ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance (65 page)

Norah stood and kissed him. He was right but it wasn’t the apartment that felt like home, it was
him
. She felt so safe in his arms, so protected, so cared for. There was a deep need in her that, until Jay, she didn’t know was there.

They made love slowly, exploring the other’s body as if it was the first time and later, when the pizza came, they ate in bed, watching reruns of Friends and sharing jokes. They fell asleep in each other’s arms just before 2 a.m. sated and happy.

***

“My mother has Alzheimer’s. That’s where I am Tuesday and Thursday evenings. She doesn’t recognize me anymore.” It was out and she drew in a deep breath and waited.

Jay put his cup of coffee down and reached across the breakfast bar to take her hand. “I’m sorry, Norah, that’s….damn, there’s no words for how awful it must have been for you.”

Norah nodded, the knot of tension in her still taut. Jay gave her a small smile. “Is that what you were afraid to tell me?”

She nodded. “I don’t know why. I would still rather keep it between you and I. I guess I didn’t want it to be a factor on how you felt about me or think of me.”

Jay looked confused. “Why would it?”

She shrugged in defeat. “Like I said, I don’t know.” She was silent for a moment. “I guess I was afraid that you’d feel sorry for me.”

“Norah Quinn, do you have such little faith in me? You seem to think that I’ve been somehow doing you a favor all this time. I totally have Machiavellian reasons for everything — I’m in love with you.”

That floored her and she gaped at him. The easy way he just dropped it into the conversation. Something that big. “Jay…”

“I love you.”

“Please, Jay…”

“I love you.”

His green eyes were twinkling merrily and suddenly she felt the weight lift from her body and she started smiling through her tears. “Oh, god, Jay, I love you so much…”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed so passionately she thought she might pass out.

They were both very,
very
late for work.

***

Sloan glanced over at Jay, who was bent over his work, concentrating hard but with a small smile playing around his mouth. It was September, and JWM were about to launch their cable channel. Sloan had to admit — without Norah Quinn working her pert little butt off for the last six months, they wouldn’t be here now. Norah had more than proven herself but still…Sloan hadn’t missed the lust-filled looks between Jay and Norah, the brushing of hands as they passed in the hallways, the fact they left work together — and
came to
work together. Jealousy churned and writhed inside of her as she witnessed their happiness and now she was about to see the results of her plotting.

Sloan casually picked up the remote control and flick on the flat-screen on the office wall. Jay glanced up, at her and she shrugged. “Just want to hear some white noise. Do you mind?”

Jay shrugged in his easy-going way. “Have at it.” He ignored the t.v. and went back to reading. Sloan flicked through the channels for a few minutes before choosing one and sliding a sideways glance at Jay. She gave a gasp. “Jay…look.”

She nodded to the screen. A picture of Norah was on the screen. Jay grabbed the remote control and turned the sound up.

Seems the new woman in the billionaire hottie’s life is a Harvard grad but some say she has an agenda all of her own.

A redhead about Norah’s age, with split ends and mean eyes, came on camera.
She was real quiet, you know, I always thought she might think she was better than us but she didn’t have any family, y’know, no money. Doesn’t surprise me she’s hooked up with Jay McKittridge, you could smell the desperation on her for a mile.

GG News has discovered Ms. Quinn’s only family is a mother with Alzheimer’s who she rarely visits and has let languish in a poorly run care facility in New Orleans. Let’s hope playboy Jay has his eyes opened about his new love. Stay with GG for more on this story.
Smirking, the presenter started to hum ‘Gold-digger’ making her co-presenter laugh.

Jay stood slowly. “What the hell?”

Sloan feigned shock. “What are they talking about? Jay?”

He was already heading out of the door. “I have to get to her.”

Behind him, unseen, Sloan smiled.

Jay ran the length of the building to get to Norah’s office but it was with a sinking heart that he saw it empty, clearly abandoned in a hurry. The flat-screen was on the same channel he’d been watching. Poppy, the intern Jay had assigned to help Norah, hovered nearly, biting her lip and shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.

“She just left,” she said in a timid voice when Jay looked at her, desperation in his eyes. “She was crying.”

Jay rode the elevator down to the lobby and ran out of the building, searching for her. Instantly a pack of paparazzi descended and he pushed his way through them, calling her name.

. Jay ran around the block, into the city searching but Norah was nowhere.

“Oh damn it, damn it…” He put his face in his hands. It was all over, It was all ruined.

Norah was gone.

***

She crashed into her apartment, not noticing how dank the air was. It had been so long since she was here, except to pick up her clothes which were now all at Jay’s apartment. The place she’d come to think of as home over the last six months.

And now….Norah sank to the floor, trying not to hyperventilate. The shock of seeing her own face on that gossip site followed by the utter, complete humiliation of being publicly labeled a gold-digger and worse, a cold-hearted daughter. She felt the eyes of her co-workers on her and she’d wanted to shout at them that none of it was true,
none
of it. Instead, she’d taken flight, throwing the folder she was holding onto the table and running…she’d taken the stairs in her eagerness to get away.

Because the worst thing of it wasn’t the judgment, the lies…it was that only one person knew about her mother and could have let the secret out. The people at the care facility had no idea she was dating Jay. There was only one source who knew both things…Jay himself and the pain of that betrayal was overwhelming.
Why?

She’d been sitting there for an hour when she heard the intercom buzz. Looking up, she suddenly scrambled to double-lock the door and switch the lights off. She knew it was him, knew it was Jay but she couldn’t face him, not now, not yet. Even when he started shouting and banging on the door, she went into her bedroom and pulled her pillow over her ears. Eventually, the shouting stopped and all was quiet.

And that was when she let herself break.

***

Sloan had watched her best friend over the past week and didn’t recognize him. Jay was broken and it was her fault. The launch was today and her major player wasn’t in the game but more than that, Sloan felt a tremendous guilt weighing down on her. The day of the new story, she had gone home, reveling in the success of her scheme but then her father had called and asked her to come over and as she looked at him, the early stages of the disease already showing on his face, the weight of what she had done came down on her and one word kept springing to mind, keeping her up at night.

Cruel.
Her father’s — Norah’s mother’s — disease was a cruelty to everyone it affected but it was a disease that hit anyone, at any time for any reason. And what she had done was spiteful, selfish and cruel. And that was something she could do something about.

“Jay, you have the speech, ready? I need to duck out for a half hour.”

He looked up, dark circles under his tired, sad eyes. “Now?”

She nodded. “It’s important. You got this.”

***

Norah opened the door with the same look in her eyes as Jay. Sloan took a deep breath as Norah moved to let her in.

“It was me,” Sloan said without hesitation. “I had you followed, I planted the news story.”

Norah stared at her for a long time. “Why?” She said eventually, her voice low and scratchy.

Sloan’s expression softened. “I was jealous. I was jealous that it wasn’t me he fell in love with. I’ve never seen him like this, Norah. I’m so sorry, so very sorry. Instead of doing this, I should have been the friend he thinks I am. I should have been a friend to you. Let me try and fix this.”

She turned and grabbed the remote to Norah’s tiny television. She flicked on and then Jay was there, on screen. Sloan saw Norah slump, her eyes fill with tears. Jay had a haunted look on his face as he spoke.

“So there you have it, the JWM channel. We’re hoping to bring original dramas, insightful documentaries, breaking news…I’m sorry.” Jay looked down. “I can’t stand here and pretend that the news stories over the past week haven’t affected me, especially not when I myself am launching a network which will report on people’s lives. One thing I can tell you — we will never resort to the kind of gutter-press antics displayed by some of our compatriots.

Norah Quinn is a highly accomplished Harvard graduate who was recruited to our company on the strengths of her resume. Without her, we wouldn’t be here today. Her mother is at one of the state’s top facilities, something which the press have conveniently overlooked. Norah herself visits her mother frequently and pays for her care herself.

My personal relationship with Norah is this: she is, without a doubt, the love of my life. Norah doesn’t care about money except when it comes to providing the best care for her mother, whom she loves very much. Norah loves without condition and I was lucky, for the best few months of my life, to have that love. I pray your disgraceful, repellent gossip hasn’t wrecked my chance to be with the woman I love.” Jay stepped off the podium to a stunned silence then people started to clap and cheer.

***

Jay moved through the guests, making small talk but feeling dead inside. The anger that had rippled through him on the podium had gone and now he wanted just to be alone.

He didn’t see Norah until he noticed the crowd parting and then all of the breath in his body left him. She was gazing at him with those beautiful, big brown eyes. He felt a rush of adrenalin and was at her side and gathering her up in his arms, not caring about the people around them. He kissed her, tasting the salty tears pouring down both their faces. When eventually they broke off, gasping for air, for a long moment, they just stared at each other, ignoring the melee of press surrounding them.

Finally, Jay, smoothing the hair away from her lovely face, smiled down at her and said two simple words. “Marry me.”

“Yes.” Her answer rang out true and clear and as the people around them began to clap and cheer, Jay kissed her again and knew he’d be kissing her for a very, very long time…

THE END

He was trying to decide which brothel to try this time when Misha, his assistant-bodyguard, who followed him like a shadow, got the call. “Bashir,” Misha said, after a moment on the phone, “you’ll have to take this.”

Bashir sighed and scowled. He’d just caught the eye of a blonde woman, covered only in pasties, svelte yet tantalizingly curved in all the right ways, arching her back over a chair. Amsterdam’s Red Light District wasn’t really as glamorous and decadent as it was said to be, but Bashir had always liked the free-wheeling sense of giddy no-holds-barred freedom that he had when he came to visit. He was aware, though, that if anybody recognized an Armani suit and bespoke shoes from a distance, it would be the Dutch, and the girls that were on display now were probably chosen specifically to cater to his tastes. He’d acquired somewhat of a reputation by now, for being generous with his tips as long as the house was generous with the girls.

The problem with Amsterdam, though, was that the Dutch were substantially taller than he was. He was five feet, ten inches—eleven if his shoes had a lift—which put him right on the average with the British, but here he was flat-out short. But he did have large, liquid-gray eyes and thick black hair that he kept neatly trimmed, both of them working to his advantage, especially with the women. Mention of his doctorate studies in International Law from Oxford, with his mild and vaguely-French accent, drove all but the most adamantly lesbian of women into his arms.

But it was too easy to fall into bed with a stranger, and much harder to extricate himself from the misunderstanding that invariably ensued: he wanted sex, she wanted love—though the reverse was just as true, just as frequently. Still, it’d happened often enough that when he discovered that Amsterdam was just a short flight from London and tickets were cheap and the euro-pound exchange rates were in his favor, weekend jaunts to the city of narrow houses and murky canals became a regular thing for him. Misha had taken to having a bag packed every Friday after his meeting with Professor Parker, his adviser. He sometimes wondered what Misha must think of these visits to the brothels—he’d offered to pay for a girl or two for him—but Misha always declined.

Bashir took the phone, glaring at Misha. His bodyguard—tall, blonde, with steely blue eyes and a catlike grace when he moved—maintained the same inscrutable blank look he always had. Misha was so coldly professional there were times when Bashir wondered if he had a pulse, but on the other hand he’d also had his share of bodyguards who tried too hard to be chummy and only made things awkward. There was no awkwardness with Misha, at least—he was just a job to the guy, which was both a blessing and a curse sometimes. “Hello?” he said.

It was his father. At first Bashir was annoyed—when the semester began he’d told his father that he would not be flying back to Bahrain for every official ceremony, but the King still called every now and then, asking him if he wanted to do the meet-and-greets for the King of Saudi Arabia, or the Ayatollah of Iran. They were largely frivolous affairs, fun in their own way if smiling for cameras and kissing hands and having you hands kissed was your idea of fun, but Bashir had been doing it since he was four, and while the thrill of meeting foreign dignitaries was still there, the wonder was gone. They were, after all, merely men—old men, dour men, who thought that they could rule their people like sultans of days past—and he’d met enough of them to know that he preferred women. His idea of fun these days was getting high on Ecstasy (purchased in bulk from his dealer here, concealed amongst the legitimate lactase pills he carried so that he could eat at finer establishments without suffering diarrhea later) and clubbing the night away, but even that had gotten old recently.