by Holly Rayner
She hung up before I could even answer her.
And I threw my phone in fury.
It hit the couch on the other side of the room rather than the wall, thank goodness, because I didn’t actually have the money to replace it. Even worse, the action didn’t make me feel even a little bit better.
This was the tenth publisher or editor who had turned me down on that particular article, and I was starting to get really, really pissed off. I’d been so sure that the interview with Aziz would score me a quick and easy sale, and instead, it seemed like that was the sticking point for everyone I approached.
Because they didn’t believe a lowly little freelance journalist would have been able to land an interview with such an important person.
And not a single one of them seemed to be able to think for more than three seconds and come to the realization that they could actually call the Al-Sharim headquarters, ask for Aziz’s email or assistant, and confirm with him that he’d actually done an interview with me.
It would have been the simplest thing in the world. And yet it seemed to be completely beyond their comprehension.
The truth was, the whole thing just meant that they didn’t know Aziz. Like, at all. He wasn’t an I-don’t-talk-to-the-little-people sort of person. He wasn’t snooty or stuck up. He was one of the most down-to-earth people I thought I’d ever met.
And the fact that I’d interviewed him—the thing I thought would make this a slam-dunk sale, and the thing I’d worked so freaking hard to make happen—was actually keeping me from selling that piece.
“I need to get a freaking agent,” I hissed to myself, not for the first time. It was something I’d been playing around with for some time, because if I had an agent—or a manager—they would be taking care of this for me.
They would be throwing their heavyweight reputation around, rather than me doing this delicate balancing act.
And they would also take a pretty big cut of my payment for doing so. I’d done the math again and again, and always came up with the same answer: the benefit didn’t make the price worthwhile. I was good enough at selling my own pieces that it had never made sense, at the end of the day, to lock myself into a commission for someone else.
That, and I couldn’t afford it.
It also didn’t usually matter. I could usually sell my own pieces. I had all the contacts, and I had a history that sold itself. My articles generally flew off the shelves. Digitally speaking.
And of course, right now, when so much was depending on this sale—including my chance to see Aziz again—I couldn’t move the stupid thing to save my freaking life.
I walked over, retrieved my phone, and started going through my contacts list again, looking for someone I hadn’t pitched on it, yet. There had to be someone out there I hadn’t contacted. Someone I could work on.
Someone who could save me.
Because this whole thing with not selling the piece was causing several problems. I hadn’t been able to get Aziz’s watch back, first of all, and I now had bills due that I didn’t have any money for. Plus, we were looking at another of my parents’ house payments coming up soon. Another bill I didn’t have any money for.
I needed a fix, and I needed it fast.
At that moment, a text came in. A text from Aziz.
“Are you okay? Please just let me know that you’re okay, and I’ll stop bothering you.”
I cringed, feeling guiltier than I probably ever had in my entire life.
Aziz had been texting me for the last two weeks, ever since we’d had our date, and I’d spent that two weeks avoiding his calls and texts. I hadn’t even responded to the one that let me know he was safely in Hawaii. Or the ones that included pictures of the sunsets. Or the ones that included his snorkeling trip, where he’d gotten close enough to sea turtles to touch them.
He’d been sharing things with me right from the start of his trip… until he finally stopped, because I wasn’t answering.
And I wasn’t answering because I knew I couldn’t see him again until I had his watch and could close that particular loophole. Only I wasn’t going to be able to do that until I sold that article!
I threw myself back into the well-worn easy chair and covered my face with my hands, trying desperately to think of an answer to my current predicament.
No less than twenty minutes later, having decided that I desperately needed something to do other than mope around in my apartment, worrying about how I was going to get things done and feeling incredibly sorry for myself, I got up, grabbed my keys, and went outside. My battered old jalopy was parked right in front of my apartment and I jumped in, revved the engine, and took off for the pawn shop.
My buy-back date was fast approaching, and I needed to make sure the owner of the shop knew that I still meant to come back for the watch. No, I didn’t have the money yet, but I would—and there was nothing wrong with telling him so. I might be a couple days late, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted that watch back. I needed that watch back.
The shop was close enough that it only took me fifteen minutes to get there, and I was able to avoid most of the red lights on the way, courtesy of knowing the smart times to drive in LA. I loved this town, but man were there some times when it was safe to drive and some times when it wasn’t.
Like when it rained. Definitely not safe to drive when it was raining.
The thought brought Aziz immediately to mind, and I cringed, remembering that magical night in Dubai—talking to him about that very thing—and the way I’d crept out the next morning. Then remembering him going out of his way to find me again…
And the way I’d been ghosting him ever since.
I hated it. But I also knew myself well enough to know that I wasn’t going to be comfortable seeing him again if I had to keep lying to him. Also, the whole thing about knowing that if he came back to see me, there was a good chance that he would already know that I’d taken the watch, and come asking questions.
Questions that I wasn’t sure how I could answer. Not until I had the watch back.
I needed to get that watch from the pawn shop so I could return it to Aziz and actually feel good about being around him again.
I needed to get it back so I could quiet the voice that had been screeching in the back of my mind ever since I’d sold it. Because if I couldn’t pull this off, I knew I’d never forgive myself—for the watch, or for losing Aziz over it.
At this point, I just had to hope that when I finally managed to get the article sold and the money in hand, Aziz was still interested enough in me to want to keep talking to me.
I put that thought to the side and sped through a yellow light, then went screeching into the parking lot of the pawn shop, my car bouncing and creaking at the sudden movement and generally sounding like it might fall apart at any moment.
Which, I thought, slamming on the breaks, it actually might. This thing had definitely seen better days. And I couldn’t exactly afford to replace or repair it right now. And not anytime in the near future.
I parked and jumped out of the car, my mind already on the conversation I was about to have. By the time I got through the door and into the shop, I knew the points that I needed to cover—and the things that I could reasonably promise.
I walked right up to the manger when I entered the store. He was, thankfully, not with another customer, and he looked up at me expectantly.
I slid the slip of paper he’d given me across the counter, pasting a smile on my face. “Hi, I pawned a fancy watch a couple weeks ago. This is the registration slip for it.”
He stared at the slip, frowning, and then turned that frown up toward me. “Are you here to pick it up?” he asked, in that way that pawn shop owners tend to ask you things. Mostly like they don’t have the time for you if you’re just fooling around. They’ve got important business going on and they need you to hurry it up, if you please.
I supposed that was probably a look you got when you were constantly d
ealing with people who were so broke that they were pawning their stuff.
People like me.
I was also starting to think that he wasn’t going to take well to the fact that I was just here to check on the watch rather than give him the money for it.
I took a deep breath and strove for both patience and professionalism.
“Not at the moment, but I wanted to make sure it was still here. I’m expecting a check any day now, and I’ll be here to pick it up then.”
His eyes narrowed at that, and he glanced back down at the slip. Then he walked to a case a little bit further down, his eyes on the glass in front of him, his fingertips tapping at the glass countertops.
A moment later, he shook his head. “Sold it,” he said firmly. “Yesterday.” He looked up at me, his face cold. “You’re late picking it up. I told you the date I would put it on sale.”
“Wait, what?” I snapped. “You told me a date, but it’s not until next week! What do you mean, you sold it?”
He stared at me for a moment like he was actually considering how to answer me, and then shrugged like he’d decided that it didn’t even matter. “Sold it yesterday,” he repeated. “Sorry.”
I gaped at him, my mouth opening and closing like a fish. He was sorry? He was sorry? He’d sold the watch that he told me would still be here for another week, and he was freaking sorry?
“But you told me it would be here until next week,” I said, my voice shaking with anger. Because I might not be a girl who liked to plan, but I did know when someone was taking advantage of me. And what he’d done was definitely wrong.
Several minutes of shouting at him, though, and he hadn’t budged on the fact that he’d sold it. Nor had he apologized for selling it before he was supposed to release it—or given me any rationalization for doing so. He’d also flat-out refused to give me the name or number of the guy he’d sold it to.
I was fuming, but I was also starting to realize that I didn’t have anything to go on here. I’d pawned the watch. And I’d just looked back over the paperwork I had. It hadn’t said a thing about him promising not to sell the watch before the date he’d given me. I’d had no guarantee.
And I hadn’t even freaking realized it.
I also couldn’t count on this guy to help me out with the mess I myself had created. It wasn’t like I could force him to call Aziz and tell him how hard I’d tried to do this the right way. I couldn’t use him as a character reference for having had the best of intentions.
Because admitting to Aziz that the watch had been in a pawn shop at all would immediately undermine that ‘best of intentions’ line.
I turned around and left the shop without saying anything else. I could tell from the look on the guy’s face that nothing I said would do any good, and I didn’t want to still be standing there when I started crying.
I pulled over at the grocery store on the way home, thinking that as long as I was out and about, I might as well do something useful. Plus, going in and thinking about what I needed would keep my mind off the fact that the one thing I really needed—to get that watch back—was now out of my control and off the list.
I hated when things were out of my control. I hated when I couldn’t fix the things that I’d managed to screw up.
I parked, got out, and stalked into the store, wearing what I was sure was a truly dangerous expression. Then I paused and went through my mental list of the things I might need. The only thing that came up was tampons—and that was only because I thought of the date and realized that my period was due.
Wait.
I stopped right in the middle of the aisle and went rapidly through the dates again, not yet panicked but definitely, definitely on the edge of it. It had been three weeks since I’d been in Dubai, and my period had been….
Oh, God.
I found that edge of panic and dove right over it, into the deep pool of the abyss, screaming all the way down.
I was late. I was never late. No matter how stressed I was or how much travel I’d done or how dehydrated I was, I was never late.
And right now I was two weeks late. In the panic about the watch and not being able to sell that stupid article, I’d completely lost track of the dates and the very, very important fact that I’d had sex with Aziz when I was in Dubai.
Instead of grabbing tampons, I grabbed a handful of pregnancy tests. And then I almost ran to the self-checkout line, pulling out my wallet and wondering how long I had to let these things sit before they gave me an answer.
Chapter 18
Aziz
I was standing at the top of the building we’d just finished putting up the steel for, a safety harness around my shoulders and waist, and what amounted to a bungee cord attached to it—and then hooked to the beams behind me.
It might sound dramatic, but it was also completely necessary. Right now, there was nothing underneath me but steel beams with some thick boards laid across them for walkways, and though those beams were as strong as… well, steel… they also weren’t that wide.
And there were gaping holes in between them. Holes that led to a fifty-story drop if you went through them. Yeah, you might hit some other beams on the way down and they might actually slow your fall, but at the end of the day you were going to hit the ground. Hard.
This whole safety harness thing was meant to keep that from happening. And I never went up without one. Because I didn’t really like the idea of falling fifty stories to my death—and hitting a bunch of steel beams on the way down.
Call me crazy, but I wanted to live to see my next birthday. I wanted to move home and have a family. I wanted a freaking vacation before I died.
There was also a really good reason that I was up there—and a reason that made it necessary for me to be able to lean out and look without having to think about what my feet or doing or whether I had my balance or not. I needed to see what the view was like from this level, which would be the penthouse. Yeah, I’d seen pictures and concepts, but I wanted to see it in person. It was also my job to do that, because this would be something we used in the marketing material.
I needed to be able to speak from personal experience. Give it my own personal touch when selling the units that would be at the top of the building—both to my own company and to the investor. And, at the end of the day, to the people who would be buying those units.
And I was grinning at what I saw. I just couldn’t help it. This place was freaking beautiful, and the view was heavenly.
We were about five hundred feet from the beach, and that meant that the view wasn’t only of the water. Instead, you could see the beach and the water in front of you, and to the left, more beach stretching out into the distance, bordered by what amounted to jungle in Hawaii. To the right, the black cliffs rose up and up and up, the drop steep and dramatic from the tops of those cliffs into the water. It was green and black and blue and incredibly stunning—and if I were going to be in this penthouse, that was what I would have been staring at all the time.
Pictures of those cliffs were going to be part of our marketing material, I decided suddenly. We were the farthest north on this stretch of the beach, and we had the best view of them. A view that didn’t include any other buildings, but just sheer nature. Which made us unique—and that right there was what would make sure that we sold space consistently.
I got on the phone with my assistant and fed him everything I’d just thought of, and then I frowned, realizing that I’d been completely forgetting to ask him about something that had been bothering me for weeks.
“Alan, remember the watch I gave you at the party in Dubai?” I asked. “What did you do with it? Is it here? I’ll want to wear it again to the opening night.”
His answer was immediate. “I don’t have it. I set it down and when I went back, it was gone. I thought you must have picked it up.”
I bit my tongue on my first answer—which was to ask why he would have put a watch that valuable down in the first place. And why he
was acting like it downright didn’t matter now. Why he hadn’t bothered to freaking ask me whether I’d gotten the watch before this. Why he hadn’t even mentioned it. It wasn’t the first time I’d dealt with his carelessness, or the casual answer that came after that carelessness, but I was starting to think it should possibly be the last.
Still, firing Alan wasn’t going to bring my watch back. If he’d set it down at that party, someone had picked it up. And it hadn’t been me. I needed to figure out who had taken it, and whether I knew how to contact them to get it back.
“Get the CCTV videos of the party from corporate,” I said quickly. “I’ll be in the office in ten minutes, and I want them waiting on my computer.”
The videos were easy to come by, thank goodness, because we made it a habit to record every party. Part of it was so that we had marketing footage to use. The parties were big and glitzy and included very big names, and it was always nice to be able to put together a montage as part of the advertising for our brand, or a new resort.
It made for good publicity. And it really impressed potential investors when we showed them that sort of thing.
But we also had them just in case something went wrong at a party. Or something was stolen.
Something like one of my favorite watches.
I sped through the footage, looking at the timestamps and trying to remember when I might have been doing what. I’d been at the bar, I remembered, talking to Faye—who I was still working on trying to get in touch with—so I kept my eyes on the bar, watching for not only myself but also a bronze goddess in a light pink gown.
When I saw her, I hit pause and slowed everything down. She’d been there for a little while before I went to meet her, and I watched her sipping her drink, her throat working and her eyes on the room around her. I saw her in conversation with some woman—who I didn’t recognize, though she looked like she took herself extremely seriously. They looked as though they were arguing, though Faye was suppressing a smile.