ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance (15 page)

Aimee died inside. When he turned and stormed from the café, she wanted to call out to him, to say his name and have him come back.

She wanted to feel his arms again, and smell his skin. Her lips remained sealed. They had to. She had to. What he offered her was a fantasy, a dreamland. A place she didn’t belong. This was all she was worth and she couldn’t let herself believe otherwise. She’d just be setting herself up for disappointment and anguish.

That didn’t make it hurt any less.

Xavier walked into the bank of Aimee’s tiny little town wearing his full business attire. He put on the suit, the shoes worth more than the bank clerk’s year salary, the cufflinks worth an inheritance.

He was done pretending. After a few days of research, Xavier uncovered that the entire core of the town was the bank. Control that, and he controlled the town. So he walked in with every intention of owning said bank. He could’ve called. He could’ve sent in his small army of lawyers and accountants to explain to the little people exactly why and how they could do nothing to stop him.

This he wanted to do himself. He wanted to experience the joy of winning.

After, once he owned the bank, he would sell the town off piece by piece to the highest bidder. A small outpost of a place like this, he could think of a dozen corporations that would kill to get in on the desolation market. This far out from competitors, they could do whatever they wanted. It was like the Wild West.

Then, as Aimee’s little nothing town disappeared, she would know how much she’d hurt him. The meeting went the same as a hundred others. There was blubbering, phone calls to lawyers, research, but in the end they knew they didn’t have a choice. There were no options. All of the grasping at straws they were doing now had already been foreseen by Xavier, and he’d taken every precaution against anything going awry. Business was his territory, and he was ruler of the plane.

He walked out of the bank satisfied. The first step in a new venture taken. He eyed the café as he left and wondered if Aimee worked today, if she was watching. Let her watch. Let her watch as her entire world fell around her. He stepped into the limo parked on the street and headed back to the city feeling well satisfied with himself.

It took every ounce of self-control and not a small amount of alcohol to keep out the small voice in his head saying this was wrong. He didn’t even remember the night passing.

Too many drinks later and he was waking up to a pounding on his door. At first he wondered why his servants weren’t answering the door when he realized the pounding was on his bedroom door. He owned a mansion, with acreage and statues and four floors. It was a castle. Who in his entire world would be pounding on his bedroom door?

“Police, open it or we’re breaking it down.”

The police? “It’s open,” Xavier called out.

The sound of his own voice rattled inside of his skull. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and held his head in his hands. The handle wiggled a moment, but the door remained closed.

“Last chance!”

“Hold on,” Xavier called back. He didn’t remember locking it. “I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said as he approached the door so that they could hear him getting closer.

The second he unlocked it, the door flew open. Six officers rushed the room, grabbing him and forcing him to the ground. There was so much movement and yelling he couldn’t follow what was happening. Amidst it all someone was reading him his rights.

“Wait, wait! I don’t understand. What am I being arrested for?”

“As I stated, you’re under arrest for armed robbery.”

“Armed robbery?” Xavier asked. “What?”

“We have a witness placing you outside of the bank at the time of the robbery.”

What the hell was happening? Aimee stood in the small room on the other side of the two-way mirror looking at a line of criminals. Among them stood Xavier, looking… well, hungover, frankly.

“That’s him,” she said. “Number three.”

“You’re sure?” the officer asked. “No need to rush. Take your time.”

“No, that’s him. I’m positive.”

“All right. Thank you for coming in. We really appreciate it.”

She nodded, the pit in her stomach growing into a void.

She never thought that Xavier could be capable of such a thing, but she saw the look in his eyes as he walked by the café. He was sending a message that whatever he’d just done was meant to hurt her. At first she thought it was just that he was there in all of his rich stuff, flaunting it in her face. It wasn’t until the alarms went off just after he left that she realized what he’d done. When the police arrived and reported that the place had been robbed, she knew she had to say something. It didn’t matter how she felt about him, what he’d done was wrong. Still, it didn’t feel good. She knew he was only upset and trying to hurt her because of what she’d done to him. This was all her fault.

After leaving the police station, Aimee went to John’s house. He had a small mobile home in one of the mobile home parks about a mile out of town. She needed to remind herself of what her life was really like instead of staying so focused on Xavier and what he was doing. What was done was done, and she did her part to help bring everything to justice. She just wanted that to be the end of it.

She knocked on John’s flimsy door, the thin pressboard material barely making a sound. The door jarring in the hinge and jamb made more noise than her knuckles did. He opened the door minutes later, sweating, looking a bit anxious. When he saw it was her though he settled.

“Hey, what’s up?”

Aimee shrugged. “Just wanted to hang out.”

“Cool,” he said, nodding his head by jutting it forward a few times. It looked ridiculous when he did it, but she’d need to get used to it. John moved away from the door. “Sit down, I guess. You want something to eat?”

“No, thanks,” she said as she stepped inside and walked over to the couch. “Not hungry.”

John laughed. “That’s a first.” Aimee closed her eyes, his laughter and words a sting in an already raw wound. The last thing she needed from him were more fat jokes. “Could we not right now, please?”

“Hey, you came over to my place, remember?”

“I’m having a bad day and I was hoping to just take my mind off of things.”

“Then why are you still dressed?”

Just when she thought it wasn’t possible, she died a little more inside. The thought of having sex with him right now as abhorrent. “Can we please just watch some TV or something?”

“Look, I’m taking time out of my day to babysit you. I’m going into my room and taking off my pants. You can either take care of business, or you can leave.”

The whole mobile home echoed with the beat of his steps as he walked down the short hall to the bedroom.

Aimee felt like she wanted to throw up. Her nausea rose like a boiling water, tickling the back of her throat. She rested her elbow on the arm of the couch and propped her head against her hand. Was this really to be her life? Could she live here, with him, like this? She couldn’t stand the thought of touching John. Not after the way Xavier had treated her.

She wanted to forget that night with him, but it had changed her. For once in her life she was happy. He respected her, cared about how she felt. Everything with him felt as it should be, as life should be. Now he was going to prison for robbing a bank, and she just couldn’t—

Her eye caught a glimpse of something between the cushion and the wall of the couch. Aimee slipped her fingers into the crack and pinched the small piece of paper. When she withdrew her hand, she was looking at a crisp $100 bill.

She grabbed the side of the cushion and pulled it up to see the zipper for the cushion cover slightly open. Money was looking at her from that small space.

Xavier hadn’t robbed the bank. John did. The police never said cash was stolen, just that it was robbed. She thought maybe Xavier had forced them to do an electronic transfer of money at gunpoint. That’s what they always did in the movies. He was so powerful, she believed he could do anything.

As it turns out, she was wrong. The echoing beat of footsteps came down the hall again and Aimee swallowed her heart. She shoved the bill back into the crack and looked up just as John appeared in the room.

“Are you still—“

His eyes looked at her hand, and then her face. She was sure that no matter how much she was trying to look neutral he could tell something was wrong.

“Ah hell,” he said with a sigh.

Xavier stood when the officer at the jail door called out his name. The other inmates there for anything from drunken misconduct to traffic violations perked up for a second at the activity and then went back to ignoring the dismal life around them.

“I’m him,” Xavier said as he approached.

The door squeaked as it slid open. “Your alibi checks out. The charges against you are being dropped.”

“I have no idea why you thought I would have done this in the first place. During the interrogation you said you had an eye-witness put me at the scene? Was that all you had to go on?”

“You can get your things at the counter up there,” the officer said, ignoring everything Xavier said.

It was the flimsiest police work he’d ever witnessed. After signing the papers and gathering up his personal belongings — what little there was after being arrested in his underwear — he stepped outside to see Roland already waiting for him.

After going home, showering, and changing clothes, Xavier just couldn’t calm down. They didn’t have to tell him. He knew Aimee was behind his being arrested. She probably
was
working that day, and saw him glaring at her.

She probably thought she’d have the last laugh! Well he’d show her. Xavier picked up the phone and called her. When she didn’t answer, he called again, and again. He called fifteen more times, positive that she’d pick up. She didn’t. He texted her. At first it was scathing, unleashing his full fury. When she didn’t respond, guilt over how he was behaving started to settle in.

He realized he wasn’t giving her any reason
to
answer him back. If he was just going to yell at her, there was nothing to talk about. So he apologized. Then he begged her to talk to him. He realized how crazy this was all coming across as. He sent a text explaining about how he wasn’t a stalker, he was just upset that she’d sent him to jail. Then he sent another text explaining how he knew that saying he wasn’t a stalker was exactly what stalkers said!

By that point, he started to become sincerely concerned. She would’ve responded by now to something, anything. She would’ve made a joke, or told him to stop messaging her. Something was wrong.

“Okay, “he said to himself, “if we’re playing the role of stalker, then let’s go for the gold.” Xavier went to his computer and did a ping on her phone number, tracking where her cell phone was. What came up was a mobile home park not far from her town.

He immediately had Roland drive him over to the address, making sure he understood that any speeding tickets would be paid for, and any marks against Roland’s license removed. They made it in record time.

It didn’t matter anymore what she’d done, or how she felt about him. She could hate him. That was fine. He just needed to know she was okay. As long as she was angry, but fine, he’d leave her alone forever. It was during that drive that he realized what he was feeling wasn’t actually anger, it was hurt. Her rejection had been so painful, he just didn’t know how to respond to it, so it turned to anger. Now that didn’t matter. Nothing did — only Aimee.

Roland pulled up to the address and Xavier ran up to the flimsy door. Somewhere in his mind he suspected that just knocking would get him some form of STD, but that was just a risk he was going to have to take.

After a quick rap against the door, a large man answered. Her boyfriend. Xavier recognized him from that time behind the restaurant. Now that he saw him up close, Xavier mentally remarked on the vacancy behind the man’s eyes. There was zero thought going on behind those glassy orbs.

“What?” the man asked.

“Is Aimee here?”

“Nope. Haven’t seen her.”

Xavier tilted to the side to try to see past him, but couldn’t see her anywhere. “Really?”

The man glanced to the side, and Xavier saw fresh scratch marks across his cheek and neck. So fresh, in fact, they were still beading with blood. “Yeah man, I said I haven’t seen her. Not for days. Now get out of here, all right? Or I’ll call the cops.”

“Hey, my mistake,” Xavier said, holding up his hands and backing away. “If you see her, tell her I’ll talk to her soon, okay?”

“Whatever man,” the boyfriend said and closed the door.

Xavier went back to his car, and no sooner had he closed the door than hit send on his phone. When the man answered on the other line, a cold calm settled over Xavier.

“I’m calling in that favor you owe me.”

Aimee tried not to cry, but sound escaped as small whimpers without her intending to. She couldn’t help it. The last thing she wanted to do was get more attention from John, but her emotions overruled her choices, and the whimpers escaped.

The closet door slid open flooding her with light. “Your little boyfriend just came to my house.”

John threw her cell phone at her. If she hadn’t dodged her head to the side it would’ve cracked her right in the skull.

“He’s called you like a hundred times. How does he know where I live?”

Fear gripped her heart. She tried to tell him she didn’t know, but her words were muffled by the duct tape over her mouth. John pulled out a gun and pointed it at her.

“I’m going to kill you either way, but whether it’s slow or fast is up to you. I’m only asking one more time, so you better stop lying to me. How does he know you were here? How does he know where I live?”

Aimee sobbed and shook her head again.

“Stop lying to me! I’ll kill you, him, and everyone you care about! Tell me!”

All she could do was keep shaking her head, but John yelled over and over for her to tell him. She just didn’t have an answer for him.

Wind suddenly buffeted against the walls of the mobile home. It was nighttime now, but blinding white light flooded the entire inside of the mobile home. Aimee heard the front door burst open, and John turned and fired his gun. Aimee screamed, trying to duck down further in the closet, but her wrists and ankles were duct taped together and didn’t really allow for a lot of movement.