The Sheikh's Priceless Baby

by Holly Rayner

  I could see the dimple in her left cheek to prove it.

  When the woman left, Faye rolled her eyes in a very Faye-like maneuver, and I felt my heart stutter. That was the girl. That was the face, those were the eyes, that was the mobile mouth. That was the person who had stolen every ounce of my attention that night. And again when we went to dinner in LA.

  That was the girl who had now disappeared on me.

  Before I could think any further along that line, I appeared in the picture, smiling and obviously flirting, and before too long I was leaving again, following my assistant to the other side of the room. I watched the two of us go through the motions I remembered, me taking off the watch because it was rubbing at my wrist and I was afraid it was going to snag my suit. I handed it to my assistant, telling him to keep an eye on it until the end of the night.

  Alan, the idiot, promptly set it down on a table, got on his phone, and walked away.

  “Idiot,” I hissed. If I hadn’t been planning to fire him already, watching that exact move would have decided me. He’d just left a watch worth fifty thousand dollars sitting on a table like a trinket.

  Then, to my surprise, I saw Faye moving through the crowd. I saw her being waylaid by that same handsy guy who had tried to make a move on her—I’d seen that in real time at the party—and I saw her shoving him off and telling him to get out of her face. Or at least that was what I liked to imagine she’d said.

  Then I saw her turning and making right for the table with the watch. I saw her pick it up, look around as if to check whether anyone had seen her do it, and then shove it into her purse and hustle back to the bar.

  I watched, stunned, as she then went back to drinking her drink like nothing had happened.

  I’d joined her a bit later, I remembered, and invited her up to my room. I’d spent the entire night with her—and I’d seen her again in LA.

  She’d never once told me that she had my watch. In fact, after that night in LA, she’d gone completely dark on me.

  I didn’t want to believe she’d stolen it and was now ghosting me because of that. I wanted to believe there was some completely innocent answer. Some sort of misunderstanding. Something that would explain it all away.

  But when you’ve spent your entire life learning to protect yourself from the people who want to use you for your money or your name, and then you finally find someone you think you can trust, it’s awfully hard to see what looks like a betrayal and blow it off.

  She hadn’t been answering my calls, texts, or messages, but it was obvious that I needed to talk to her. The problem was, I was currently tied up in a very important project.

  I didn’t exactly have the leeway to take time off and go to LA for the weekend.

  I also knew myself well enough to know that I couldn’t just stay here and pretend I hadn’t seen what I just saw on that video. Faye had stolen my watch, and then failed to tell me about it when I saw her.

  I needed to know why. And there was only one way that was going to happen.

  I got on the phone with Alan once more, barely kept from shouting at him about what he’d done—because surely he must know for himself, even if he wasn’t coming clean to me—and told him to book me on the first flight to LA tomorrow morning. I had a trip to take, and an explanation to get.

  Chapter 19

  Aziz

  I flew out the next day, courtesy of the fact that I was willing to spend quite a bit of money to get the last-minute ticket. I also flew first class, and there were a couple of reasons for that.

  First of all, it was way, way more comfortable. And though the flight from Hawaii to LAX wasn’t too long, I had spent enough time in airplanes to know that making sure you were comfortable was a very big part of making sure the trip was more successful. Get a good nap and a good meal on the plane and you landed way more likely to jump into whatever it was you were doing with a positive attitude.

  Of course, it was sort of hard to have a positive attitude about this particular trip. I wasn’t flying to see Faye for any happy reason. I was flying to her because she’d lied to me, and I wanted to know why.

  I didn’t think a nap and a good meal was going to make that landing any easier.

  The other reason was Faye herself. Flying first class would mean that I was fresher when I got to LA, and didn’t smell quite as much like airplane. I’d make a better impression, maybe even look more well-rested. Because yeah, I might be suspicious about what she’d done, and I might be flying to LA to go to her house and ask her for an explanation. But that didn’t change the fact that I had feelings for the girl. It also didn’t change the fact that one of the other reasons I was doing this whole thing was because I wanted to see her again.

  I realized that those two reasons looked like they contradicted each other. I realized that I was talking out of both sides of my mouth. But I couldn’t help how I felt—though my suspicion and affection were rolled up and confused, and it was impossible to tell where one emotion ended and the other began.

  Did I want to think that she had a completely innocent explanation? Absolutely. Was I afraid that she wouldn’t?

  Yes.

  The problem was, her behavior over the last two weeks was landing on the suspicious side of that coin. The girl had been ignoring every attempt I made to get in touch with her, and that didn’t look good. Honestly, it looked like she’d stolen my watch outright and now didn’t want anything else to do with me. But if that was what had happened, I wanted to hear that from her mouth. I wanted to know why she’d done it.

  If this was, however, all a big misunderstanding and she was avoiding me because of that misunderstanding rather than because of something she felt she’d done wrong…

  Well, it was time for her to stop avoiding me. I wasn’t going to give up on her without a fight. Even if that meant going to LA and making a fool of myself trying to win her back.

  I closed my eyes and tried to sleep as soon as the plane took off, knowing that this was going to be the longest flight of my life, and not wanting to spend the whole thing going over the little time I’d spent with her again and again and again, looking for clues.

  When I opened my eyes again, on the ground in LA, I had to admit that I’d only been partially successful at that last thought. I hadn’t really slept, but had instead spent the flight in that light doze that you can force yourself into if you’re really disciplined—but that doesn’t actually make you feel any more rested.

  And certainly doesn’t keep your mind from working overtime.

  I had, in fact, spent the entire flight going over my time with Faye again and again, looking for any clue to tell me that she’d just been waiting for an opportunity to steal something from me or use me in some way. I mean yeah, she’d admitted right away that she wanted to use me for the interview. And I had thought that was all there was to it. I’d thought she had started with that, and then… fallen into our chemistry the same way I had. I’d thought we’d spent a pretty magical evening together.

  And when I’d seen her in LA and we’d had the exact same spark, I’d been sure that the first night hadn’t been a fluke. I mean, she’d said that she wanted to see me for dinner in LA. She wouldn’t have done that if she hadn’t felt something.

  I didn’t think.

  But could I have been wrong? Was it possible I’d missed something? Completely misunderstood? Was it possible she was that good of a liar?

  I had to admit that the question was more than just professional. It also wasn’t only to do with the watch, and potentially getting it back. Because every time I thought that she might have approached me and charmed me just to get something from me, my heart shattered a little bit more.

  I hadn’t thought she was that shallow, and I’d thought that we had a connection. And I hadn’t even realized it at the time, but I’d been extending that connection into something bigger. Into something that might… mean more.

  I shouldn’t have done it. And if I’d known I was doing it, I
would have stopped myself. But now the damage was done, and thinking that she might have flirted with me just to steal something as stupid as a watch was ripping my heart out and shredding it—while I was forced to watch.

  I hoped that wasn’t what had happened. But there was only one way to find out.

  I breezed through security and then the baggage claim, not having brought anything more than a carry-on bag, and when I got outside the airport, I hailed a cab. I hadn’t bothered to have a car waiting. There hadn’t even been time to organize something like that.

  Besides, that wasn’t the important thing, here. If I could get something that had four wheels and an engine, it was good enough for me. All I needed it to do was get me to Faye’s apartment.

  When the cab pulled up in front of Faye’s place, I thanked the cabbie, threw some bills at him, and jumped out of the car. Then I stared up at the townhouse that made up her building, my heart pounding incredibly hard against my ribs. The first floor was her apartment, and that door on the left—the bright yellow one—would lead into her home.

  I just had to knock on it.

  God, I realized suddenly, I hoped she was even home. What if she was traveling for work right now? What if that was why she’d been so quiet? What if she was mid-flight and didn’t have cell service?

  What if I’d shown up at her apartment when she was on the other side of the world? What if I’d jumped to all the wrong conclusions about her avoiding me and shown up here, hot under the collar and convinced that she’d done something wrong, only to find out that she wasn’t even on the continent?

  What if she was in Kayyem at this very moment, trying to return the watch she’d taken?

  Okay, that last one was solid proof that I was letting my imagination run away with me. But still, the point stood. I’d run to get on a plane and come here before I even thought about any sort of plan.

  I never did anything without a plan.

  Unless that anything related to Faye, evidently.

  “Stupid,” I hissed.

  Behind me, the cab squealed back into the street, and I closed my eyes. If she wasn’t here, I guessed I’d be finding a way to get a new cab to take me back to the airport. And then finding a way to get a ticket back to Hawaii. Today.

  Why hadn’t I even thought of the fact that she might not be there? The girl travelled constantly! She’d told me that herself!

  Still, I wouldn’t know unless I went up there and knocked on her door.

  I climbed the stairs, my heart rising further up into my mouth with every step, and when I got to her door, I knocked three times.

  Two seconds later—yes, I counted—she opened the door, took one look at me, and burst into tears.

  And I immediately, and completely without thinking, stepped forward, took her in my arms, and held her as close to me as I could manage without worrying that I was actually going to squish her.

  “My God, no one has ever burst into tears just at the sight of me,” I murmured. “What did I do?”

  “It’s not you,” she sniffled. “It’s me. I’m pregnant and its yours and I lost your watch and can’t get it back and you’re never, ever going to forgive me!”

  Then she started wailing again and I pulled her even closer to me, trying to figure out what in the world she was talking about—and why she thought I wouldn’t forgive her.

  Chapter 20

  Aziz

  I walked Faye inside without letting go of her, the sobs still echoing up from my general shoulder area, and cast a quick look around the apartment. I was trying hard not to be desperate, here, but I was completely useless when girls cried.

  Especially when it looked like they were crying just at the sight of me—and because of a bunch of things that I still didn’t fully understand.

  She was sobbing so hard now that I didn’t even think she was speaking English anymore. And honestly, that worried me. I hadn’t taken Faye for a crier, so the fact that she was currently melting down on my shoulder made me wonder if something was really wrong.

  Beyond that, the place was… Well, she hadn’t been lying when she’d said something about it being roughly the size of a postage stamp.

  Her couch and armchair barely fit together in her living room, and the only way she’d managed to get a TV in there as well was to hang it on the wall—though I wasn’t entirely sure it was the sort of TV that was supposed to hang from walls. Every square inch of wall beyond that was covered in photographs that looked like they were her own snapshots from different parts of the world, and I could see a tiny kitchen through the opening on the other side of the living room.

  Ahead of us, a short hall looked as though it headed for the bedroom, and I assumed there was a bathroom down there somewhere, as well.

  And that was, from what I could see, all there was to it.

  God, the entire place would have fit into the kitchen of my house back in Kayyem. Worse than that, actually. I was betting I could have fit two of these apartments into my kitchen, if I’d done some creative organizing and cut out the center island. I wasn’t there often, and it was definitely the smallest of the houses on that particular estate, but it was still so much bigger than this place that I actually felt guilty.

  I knew rent was expensive in LA, but how could she actually live in this place?

  Still, there were more immediate problems at hand, and I shuffled us toward the couch, realizing that it was the only place we’d be able to sit in our current situation. It didn’t take long to get there, and a moment later we were falling down into cushions that felt like they’d definitely seen better days, Faye still crying quietly in my arms.

  I put a hand on her back and rubbed it a little bit, thinking that it might make her feel better. Then I pushed her back and tipped her chin up so she had to look at me.

  Her eyes were still golden, but they were also puffy enough to let on that she’d been crying for some time.

  So it wasn’t just seeing me on her doorstep. There was more. That word salad she’d served me when I arrived had consisted of quite a few things, and though I hadn’t really understood how they all connected to each other, they obviously made up the bulk of what was wrong.

  Overall, that seems like a good place to start.

  “Tell me what’s happened,” I said gently. “And why you haven’t been answering my texts. Or my phone calls. Or my messages.”

  She stared up at me, her lips wobbling, and I reached out and took her hand.

  “I promise I’m not mad,” I said. “And I’d say you have a pretty good chance of being forgiven. I’m sort of partial to you, you know.”

  That won me a watery smile, and a moment later, she started talking.

  It turned out that it had all started long before I met her at all. Her parents had owned—or maybe still did own, that part was sort of confusing—a coffee shop down the street from here, but it had gotten into trouble once bigger chain stores moved in.

  Faye’s parents had worked their butts off to keep up with the corporate coffee shops, but they’d been slipping out of the race for some time. Now, they’d either lost it or were in the process of losing it, and in that process, their income had become so depleted that they’d stopped making their house payments.

  They were, in fact, in the midst of actually losing their home.

  “And I don’t make enough money to support them,” she hiccuped. “I barely make enough money to support myself. But what am I supposed to do? Of course I’m going to do whatever it takes to help them. I can’t not.”

  “Of course you can’t not,” I agreed ungrammatically. “So what did you come up with?”

  She hiccuped again, then looked up at me with big, wet eyes. “When I was at the party, I saw your assistant put down your watch. And then he just walked away! I knew for a fact that someone was going to come by and just snag it, and I meant to tell you that you should fire him for just walking away from your watch like that. So irresponsible.”

  She gave me this last s
tatement in a completely serious tone, and I grinned at her, happy enough that she was bringing it up herself to forget almost entirely about my suspicions. I was sure that meant she had a good explanation for what had happened, and that did a whole lot to lighten the tightness I’d been living with in my chest ever since I saw that video.

  “I actually had that same exact thought, when he told me, so I’m with you so far.”

  She narrowed her eyes—probably at the fact that I knew about the watch and hadn’t said anything—but then nodded and got back to her story. “So I hustled over there to get it before anyone else did. Of course, Roger tried to stop me, but that didn’t last long, and I managed to get to that table while the watch was still there. I mean, it wasn’t like anyone there needed to steal a watch, but you just never know. People get sticky fingers.”

  “So they do,” I said, watching her closely and wondering where she was going with this. Because it sounded like she picked up my watch for completely innocent reasons. So why hadn’t she told me?

  “I meant to tell you,” she said earnestly. “It was the first thing on my list. But then one thing led to another, and…”

  Ah. Yes, one thing had led to another. And I could suddenly see why the watch had slipped her mind. It would have slipped mine, as well.

  “But I saw you again in LA,” I said. “And you didn’t say anything about it then, either.”

  She bit her lip, straightened her shoulders, and lifted her chin. “I couldn’t say anything about it then. I’d already pawned it. You have to understand, though, that I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. And even if I did, I thought I could pawn it, get money to help pay for my parents’ house, and then get it back as soon as I sold that article with the interview in it. It was the perfect plan. As soon as I had it back, I’d be able to call you up and tell you all about it and we could laugh it off. But until I did…”