SHEIKH'S SURPRISE BABY: A Sheikh Romance (94 page)

“Have not a care,” the oldest of them said. He had black hair that shined under the lights of her office, clearly oiled and groomed. His thick mustache was trimmed neatly, his grey suit tailored specifically to his dimensions. This was a man of money. “You did not forget an appointment.”

Lacy subtly released the breath she’d been holding. “Okay, I’m unable to speak with you unless you’ve made an appointment. I’m an incredibly busy woman and I don’t have the time for walk-ins.”

“We work for a client of yours. He wishes you to go over some paperwork at our office. There is a large transaction he is preparing to make, but we all felt more comfortable having his legal representation present.”

Lacy was rattled and unnerved by their appearance that morning, and for just a moment she stood in indecision. Why wouldn’t Walid just let her know ahead of time? Then again, with the way he’d been acting, she wasn’t really surprised he would send other men in his stead.

Resolving herself to the complete breakdown of their relationship, Lacy gathered up her things and left with the men.

The cool air of the hotel room did little to settle Walid’s nerves as he stared at the chess board. When he discovered one of his men was particularly proficient, Walid insisted they play a round. After he lost the first round, Walid respected the man’s willingness to not play easy against his boss.

In their culture, those of lower station bowed to those above them. Groveling and supplication were a big part of his father’s dynasty. It was an aspect Walid never agreed with. Treat people like people, and they’ll work hard to maintain a positive point of view. Walid rewarded the man’s tenacity by insisting on another game. So far Walid had won a single game to the man’s four.

Both were quick thinkers, neither taking more than a few seconds to move. Obviously this was his opponent’s style, and he was good at it. At first Walid was attempting to match his tactics, to overcome his enemy on his own turf. Now that it was failing, he realized he needed to play his own game. As Walid contemplated his next move, his cell phone vibrated in his coat pocket.

“Yes,” he answered.

“The bar owner’s information was good. We believe we’ve located where they’re keeping his wife.”

“Good. Standby. I will gather the rest of our men. A deal is a deal.”

“There’s something else.”

Walid held up a finger to his opponent to inform him he needed a minute. Walid leaned back in his chair and turned his focus entirely to the conversation. “Go on.”

“As we observed the building, they brought in someone else.”

“I find your hesitation both troubling and unnecessary. Out with it.”

“They have Lacy.”

His greatest fear realized. Walid closed his eyes as a very real pain seared through his chest. The love of his life, the would-be mother of his child, and she was in the clutches of this mystery enemy. Now was not the time to show weakness.

“Hold position. Await further instruction.”

“Understood.” Walid ended the call and placed the phone on the table beside the chess board.

All his mind could latch onto was the thought of breaking something. To smash the table, find a deserving man and crush his skull. It wasn’t just a desire, but a need to break his fists against something. Such outbursts, however, were unbecoming of a leader. Walid wished to be followed in this foreign land of concrete and sales, and that meant being a pillar of stone. The shaking hands of his were anything but stone, however.

He tried to disguise this by slowly rubbing his palms together, his eyes fixed on the enemy king on the chess board.

“They have her, don’t they?” his opponent said. It was worded as a question, but they both knew it didn’t need answering.

Walid saw the eyes of his opponent rise to look over Walid’s shoulder. He in turn looked up and saw his other warriors standing beside him.

“What do we do?” one asked.

“We do nothing. They’ve yet to reveal their hand to me. Until they do, we cannot know their intention for Lacy.”

“I cannot believe their intentions are in any way benign.”

“Nor I,” Walid said as he looked back to the chess board, “but we cannot play the game their way. First, we must discover their intentions, and then we will devise our own plan of attack.”

“I do not understand why we do not attack now while they are unaware we’ve been alerted,” the third guard said.

“Silence,” the other guard snapped at him. “When it is your place to know, you will know.”

Walid held a hand up for the guard to stop his beratement. “When the enemy reveals their demands, they will in turn reveal their greatest weakness. In that time, we will strike clean and decisive.”

His phone rang from an unfamiliar number. Walid answered, his entire body tense.

“It would seem the presence of your men have advanced our timetable.” The voice on the other end was female. The caller used an electronic scrambler to change the tone, but there was something familiar in the way they spoke.

“Who is this? Why do you call?”

“Do not think me a fool. You know who this is and you know why I call.”

“You are the false Sheikh.”

“Use that word one more time, and her blood will be on your hands.”

“Your demands?”

“You will not meet them.”

Walid stared at the chessboard, his eyes falling on the bishop. Fighting sideways. He plucked up the piece and looked at the round knob at the very tip. “Make them anyway. It is only courteous.”

“Leave this country. Abandon your projects. Never return.”

“And I can take her with me?”

“No you cannot. She remains.”

“Her body or her spirit?”

He could hear the smile in the voice as it answered, “That depends on your answer.”

The call ended and Walid set the cellphone down, his eyes locked on the bishop.

“What did he want?” Walid’s former opponent asked.

“She,” Walid said.

“What does
she
want?”

This was it, the moment of truth. Walid had been torn on his true heart’s intent. If he stayed now and continued to pursue his business, he would succeed. It was as clear as the fact that they had to capture his love in order to try and persuade him.

Both of them knew he would be the victor. However, he would lose Lacy and his would-be child. If he left, he would lose everything, but Lacy and the child would live.

This would have been a devastating choice to make, except for one grave mistake. This “Sheikh” had to make the call herself, to dig it in. Secretly, she wanted Walid to know who was competing against him. That, however, was to be her downfall.

“Why are you smiling?” one of his men asked.

“I know who the false Sheikh is.”

Lacy’s leg bounced nervously and she checked her watch again. It’d been an hour. She was starving, her coffee had long since worn off, and she had to visit the bathroom like never before. Up to now they had been feeding her poor excuses, having her look over useless generic papers, and giving inconsistent reasons for Walid’s absence. Lacy had had about enough. She closed her briefcase and stood.

“Gentlemen,” she said politely by way of goodbye. The two men in the room jumped up from their seats.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to excuse myself to the powder room, if you don’t mind.”

“Your man will be here any moment,” one said as he moved to stand in front of her, and arm out block her path.

“He should have been here an hour ago,” Lacy said, and tried to step around him. “I need to eat something. I have meetings and other clients.”

When she couldn’t get around his constant dodging, she stopped and looked him in the eye. “Get out of my way.”

There it was. She was being blatant. No more time for lies.

“We can’t do that.”

“I feel I’ve been more than patient, but I’m really done playing around. So unless you have a gun or something, I’m leaving.”

The man in front of her reached behind him and pulled out a gun. A real gun! He pointed it right at her head and pulled the hammer back. “Sit down.”

“This is kidnapping,” she said.

“Noted,” he said. Heart hammering in her chest, her throat suddenly dry and clenched, Lacy went back to her chair and sat down. She kept the briefcase on her lap, as if it could provide any protection against gunfire.

“Stay in the seat. If you try to leave, we will shoot you.”

“You obviously want me for something. You wouldn’t shoot me,” she challenged.

“I said we’d shoot you. I never said we’d kill you.” He pointed the gun at her leg. “Are you emotionally attached to your knees?”

Before she could stop herself, she moved the briefcase down to block her legs. The man jutted his jaw out.

“Don’t get up.”

The two men left since the need for appearances was no longer necessary. Fear kept her in the chair for another hour. Her restlessness took over then, and she paced the room for another hour. What was she to do? She was a lawyer. A pregnant lawyer!

Lacy stopped and touched her hands to her stomach. Her womb. She was pregnant. It was an odd thing to realize the full extent of such a thing when in the middle of such danger. She wasn’t just responsible for her own safety now. She had to think of her baby.

Lacy’s jaw clenched, her teeth grinding against one another as her fear churned itself into a frothy rage. They think she’s a bargaining chip? They think they can just take her and hold her hostage like a… a… a victim!

She was no victim!

Walid wasn’t going to come for her, not after everything. This was as clean a solution as he was going to get. The woman and the baby he didn’t want gone, and he had nothing to do with it. If she was going to get up to this mess, it would have to be up to her.

Lacy dropped her briefcase, no longer needing the comfort of its useless materials, and she began to eye the office they kept her in. A plan formed.

The building stood as a stark obelisk in the center of the city block. Other skyscrapers pierced the sky around it. The only thing different about this building was that this was where Lacy was. She could be on any floor, in any room.

At a moment’s notice, if they even suspected Walid was inside, they would kill her. That was their mistake, however. They expected an answer. They expected anything other than what he was doing.

How did he know this? Because the False Sheikh was his sister.

As Walid’s men stormed the building, swirling about it in search of security measures and finding the entry point with the greatest success rate with the lowest possibility of discovery, Walid pieced together events and created a timeline in his mind. She must have been ill-content with Walid’s leavings, knowing he was off to secure a much grander wealth for himself.

His sister had never been one easily satisfied. As Walid had given up his birthright, it had taken a bit of extra time to prepare his effects for travel. His sister must have appointed a governor for her holdings and flown to New York ahead of him. There she established herself, her wealth and family name before Walid could even plant his feet in the new land. Her mistake was calling him. She needed him to know that he was done, that she had won.

It was a mark of arrogance, and her greatest failing. Right now, she sat in that tower of corruption convinced she had him beaten. She expected his call, or to see his flight out of America. If he knew his sister – and he knew her better than any of his other siblings – she sat in the highest point of the tower drinking coffee, gloating.

The building was nearly empty of all employees. The entry way, halls, and offices were all dark with only the most minimal of lights working. This was not a building in active use. If he were to guess, he had to assume his fool of a sister purchased the entire thing, likely for this purpose alone. Walid and his men, however, were ghosts in the day. They were smoke.

They avoided every guard where they could, and incapacitated them when they had to. The security was thickest in the first three floors. It was clear that no one was meant to get past that point. When things thinned out, Walid and his men found a guard with rank and ambushed him in his patrol. Secreting him away to an abandoned office.

“Where is the woman?” Walid asked, a knife to the man’s throat.

The fat, sweating man, his stubble a sign of poor hygiene and personal upkeep looked from one man to the other, and licked his slug-like lips. “You won’t get away with this.”

Walid leaned in, glaring holes through the man’s skull. “We’re not even here. If you do not tell me what I need to know, I will slaughter every person in this building to acquire what I desire. Tell me what I need to know, and your friends survive the day, confused, but breathing.”

The fat man swallowed. “So, if I tell you, it’s like I’m saving their lives?”

Walid scraped the sharp blade of his knife along the man’s fat wattle, shaving a line of stubble. “Precisely.”

The man nodded, his cheeks wobbling with the motion. “Okay. 20th floor. Manager’s office. Down the hall on the right, third one. You won’t make it. Security is tight. Just leave now and—“

His voice cut off as Walid clapped his hand over the man’s face. “Gag him, throw him from the window.”

“Sir,” one of his men said.

Walid raised a brow, which silenced him. Still, the unraised question was not out of place. “Or stuff him in a closet.”

The men nodded. Walid looked the guard in the eye.

“If he makes a sound, however, we return to the window idea.”

Lacy gave one final check of the room to ensure everything was in place before setting off her plan. The chair was positioned to the side, facing the side the door opened. The waste bucket was full of liquid and ready to be thrown. The only light in the room now came in threw the window as the lamp was no longer functioning. She was as ready as she could be.

She picked up what was the power cord for the lamp, and pushed it into the socket. She bent the ground wire down and had to remove the plating around the socket to actually get it in, but after a small spark, it was in. The wires were attached to the doorknob of the office.