Amelie reminded him of sex. Of when he last had it, how much he enjoyed it. How desperately his body craved hers right now—naked and warm and wrapped around him.
He didn’t want to think about sex. Especially with Amelie.
He wanted to remember, to honor, Julie. His hand fisted around his glass.
“You’re right,” she was saying. “I can do the historical research elsewhere, and I have. I was just hoping for more.”
Silence swelled between them. The moan of the wind outside rose and fell and the fire crackled.
She bit her bottom lip, nodded. “I see.” She turned to leave, then spun back suddenly. “Why did you even invite me here? Just to interrogate me?”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“And did you get what you want?”
In spite of himself he felt a stab of guilt.
“Yes.” He’d gotten information about where she claimed to have been born, lived, attended university, what she’d studied. It was enough to start a decent background check. He’d get Omair going on that immediately, because he didn’t trust her.
Or was it that he didn’t trust himself, his own body, how much he desired her? Was he hoping Omair would find something nefarious, so that he could redirect his lust into anger?
Because if there were something to find, Omair would find it. His brother had access to the best contract intelligence in the business, as well as a top private investigator in the States.
In the meantime—while Omair’s people were digging—it perhaps would be better to keep her close, keep the lines of communication open, until he could be certain. Because if she was somehow connected to his enemies, they might be able to use her to find The Moor.
Reluctance, conflict, swirled through him. Close proximity was one thing, but how long before his control cracked?
Tariq inhaled and bit the bullet.
“My men will give you a tour of the abbey tomorrow morning. Be here at ten. They will answer any questions they can. You may take photographs, and then I expect to be left alone.”
This was a good compromise—he wouldn’t necessarily have to see her again himself, but he’d have opportunity if he needed it.
Her violet eyes widened, lambent in the firelight. “Thank you, Tahar,” she said softly.
He inclined his head slightly.
The wind in the turrets outside rose to a high-pitched scream that came down the chimney. He saw the way she glanced up, knew she was thinking of the abbess. She rubbed her hand over her arm. “The snow must really be coming down now.”
He nodded. “Yes. It’s best you leave while a vehicle can still get through. My men will take you.”
She met his eyes. “Can I ask you one more question before I go?”
He angled his head.
“Why did you buy this place?”
He was silent for a long time, memories suddenly cutting through him. The abbey had been Julie’s engagement present. She’d been fascinated with the place as a child, and it had filled Tariq’s heart with happiness to be able to gift it to her. They’d planned to spend summers here, during the opera festival.
Images of children, sunshine, salt breezes filled his mind—their dreams. Dashed. The scream of the wind grew to a wail, washing the images away. Waves boomed and somewhere windows rattled as if vengeful spirits were seeking a way in.
“I bought it for someone I loved.”
She swallowed, a strange look in her eyes.
He inhaled deeply, tension straining his shoulders. “She’s no longer with me.”
“The accident?”
“Yes. Her death was my fault.” He was unable to stop the words that welled out from deep inside. “I’m a doctor, Amelie. And I could not save her.”
She paled. “That…that doesn’t make it your fault, Tahar.” She was speaking from a raw place now, filled with compassion, and he felt a sudden bond, something real.
“It was my fault for loving her,” he said. “If she hadn’t been with me—”
“Please.” She reached out, touched his crippled hand. Sympathy gleamed in her eyes and her skin was cool against his. “Don’t do this to yourself, Tahar. You can’t blame yourself for something like this.”
He gave a slight shrug and moved out from under her touch. He didn’t want Amelie’s sympathy, didn’t want to feel a bond. “Now I live in her abbey. So you see, the abbess doesn’t need to bother with me. I’m haunted by my own memories. I don’t need her ghost to remind me of the purgatory in which I hang.”
She stared at him. The wind screamed louder. Tariq held himself dead still, focusing on controlling his emotions, on holding the wineglass in his crippled hand. But the strain of it all was making him shake inside.
He shouldn’t have said these things.
And now, telling Amelie the veiled truth had given rise to a fierce and terrible need to lean on someone, to share his grief, to feel a human connection again, even as he fought against it. Because of this he wanted suddenly to lash out at her for making things raw again.
“You should go.”
But before Amelie could move, the library door edged open and in came a little yellow-and-white dog with huge, tufted, batlike ears. It bounded over Tariq’s Persian carpet in a rocking-horse motion as it made straight for Amelie. Surprise rippled through Tariq.
“Kiki!” She crouched down and held out her arms. “What are you doing in here, you little monster?” The animal leaped into her arms, and she ruffled its fur. Tariq couldn’t help noticing how the firelight lent burgundy highlights to Amelie’s hair. How finely boned her pale-skinned hands were. How her skirt rode up her lean, stockinged thighs as she crouched down. He felt his body harden.
And he was suddenly desperate for her to leave. She’d outstayed her welcome—it was about all he could take.
“I’m sorry,” she said, glancing up at him with those purple eyes. “Madame insisted I bring Kiki if I wanted time off. I think she hired me mostly for the dogs.” She gave him a big grin, and so help him, seeing that cute little gap between her front teeth awakened something ferocious and carnal in him. Something he might not be able to shut down now that it had been released. His groin began to pulse with a heat and life he’d all but forgotten.
“I asked your butler to take care of her but I guess she got away.” As she spoke the little ball of fur wriggled free from Amelie’s hands, bounded toward Tariq and jumped up against his pant legs. Tariq stared down at the dog, refusing to touch it. Refusing to move at all.
But it kept on hopping, and then it started yipping.
Finally he set his wineglass on the mantel, then crouched down and stroked the animal. The fur under his palm was soft as silk. Excited by the attention the pup leaped to his face and licked him.
Tariq smiled, in spite of himself.
Amelie laughed in response—a warm, husky sound that curled right through his stomach. He froze, stared at her. They were now both crouched on the floor. He could see the dark delta of space between her stockinged thighs. And he could see her registering his noticing this.
Her smile faded as she met his gaze, her purple eyes darkening. And the awareness of some undercurrent of mutual sexual attraction shimmered hot and thick into the silence between them. And suddenly Tariq hurt—every nerve in his body in pain, as if thawing out from a deep frost as lust burned up from his belly, seared through his chest, tingled into his fingertips, tightened his throat.
The intensity, the raw, primal, physical yearning for this young, vital woman in front of him was overwhelming, clouding his logic. And the intensity of it scared him. He lurched to his feet, reaching for anger, rage, anything that would shut out this feeling, help him leash and control it.
“You need to leave, at once,” he said curtly. “I have another appointment.”
She stood, very slowly, a look of understanding sifting into those big eyes. She knew. She could see what she was doing to him.
That made it worse.
It gave h
er power over him. Tariq preferred the power, the control, to be entirely in his hands.
He called out for his butler. The man appeared instantly at the door.
“Get the driver to take Mademoiselle Chenard home.”
“And the bicycle, Monsieur?”
“She can fetch it when she returns tomorrow.”
Amelie picked up Kiki, holding the dog close against her breasts. “Thank you, Tahar.” She hesitated, something unreadable entering her eyes as she glanced at his cello at the far end of the room. “You should work on that hand, you know. I’d love to hear you play your cello one day.”
The anger inside him erupted. He was a neurosurgeon. He knew his limitations. He didn’t need this young woman to tell him what to do. Turning his back on her he went to stand in front of the fire, his entire body vibrating.
He heard the door close behind him.
And the library felt suddenly hollow, as if she’d sucked all the warmth out with her.
Tariq reached for his glass of wine, downed the remainder in one, angry go.
He’d made a mistake inviting her here.
He’d wanted to take control of this situation, of her, then send her away. Instead he’d managed to invite her in deeper, allowing her to crack through the ice of his emotional defenses, his grief. And Tariq had a sinking feeling he had no way of controlling what was seeping out from those cracks now.
Chapter 4
New York City
Aban Ghaffar, renowned billionaire industrialist, a man who owned half of Manhattan and had steered countless political campaigns, studied the enlarged digital image on his computer screen, a silent fury burning into his gut.
“Where did you get this?” he said, very quietly, into his phone.
“My surveillance team accessed the Watchdog servers via a backdoor virus, using the same digital trail they used to track Althea Winston’s messages. The team doesn’t know we’re in there, watching every keystroke. This photo and others like it were uploaded and run through a sophisticated facial-recognition software program.” Isaiah Gold’s voice was measured, devoid of emotion, as it usually was.
“He was supposed to be killed in the bombing.”
“She found him. Alive.”
“Where?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Aban, alias The Moor, stared out at the city skyline. Skyscraper lights like jewels against velvet stretched out below his penthouse windows.
Usually the sight calmed him, but not tonight. Sam Etherington’s special aide, Isaiah Gold, was working under the radar with him on this project to overthrow Al Na’Jar, keeping the senator on a need-to-know basis for his political protection. Gold had also provided Aban with some men who’d partnered with his MagMo operatives in D.C. But they’d failed to abduct—or kill—journalist Bella DiCaprio, and they’d been hunting for her ever since she appeared to have fled the States.
All they knew was that she’d boarded a plane, landed at Heathrow in the U.K., then vanished. Now she’d found Sheik Tariq Al Arif. Alive.
The Moor’s attempts to assassinate the next in line of succession to the Al Na’Jar throne had clearly failed. Aban did not tolerate failure. His only concession was that they’d so far managed to eliminate the younger brother, Omair.
“Northern hemisphere,” he said quietly into the phone as he scrutinized the image of the scarred man on his screen. “This photo was taken in cold weather. A place with thick fog along a coast. I’ll look into this.”
“And we’ll keep monitoring the Watchdog phone lines and the computers linked to their server,” Gold said. “They’ll slip. They’ll lead us to DiCaprio, and to Tariq Al Arif, eventually.”
“Eventually” was not soon enough.
The Moor glanced over his shoulder at his son, Amal, idly flicking through a magazine on a glass coffee table in the penthouse living room.
“If you get a location,” he said, watching Amal, “I want to know immediately.”
“And vice versa,” said Gold.
He hung up.
“Amal!”
His son glanced up, eyes as black as his mother’s. He had his mother’s brains as well, unfortunately. Aban would have preferred more of his own intellect and drive in the boy. He needed a worthy heir to the colossal underground empire he himself had built from the ground up.
“Pack your bags,” he told his son, curtly. “You leave for Paris tonight, on the private jet. Take three men of your choosing with you.”
Amal raised a brow. “What’s happening?”
“Tariq Al Arif is alive.”
Amal’s body straightened. “Alive?”
“And in hiding. I believe somewhere Europe. Somewhere with access to the ocean. Possibly France—the Al Arif Corporation is based out of Paris and the family has holdings in that country.”
The Moor returned his attention to his computer. “This photo of Tariq,” he said quietly, “was shot at 4:50 p.m. on Monday. When you get to Paris, I want you to get hold of meteorological data from that day and time, including satellite weather images. I want to know what parts of coastal Europe were clear, what parts had fog at precisely this time.”
“That’s a huge—”
“It’s a start,” he said coolly. “A process of elimination. When we find him, I want you close, ready to move on a second’s notice.”
Amal stared at him. “You want me to assassinate—”
“You’re my only son—this is your legacy. This is your chance to take a leadership role.” He met the boy’s gaze. “Don’t let me down.”
*
That night Tariq went into his pool room. He didn’t bother switching on the lights. It was warm inside—humid, even. Omair had instructed the abbey staff to keep the water heated even though Tariq had refused to use the pool. Omair was hoping he’d come round, though, and wanted no obstacles in his brother’s path to healing.
Tariq walked the length of the lap pool toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the cliff. The water shimmered like black oil, reflecting the pearly-black coating beneath the surface. He stopped at the windows, where the water flowed under the glass to the outside section of the pool. An infinity edge gave the illusion of black water vanishing over the cliff.
Wind ruffled the outside surface and steam rose into the snowy night. Tariq inhaled deeply—he’d spent a small fortune in the structural engineering of this pool, and it had been mostly for Julie who swam to keep her sleek shape. In the summer the glass could be moved aside for indoor-outdoor access, and it was the summers that he and Julie had intended to spend here.
Crouching down, he tested the temperature with his hand. The water felt rounded, like silk. Warm.
Putting only the muted underwater lights on, Tariq removed his clothes and slowly slipped naked into the water. It closed softly around him like a familiar lover. He started to swim, awkward at first. But gradually, as his muscles began to loosen, and his body warmed, his heart beat faster and he began to glide through the water, buoyancy helping him find a balance between his crippled half and his good half. He swam hard, harder, working on unison, until his entire body ached with the exertion, and his lungs burned. And it felt good.
It was the first time he’d used the pool.
It was also the first time that the broken part of himself felt so much more aligned with the healthy side, both mentally and physically. And he felt stronger for it.
He pulled himself out and tied a towel around his waist, glancing briefly at the unused gym equipment behind glass on the other side of the room. Tariq held out his clawed hand, tried to flex and close his fingers. With surprise he realized he actually had a little more mobility after the exercise.
You should work on that hand, you know. I’d love to hear you play your cello one day…
The depression began to sink into him again—an insidious blackness.
Tariq showered and dressed, then went into his office off the library. His butler had stoked the fire and it crack
led in the hearth.
Seating himself at his computer, he looked up Amelie Chenard’s website and reread her bio.
It all seemed to fit with what she’d told him.
Clicking through her social media profiles he studied the photographs of her. She wasn’t beautiful, not by any traditional stretch, but alluring, and sexually compelling. The was something irreverent about her looks, a quirky dress sense evident in these photos. At times there was a playfulness in her big purple eyes, at other times they showed a pensive intelligence. And as he studied the images, the now-familiar surge of anger and attraction braided around his heart. He leaned back in his chair, her words sifting back into his mind.
I’d love to hear you play the cello one day…
He hadn’t told her he used to play. But the cello standing in his library could have prompted her comment. An uneasiness twisted through Tariq.
He leaned forward and quickly did an internet search, pairing her name with keywords like Seattle, university. Nothing came up. He worked backward—Amelie was probably around twenty-eight. A decade ago, when she’d most likely have started university, people didn’t have the kind of online presence they did now. And if she’d gone into ghostwriting right after graduating, she could conceivably have had good reason to keep a low internet profile due to contractual obligations to secrecy.
Tariq ran his hand over his damp hair, then reached for his encrypted sat phone and dialed Omair. As he listened to the phone ring, he thought of his brother’s partner, Faith, and their tiny newborn he had never seen. Guilt closed like a noose around his neck. He should have called earlier, asked how they were doing.
Omair and Faith were staying temporarily on the Force du Sable base. The private army for which Omair contracted occupied the small island of Sao Diogo off the coast of Angola, along with a handful of locals. Most of the F.D.S. military contractors lived on the island, some of them with families. After taking Faith home to meet the royal family in Al Na’Jar, Omair decided it was safer to move her to Sao Diogo to wait out the rest of her pregnancy and give birth. They still did not know whether it was the U.S. government who’d tried to kill her, or a rogue faction within STRIKE, the dark ops hit squad for which Faith used to work.
Surgeon Sheik's Rescue Page 6
