Don’t Lie to Me

by Amber Bardan

  I shuddered. Would I be sent to jail?

  A knot filled my throat. I was so screwed. There was no working in my field if you couldn’t provide a clean crime check.

  The phone on the desk chimed. The officer picked up the receiver. A frown swept across his brows. He turned to his computer, hitting a few keys in sharp snaps. “Yes, Sergeant.”

  He hung up the phone. “Miss Neeson, you are free to go.”

  I stared at the cop. “Free, free?”

  “Yes. Free, free.” He picked up the evidence bag the necklace had been placed in, and handed it over. “This is yours.”

  I glanced between the bag and him. “It’s not. It was a mistake, I told you that.”

  He frowned again. “I’ve been informed it’s yours.”

  What? I didn’t push the point in case they decided to keep me after all, and took the necklace. “Thanks. I can just go?”

  “You can just go.” He’d already turned back to his computer.

  I stood and shoved the necklace into my bag. They were really going to let me leave? I started toward the exit doors. They’d made a mistake. Oh, shit. Now I really was going to be guilty of stealing.

  A young constable rose and came toward me. Dammit. They’d realized the mistake. I held my breath. The constable swiped his pass and opened the secure door for me.

  I exhaled and tried to stop myself from running through. The reason for my sudden freedom waited in the reception.

  Avner.

  He stood against the opposite wall, hands in pockets. The wound in my chest came open. The days I’d spent missing him struck me like a sword.

  He looked at me silently, his frown consuming his features. I hugged my bag to my chest. He inclined his head toward the exits.

  I followed him outside to his car. He opened the passenger door for me. I couldn’t pass through or go inside. I was wrong, he’d watched me but he hadn’t looked at me—not once. Not the way he always did. Not the way he sized me up in a look, and saw right into the middle of me. As though he knew all the things I’d never dare say.

  Now he seemed like a stranger.

  I waited in front of him, swallowing despite the stickiness of my mouth.

  Karim had called Avner.

  Everyone I loved would be thinking the worst of me. They’d fixed it and protected me anyway—they were loyal. But they’d think the worst.

  My rich, attractive, successful, so completely out of my league friends would think I was a petty thief.

  “I didn’t—” I stared at his open-shirt collar. The pressure building over the past months, and more intensely these past few days, exploded.

  “I. Wasn’t. Stealing.”

  My chest shuddered, and the sobs burst free. My body curled over the handbag clutched to my chest. Roughly, he hauled me against him. My bag fell to the ground. I clutched his sides, crying as I hadn’t since I was a kid and Mum was around to hug me.

  The sounds jerking out of me weren’t dainty.

  There hadn’t been much point in crying since then, the only thing it ever got me was in deeper trouble.

  He held me tighter, as though he could squeeze all the pain out of me. I hiccupped, sure now that I had no idea what exactly I was crying over. He rubbed me, fingers digging into my back, breath shooshing against my hair as though each sound I made tore something out of him.

  And I remembered this feeling, his fingers kneading at me like this, from when we’d made love—the desperation for something I couldn’t understand other than I wanted it so badly.

  Like I wanted to be back in his bed so much. Wanted to be taken care of the way he cajoled me into being taken care of.

  Like I wanted him standing behind me, calling himself my man again.

  Why did everything have to be so complicated?

  I gasped breathlessly against the fresh cotton of his shirt.

  Why didn’t I get to be happy?

  He said something into my temple, and his thick arms almost crushed me.

  I had no idea how long we stood in the police station car park with his car door wide open, hugging. I don’t remember getting inside, or buckling my seatbelt. All I remember is that we sat inside the car for what felt like just as long without even starting the engine. With Avner in his seat and me in mine, until he finally said something I’d calmed down enough to understand.

  “I know you weren’t stealing.” He leaned against his seat, but turned his face toward me. “I know who you are.”

  I felt battered and bruised. Punched in the face. Wrung out so completely the energy to speak was almost out of reach. “You don’t need to lie to make me feel better. You couldn’t look at me.”

  The frustrated huff of his breath filled the car. Even in the dark, I saw his face compress, and it seemed to me that maybe words were almost out of reach for him too.

  “I couldn’t look at you because the last time I saw you, you attempted to break up with me in a restaurant.”

  I shut my eyes, my chin quivering up. I didn’t need to hear that right now.

  “Because you haven’t taken my calls.”

  I covered my face, less childish than covering my ears, which I wanted to do.

  “Because you got in trouble and didn’t call me.”

  That’s the word his deep voice caught on, the word that sent my hands flying from my face. He leaned through the short space between us and seized me by the nape of my neck. “Because it’s all I can do not to drive this damn car to the docks and put you in a yacht, chained or otherwise.”

  His breath went rushing. My skin prickled with awareness—of his proximity, his grip on me, my own need for him, of the utter unjoking honesty of that claim. Here was a man who would keep me captive on a yacht. Not because of a misunderstanding, as had happened with our friends—because he wanted to. He wanted to have me. To keep me. Seeing him now, I couldn’t fathom how he’d been so restrained.

  How he possibly resisted coming after me.

  Why hadn’t he fought harder?

  Maybe he knows this is doomed too.

  I took him by the back of his neck. Tension thrummed between us, both holding each other the same way, but this time it was my turn to say something. My gaze flicked over the strong column of his nose, the point of his chin and the darkened pools of his eyes.

  I wanted to confess.

  I licked my lips, wanting to pour out my fears. Make it all better by telling him how I felt for him—that letting him go had been so very difficult.

  He was my man. I wanted to be his woman.

  I should’ve said all that, but I kissed him instead. Smooshed my lips against his, and for a while it was like kissing stone. I felt his teeth under his lips and the ridges of his cheekbones hard under my splaying fingers. He kept his eyes open, not resisting, not kissing me back.

  Then he drew a breath right from my lungs, and his mouth came alive. His tongue invaded my mouth, curling against mine. He drew me closer by my nape, and his other arm clamped around me. I strained against the seatbelt, sinking into him as much as I could over the console. I drank in every luscious drag of lips.

  A ringtone sounded.

  He went stiff.

  No. No. No. I kept kissing him, but he’d stopped. Don’t run off again—not right now. He drew back despite my clinging. I couldn’t keep my whimper inside.

  “It’s Haithem,” he whispered, and ran his fingers over his mouth in a way that had my heart sinking. Why hadn’t Angelina answered her phone?

  Why hadn’t she come?

  He answered in Arabic, and that for some reason sent my stomach churning with dread. He spoke in a hushed voice for a few moments, then hung up.

  “What’s happened?”

  He tucked his phone away, and stared at me. “Angelina�
�s in hospital.”

  “What?” I gripped my seatbelt.

  “She’s okay. She hit her head, but she’s alright.”

  I wiggled back in the seat. “What are we still doing parked here, take me to the hospital.”

  He took a breath, perhaps to argue with something stupid, like it wasn’t visiting hours.

  “Now,” I growled.

  He sighed, then buckled his seatbelt and started the engine.

  * * *

  I let Avner deal with the hospital staff, because deal he would, and took myself directly into Angelina’s private room. Angelina lay facing away from the door, her hand gripped in both of Haithem’s. He sat in a chair beside her, his lips pressed to her knuckles.

  He glanced up when I entered, for a moment his expression was completely unguarded.

  She’s dying...

  I froze at the foot of her bed, my fingers suddenly tingling.

  “What happened, Avner said you hit your head?”

  She rolled over.

  “Well, hi,” she said, far too chipper for a dying person.

  Haithem released her hand.

  “I’m fine.” She scooted up. “Would everyone please calm the hell down.”

  “Then why does he—” I jabbed my finger toward Haithem “—look like he’s about to have an entire litter of kittens.”

  Angelina glanced at Haithem then back at me. Fine. I unclipped her chart. I’d get to the bottom of it myself.

  “I’ll give you ladies a minute.” Haithem stood, snatched the chart from me with a frown and clipped it back to the bed, then left.

  “I fainted, Em, that’s all.” Angelina patted the space beside her.

  I sat next to her hip, and brushed aside the bangs on her forehead, squinting at the too-tiny-to-warrant-a-hospital-admission bump. “Why did you faint?”

  She sighed.

  I turned my hand over and felt the cool skin of her forehead. “Were you gardening without a hat again?” All that damn country domestic crap they’d suddenly gotten into. I knew it couldn’t be healthy.

  “No, Emma.” Her cheeks flushed.

  “Has your period been heavy?” I whispered, and scanned her face, ignoring her cringe. “Didn’t you read the paper I sent you on anemia? You do look pale, you know.”

  “No, my period has not been heavy.” She swallowed.

  Oh, fucking hell, this was bad. I withdrew my hand. She was sicker than I thought.

  “Because I have not had a period...”

  I frowned. Was she hinting at a hormonal imbalance? Did she have cystic ovaries?

  “I didn’t want to say anything yet, but I can see that’s not going to be an option.”

  Ovarian cancer.

  I grabbed her hand.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “Huh?” I released her. “Are you sure?”

  She laughed, her dimples flashing. “Yes.”

  “How do you know?” I scanned her body, gaze settling on her middle. She had seemed a little bloated lately. It still might be cysts.

  “I’ve had tests.”

  “Urine, or blood?”

  “Both.”

  I glanced back at her face. “I’m not too sure about the pathology department at this hospital, I’ve heard things—”

  “Emma.” This time she took my hand. “I’m having a baby.”

  “On purpose?”

  She laughed again. “On purpose.”

  I breathed out slowly. The contents of my head seemed to drain out with the air.

  “It’s okay if you’re not ready for this, babe.” She squeezed my fingers. “Because I’m ready.”

  We weren’t at the having-kids point in our lives yet, were we?

  “You’re really having a baby?” I moved my free hand to rest on top of the sheet covering her stomach. There wasn’t such obvious bulging as to give her away, but there was a person growing inside my best friend. My eyes tingled, and my throat went thick. “I can’t believe you’re having a baby.”

  Her whole face shone.

  “I’m going to be an auntie?”

  She smiled, and nodded. I laughed, and hugged her. She gave the happiest little sigh against me.

  I released her, sniffling.

  Angelina’s eyes slitted. “What is this, are you knocked up too?”

  “Shut your pregnant face.” I swiped at my eyes.

  Her giggle rang through the room.

  Pregnancy, menopause, I’m not sure what exactly had me in this strange emotional mess.

  “Just because Haithem—” I paused, eyes widening. “This is why he’s been like a giant overprotective hen!”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long have you two known?”

  “A couple of weeks, but it’s still really early.” Her voice went lighter. “I’ll have my first ultrasound in two weeks. Want to come?”

  Oh Jesus, my eyes blurred again.

  “Yes,” I said, then took a steadying breath. “You do realize you have history’s richest, biggest and most devoted handmaiden at your complete disposal for the next however many months it takes for you to hatch this baby?”

  Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “Yeah, it’s going to be awesome.”

  “Oh, it will be.” I laughed once, then a bit more, picturing Haithem’s paternal fussing.

  “Emma, do not torture my husband.”

  I held up my hand. “Relax, I won’t torture him. Much.”

  “How’s it going in here?”

  Speak of the devil.

  Haithem entered.

  “We’re all good.” She leaned up, her smile softening as her gaze settled on her husband.

  “Her neck is straining.” I looked at Haithem. “I think she needs another pillow.”

  I’d never seen a man move so fast as he did exiting the room. Giggles burst through the fist I pressed to my mouth.

  “Emma...”

  “What? It’s friendly torture.” I grinned at her. “Come on, it’s adorable.”

  “Yeah, it is adorable.” Her lips quirked, and she settled back against her perfectly adequate pillows.

  Haithem returned, and wiggled an extra pillow behind her head. The look that passed between them made me shiver.

  In that second I’d have sawn off my own left arm to be looked at like that.

  I eased my hand from Angelina’s. Her fingers brushed the base of my wrist.

  She glanced down, then bolted upright. “Where did you get that?”

  My hand flew to cover my watch. “Avner gave it to me.”

  Angelina looked at Haithem. Heat spread up my neck. Wasn’t he supposed to have given me one?

  “Would you send him in so we may share our news with Avner privately?” Haithem’s features remained impassive, but there was a bite to his words.

  Maybe the watch was a special private thing meant only for the two of them? A sliver of guilt moved through me. “Of course.”

  I hugged Angelina again. “I’m happy for you, babe.”

  Sorry for being a weirdo about it.

  She hugged me stiffly. “Thank you.”

  “Congratulations on your virile swimmers, Papa Bear.” I winked at Haithem.

  He smirked. “Thanks.”

  I left the room to find Avner.

  Avner

  “You lied to my wife.” Haithem pulled the door closed behind him. “The watch is exactly what she thinks it is.”

  “Of course I lied to her.” We stood in the hall. I’d lied to Angelina. I’d lied to Emma. And I’d lie to him. A nurse strode past us but unless she spoke Arabic, we were fine. “She’s pregnant and doesn’t need to be concerned by matters I have under control.”
/>   Haithem glanced at the door. “I don’t keep things from my wife.”

  Anymore, he meant. There’d been a time when he had. Where like me he’d protected his woman in the same way I’d now protect Emma.

  “Is that why you told her how her best friend was arrested today?”

  His teeth flashed. “Fine, I don’t want her worried either. That doesn’t mean I condone this.”

  I schooled my frustration. He’d gone soft. Angelina had made a puddle out of my once-strong friend. Now that she carried his child, he’d become hopeless. I’d need to sensor the truth from him as much as from Emma.

  “I’m looking out for her.” I planted my hand on his shoulder. “That’s how I was able to take care of this problem before Karim had to call. Before Angelina needed to be alarmed.”

  “I can’t believe Emma would steal something...” He stared off toward the waiting room.

  I didn’t follow his gaze. She’d despise me for this. I’d take her ire. She’d have more than this to hate me for if she knew half of what I planned. “Don’t judge her too harshly. Her best friend is the wealthiest woman in the world, and she doesn’t have a real job yet. It’s a difficult adjustment.”

  “We’d give her a job if she’d let us.”

  “Leave that to me.” I squeezed his shoulder. “I will look after Emma, you focus on your expecting wife.”

  “I will.” His gaze narrowed. “Take care of it, Avner.”

  I nodded and released him. I would. I’d take care of the things he knew about and the things he didn’t.

  “And congratulations, my friend.”

  Haithem grinned like a boy. “Thank you.”

  Lost cause.

  I waved in parting, and made my way to the waiting room. Emma rose to her feet—then pitched to the side. I crossed to her.

  She staggered back into the seat. I caught her arm.

  “Emma?”

  She ran a hand over her face and took a breath. “I’m okay.”

  “No, you’re not—”

  “Relax buddy.” She stood again with my help. “Don’t get any ideas I’m in the same way as Angelina—IUD, remember?”

  I scanned her body, gaze fixing on her middle—my chest clutched at her suggestion. No, I hadn’t thought of that, yet the idea implanted in my mind.