now that I should have. Maybe I could have kept you from leaving the States, from being torn up so badly by all of this. But I was with you, Addison. I thought that for once you were having your Prince Charming come for you, that you were getting that happy ending. Besides, you were so sad and this huge company seemed legitimately interested in you. I wanted that ego boost for you because you are worth a lot more than you know.”
“Oh I know that I am now because I’m the best leak that Zahir ever found. Now he has every secret or, well, enough of those compiled secrets in order to get exactly what he wanted…and it’s just so much worse,” she hiccupped. Addison didn’t know what else to do. She’d carried the burden of the secret from Club Rouge for over a month, and her desire and need to follow that lust had led her to ruin. She needed someone to know just how deeply drawn to Zahir she was, how fully linked they were. “You don’t even know.”
Her brother offered her a pained smiled and squeezed her shoulder. “I will know if you tell me more about it.”
“You know that night at Club Rouge? I wasn’t just moping up on the roof.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s kind of hard to explain, but I wasn’t completely myself. I’d had so much with the Pabst and then even more with the cosmos. Then there was the most handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on there, and he was the only guy who seemed to put any effort into his costume. He had all these regal sheikh’s robes, and we…I…please just don’t make me say the rest out loud.”
Her brother blanched. “You don’t have to say much else. I think I can fill in the blanks nicely,” he said. “Was that Zahir? I mean, what are the odds?”
“Maybe he knows the same frat guys as you do,” she said, shrugging her shoulders ruefully. “I realized exactly who he was when I went to my interview, but I’d had that huge, ornate mask on and he never seemed to get it. I was a fool. I was chasing my passion and now I’m just a mess.”
Her brother hugged her then and rocked her in his arms, shushing her a bit as he did so. “No, you’re really not. I’m the dumbass who took you out to a party on the worst day of your life and thought that it might actually help you. I’m the complete tool who left you to go hang out with his ex-frat bros. And I should have known all along that something bigger was going on. I mean, so much for twin instinct or anything else, right?” he said, hugging her again.
She shook her head and buried herself deeply in her twin’s embrace. “You’re here now, and I couldn’t face Mom and Dad right now. Mom is like psychic, and she’d figure far too much out before I said even one word. I can’t do that at all. You gave me a place to stay and a great shoulder to lean on. Hell, you’ve even been fetching me food and chocolate all week. I can’t top
that at all.”
“Maybe I enable you, but you’ve had the shittiest month or so that I can imagine. Just rest, sis, and we’ll figure it all out in the morning.”
“I’d like that.”
***
“You should be happier,” Fairuza said, her tone clipped.
Zahir could discern the censure in her voice. That came as no surprise to him. She’d glared at him ever since Addison had left the palace. She’d warned him not to play with her emotions like this, and he’d thought he could balance everything, that he could make it work for everyone. He should have known better. He should have known that there was no way to keep everything in check. But he’d wanted it all, damn it, and now he only had the financial gains. They felt weak and pale in his grasp.
He leaned back in his chair and gazed daggers back at her. “I’m thrilled. I’m ecstatic. I’m practically on cloud nine that now Clayton’s business is plummeting and half of our fellow oil sheikhs are suing him to smithereens. It’s made acquiring his company quite the steal. See a pun and a mission accomplished.”
His sister shook her head and began to pace a bit, her high heels clacking efficiently on the tile beneath them. “You don’t need to be so sarcastic.”
“What is there to be happy about? It’s been weeks since Addison left and everything else feels pointless.”
“You have all the steel now that Amun Petrol could ever want. I…you need to either move on—”
“I can’t!” he shouted, slamming his fist against his desk so loudly that he feared for a moment the glass top would shatter upon impact. It shivered there for a moment but seemed to maintain its integrity, much to Zahir’s relief. “I can’t just get over her.”
“Then, brother, I was going to say that you need to make it up to her. I warned you not to play with her heart as you did, and I know that you didn’t mean it, that you got caught up and really do love her, but Addison doesn’t know that. Now you need to figure out a way to show her.”
“She’s screened my calls and e-mails.”
“Oh don’t be pathetic. You have one of the fastest private jets in the world on standby.”
“So you’re saying?”
“Go get her, Zahir. I have no use for someone so mopey around the palace, and the glower doesn’t suit you.”
***
“I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a teller,” she said honestly. “I’m not trying to be picky, Will, and I know you do well enough at the bank, but I tend to get nervous under pressure. At least in certain ways. I’m the girl who freaked out and spilled coffee over one of the richest men in America. I think if I had to do everything on a Friday afternoon when everyone is rushing home from work, I’d just mess it up big time,” she admitted, biting her lip and frowning over the application open on her laptop. “Is that okay?”
Her brother sighed. “You do need a job, and just because one ended badly and one wasn’t what you thought it could be…”
“I was pretty much used and discarded.”
“You ran,” he countered. “Whether you were there for ulterior motives, you still moved across the planet to a country where you didn’t speak the language and earned the respect of the other personal assistants in the pool. That means you’re a lot more competent than you think. Just fill it out, and we can start you off in something easier than teller rush line. I promise.”
She nodded and started clacking the keys, filling out everything almost as if she were a robot on autopilot, but her heart wasn’t in it. Right now, she felt like the most incompetent idiot on the planet, and she just didn’t know what to do with her life, no matter how much Will tried to lift her spirits. She was a screw up, and she knew it.
“What a mess you’ve made, Addison,” she said to herself as she typed further.
Then her cell rang and she stopped, gaping at the number. There was no way she was seeing the correct return address on the caller ID. That was the most insane thing in a life suddenly filled with batshit craziness.
Her first reaction was to ignore it. But then, feeling her heart flutter with anxiety, she picked up her phone and answered.
Please don’t be sending me some court summons soon. God, please…
“Oh Addison, how nice to finally be speaking with you,” Clayton said.
She rolled her eyes at his theatrics, relieved he couldn’t see her. Of course he’d be annoyed that she’d picked up on the fourth ring. After all, it was Mr. McDermott’s world and she just lived in it. He needed answers on the first ring, but she didn’t work for him anymore.
“What can I do for you?”
“I wanted you to talk. Can you please come to my office? I’d much rather discuss matters in the office and try to find a private way to settle everything than drag you into court. It’s not as if I can get any money from you anyway.”
She paled, and even when she spoke, her voice came out as a high squeak. “But the coffee didn’t even burn you, and I paid to replace your suit.”
“No, Miss Morgan. There’s that sticky issue of the nondisclosure agreement you signed. I know that you had to be the leak for Amun, and I’m not pleased. If you don’t want to be sued into oblivion, then you need to come to my office, and now. Don’t think I won’t end what’s left of you. Now get down here.”
She shuddered to herself long after the phone clicked off. It seemed that no matter what she had done or hadn’t done that her life was always circling Clayton McDermott. She was always under his thumb. It wasn’t enough that Zahir had played with her heart and torn her apart. Now she had to deal with Mr. McDermott’s wrath.
“Perfect, freaking perfect,” she muttered to herself and then rushed to get showered. If she were going to get served, at least she’d do it with clean hair, damn it.
Chapter Nine
It occurred to her that things seemed very odd as she entered the office. Most everything was darkened and there was no one else currently working on the floor. That made no sense. Even on Saturdays and Sundays, he had the executive pulling ninety-hour weeks. Hell, she’d had more than one weekend ruined by him forcing her to come in because he “just needed” something covered ASAP. This place was now a ghost town, and it made the goose bumps rise on her skin.
But she did see a light coming from his office. Steeling herself for yet another harsh confrontation with her former boss, Addison walked up and knocked on the door. His cold gaze regarded her, yet something was very different about him. His suit wasn’t quite so crisply steam cleaned and he had a day or two of scruff over his chin, obscuring that famous dimple of his.
What is going on here?
Mr. McDermott stood up and bowed a bit, and who knew actions could be so sarcastic?
“Miss Morgan, how nice of you to join me.”
She glared up at him but crossed the threshold anyway. “Look, I’m having a really terrible, well, life, and if you and I could find a quick way for you not to sue me, then that would be really great. I don’t want to do theatrics, and this place is so creepy and feels shut down. I honestly don’t get it.”
He quirked his head back at her, even as he shut the door behind them. “Do you not get it at all? You shot your big mouth off to Zahir, and he used that as leverage with so many of his buddies in the UAE I’d screwed over. I’ve been sued into oblivion. There’s nothing left of my steelworks, at least nothing that I own. Zahir was sure to swoop in and buy the controlling interest. You’ve ruined me. Over a decade of hard work and it was blown out by fucking pillow talk.”
She stiffened at the way he phrased that, her heart pounding even harder than before. It was then that she noticed the drained handle of Vodka and the discarded container of orange juice on his desk. It wasn’t just his clothes that had been through the ringer. Mr. McDermott was a complete mess.
Who gets drunk dialed by their boss?
Suddenly, it occurred to her that it was a very bad thing she’d come here without telling her brother that she was going
to be back at the office. She’d been so hopeful she could maybe avoid being sued with some vigorous begging that Addison had wanted to keep the truth from him. And if the office were open as was usual, that would have been fine. But she was keenly aware of how utterly isolated she was in this moment.
How alone and vulnerable.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “Zahir threw us both. I didn’t even realize what I was saying.”
“Lies,” he said, and he was so fast then, stalking across the room and pinning her against the wall. He reeked of Vodka and stale cigarettes, and she wanted to scream. She even tried to but he covered her mouth with one hand, even as his body pressed her closer to the wall. It was so tight that her back hurt from the pressure. “Oh no, you’re not going to scream. You’re the one who ruined me, and I’m not an idiot. I set your salary for so long. You don’t make anything, like me now. But I have to get my money’s worth somehow, have to make you feel as ruined as I do.”
She tried to say anything, but when she opened her mouth, she tasted the gross salt on the palm of his clammy hand. Still, she tried her best to buck against him, to whine through her throat. Maybe there was a stray maintenance worker…anyone who might help her if she made some noise.
“No,” he said, reaching out to yank hard on her hair even as his hips and the heft of him kept her hopelessly pinned to the wall. He pulled her hair again, and she saw stars. “I’m definitely going to have to get something from you, and I think we both know what that is.”
Suddenly his hands were pawing at other places, trying to get her T-shirt off even as she struggled. Tears were running down her face and she was so scared—frightened enough to close her eyes for a moment even as she tried to fight him off. And then…
There was no weight on her at all.
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