Sam closed his eyes against the wave of remembered sensation that was pushing the very notion to a pile of rot in his brain. Irena, a distant cousin, had the pedigree, beauty and education to be his wife. She was stunningly beautiful, and having been raised partly in America, she was progressive and educated, which he expected his wife to be. They were also good friends, having spent much time thrown together as adolescents. There were many fates worse than taking her as his wife.
Why then, did the idea make his veins still with ice?
Samir knew why. It was as clear as day.
Grace.
In the ten or so hours they’d spent together, she’d got into his soul in a way he didn’t seem able to shake. It had meant nothing, of course. He’d told himself over and over again that what they’d shared boiled down to chemistry and nothing more. They were sexually compatible. It was not enough to put his life on hold for.
But that’s just what he would do.
“I need to think about it, Kal,” he said with a voice that brooked no opposition. He turned his chair around to face his old friend. “I know you are right. And I’m sure I will choose Irena. But I need to take a trip, first. While I am gone, I will make my decision.”
He didn’t stop to listen to his friend’s response. As he set off for his luxurious private residence in the southern wing of the building, he was mentally already on his way to London. He wondered if her hair would still be blonde. If her body would still vibrate for his?
* * *
As he pulled his Range Rover to a stop outside her Chelsea townhouse less than a day later, it suddenly occurred to him that she may no longer live in the same place. He had no other means of contacting her. They had not swapped numbers; he had not left them any opportunity. He didn’t even have her last name. Nor her place of employment. He knew every erogenous zone in her body, but nothing so simple as what she did for a living and where.
Worse, it occurred to him that she might be married by now. She was, after all, devastatingly attractive, and he’d seen her responsive nature for himself. A fine bead of perspiration broke on his brow as he forced himself to acknowledge that she may well have slept with many men since they were together. Her body, that he felt he had owned so completely, could not have been possessed by another man. He simply wouldn’t allow it to have happened. If that meant changing the laws of physics, then so be it.
He looked up at the window of her mews house, but the curtains were drawn shut. An inviting glow from inside called to him, and he knew he could put it off no longer. With no real idea what he wanted to achieve by visiting her, he pushed open his car door and stepped out into the warm summer’s night. It was reminiscent of the first evening they’d met. Just over two years ago, exactly.
A car zipped past the entrance to the mews street, calling his attention. When he turned his head back, the front door to her home was open. And Grace, the angel who had haunted his dreams and burned his body for two years, appeared. She was just exactly as he remembered, and his body kicked up a gear in recognition.
Her hair was up in a pony tail. Her face empty of makeup. And she was dressed casually, again, except for those bloody heels. She moved purposefully towards a silver Daimler, and for the first time, Samir noticed there was a car idling just across from him.
She was about to pull open the door when some sixth sense made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Many times since she’d woken up to find him gone, she’d thought she’d seen him. Some days, she’d conjured him up, like a mirage in the desert. But this was no mirage. With legs that were suddenly shaky, she stepped back from the chauffeur driven car and waited. She had the strangest sensation of time standing still. Of it literally grinding to a halt, and them being the only things still moving and aware.
Her throat was dry. Every limb reverberated. And her skin was pale with the shock of seeing him again. Her insides felt like a rollercoaster on high speed. The passage of time had done nothing to lessen his appeal. On the contrary, he was more handsome than she’d remembered, if that was possible.
Dressed in black jeans, a t-shirt and a leather jacket, he had an air of indefinable danger about him tonight. And despite everything that had happened to her in the last two years, she still felt her body respond to the man who had taught her the meaning of sensation. He had also taught her the meaning of heart break and despair, salient facts she forced herself to recall now.
Slowly, purposefully, he strode across the street, until he stood, only feet away from her, on the pavement. Guiltily, her eyes lifted to the window upstairs, grateful that the curtains were drawn. There was no way she was going to let the love of her life upstairs see this man, nor vice versa. It was too messy. Too complicated.
And he just stared at her. Only a meter away from the woman who had been eating through his gut for two years, and all he could do was stare.
The sound of an ambulance careening past drew Sam’s attention, and as he angled his head to look towards the main road, it gave Grace an opportunity to discretely study him. In the two long years since she’d seen him, she’d wondered if she’d made him out to be more fantastically handsome than he was in reality. After all, she had just crashed her car, and her nerves had been all over the place. She’d done something incredibly uncharacteristic in sleeping with him. The next morning, when faced with the harsh reality of a cold imprint where his head had lain, and over the next days, weeks and months when it finally dawned on her that he really had disappeared from her life completely, she’d come to look on the whole episode as some bizarre dream.
A light wind drifted past them, and it carried his fragrance with it. Wood, spice and soap assailed her nostrils and she felt a familiar, long-forgotten ache to be closer to his body. Not just to smell his intoxicating scent, but to lick his skin, and taste him.
Finally, she spoke. “What are you doing here, Sam?” Her voice was wary. Her eyes hid a litany of pain. Pain he had inflicted and could never explain without telling her who he was and what he now did.
“I had to see you.” Well, that was honest. He watched the effect his words had on her. She tried to hide it, but she was as overflowing with raw emotion as he. Desire, need and pleasure fought with anger. Anger won.
“Two years later? What, are you crazy?” Though it was summer, she was wearing a light denim jacket, and she pulled it tight around her slender shoulders now.
“I might be,” he agreed ruefully. “Can you talk?”
Talk? He thought in chagrin. What exactly was he planning on saying to her? But, as she slowly shook her head from side to side to indicate no, he knew he had to speak to her. That it was vitally important.
“Seriously, are you crazy?” She forced an edge of humor into her voice. “You are the last person on earth I ever want to talk to again.”
His eyes glittered with determination. “Tough. I’ve flown a long way to have this conversation. Can’t you at least give me one evening?”
“Am I supposed to be impressed by that?”
He shrugged. “It is a statement of fact. I have flown in specifically to see you.”
“So because you decide now, out of the blue, that you want to see me, I’m supposed to forget the way you ran out on me?”
“I am not asking you to forget. Only to listen.”
“I don’t owe you anything, Sam.” She moved towards the waiting car, her spine stiff with pride. “Just go and disappear again.”
“I will not. I will wait here all night, if that’s what it takes.”
With another quick glance at the window above them, she shook her head again. She could not have Sam and Jacob meet. It would be a disaster.
“No.” She denied fiercely. She swallowed down the panic. “I have to work, Sam. People are counting on me.”
“You can’t take one night off?”
“You would say that. Someone like you obviously doesn’t understand responsibility and decent human behavior.” She expelled a long, frustr
ated sigh. “I can’t take the night off. But you can ride with me.”
He raised his eyebrows at her grudgingly extended offer.
“I mean it, though. One car trip and then I never want to see you again.”
He avoided responding to that. After all, allowing him to accompany her was something. It was an opening. And Samir was nothing if not skilled at exploiting openings.
Grace mentally kicked herself the second he slid into the car beside her. It was a comfortable enough car, but as with her bedroom, years earlier, Sam made the space feel small and tight. She had to concentrate to keep her breathing level when his thigh brushed against hers.
“Hi Charlie,” Grace leaned forward to speak to the driver. “This is someone I used to know. You don’t mind if he rides along do you?”
“Of course not, ma’am.” Charlie winked at his young employer. He’d been ferrying Grace to and from the theater for almost two years, with the exception of the two or three months she had off at the end of her pregnancy. He’d never known anyone with quite her work ethic. To return to work with a tiny mewling baby at home had been rather impressive. He had a soft spot for her, indeed. She reminded him a little of his own daughter. Stubborn, intelligent and kind as they come.
The man beside her was a different story. He could tell he was a proud man. Someone pretty impressive, by Charlie’s estimation. A banker, perhaps, or a high-flying corporate type. From the set of his features to the way he held himself, he was obviously a man of considerable substance. And he clearly had something over Grace.
Feeling like a chaperone rather than chauffeur, he started the silent car and began to drive the well-worn streets into the West End.
Grace was conscious of Sam staring at her. As if his eyes were extensions of his fingers, she felt his gaze on her face, caressing her lips, her eyes, her hair, then lower, her breasts, her body, her legs. His casual inspection made her heart race but there was no way she was going to let him see it. “It’s a short drive, Sam. Why don’t you say whatever it is you’ve come to say?”
He shifted a little in his seat, angling his body so that he was better able to face her. He scanned her face, memorizing every line, every detail, of the woman he now knew had captured his attention in a completely unique way. “I’m sorry I left you.”
Grace couldn’t help it. She lifted her palm to her chest and rubbed at her breast-bone, where her heart was clenching painfully. “You’re sorry?”
“Yes. Circumstances arose that required my immediate attention.”
“What in the world could possibly have happened that you couldn’t even say goodbye? Or write a note?” She shook her head. “Believe me, Sam, when I woke up to find you gone, I simply couldn’t believe you’d left. What we shared was so…” She searched for the right word, and Sam interrupted.
“It was amazing, Grace. Unforgettable.”
“You don’t get to say that!” She chastised firmly, pulling away from him, creating as much distance as she could in the confines of the back seat. “After you left, I tried to imagine what could have happened. What could have led you to up and leave so abruptly?” She shook her head. “But there’s nothing. There’s nothing that could excuse it. Or could excuse why you didn’t get in touch with me later.”
He caught her hand in his and brought it to his lips. “Grace, my reason was valid.”
She pulled at her hand but he held it tight. “What was it, then?”
He looked beyond her, to the streets of the West End. Pedestrians were thick on the streets, slowing their vehicle. “Can we walk? I would prefer to have this conversation privately.”
She furrowed her brow. “No! We can’t walk. Damn it, Sam, I have a job to go to. Charlie takes me to work. That’s his job. You see? Other people have responsibilities. Commitments. Good manners. I can understand what a foreign concept that is to you, seeing as how you had no hesitation treating me like some kind of disposable sex toy, but the rest of us live by a sort of moral code. That’s what keeps the world moving in a civilized way.”
His eyes flared at her words and he squeezed her hand. “Stop that.”
“No.” She took in a deep breath. Hysteria wasn’t far away, and she had to get it together. She pulled at her hand again, and the moment it was free from his grasp, she ached for his warmth again. It was ridiculous. “This was a stupid idea. I should never have agreed to listen to you.”
“Why did you?”
“Because I had to know,” she said harshly. “I had to know if there was some magical explanation for running out of my apartment like a coward. For two years, I’ve hoped against hope that you weren’t really such a bad guy. But you are. You are. Because there’s nothing that can excuse what you did.”
“My father died.” His emerald eyes clashed with her vibrant blue ones.
His words, at least, caused her to freeze just as she’d been about to begin on another tirade.
“Your father died?”
She closed her eyes against the wave of sorrow, but she would not let herself be gullible to this man twice in her life. Too much depended on it. She’d moved on. She had a bright future, and Jacob to share it with. Sam meant nothing to her now.
With a face carefully wiped of emotion, she was, after all, an experienced stage actress now, she stared back at him. “I don’t believe you.”
He had not expected that. He’d worried about telling her the truth, and all for nothing. In the end, she simply hadn’t believed him.
“Why would I lie?”
The car came to a slow halt outside the theater and she let out a sigh of relief. “Sympathy sex?” She postulated as she scooped up her handbag and leaned forward. “Thanks, Charlie, I’ll see you after. Sorry about the conversation.”
“Good luck, kiddo,” Charlie said with his usual smile firmly in place. Grace didn’t look back as she climbed out of the car. Served him right. She made her way swiftly towards the side door of the building. Unusually for her, she steered clear of the throng of autograph hunters. She was not in the mood.
“Grace.” His tone, even now, held a quality that had the ability to arrest her instantly. She stopped walking and turned to face him.
“I have to go, Sam.”
“We are not finished,” he said with a look of complete calm.
“I’m sorry if your father really did die. I’m even more sorry if you’re just making it up now to make me feel sorry for you. Either way, it’s over. Thanks for coming to explain it to me, but you’ve just made me see that you’re in the past.”
He had never met with such resistance, and it unnerved him. This conversation was higher stakes than even he realized, but he knew enough to know not to let her go. Not yet. “What is this place?”
She looked behind her at the red brick building with a small frown. “The Gov. Theater.”
“And what do you do?”
She regarded him as though he’d just walked off a space ship. “I’m a performer. I told you that.”
He compressed his lips with annoyance. “Yes. What kind of performer?”
She strode across to one of the people waving a booklet for her to sign. “May I borrow this?” Grace carried it back to Sam, and held it out to him.
Sam flicked through the program for the well known musical theater production. He’d seen a version of it himself in the States. “You’re in this?”
“I’m the lead in this,” she corrected, without so much as a hint of conceit. Two years had given her time to adjust to her new role and she’d taken the fame and adoration in her stride. Growing up with a famous father had made fame that much less terrifying. She pointed to the page that had her photograph, and bio.
“Grace Jones. Jones.” His mouth curved into a small smile. “I’d wondered about that. Jones.”
Grace’s pulse was skittering all over the place. This man had the ability to affect her like no one else ever had. But the fact that he was such a skilled flirt shouldn’t impress her any longer. Not now she knew wha
t a scumbag he was.
Sam’s eyes, when they met hers, were filled with speculation. “I want to see you.”
Grace felt a tingle of awareness run along her spine as she imagined performing for this man. Would it really be so bad? Be honest with yourself, Gracie, she admonished mentally. You want him to see you. You want to show off to him.
“Fine, suit yourself.” She moved back to the crowd and signed first the booklet she’d borrowed and then a few others before returning to the man who’d torn her heart into shreds. “It’s sold out though. You’ll have to watch from the wings.”
Samir had fantasized about her often since that night. But seeing Grace on stage now, hearing her voice captivate the packed house, her expressive face making them laugh or cry at her story, she was mesmerizing. That was without even contemplating how stunning she looked, in a succession of costumes that added to her ethereal, goddess look.
There was no other word for her. She was sensational.
He snuck out of the theater somewhere between her second and third standing ovations. He was apparently not the only one to have fallen for the charms of Grace Jones. She was universally adored, and with good reason. As he took the stairs two at a time, down to the foyer, he paused only to purchase one of the programs for himself, before bursting onto the street and climbing into his own security escort vehicle. Samir had known they would be following him, once he’d left Grace’s street, though they’d been given instructions to allow him a wide berth on this trip.
“Take me back to the mews,” he said in his own language, without making eye contact. His mind was too preoccupied with the problem at hand. What exactly did he want from Grace? He was on the verge of announcing an engagement to Irena. She was a suitable bride for him. And he respected Irena and the institution of marriage too much to even think of carrying on an affair with Grace. And as for Grace, there was no way she’d go for it. She’d been preaching morals and manners to him already. Imagine her response if he actually suggested that she take up the role of mistress in his life.
One Night with The Sheikh: An accident of fate brought them together, and it would bind them for the rest of their lives. Page 4
