The Sheik's Mysterious Mistress (Friends Forever) (11 page)

“You’d feel much better if you talked to me about it.”

She pulled her cakes out of the oven and kicked the door closed with her foot, carrying both over to the table and putting them carefully onto the cooling rack. “I’m fine,” she replied once again.

“Okay then. What can I do to help?” he asked and pulled an apron off of one of the shelves, tying it around his waist just as she’d done.

She stared at him with an astonished expression. “You can’t cook.”

“Of course not. But I can follow instructions. You’ve been doing it with me all day. How hard can it be?”

She watched him as if he’d gone completely crazy. “Hassan, go find Farida and leave me alone.” She turned away and headed into the pantry for sugar to make the frosting.

Dana was fighting back the tears, praying that he’d be gone by the time she came out of the pantry and she could figure out what to do. She just needed some space and time to put the past few days into perspective. And she needed a plan! Every time she tried to do something positive, something that might get her out of this mess, he intervened. She really had to assert herself, she thought as she carried the powdered sugar and milk back to the counter.

Several feet away from her cooking space, she stopped and stared at Hassan. He was now standing in her work space, leaning his back against the counter with his arms crossed in front of him. He was the perfect imitation of an immoveable object.

She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and gripped the sugar more tightly. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” she growled, furious with him and his persistence.

He shrugged slightly before he said, “Because you’re gorgeous and I can’t get you out of my mind.”

She dropped her supplies onto the counter and shoved herself away from him as he closed the distance. “You have more self-discipline than any man I’ve ever known in my life. Display some right now.”

“Can’t,” he replied simply and took another step closer to her.

She put her hand in the middle of his chest and tried to hold him at arm’s length. “Can’t? Or won’t?”

He chuckled and shook his head, running a finger down her bare arm and sending shivers along her skin. “Maybe a little of both.”

She suppressed the instant shiver and stepped away, turning from his smile and trying to ignore him. She was just turning back to her cooking area when she spotted him sticking his finger into the frosting. With an irritated sound, she picked up the plastic spatula and smacked the back of his hand just as his hand was reaching for another sample.

“Ouch!” he pulled his hand away quickly and looked up at her with surprise. “You hit me!”

She took the bowl of frosting and swirled in flavoring. “Of course I smacked you. You were sneaking frosting.”

“So?”

She glared at him. “No sneaking,” she replied with finality.

He leaned forward to watch her stir. “You know, I could have you imprisoned for hitting me.”

“Please!” she scoffed and turned away just as his finger started to dive for yet another taste. “You deserved it and I’ll do it again if you don’t stay out of my frosting.”

“Even so,” he replied with amusement. “You can’t smack the ruler. It just isn’t done.”

“It’s done when you deserve it,” she countered and added pink food coloring in an effort to deter him. Surely he wouldn’t nip a taste of pink frosting. He was too manly to be caught with a pink glob on the end of his finger.

“Even with the threat of imprisonment?”

“You wouldn’t imprison me.”

He watched her with surprise, knowing she was right but he wasn’t going to lose this argument. “You’re awfully confident. What makes you so sure?”

“Because I would cry.” She stopped stirring and looked up at him. “And I’m guessing you’re the kind of guy who hates it when a woman cries.”

He watched her for a moment, then sighed, nodding his head. “You’re right.” He took another cucumber and leaned his hip against the table. “So what are the odds you might become unangry with me and come to my bed?”

She gritted her teeth and turned away. “Chances are around the zero to nil range,” she countered.

With a grimace he sighed. “Okay. So you need to get over whatever put you in this snit. How about if I give you a little space and we can talk about our relationship tomorrow?”

She slammed the bowl down onto the table and braced her hands on the steel surface. “You can talk all you want. I’m guessing there really isn’t anything you can say that I’d be interested in hearing. But when has that stopped you from discussing your opinion?”

He considered arguing with her but knew that sometimes a strategic retreat was needed. He came closer and looked down into her furious eyes. “Hopefully you will come to me tomorrow and explain what it is that I did to hurt your feelings. Until then, just know that I’ll be in my suite thinking about you, and thinking about all the different ways I want to make love to you and only your stubbornness is keeping us apart.”

Her eyes narrowed and she held her breath, trying desperately hard not to throw herself into his arms and sob out all her frustration and anger, her hurt over hearing that he was engaged to another woman and how betrayed it had made her feel when she’d heard it from someone she’d just met instead of the man who had held her gently in his arms and taken her to heaven with his touch.

She hated the fact that she watched him walk away, taking the cowards way out with her silence instead of confronting him. Her eyes watched with longing as his broad shoulders and long legs took him out of the kitchen and away from her. All she wanted to do was to run after him and beg him to explain, to demand that he choose her instead of that horrible woman. But he wasn’t hers so she had no right to demand anything of him. He was a grown man, so if he wanted to be with Farida, he could and if he wanted another woman, he would have to do something about it but Dana wanted nothing to do with a man who would sleep with one woman while engaged to another.

Since he was walking away, she accepted that he’d made his choice and she had too much pride to accept the role of mistress.

With resignation, she went back into the supply pantry and selected several ingredients to make a filling for her cake, determined to get that man out of her mind, or get fat trying.

By midnight, she had the cake frosted and decorated with a raspberry cream filling, a spinach salad with strawberries and warm roasted nuts topped with goat cheese and a zesty dressing, stuffed chicken breasts, a spicy jambalaya with shrimp and sausage and a pasta dish with a vodka cream sauce. All the food was stored in plastic containers and she knew she should eat some of it, but her stomach simply wouldn’t let her. The fact that her throat was swollen with unshed tears didn’t help either.

For the first time in her life, cooking hadn’t soothed her mind and calmed her body. She was still so angry and hurt with Hassan that she wanted to punch him. But that would require touching him and she had to avoid that. Touching, in any way, would lead to things better left to her imagination.

She fell asleep that night, fighting back tears for a man she refused to cry over. He wasn’t worth it if he was going to treat her like this. She deserved so much better but she wasn’t going to find it if she didn’t hurry up and figure out who was trying to kill her and mitigate that problem. If she weren’t so exhausted, she would head right back to her office and do some searches to find her next location. But she could barely keep her eyes open so she let sleep take her away and hopefully soothe her the way her cooking hadn’t accomplished.

Chapter 6

The following day, Dana watched with relief as Hassan walked down the hallway to his next meeting. It would give her at least an hour away from him and she needed the break. She hadn’t slept well last night and had been up early trying to catch up on all of the work he’d left for her. He might be charming, but he was a workaholic as well. The annoying man had gone back to his own office last night and had worked on just about every project he had proposed. And now he wanted reports and data and contracts, all of which she had to hunt down and figure out. Couldn’t he find some other kind of pastime besides working?

As soon as he was around the corner, she stood up and poked her head out of her office doorway. Sure enough, two men were standing outside, apparently protecting her but it felt more like keeping her inside the palace walls.

“Excuse me,” she said sweetly and smiled over at the two men. “Could one or both of you help me with an issue I’m having?”

Both men straightened up slightly and moved towards her. “How can we help?” the older one asked. He had no hair but maintained a perfectly trimmed black goatee. She wondered if baldness had a sort of mean message to someone who was going to infiltrate an area. Did the man shave his head intentionally? Or was that just natural?

Refocusing on the important issue of the day, she came back around her desk and sat down behind it. “Have a seat,” she suggested and gestured to one of the chairs in her office. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Sumeet, ma’am.”

“It’s nice to meet you Sumeet. It actually isn’t my problem but a friend of mine is trying to locate someone who might not want to be found.” She’d considered her words carefully while getting dressed this morning, in another suit that had magically appeared in her closet, and thought that maybe she could track down the guys trying to kill her. If she got to him first, maybe she could convince him that she was content to let him lead his own nefarious life if he would just leave her alone. “If this were your friend, how would you go about finding this person?”

Sumeet leaned forward, elbows on his knees and looked very serious as he narrowed his eyes in concentration. “What does this person do for a living?” he asked.

Dana bit her lit and considered her options. “He…um…might be of the criminal element,” she said diplomatically. She didn’t want to reveal too much, but maybe there were ways to find a person in a legitimate business which might differ when trying to find someone of the more unscrupulous occupations. She had no idea, and needed Sumeet’s expertise.

Sumeet nodded sagely. “How did they meet?”

Dana wasn’t sure how to answer this without revealing too much. She thought about various ways to answer but in the end, stuck to a very non-descriptive explanation. “She sort of saw something she shouldn’t have.”

“Was this in the United States?”

“Yes,” she replied quickly, relieved that it was a question that was easy to answer. Everyone knew she was American so it was extremely logical that Dana would still have friends back there.

He narrowed his eyes as he watched her carefully. “Was it a violent crime?”

Dana nodded. “Very violent.”

“Why wasn’t your friend put into the witness protection system? I heard that agency was very good at hiding people from the criminal element when they had witnessed something violent.”

Now she was treading in dangerous waters. She had to be very careful how she answered this one for fear that she might reveal too much. Pursing her lips, she tapped her pencil against her mouth gently. “Maybe I should just tell her that she needs to hire someone. If she were to do that, who would she hire? How does one contact an investigative agency that might handle this kind of work?”

Sumeet didn’t blink an eye as he absorbed her response. “There are several reputable investigative agencies. Why don’t you tell me your friend’s name and I can refer her to one of my friends?”

Dana became excited that she might have an outlet. “Oh, no! If you could just tell me how to contact them, I’ll pass along the information.”

“It would be better if the two of them contacted each other directly.”

The man was starting to get on her nerves. Why was he being so covert about offering information on a private detective agency? “Couldn’t you just give me the agency name that you trust the most and I can pass that along to her? She’s sort of in hiding and this will allow her to contact the investigator directly without revealing her location.”

“Is her location an issue?”

Dana shook her head. “Oh, no. She’s safe. At least for the time being.”

“You’re sure?”

She thought back to the men in the marketplace and the sporadic phone calls on her cell phone. “Pretty sure.”

Sumeet nodded and stood up. “I’ll get you several names. Just give me a day.”

“That would be wonderful! And you’ll let me know which is the best? I don’t know if she can afford the best, but she should definitely start there, right?”

Sumeet almost smiled at her enthusiasm but he nodded seriously and stepped back out into the hallway to resume his guard post. The other man saw the look and nodded slightly, lifting his watch to type in a message. A few minutes later and known to Dana, a third guard arrived and took up position while Sumeet walked down the hallway to make a report.

Dana turned back to her computer and dug back into her work, feeling much more relieved now that she had a plan of action. She had one more part of that idea to work on and that was to find another place to hide out. As her fingers worked the keyboard, her mind considered all the various possibilities. The Peace Corps sounded pretty good. Didn’t they send people to places where almost no one could find them? Or a mission in Africa? She also liked the idea of helping other people if that was possible. Her fingers tapped out different locations and organizations that might work out for her.