Sold to the King

by Falcone, Carmen

  Not so fast. She grabbed her bag with her ID and wallet, but still decided on giving him a hard time. “You mean I’m leaving my prison? Thank you. Should I bow now in appreciation?”

  He erased the distance between them and the annoyance in his expression faded away. Dipping his head, he whispered, dangerously close to her ear, “No. You can show your appreciation later.”

  A shiver zapped down her spine. She jerked away from him, desperate to leash her internal reactions. She’d come to terms with surrendering to the attraction when they had sex. But, in the light of day, she had to keep focused. “Let’s see if I have a lot to be thankful for.”

  “You’re skating on thin ice, Izzy. I could have locked you up last night.”

  Technically, she had been locked up in her room and not in prison. They’d brought her a delicious dinner and breakfast. The snarky response hung at the tip of her tongue. “Why didn’t you?”

  He gestured for her to leave and impatience flashed in his eyes. “Let’s go.”

  Izzy ran her fingers through her hair, every part of her vulnerable to this man. Ah, how she hated it. He led her through the hallways, and she followed him, aware if she ran the other way and yelled, he’d simply get his claws on her. What if he intended to help her and not fool her?

  Maybe he meant well.

  By the time they reached the underground garage, Guban talked to him in their native African language, fast. Even if she spoke beyond the superficial greetings, she’d never pick it up. Nassor opened the door of a compact blue Fiat car. Well, if he wanted to go unnoticed, this was certainly the right type of vehicle. She slid in and fastened her seat belt. When he occupied the seat next to hers, she turned to him. “You’re driving?”

  “Yes. I only have three hours, at most. Then I need to come back and do what I was supposed to be doing.” As a king. He didn’t have to say the words, they hung in the air like pollen in the springtime.

  She sighed. He had a million reasons to assign someone he trusted to take her, and yet he’d done it himself. A pang of guilt pinched her. “Thank you.” She reached for his hand over the steering wheel, an easy feat since the car was so damn small.

  He glanced at her, nodding, and she removed her hand from his and inhaled.

  He took off, and she looked behind them for a moment. Another small car followed them, even when he drove away from the gates. Made sense—he couldn’t just leave without any type of protection.

  “What brought your stepmother to my country?” he asked, slipping on a pair of sunglasses.

  “I told you, she came to meet a man she met online,” she said. Maybe he asked her the question again to see if she’d stick to her original story. She folded her arms.

  “She couldn’t meet someone in America?”

  I asked her the exact same question. “I don’t know. Couldn’t you meet a virgin in your country?” she said, realizing the bitterness in her voice.

  He fixed his sunglasses. “You care about her.”

  “Yeah,” she said softly. “She was the only constant I’ve had in my life. She meant well. Her husband—a good man who always wanted to be a father—adopted me, then he met her. He had a heart attack and died shortly after their marriage, and she could have given up on me, but she didn’t.”

  “Mothers are important.”

  She looked out the window. She supposed she could’ve called Mary her mother, but the word stepmother somehow gave her an odd sense of security. “They are,” she said, emotion thickening her voice. She kept on staring at the scenery, but not registering anything but a blur of green and gray. Her heart shrank, nostalgia creeping under her skin. Please, Mary, help me find out what happened.

  “Let me rephrase the question: What was so important about this man to make her come all the way here?” he asked.

  She arranged herself on her seat, facing ahead, and stretching her legs as much as she could. “I guess he told her all the sweet romantic things she longed to hear from a man. After my adoptive father Harold died…she wanted to find love again. She believed in love until the end.” And ended up making the wrong choices.

  “You don’t?”

  She scratched her head. Did she? “The people I loved either died, disappeared, or got hooked on drugs. So, yeah, love sucks.”

  “I meant between a man and a woman. Or two men and two women.” He shrugged. “You catch my drift.”

  “Do you? Are you going to love all your ten wives?” she asked, hating herself for her smart-assness. The idea of Nassor with any other woman, let alone a few, brought bile to the back of her throat, and she had to touch her neck to keep the nausea from floating up.

  “I’ll vow to protect them, and cherish them. That’s love.”

  “No. A golden retriever can protect and cherish you. Love…has to be different. Has to be more.” A strange sensation swept through her, warming her insides. She wasn’t sure if she believed she’d ever find love, but damn it, it had to be more meaningful than an arranged marriage to a handful of people. “Love is committing yourself to one person.”

  “So you do believe.”

  She wrinkled her nose, unable to give in. She’d believed in the past, so many times, only to get hurt. What would change now? What had changed? Nothing. “I believe people believe.”

  He chuckled, a hearty male sound that almost made her smile too. “You can be a pain in the ass.”

  “What are you trying to get me to say? Have you imagined what your life will be like with four or five wives? I mean, the practicality of everyday life.”

  He gave her a sideways glance, then focused on the road. She noticed how he clasped the steering wheel, the relaxed expression from earlier disappearing. “I don’t know, honestly. I know people who have more than one wife, but until recently it’s not something I intended to do.”

  “Then why do it?”

  “It’s expected of me. I’m the king, and in our society, as backward as it may seem, marriage to nobility is a way to move up in life.”

  “How altruistic.”

  He skidded off the road, rolling the car onto the shoulder, bringing it to a stop. For a beat or two, he remained silent, looking ahead. She turned to study him. The vein in his neck pulsated. “My mom was the rebel of the family. She took off, raised me how she wanted.”

  She cleared her throat. Tension crackled in the air, and a part of her warned her not to keep pushing him. Why did she care about the choices he made? His happiness or marital status were none of her business. She drummed her fingers on her leg. Shit. I can’t let go. “She doesn’t strike me as a rebel any longer.”

  “She’s trying her best to make amends, and she wants what’s best for me.”

  “She wants you to choose the path she didn’t. She wants you to be a better man than your father was to her.”

  “That’s not a high bar. He finally married then, and took off to Italy shortly after. Honestly, I don’t care much for him. He’s brought nothing but disruption. How about you? Do you remember your father?”

  “Not enough,” she said honestly. Though she still remembered Harold’s kind smile and warm hug, every day she lost a little bit more. Sadness clutched her heart. “I worry I’ll forget about her, too, you know. My stepmother,” she said, her voice thick and raw. “She was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mother. Closer than my biological mother.” Thankfully, she’d been able to suppress most of her childhood memories including her biological parents.

  “Mary Roberts was lucky to have you. You came all this way to find out the truth, Izzy. A lot of others wouldn’t. They would wallow in self-pity, or grief and move on, but you’re not a quitter.”

  Tears stung behind her eyelids, but she blinked and wiped the clear liquid from her eye before it even touched her cheek. “Thank you.”

  He squeezed her hand, and the touch shot up a strand of warmth th
at moved all the way up her chest, filling with hope.

  She gave him an apologetic smile. “I don’t like when people see me like this.”

  “I know.”

  “My students think I’m the devil,” she said, in an effort to lighten the mood. She bet her students also deep down missed her smart-ass comments, ever since she asked for a long leave without pay—the only way to get so much time off from school.

  After the intense sex the previous night and this heart-to-heart conversation, she had to protect herself. When she left, she’d return to her life in Vegas. He’d marry a handful of women and work on his legacy.

  “You make hell seem like a good place.”

  She slapped his forearm. “Shut up. Let’s go.”

  He turned on the engine and flashed her a smile that rose all the hairs at the back of her neck. Her heart skipped a beat. Damn. The sooner this month ended, the better.

  Chapter Eight

  Nassor pulled at the baseball cap he wore. He’d also kept his sunglasses on—with the shirt and jeans, he doubted the clerk at the bed-and-breakfast would recognize him easily.

  He slid out of the car and went around to open the door to Izzy.

  She got out, and they marched to the entrance of the inn.

  A couple of guests left as they entered, and he tilted his head the other way to protect his anonymity. He had a meeting in two hours with important world leaders and needed to focus ahead of time. But he didn’t trust anyone with Izzy.

  He also wanted to spend more time with her. Confusion nagged at him, and he scratched his chin. Why? A marriage with several women would be good, because he’d never have to give himself fully to one person. Hell, his mother had, and what had happened to her? She’d ended up alone for most of the time, with an unreliable partner, raising her child, and shunned for several years. The odds were better if he had more options.

  “Hello.” The clerk greeted them in Gwokondenese.

  “Do you speak English?” Izzy asked, leaning on the counter.

  The man nodded. “How can I help you, miss? Would you like a room?”

  She reached into her bag, and retrieved a picture of her stepmother. “This woman stayed here a year ago. I’d like to know more about her stay, and if you have any information about where she could have gone after she checked out.”

  The clerk, a short and slim twentysomething with a name tag that read Camar, studied the picture. “I’m sorry, but we can’t give information about our guests.”

  “I came all the way from the United States…this is extremely important. Please,” she said, urgency lacing her voice.

  Nassor jammed his hand into his pocket and picked a few large bills. “We really appreciate your assistance,” he said, handing them to the clerk. Of course he could have used his title as the king to get the information, but that would bring him more problems than benefits.

  The man shoved the bills in his pocket and lifted the picture, squinting at it. “I don’t remember her… Let me ask Nsia. She has been working here for longer,” he said, then walked into the back office.

  Nassor squeezed Izzy’s shoulder, feeling the tension stiffening her body. “Relax. It’ll be okay.”

  She thinned her lips. Damn it, she cared about her stepmother. Was she ready to hear the truth? That maybe Mary had demons of her own which came to light during her trip, and she’d resorted to using drugs? Frustration thickened his throat. He’d had to come to terms with some bad decisions his mother had made when he’d been a child, but thankfully, she’d never turned to drugs.

  Camar returned with a lady in her sixties with a long white braid and reading glasses. “This is Nsia.”

  Nsia fixed her glasses and glanced at the picture. “Yes, I remember her. Nice lady. Gave the housekeeper a tip on her arrival day. Not a lot of people are so generous,” she said in English.

  “Do you remember a man staying with her?” he asked.

  Nsia fixed her reading glasses, adjusting them over the bridge of her nose. “A man visited, yes.”

  “Was his name Obasi Akenzua? African man in his mid-fifties with a goatee?”

  “Honey, I don’t know his name. He looked good, and had a goatee. He and the white lady were in love,” Nsia said.

  “How did they pay for their stay?” Nassor asked. Maybe if the man had used a credit card, he could trace his address and find him.

  She shrugged. “He paid cash.”

  Nassor’s gut clenched. He didn’t expect all the answers, but at least a hint as to what might’ve happened. He studied Izzy’s profile, her lips set in a hard line.

  “Did they mention anything about visiting a city or place after here?” Izzy said.

  Nsia looked up at the ceiling, running her hand down her neck as she probably tried to remember. Then, she glanced at Izzy, with a trace of regret in her eyes. “No. All I remember is he seemed like a busy man. His cell phone rang a lot.”

  He ran his fingers down his face. “Anything else?”

  “No, sorry. We have a lot of guests, but not many from the United States—and certainly not women traveling on their own.”

  “We appreciate your time.” He took another chunk of bills and gave it to her. He was no longer buying information, but hoped the money would help her stay silent about their questioning. “And your discretion about our little chat.”

  “No problem,” she said, peering up at him for a second, then leaning closer onto the counter that divided them. “You have a familiar face…has anyone ever told you that you look like the new king a little bit?”

  He waved her off. “Ah. I get that all the time.”

  She put the chunk of money in her pocket. “Well, let’s hope you’re a better man than he is. Rumor has it he’ll continue his uncle’s crappy administration. That’s what you get when your king wasn’t even groomed for the job…” She shook her head, glancing up at the ceiling. “…just some unprepared moron.”

  Izzy touched his elbow, silently offering him comfort. The words from the stranger cut him like a blade, because he knew others shared her view. He’d start his time as a king with a good amount of the population already skeptical, to say the least. He’d have to prove that, even though he shared DNA with his uncle, he’d make a fair leader who prioritized his people.

  Izzy gave his elbow a squeeze, as if prompting him not to show any emotion, and talked to Nsia. “Can I see the room where she stayed? I want a picture in my mind.”

  Nsia pointed at the board behind her with room rates. “We can’t show rooms we aren’t renting.”

  “I’ll rent one,” Izzy said.

  …

  Izzy closed the door behind them.

  A part of her knew a whole year had passed since her stepmother had stayed here, in the compact yet efficient space with a full bed, a small plasma TV and a thick Bible on the nightstand next to a lamp. She opened the armoire in the corner to find an ironing board and a bag.

  “Nothing?” Nassor said. “I should get back in an hour or so.”

  Izzy walked up to him. He hadn’t mentioned it, but damn, she’d seen the disappointment in his eyes when Nsia cracked that ill-timed joke. She’d wanted to strangle the woman, but restrained herself. Why the hell did she care? She’d go home in three weeks—hopefully with the answers to her questions.

  “The lady said your stepmother seemed happy.”

  Izzy sat at the edge of the bed. “I’m sure she believed she was. Why would a happy person, in love, resort to drugs? Doesn’t add up.”

  He pulled a chair across from her. “A lot doesn’t make sense. If he received many phone calls, he may have a demanding job.”

  “Drug dealers are a hot commodity everywhere.”

  Nassor ran his fingers in his hair. “I doubt Obasi sold illegal drugs. I know a lot about the drug dealers we’re fighting in my country. They tend t
o be young. The young ones push the older ones out of the market.”

  “I’m more confused than before. What’s next?”

  “I’ll ask my security to do a background check and see what he can dig up on Obasi. I was hoping we could get at least an address lead on our own, but we’ll do what we have to.” He let out a sigh, skimming the interior. “Have you considered maybe she came here, had a good time with this man, and got caught up in the wrong situation? She was robbed, and the robbers decided it’d be easier to pump heroin into her so the authorities wouldn’t look into it.”

  “Why would anyone waste expensive drugs on a stranger?”

  “Because she was an American tourist and they could get in serious trouble with the law.”

  The idea had crossed her mind, but even then, she still needed the culprit to pay for the crime. His motivations mattered less than his actions. “To cover it up?”

  “Yes, and that’s the same reason Obasi disappeared too. Even if he were innocent, he wouldn’t want to be linked to the drug lords. He’d be dead.”

  Coward. How could anyone declare their love to another and fail to get justice in a situation like that? Because they didn’t know each other well. Deep down, it was just sex—like me and Nassor. A trace of apprehension ran through her. “I’m not sure. What kind of jerk wouldn’t ensure the death of a loved one didn’t get sorted out?”

  “He was scared. Fear makes people make all sorts of mistakes.”

  “You’re perceptive.”

  He shrugged. “According to Nsia, I’m also your common mutt.” He said it nonchalantly, but she detected a pang of distress in his voice, especially toward the last word. Because of his situation growing up, was he called a mutt often?

  “She’s an idiot.” She leaned down and took his face in her hands. “You’ll be a fine king. You know why? Because you care, Nassor. You cared enough to come with me to figure out what really happened.”

  “Well, I’ve had my own agenda, too. It’s my kingdom. I need to know what’s going on.”