Still, he refused to allow her to go to town alone. Since just yesterday she’d argued that they should not be separated, she didn’t fight him on the matter for very long.
There was no reason to tarry in the village today. She mailed her letter, Kadir bought a larger supply of toffee, which he said was quite good, and then they headed back to the cottage.
It did not escape her attention that while they were in Leonia, Kadir once again kept a sharp and curious eye on the people around them. It was as if he suspected every man woman and child in town of being a potential assassin, and she couldn’t blame him for that. He carried Lexie’s six-shooter, but it was well concealed. If she hadn’t known where he carried the weapon, she wouldn’t even realize it was there.
It was also apparent to her, as they ran their errands, that in spite of her concerns the townspeople were fooled by their cover story. They truly believed that Kadir was her boyfriend from Silverton, come to comfort her. Boyfriend was such an inadequate word to describe their relationship, but when they held hands and he leaned in to whisper in her ear, she imagined that’s just how it appeared to onlookers.
She looked forward to a quiet day at the cottage. A quiet day and a half, to be precise, since York wouldn’t return until late tomorrow. She and Kadir could make love in every room of the cottage, and then they would start all over again. They could fish in the afternoon, and maybe Kadir would make love to her on the rocks—though she did wonder if the rocks were too hard and sharp for that activity. Only one way to find out, she supposed. She’d cook for him, and make him laugh, and ask questions about the life she would never get to share, and do her best to make him forget all his troubles—for a while.
She had a day and a half to make enough memories to last a lifetime.
Cassandra and Kadir entered the cottage through the kitchen door. She glanced around the cozy room, wondering where and how, exactly, Kadir planned to make love to her here….
Before the door was closed, Kadir grabbed her hand and yanked her down and behind him, at the same time dropping the tin of candy and smoothly drawing the six-shooter. Cassandra grabbed on to the denim of his jeans in order to steady herself, and peeked around his leg to see what had startled him. A man stood in the door between the kitchen and the hallway, his own gun drawn and steady.
The gunman had olive skin, like Kadir, and long black hair that was mostly pulled back in a ponytail. A few strands escaped and framed a harsh, thin face. His beard was untended, and that, along with the narrowed eyes, gave him a wild and decidedly dangerous appearance.
Kadir almost immediately relaxed. “You startled me,” he said as he returned the weapon to its proper place.
The armed man who had broken into the cottage while they’d been in Leonia lowered his own weapon—which was a much more modern gun than Lexie’s six-shooter—and cocked his head to one side. “Kadir?” The man’s voice was truly puzzled, but after a moment’s study he grinned. The smile changed his face entirely, and he wasn’t quite so scary. “You’re alive.”
Kadir assisted Cassandra to her feet as the armed man strode into the kitchen. When she was standing, brushing off imagined crumbs from Lexie’s kitchen floor, the bearded man stepped past scattered pieces of toffee and threw his arms around Kadir, laughing—not quite maniacally.
When the laughter and the relieved hug ended, Kadir placed his arm around Cassandra’s shoulder. “This is Sharif Al-Asad, assistant to the Kahani Minister of Defense and my oldest friend. Sharif, this is Ms. Cassandra Klein, the aide I was assigned upon my arrival in Silvershire.”
Cassandra offered her hand, and Sharif shook it briefly. “A very pretty aide, if I may say so.” His eyes were appraising, and she imagined Al-Asad realized that she and Kadir were involved. Eyes like that didn’t miss much. Sharif didn’t have bedroom eyes, like Kadir, but those eyes were sharp as a hawk’s, and unfailingly apprising.
“You didn’t return my call,” she said, only slightly accusing.
“When my oldest and dearest friend is assassinated, you expect me to sit in an office and reply to telephone messages?”
She looked Sharif Al-Asad up and down. His beard and his hair needed tending, but his clothes were expensive and fit him well. He handled his pistol with the ease that came with years of experience. He was, she knew instinctively, indeed a dangerous man. “I suppose not.”
This was the man Kadir trusted. The only man, he said. As the three of them walked into the main room to share the happenings of the past few days, a chill walked up and down Cassandra’s spine.
Kadir might trust this odd man with his life, but she did not.
Sharif’s smile faded as he watched Cassandra walk into the kitchen. When his old friend had asked if she could make him a cup of hot tea, Kadir had realized that he wished to speak alone.
“We can leave now,” Sharif said, standing nimbly. “We’ll walk out the front door while she’s in the kitchen, and I’ll have you to a safe place within two hours. When you’re secured, I’ll return to Leonia to personally conduct the investigation.”
Kadir did not stand. He reached up and laid a stilling hand on Sharif’s forearm. “I’m safe here, for now.”
A touch of sharp anger crossed Sharif’s face. “You have known that woman for a week, and you’re willing to place your life in her hands? I have never known you to be a fool, Kadir, but that is a decidedly foolish decision. Zahid might’ve bought her, or blackmailed her, or threatened her. She could poison you at any time, or shoot you while you sleep, or…”
“She would do none of those things.”
“You have no way of knowing that with any certainty.”
But he did know, in a way that would be difficult to explain. “She thinks she loves me,” Kadir said with a sigh.
Sharif’s features softened a little. “It could be a game….”
“This is no game.”
“You’ve been blinded,” Sharif said as he reluctantly sat once again.
“I didn’t say that I love her.” Even if he thought he might, one day, love was impossible in these circumstances and it was a useless exercise to even consider such a thing. “I do like her, very much.”
“That’s clear enough,” Sharif grumbled.
Kadir actually smiled. “I like her well enough to protect her while I can, and I certainly like her well enough to walk away when I’m finished here.” There was no need to point out that as long as Zahid lived, no one Kadir dared to care for would be safe.
While Cassandra was busy in the kitchen, Kadir told Sharif of his suspicions. Sharif was surprised, but not shocked. Nothing had the power to shock him anymore; he had seen too much. Still, he was as disturbed as Kadir that someone who’d been within the tight circle might’ve been behind the explosion. A phone call this afternoon would get an investigation into everyone who was thought killed on the yacht into motion.
“We have discovered why Zahid came here to meet with Prince Reginald,” Sharif said once plans for the new investigation were complete.
Kadir awaited the rest, an eye on the doorway Cassandra would walk through, his ear partially tuned to the sound of her work in the kitchen.
“Zahid offered an alliance,” Sharif continued, contempt clear in his voice. “An allegiance between Silvershire and Bin-Asfour in exchange for all the recreational drugs the prince desired.”
“And the prince’s response to this ridiculous offer?”
Sharif shrugged his shoulders. “That we do not know. If the offer was rejected, then Zahid would have felt it was within his rights to kill the prince. I have a man on the inside, and in a few days…”
“You have someone within Zahid’s camp?”
Sharif nodded. “My informant has been disillusioned, but realizes if he tries to walk away from the organization he and his family will be killed.” Again, that shrug. “If he’s caught sharing information he should not he will surely be killed, but that’s a risk he’s willing to take.”
Before Cassa
ndra was finished preparing the requested tea, Sharif left the cottage by way of the front door. He was not one to sit still and wait, and if there was even the smallest possibility that the culprit remained in Leonia, he wanted to be on the watch. Sharif did not leave the cottage without a soft warning for Kadir to take care, and a suspicious glance toward the kitchen.
Cassandra returned to the main room with a tray bearing three cups of steaming tea, along with sugar and cream. She searched the room quickly, looking for their guest, and Kadir informed her that Sharif had departed.
With a sigh that spoke of relief, she placed the tray on the coffee table and sat beside him—close, as she so often chose to do. The expression on her face said it all. “I don’t trust him.”
“Why not? He wants Zahid dead as badly as I do. Maybe more. He’s the one man in the world Bin-Asfour can’t buy or blackmail.” He thought again of Sharif’s assertion that Cassandra herself might’ve been bought, and he dismissed it just as quickly. She could’ve killed him a hundred times in the past four days.
No, the danger Cassandra presented had nothing to do with Bin-Asfour.
She wrinkled her nose as she considered his assertions. “Your friend strikes me as a man who knows no boundaries. He’d do anything to get what he wants, including sacrificing you. You say he wants Bin-Asfour as much as you do, and I believe you. Let me ask you this. Would Sharif give his own life to take down Bin-Asfour?”
“Without doubt,” Kadir answered.
“What makes you think he values your life more than his own? Maybe Sharif would be willing to sacrifice you in order to gain Zahid’s trust, if it meant getting his hands on the man.”
“Perhaps,” Kadir answered softly, and more thoughtfully than he’d intended. With each passing year, Sharif seemed more desperate, more hungry, as if he had begun to realize that the man who’d murdered Amala might never have to pay for his crime.
“He doesn’t like me at all,” Cassandra said as she leaned snugly against his side.
No, his lover and his friend did not like each other. Sharif saw the potential for danger in Cassandra, and she saw the potential in him. Kadir supposed that no one or nothing in his life was entirely safe, but that was no way to live. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his days looking over his shoulder and expecting the worst even of those he cared about.
Better to take a chance now and then than to completely close himself off from the few real joys of life. “Life is never entirely without risk.”
Cassandra scoffed at that, but maybe she agreed because she did stop arguing.
That was fortunate, as they had better ways to spend the afternoon than in argument.
The next day and a half were everything Cassandra had hoped for, and more. She and Kadir made love and they fished and they laughed. They laughed a lot. They had late-night conversations about their childhoods and their siblings, their hopes and their fears, telling the sorts of secrets lovers share. They held hands and kissed often.
The only unwelcomed interruption came in the form of Kadir’s scary, hairy friend, Sharif, who dropped by on occasion, usually appearing in such a way as to startle Cassandra. It didn’t take long for her to realize that he did that on purpose. When Sharif was present, he and Kadir whispered to one another, sharing secrets they did not want Cassandra to know.
Fortunately Sharif never stayed at the cottage for any length of time. He came and went as he pleased, but he never remained in their company for very long.
On the Thursday evening scooter ride to Leonia, Cassandra held on to Kadir with all her might. Their time together was almost over. She knew it; she felt it to her bones as the wind whipped past them, and the smell of the sea filled each breath she took.
She’d expected to be in on the meeting with Simon York. Whatever he had discovered—if he had discovered anything at all—might actually have something to do with solving Prince Reginald’s murder. She’d likely be forgiven anything—even lying about Kadir’s death—if she could play a part in solving that mystery. Ms. Dunn would still disapprove, but she would offer forgiveness much more quickly.
But Kadir didn’t lead Cassandra to the front door of the Leonia Inn. Instead he took her hand and they walked a narrow alleyway that led them to a deserted courtyard. There, Sharif waited. Kadir’s friend was no more glad to see her than she was to see him.
Kadir spoke to them both in a tone of voice that left no room for argument. This was the voice of a high-level diplomat, a man who was accustomed to having his every order obeyed without question. “Sharif, I want you to escort Ms. Klein back to Silverton. Stay with her until I tell you otherwise.”
Sharif’s response was curt. “No.”
Kadir’s response was in Arabic, and spoken so quickly and so softly Cassandra didn’t have a chance to understand what was said. She only heard one word she could decipher. Amala.
Panic welled up inside her. She didn’t want to be sent away…she wasn’t ready to say goodbye…. But when Kadir took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes, she saw goodbye.
“Listen to Sharif, and stay safe.”
Cassandra was incensed on so many levels, she didn’t know where to start. “I don’t need an escort, a bodyguard or a babysitter.”
“I do not agree.”
“I’m not a child, Kadir, and I don’t appreciate being treated like one.” So many emotions danced within her, she didn’t know what to feel, what to say. “If anyone needs Sharif’s assistance, it’s you.”
“I need no assistance.”
“You’re planning something, I can see it. What are you up to?”
He kissed her on the forehead lightly, as a friend might. “You’ll know soon enough, and I don’t want you anywhere near me when it happens.”
“That does not sound good, Kadir. Not at all.”
He smiled at her, but the smile died when Sharif began to argue with him once again. Again, Sharif spoke in Arabic, but this time his voice was loud enough and slow enough for her to translate easily.
Sharif didn’t want to leave Kadir any more than she did.
Her heart beat too hard. This could be it. This could be the last time she saw Kadir. Whether he lived or died, whether Bin-Asfour succeeded in killing him or not. She’d lived safe all her life, and she was tired of living safe. Life is not without risk—everyone she’d ever loved had told her that.
“I love you,” she said, speaking quickly so Kadir didn’t have time to stop her. “I waited all my life for you, and now you’re just going to walk away from me as if none of it matters?”
Sharif quickly took himself out of the circle, moving several steps away and pretending to search the alleyway for interlopers or eavesdroppers.
“You only think you love me,” Kadir argued in a lowered voice. “That happens, sometimes, when sex is involved. Women don’t seem to be able to separate the heart from the physical act of love, when in truth the two usually have little in common.”
The pain cut to the quick. Was there nothing but sex between them, after all? “Do you love me, just a little?” she asked.
Kadir brushed a strand of hair away from her face, sighed and said, “No, I don’t love you at all. I like you. I wish you well. I will carry the memory of these past days with me until the day I die, whether that happens tomorrow or fifty years from now.” He looked her squarely in the eye. “But I don’t love you, Cassandra. Please understand.”
Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to shed them. She would not be an overly emotional, needy girl. And if she had to cry, she’d save it for a time when she was alone. But she did feel she could argue with Kadir.
“You could be a gentleman and…and…lie.” She’d convinced herself that he did love her, but maybe this was nothing more than she’d suspected all along. He’d needed a woman to warm his bed, and she was convenient. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known that was possible the entire time they’d been together.
And still, it hurt. Everything hurt.
“Goodbye, Cassandra.” Kadir kissed her hand, much as he had the candy maker’s, and then he turned his back on her, leaving her in the company of a man she did not like at all.
The way Sharif took her arm and all but dragged her away indicated that he felt the same way about her.
The heaviness of heart was unexpected, as was the undeniable sadness that welled up inside Kadir on a wave as unstoppable as those in Leonia Bay. It would be easy enough to dismiss his distress as the effect of what he was about to do, but he could not lie to himself any longer. He could lie to Cassandra, and had, quite well. But he should not lie to himself.
If everyone he loved was not a target for Zahid, if he thought he could protect her, if he believed that they had even half a chance at a happiness that would last more than a few days, then things would be different. Things could be different. But all that was nothing more than a few fanciful wishes, and he was a grown man who had put aside such indulgences long ago.
At the Leonia Inn, Kadir ran up the steps to the third floor, deciding to forego the rickety elevator in favor of the upward jog that helped him to release some of his unexpected emotion—or should. The run didn’t seem to help much, as he’d thought it might. Lately nothing was as it should be.
York answered Kadir’s knock anxiously, glancing around for Cassandra as Kadir entered the room.
“Did you discover anything of interest?”
“Not a lot,” York confessed. “Apparently Zahid Bin-Asfour and Prince Reginald met several times during the six months before his murder. From what I’ve been able to discover, it was nothing more than two men of like interests sharing drugs and women. An elite party, you might say.”
There was more, but if York had not discovered the rest on his own, Kadir would not tell him.
The Sheik and I Page 15
