Bedelia glanced at the clock. He was likely in a meeting right now, and his phone would be set to voice mail. That was the best method, she thought. If she had to talk to him, hear his voice and listen to him laugh and smile, she would never be able to do what had to be done.
The phone rang for what seemed like a terribly long time, and then his voice mail picked up, much to her relief.
"Hello, Jahin," she said, her voice falsely cheery even to her own ears. "Um, this is just a call to say hi, and that I was thinking of you. I know you usually call me later, and I just wanted to tell you not to bother. I'm feeling so tired right now, and I think I'm just going to lie down and try to sleep it all out. Um. I'm always happy when you think of me, but man, right now, I really need my sleep! I hope I'm not coming down with the flu or anything, ha ha! But yeah, I hope things are going well, I'll see you later!"
She ended the call, her face bright red and her hands shaking a little. She had sounded ridiculous, speaking too fast and too nervously, but it would have to do for the moment. At the very least, that meant she could make her preparations without him calling in concern. Maybe he would just think of her flustered ramblings as an artifact of the illness.
With any luck, however, it had bought her time, and that was what she needed the most.
"Don't worry, baby," she whispered, stroking her belly. "I will take care of this."
Chapter Twelve
Jahin walked out of the meeting with a bounce in his step, not necessarily because things had gone so well, but because they were simply over. The talks had seemed to go on forever, but he had hopes that in the next five years, they would be seeing some real environmental gains from the talks that had happened today.
He grinned when he saw a message from Bedelia. He thought about calling her before listening to it, but then he thumbed the message to play on a whim. As he listened, however, his smile grew smaller and then disappeared entirely off of his face.
There was something wrong, he could tell instinctively. The way the legends spoke of horsemen who were attuned to their mounts, who knew when they were sick and when they were well, he felt similarly attuned to Bedelia. She would not be pleased to be likened to a mare, he thought, but the sense was the same.
She was speaking too fast, and the cheer in her voice seemed at best a fib, at worst a cover-up of something much darker.
"What's going on, love?" he murmured, looking at his phone as if it might have some of the answers. He listened to the message again, and this time, Jahin liked it even less.
He wavered for a moment, fighting with himself. Technically, there was a second meeting that evening, but he knew from experience that it would be an informal and casual thing, something where more pleasure was discussed than business. It would still be useful; there was nothing like sitting and sharing food with someone for getting to know them, but the bulk of the conference's work had been done.
I really should stay, though, he thought. As much as he wanted to see Bedelia, there were people who were expecting him, and it sounded like she was going to sleep all day and all night anyway. He could take one of the earliest planes out the next morning, see her as soon as she woke up, or even crawl into bed with her while she was still sleeping. He smiled at the thought of crawling into bed with a warm and sleepy Bedelia, listening to her murmuring with surprise as he touched her. Yes, that was likely the best thing to...
NO.
The sensation of wrongness and fear burst over him, and before it had even subsided, he was striding towards Sheikh Masoor Al-Bihari, an older man with a magnificent sea-captain's beard.
"Will you make my apologies to the others?" he asked, slightly breathless. "I am very much afraid that I will not be able to make the evening session."
Sheikh Masoor frowned at him. "Why ever not? Is everything all right?"
"I dearly hope everything is all right," he said, ignoring the man's first question and turning towards his car. "I very much hope so."
All the way to the airport and in the plane, he tried to tell himself that he was being ridiculous. He trusted Bedelia, and it was probably fever that was making her speak so quickly and so nervously. Likely, after she had hung up the phone, she had fallen into bed and even now was fast asleep. There was nothing wrong with her that rest and relaxation wouldn't fix. He was being ridiculous for rushing home when all that told him to do so was a dark little voice in the back of his head.
He leaned back in his seat in first class and tried to relax. However, there was something about the situation that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he didn't think he could wish it away, not honestly. He wanted to call her back, but he was unwilling to do so, not when he might be taking her out of a restful sleep merely to indulge his nerves.
No, the best thing to do would be to get home as soon as he could, reassure himself that all was well, and simply let her rest. Tomorrow, she would wake up, see him there, smile, and life would continue.
Jahin told himself this over and over again, and by the time he landed in Muneazil, he almost believed it. He had his own car waiting on the ground, and as soon as he was in his home emirate, he started driving towards the penthouse.
When Jahin got there, it was dark, and for some reason, it felt slightly chilly to him. He knew his imagination was likely getting the best of him again. Of course Bedelia would keep it dim as she slept, especially if her head hurt.
Jahin kept his step light and gentle as he made his way through the darkened house, not turning on the lights or making more noise than he had to. The moment he stepped into the bedroom that they shared, however, he could tell that something was wrong. He stood in the doorway for several long moments, listening desperately for the light breathing that should have been there and hearing...nothing.
He reached for the light switch. In a panic, he wondered if he would find Bedelia fallen on the floor, dead from some household accident or perhaps simply not breathing in the bed, victim of some disease that had spread ridiculously fast.
He saw neither, and as his breathing slowed down, he felt that fear grasp him again. There was a folded sheet of paper on his pillow, and feeling as if the world was slipping sideways, he picked it up.
He recognized Bedelia's neat handwriting immediately, and for a moment, he had no idea what he was looking at.
My dear Jahin:
This is perhaps the hardest thing that I have ever had to write. First, I must apologize. I lied to you on the phone earlier, and I hope you will not think too badly of me in the time to come. I needed the time to leave, and I could think of no other way to make sure that I was uninterrupted.
Second, I dearly hope that this will simply be 'until we meet again' rather than a farewell. My heart is overflowing with feelings for you, but this needs to stop for now. If you will allow me to do so, I will contact you once I am in the United States. Perhaps sometime in the near future we can speak again.
There followed a series of cross outs so dark and violent that he could not figure out what was being said there. She had obliterated the next part with such a great deal of force that the paper was nearly torn there before it continued.
I care for you so much, and that will always be true. Please think well of me.
--Bedelia
He stared at the letter, and for a moment, he was simply stunned. What the hell did she mean about all of this? Did she truly think that he would be all right with her simply walking off and leaving nothing but this letter behind? Was this really all she thought of him?
The logical thing to do would have been to simply let her go. His father had once told him that when a woman wanted to leave he should let her. The right one would want to stay and wouldn't mind saying so.
However, this was Bedelia. In so many ways, she felt like the right one, regardless of her birth or her lack of wealth. She was the right one because of her smile, because of her heart, because of the body that could draw a response out of stone. She was perfect, and she was gone
, and dammit, he refused to let that be the end of it. He read the letter through one more time, trying to figure out what the missing piece was, why she would flee when things were going so well, when they made each other so happy, but he found nothing at all.
There were two paths in front of him. One led towards a perfectly reasonable woman who would be his sheikha, another guiding hand for his country, a woman generations of his family would think of as suitable.
On the other path was a girl with green eyes that outshone emeralds and a heart that called to his like a siren, and in the end, it was no choice at all.
He folded the letter carefully, stuffing it into his pocket, and then he picked up the phone.
For a moment, he debated calling Bedelia, but he dismissed it with contempt. She had decided to leave without saying a word, which meant she didn’t wanted to speak with him. Right now, actions mattered more than words, and he was nothing if not a man of action.
Instead, he dialed the Muneazil airport.
"Hello, I am Sheikh Jahin Abdul Kattan, and I must speak with representatives from ticketing and from the flight control tower..."
He waited impatiently while the exclamation on the other end of the line died down, and then he started telling them what he wanted.
In less than ten minutes, he was out the door and in his car. He could make it back to the airport in forty minutes, and though his body cried for rest, he refused to stop, refused to even take a break.
In the back of his mind, there was a fury simmering there, something dark and roiling, but behind that, there was fear. He was never a man who could deal with fear, however, and he pushed it away.
Instead, he focused on the image of Bedelia, on her smile, the way she reached for him, the soft sound of her breath at night. More and more, he was realizing that he did not want to live without her, and what this meant for them moving forward from this moment was anyone's guess.
***
THE MOMENT SHE got on the plane, Bedelia felt herself relax. It was a narrow seat, and she was pinched between an irritated business man and a woman with a small baby snugged to her lap, but it was still a relief. She had searched for fares online before being simply reduced to calling the airlines heading out of Muneazil and Dubai. She had gotten the bad news over and over again; everything was booked up for the next forty-eight hours. She had said over and over again that she needed to leave the country, to return to the United States, but it had all been futile until she had reached one sympathetic representative in Muneazil.
"I can't get you to the United States," he said reluctantly. "But I can route you to Istanbul, and from there, you can take a flight to the United States almost immediately. Will that be acceptable?"
It wasn't, really. Istanbul still felt too close, too near to Jahin's grasp, but it was the best she could do. She agreed, winced as she gave him her credit card, and after that, she threw everything that belonged to her into her bag.
It gave her a surprising pang to leave behind the clothes he had bought her. It wasn't because she loved wearing them or because they were valuable, although both things were true. It was because she had so many memories of wearing them with Jahin. She could remember which dress she had worn to go to the national gardens, which tunic she had worn to the races. She shook her head, refusing to allow herself to take even one for the memories. It would feel too much like stealing, she’d thought with a pang.
Instead, she had put on her old tunic and trousers, throwing a black scarf over her head. Still, she’d had to pause when she found the little wooden figurine he had bought her on their first day together at the horse fair. For a moment, looking down at the figurine's smiling face, she’d wanted to break down into tears again, but somehow, she’d stopped herself.
What would you have done? she asked the wooden girl silently. You mourned, and you swore to never stop mourning until your lover returned to you. My issue...is a little more complex.
In the end, she couldn't bear to leave the talisman of their relationship behind. She rolled the figurine in a pair of socks and tucked it into her bag. She couldn't leave it, but if she kept on looking at it, she might simply start sobbing.
You can stop affecting my moods any time, kiddo, she thought, touching her stomach, but she knew it was more than just hormones. There was a part of her that was actively in mourning, but she couldn't allow herself to give in to it just yet. It would be safe when she was on the plane. She could cry all she wanted to on the plane, and then she would land in Istanbul, and after that, she would be in the United States, where she could only imagine that she would spend the next few months weeping at every turn.
She was tense all the way to the airport and navigating her way through the crowds there. At any moment, she expected Jahin to come out of the crowd, to demand an explanation for what the hell was going on.
Even as she thought of it, however, she knew how unrealistic it was. He knew they were having a temporary affair. He knew there was nothing binding them to each other. He would simply let her go, and that would be that. If he knew she was pregnant, however, things might change, and she could not risk that.
Still, when the plane made its way down the runway, picking up speed as it did so, something in her loosened. Bedelia couldn't help but notice that the woman in the seat next to her had a fat gold wedding ring, and she knew somehow that the woman and her child were returning to a man who loved them.
Oh god, I really don't want to cry all the way to Istanbul, she thought in horror, but it was certainly looking as if that was what was going to happen.
She was just wiping her eyes when the captain turned on the announcement system.
"We regret to inform you that due to circumstances beyond our control, the plane will be landing again immediately..."
Amidst the chorus of groans and grumbles, Bedelia froze. There was no way that it could be what she thought it was, but there was a cold certainty at the bottom of her stomach that was certain it was Jahin.
As the plane turned a giant circle to land again, she took a deep breath, trying to make sure that she stayed calm. There might be equipment failure. There might be some kind of security issue. It didn't have anything to do with her at all, or at least that was what she told herself to stay calm.
However, even that illusion of calm disappeared when the plane landed and two men in dark suits and sunglasses appeared. They made their way straight for her, one standing in front of the seat, one behind, both watching her with the uncanny attention of cats.
"Miss Lindow, you will exit the plane now..."
She had to awkwardly climb over the woman with the baby, and she was painfully aware of the looks they were giving her. They were wondering what kind of criminal she was, what kind of security risk she had to be before they turned the plane around for her and forced her off of it.
Even though she had done nothing wrong, Bedelia felt a blush of shame bloom across her face.
As she walked off the plane, however, there was also a sense of relief and freedom that she hadn't expected. It was as if the worst had happened, and now she didn't have to worry about it any longer. She didn't want to smile, she didn't want to cry. She simply existed in a state where she did not have any say in what happened next, so she could just relax and stop worrying about things.
The men in dark suits did not seem overly inclined to hurt or harass her. She thought they might be rude or curt, but instead, they were extremely courteous and deferential. She didn't know if they were just naturally polite or if they had received instructions not to harass her, but either way, she was grateful for it. Under their guidance, she got into a sleek black car, and then she was driven back to the penthouse where she had departed from just a few hours ago. She had not expected to see this place again, and now that she had, a part of her felt thankful. This place was immensely dear to her, and she hadn't even begun to fully mourn it yet.
They followed her into the elevator, and she realized they were concerned she might dart
out on another floor and try to flee again. She could have told them that they had nothing to worry about. Now that her plan had been foiled, she felt like a deflated balloon, without the ability to move herself forward or back, up or down. The ride to the penthouse seemed to take forever, and when the door chimed and opened, she stepped through on her own.
Seated on one of the wing chairs, one ankle propped casually on his knee, Jahin looked every inch the ruling monarch. He was dressed in simple black, but there was something imposing and commanding in him as he watched her. She had never seen his copper eyes so cold before, and when he gestured at the chair across from him, she didn't dare defy him.
"I suppose you want an explanation," she began, but he cut her off.
"I was worried about you," he said, his tone harsh. "I returned home to Muneazil early because of you. I was concerned that you were sicker than you were saying, or that you might hurt yourself in your delirium. After your message, I flew here, and when I went up to the bedroom, I found your note."
He gestured towards the crossed out scrap of paper where she had penned what she thought was going to be her goodbye. Bedelia flinched a little. She knew very well what was written there, and it hurt to imagine Jahin reading it.
"I couldn't believe it," he continued caustically. "When I came home and found you gone, it was as if someone had carved the heart out of me. For a moment, I thought you were kidnapped, not that you had left, and when I realized that you had left, I had to also realize what a fool I was."
"Why did you call me back? Why did you ask your men to find me?"
He scowled at her, and she thought that if she were capable of feeling anything right now, she would be afraid.
"Because I needed to find out why," he growled. "I have been open and honest with you, and despite the evidence that lies in front of us, I believe that you have been open and honest with me. You fleeing for the United States...that is the part that feels strange and dishonest to me, like it is something that does not fit.
Sheikh's Virgin Love-Slave Page 20
