Sold to the Sheikh (16 page)

Which, of course, was why they were here.

“Are you all right?” he asked Stella. She was still clinging to his arm, looking furtively from side to side, her shoulders hunched nearly to her ears. He hated having to do this to her.

She smiled too widely, her eyes pained. “Of course,” she said. “This place is very good.”

Bashir took a step as the maître’d turned to show them to their table, but Stella’s fingers dug into his arm, holding him back.

“But maybe it’s kind of fancy?” she said, a note of desperation in her voice.

Bashir shook his head.
She is stronger than this
, he thought to himself.
She is stronger than she knows; I am certain of it.

His voice had the deep timbre of command. “Come, Stella,” he said, “Now.”

Reluctantly, she complied, and as she stepped forward he bent down, his hand over hers on his arm, and whispered to her, “Nothing can hurt you while you’re with me.”

Her surprise—her confusion—was interrupted by the maître’d, who had a lengthy speech that Bashir was sure he was required to recite. It was tiresome. Instead Bashir insisted on helping Stella into her chair himself, unwilling to allow another man near her, and busied himself looking around for the reason he had made the reservation in the first place.

Ah
.
Over there
.

Bashir felt himself relax a little, the way he always did when all the moving parts of a plan were finally set into inexorable motion. It would unfold now, as it needed to. It all depended upon her.

He noticed, as they sat there, that she studied the menu with unusual attention. Surely she already knew it. She would not use that as an excuse to ignore her surroundings.

“Stella, give me the menu,” he said.

She had a pathetically hunted look as she handed it over. He couldn’t wait to change that.

“I do not want you distracted,” he said firmly. “I will order for you. Take in your surroundings, Stella.”

Stella didn’t pretend to smile, but dutifully did as she was told. The process of gathering her strength in obedience to Bashir played beautifully across her face, and he felt himself grow hard under the table. Finally having her would be one of the greatest experiences of his life, he was sure of it.

It was only a minute or two before she looked in that direction, and her reaction was immediate. Her entire body went rigid, and Bashir watched her chest flutter shallowly as her breathing became rapid. A sheen of sweat actually appeared on her forehead and across the line of her collarbone, and Bashir worried she was actually having a panic attack. He stole a quick glance himself, and saw why.

The man he’d expected to find at this restaurant, at this table, was, in fact, not alone.

Bashir reached across the table and grabbed Stella’s hand. “Look at me,” he said. She didn’t appear to hear him. “I said: look at me, Stella. That is an order.”

Her head snapped forward at the familiar, dominant tone, and she blinked back tears. Bashir felt his own heart sink; this was excruciating. He squeezed her hand, and was relieved to feel her return the pressure. She was not totally panicked, then.

“You know that man,” Bashir said.

She nodded, dabbing at her eyes with her free hand. Then awareness seemed to wash over her, and she looked at Bashir. She didn’t pull her hand away, but Bashir imagined it went a little cold.

“You know who he is,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

Bashir nodded. “Yes. It is why I brought you here.”

Now she tried to pull away, but he gripped her hand and held it fast. The table shook beneath them, and a tear streaked down her cheek.

“Why would you do that to me?” she said, her voice full of tears. “Why would you do that to anyone? Do you have any idea,
any
idea, what it’s like to see him like this?”

“No, Stella, I do not,” Bashir said seriously. “Please, tell me.”

C
HAPTER 20

Stella wanted to run. She had never wanted to run so badly in her entire life, not even when her family life had gotten really bad, not even when she’d been bullied in fourth grade, not even when she’d had to face the humiliation of being dumped the first time. And it wasn’t as though she only wanted to run to get away; she felt she need to run to simply expel the energy, the rising grief and panic and hurt that threatened to bubble up inside her, like a big geyser of pain.

And Sheikh Bashir clasped her hand, holding her down like an anchor.

Sheikh Bashir had done this. It was suddenly so clear to her. He had unlimited resources, and had apparently done some kind of research. He’d orchestrated this. He’d brought her here for the singular purpose of making her see Robert Spencer, eating dinner at their old regular table, with another woman.

‘Furious’ did not begin to describe it.

She was furious that the Sheikh would put her in this position, furious that he’d obviously investigated her somehow, but mostly furious that, in the midst of this crazy, erotic fantasy that she’d been living for the past few days, now she was reminded of the very crappy reality that was her real life.

Because there was Robert, with his new life, and a new woman. They looked genuinely happy. She had a ring. A giant, flashy, gaudy ring. It was as though Stella had never even existed.

And now she had to explain this to Sheikh Bashir? It hadn’t been perfectly clear to Stella until this moment how very much she needed what he had given her—a sense that she was special, that she was desirable, perhaps even lovable. And now she would have to tell him about being dumped? How Robert had left her?

It was worse than humiliating; it was frightening. Because when she told Sheikh Bashir, she knew what he would think, what any normal person would think, what everyone she knew did think already: that there must be something terribly, terribly wrong with her.

“Stella,” the Sheikh said. His voice was gentle, and his thumb brushed over the top of her hand. She forced herself to look into his eyes, and saw there only a steady strength, an unyielding acceptance.

It was almost too much for her.

Almost.

“Stella,” he said again. “Tell me. Now. If you refuse,” he paused, almost imperceptibly, “if you refuse, you may leave, and you may keep the agreed upon fee in its entirety. But if you wish to stay in our arrangement for the remainder of the weekend, you must tell me now.”

Stella didn’t know what to say. Her mind reeled at the idea of walking away from Sheikh Bashir, of never seeing him again. She’d deluded herself into pretending she wouldn’t inevitably had to do just that, but his words now—about their “arrangement,” about the remainder of the weekend—reminded her with crushing finality.

And
the money
. Would he believe her if she told him that she hadn’t thought about the money since the very beginning? That she didn’t give a damn about it, not compared to him, not compared to everything he’d done for her, even if he didn’t know it?

She didn’t want her time with the Sheikh to end, but even worse was the idea that if she told him he might think differently of her. Seeing that same pity, that same repulsion in his eyes that she’d seen in so many others…it was like it would leak back through time, poisoning even her memories of their time together. She was afraid.

But she was also tired of being afraid. She had faced more than one terrifying prospect in the past few days at the insistence of the Sheikh, and she had surprised herself every single time. If she lost the Sheikh, too…well, she couldn’t be afraid anymore.

Stella took a deep breath.

“Robert is my ex-husband,” she said. “Though I think you know that. And that is apparently his new fiancée.” Stella forced herself to look back over at what used to be their table to see the blonde flip her long hair with a laugh.

Really?
she thought.

“The marriage ended badly,” Sheikh Bashir prompted.

“The marriage ended as if it had never existed,” Stella said, biting off the bitter words one by one. “I came home one day from a weekend at my sister’s, and he was just gone. He’d moved all of his things out. He’d changed his cell phone number. There was a letter from his divorce attorney, but no note. There was
nothing
.”

Stella had to stop and swallow back a sob. What still got to her after all this time was the sheer contempt of it. He’d left her nothing because she was nothing. Less than nothing. Not even worth a goodbye, let alone an explanation. How could you treat any human being like that, let alone one you claimed to once have loved?

“There has been no communication whatsoever?” Sheikh Bashir asked. His brow was furrowed, and Stella realized this was the first time she’d seen him look anything but completely certain. The disbelief in his eyes stabbed at her heart. She could guess what would come next: he would wonder why. It was so inconceivable that someone could do something like that that he’d wonder what she wasn’t telling him. He’d think she must be crazy, that there must be something wrong with her…

Stella took another deep breath. It didn’t matter. There was no going back now; she had to face the reality of her life.

“No. He just removed me from his life. As though we’d never even met, like I didn’t even exist. He gave me the apartment in the settlement just so he wouldn’t have to see me again. I can’t even afford the taxes on it—he knows that. He just…erased me.” She looked down at where their hands were still joined, wanting to take in the last image of them together before Sheikh Bashir knew her for the social leper she had become.

“I still don’t know why,” she said quietly.

Sheikh Bashir sat in silence. For a long time Stella was afraid to look up, but when she finally did, she didn’t see disgust, or repugnance, or the awkward distaste of someone who was re-evaluating all of their previously held opinions of her. His black eyes glowed like two angry furnaces, and the lines of his clenched jaw pulsed evenly.

“I know why, Stella,” he finally said.

Oh, God
, she thought.
Please just spare me this one thing
. What could he say? What did he see in her that made him think that he knew why Robert had left her like that? She dreaded to hear it, because she didn’t think she could take feeling like that all over again: feeling that profoundly unlovable, that unattractive. That repulsive.

And yet, it would be a kind of relief, too, to finally
know
. Because the truth was that Stella had been driving herself absolutely insane trying to figure out what had happened, what she had done to deserve to be treated like that, why Robert had left her the way that he had. Her only reprieve had been Sheikh Bashir, and now that was ending. Maybe the Sheikh could give her some lasting relief by letting her know what was so wrong with her that people could leave her like that, again and again and again. Because there must be something. If her father could leave, if her step-father could care so little for her, if her husband could just cast her off without even a second thought…

She forced herself to speak. “You do?”

“Yes,” he said, leaning forward, his hand hot over hers. “It is because he is a coward.”

And his eyes flickered with rage as he looked over at Robert and his new fiancée.

“What?” Stella whispered. She couldn’t quite believe what she had heard. She definitely couldn’t make it fit with everything else she thought she knew about herself. She’d been so prepared to feel terrible again that she didn’t know quite how to react.

“He could not face you because he is a coward,” the Sheikh said fiercely. “And he left you because he is a fool.”

The immense relief that Stella felt put such pressure on her heart, expanding through her like a giant balloon, that it forced tears from her eyes.
Dammit, do not become a blubbering mess
. She looked down, determined to control herself.

“Stella,” the Sheikh said. “You must tell me how it can be that this is a surprise to you.”

He was staring at her again, studying her with that characteristic intensity. She still didn’t understand how he was able to just…see
through
her. There was no point in lying, or hiding.

“No one else has said that,” she said. “They all just assume that I did something, that there’s something wrong with me. No one will tell me what he says about me, but they’ve all drifted away. All my friends, except for Lola. They were all really his friends, I guess. It’s not the first time I’ve felt like people just didn’t want to have anything to do with me. At some point you have to wonder, you know? I’ve been thinking they must be right. There must be something that I just don’t see. There must be something wrong with me, for people to keep leaving. It makes it really hard to trust anyone.”

The Sheikh was silent. His face had become very stiff. God, she must be a mess. She was possessed by a stinging need to try explain, if only so she didn’t sound completely and utterly nuts, and yet was sure that it was an impossible task. There was just no getting around it, and yet she had to try.

“It’s not just Robert, ok? This stuff…I mean, my dad left, too, there’s a lot of baggage around that. Oh God, I’m sorry,” Stella said, wiping at her face, and wishing she could take her hand back from the Sheikh. Why did he hold on to it? “You can’t possibly want to hear this. I don’t know what you saw in me, back at Volare. I’m sure this isn’t what you had in mind for the weekend, is it?” She laughed in spite of herself. “I just hadn’t felt a man look at me like that in so long. It was like they could all sense that I was…broken.”

Funny that the Sheikh, the man who saw through her more than anyone else ever had, couldn’t tell how broken she was.
Life is just full of hilarious little jokes,
she thought.

“Is that why you worked with the elderly?” the Sheikh asked. “With people who had no one to care for them? Who were alone, or had been left?”