The Sheik's Rebellious Mistress (13 page)

Dharr nodded his head. “Accepted.”

She slipped her arms around his shoulders, her fingers diving into his hair and touching the back of his neck, knowing how much he liked that. “I don"t have much to do on the weekends so if you"d like to get together next weekend, I think something can be arranged,” she replied, her body pressing against his in the hopes that he might make their last few hours together this weekend more memorable.

“Deal.” Without another word, he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. Electra screamed and laughed as he bounced her along to the bedroom, then tossed her onto the bed.

She laughed as she looked up at him, stunned by how quickly he was divesting himself of his suit and tie. “What are you doing? You look like you have to go to a meeting or something so surely you don"t have time for this kind of silliness, Dharr,” she said, raising herself up on her elbows as she watched him toss his belt over his shoulder.

“Later,” he growled. “I have a lover who thinks she can order me around,” he said softly, pulling her leg up and rubbing his thumbs against her instep. “I plan to counter that idea in her silly head before it becomes an issue.”
Electra gasped out a laugh. She"d never known her foot could be so erogenous. “What are you doing?” she asked moments before her head fell back, her hair cascading behind her in a waterfall against the sheets. “Never mind, I don"t care what you"re doing as long asyou don"t stop.”

“I can go along with that,” he said, his fingers moving from her foot to her calf muscle. By the time he entered her, there was not a muscle in her body that was tense. Chapter 9

Electra glanced up at the principal behind her. “Hello, Gloria. How are you?” she asked brightly before glancing down at the student"s work she was grading. “The children have really taken off on their spelling lately. I"ve seen some definite improvements,” she said.

Gloria chuckled softly. “I don"t doubt it is mostly because of your songs you"ve put all the words to,” she replied. Electra had come up with different songs which taught the children how to spell some of the most often used English words. It reinforced the spelling in their heads, sort of a twist on memorization. She cleared her throat and Electra looked up again, noting the worried expression on her supervisor"s face.

“Is something wrong?” Electra asked, panic starting to inch its way into her heart. She didn"t like that look. On her grandmother, it usually portended bad news.

She hesitated slightly, then took the newspaper out from under her arm. “Have you seen the dailies yet?” she asked. The woman looked genuinely embarrassed to be holding a gossip rag. “I mean, I know this is just a silly gossip paperand I"d usually never be caught dead purchasing one, but the picture on the cover caught my eye at the grocery store earlier.I thought you"d need to see it, if you haven"t already.”

Electra shook her head, hiding a smile from her boss . “I don"t generally read them unless some woman gives birth to an alien dog,” she joked as she took the offered newsprint and glanced down at the front cover. “What"s so interesting in there?” she asked, humoring her boss as she glanced at the back of the page, stifling a shudder when she caught sight of an advertisement for rock collecting. When she turned the paper so she could see the front page clearly, she gasped in shock, almost dropping the paper in her effort to get it as far away from her without dropping it. “Oh my goodness!” she cried out, automatically standing up as her eyes focused on the two people kissing on the side of the mountain in ski outfits. The tall man had dark hair and sunglasses on. The woman had long, black hair that fell almost to her derriere because of the way her head was tilted back for the kiss. Her eyes were closed, but there was no disputing the face. It was her and she had her arms wrapped around Dharr"s neck.

The caption read, “Who"s the king"s new love interest? A search for the mystery woman ongoing.”

“It can"t be,” Electra cried out, her hands accidentally crumpling the edge of the newspaper as they inadvertently balled into fists. “Not him!”

“What do you mean?” Gloria asked. “You mean the king?” Gloria moved closer, putting a reassuring hand on Electra"s shoulder. “Dear, what"s going on? Are you really dating King Abbas? Is that you in the picture?”

Electra couldn"t answer, the pain of his betrayal too great. She"d been having a n affair with King Abbas? That was impossible. There must be some mistake, some error in recognizing the man in the picture. Dharr was a real estate developer. Wasn"t he? He couldn"t be a king, and definitely not the king of one of the wealthiest countries in the Arab world!

She quickly turned the pages to the article and almost dropped the paper. There were pictures from Paris, Switzerland and even London on the night they"d met. How in the world had they recognized him so quickly? Had these pictures been floating in the tabloids all this time and she"d just never heard about them? “How long have they been speculating on my identity?” she asked, terrified of the answer but needing to know. She had to know everything in order to figure out what she should do. This was all so incredible, she was stunned. No, horrified was a better word.

“Well, I"ve seen small blurbs about it occasionally for the past several weeks but I never bothered to pick up the paper. I only read the front page when I"m paying for my groceries,” she clarified, apparently worried that Electra might think she read these kinds of rags on a regular basis. “But when I saw your picture kissing that gorgeous man, well, I just had to buy it,” she laughed self-consciously. The woman was settling in for a good gossip, unaware or just unconcerned that Electra"s heart was about to break into two. “I knew you"d been dating someone, but a king?” she asked, emphasizing the last word. “What"s he like in real life? He looks absolutely scrumptious,” she said.

Electra shook her head in denial. “He"s awful!” she cried out, pain and betrayal taking over. There was no small amount of humiliation as well. Some of these pictures were very compromising. She"d had no idea cameras had beenso near. She hadn"t seen them anywhere but even if she had, she"d have assumed the people taking the pictures were just tourists trying to get a sunset or pretty mountain scene. There would be no need to take a picture of either of them, if he"d been who he"d said he was.

She ignored the fact that she hadn"t given Dharr her real name. That was irrelevant in this situation. He"d lied to her and told her that he was buying buildings and land and such. Whenever they talked about their weeks to each other, he would tell her about meetings with boring old men and people who disagreed with him or people who were trying to sell him something. Never had the concept of royalty been brought up.

Then another thought struck her. This one was so much more horrifying than the last, she actually had trouble breathing. She glanced at the name in the text. Blinking, she read the passages again, sure that the world was not really as cruel as it was beginning to seem. But no matter how hard she focused, the name didn"t change. The words she read over and over again still formed the name “King Dharr Abass”. The horror of it struck her like a knife wound and her knees almost feel out from underneath her. She was having an affair with her guardian! The man who had made her life miserable for the previous eight years and wouldn"t even return her calls now at her continued request for a simple meeting! The gall of the man!

A tear slipped from her eye and she swiped it away angrily. She didn"t want her boss to see how much the article affected her but since she was sitting on a tiny chair crying, there wasn"t much use pretending any longer. She wanted to run and hide and then tear up the newsprint as if that kind of violence would help her ease the pain tearing up her insides. Could this get any worse? She couldn"t imagine how.

She was just about to turn around when she saw something flash out of the corner of her eye. She didn"t understand what the flash meant initially, but as her shock frozen brain started working slightly, the situation crystallized in her head. “No!” she gasped and stood up, moving backwards to the relative safety of the book case, hiding herself from the windows. “This can"t be happening!” Were photographers now stalking her around the school? Had they found out where she was working? How could that be possible? The article had been dated just yesterday and the reporter was saying how the king"s lover was still a mystery woman.

But the reality of the photographers, just like the horror that she"d been dating a man who had lied to her by omission and that man was her hated guardian, just added to the increasing tension in the room.

So many strangers around the school building might hurt the children. The kids wouldn"t understand why so many people were trying to taketheir teacher"s picture. And some of the kids might get hurt in the melee if the photographers were as merciless as they were starting to appear. She had to hide, to get out of here. But where? How? Her mind worked frantically but each time she considered one escape route, she"d see another group of journalists rushing in that direction.

Just then, Gerrard burst into the room. “This way,” he said urgently. “We have to leave out the back door. There are photographers all over the place.” The expression on his face more than his words broke through her hurt and confusion. She followed his orders simply because she had no better ideas. And her mind couldn"t function fast enough to figure one out anyway.

Electra grabbed her purse, immediately moving into quick action. She stopped only a moment before she turned to Gloria and said, “Please, don"t say anything to the press about me. Ask the others to keep things quiet as well. I don"t understand what"s going on and what they want from me. It would mean a lot to me,” she said, her eyes pleading with the older woman.

Gloria put a reassuring hand on Electra"s arm and nodded forcefully. “Absolutely,” Gloria replied quickly, her eyes wide with worry for both her school and for Electra. “We would never do anything to jeopardize the children or one of the staff members and these photographers would definitely do that. I also know your privacy is important, as it is to all of us. We won"t disrespect that.”

“Thank you,” she said before Gerrard pulled her impatiently by the arm through the door. They almost ran down the hallway and burst out the back door, Electra diving into a waiting limousine only moments before a cameraman started banging on the dark window. He took several pictures but Electra was grateful for the tinted glass which prevented them from seeing anything inside the security of the car.

“Where did they come from?” she asked Gerrard who was sitting next to her talking on a cell phone in Arabic. She was staring out the window as she watched several other photographers start to race up the sidewalk towardthe building. “And who are the other men stopping them?” she asked when she noticed large, muscular men physically stopping the photographers from entering the school.

Gerrard watched in approval as the guards effectively stopped the stampeding paparazzi. “They were sent by King Abbass to protect your co-workers and students from being harassed,” he explained, not bothering to stop or turn his head in her direction. His main goal was to get her out of the building and the area safely and quickly.

Electra sniffed and tried to hide her tears. “That was very considerate of him,” she said. “I didn"t know he knew where I worked,” she said.

The limousine was racing through the streets of London now and Electra had to hang on tightly as the car turned corners at a speed that would have brought police out in force if anyone else was doing it. The driver finally pulled to a stop outside an elegant building that looked vaguely familiar but her mind wasn"t working fast enough to be able to figure out where Gerrard had taken her. He stepped out of the car first and looked around before indicating she could leave the relative security as well. He pulled an unmarked door open and stuffed her through it, slamming it shut behind him then pushing her down the hallway again.

“Gerrard, you"re not answering my questions,” she said and dug her feet in to stop their forward momentum. “And I"m not going anywhere else until you tell me what"s going on.Where"s Dharr? Does he know what"s going on?”

He was obviously reluctant to say anything but his eyes scanned the hallway as he said, “He found out the same way the journalists did,” he said, accepting that answering her question was the only way to get her to move again, other than tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her to safety.

“Ah,” she replied, as if that explained everything. But it didn"t. She was still confused but she sensed that there was still some danger so she started moving again. Unfortunately, nothing really made sense. It was as if the world had flipped over on it"s side and this mad dash to some unknown destination was scaring her more than the journalists, which was saying a lot. Within moments, Gerrard pushed her out a side door and into a limousine that was already at the end of the sidewalk, the back door open and ready for her to dive into the dark sanctuary.

“Where are we going?” she asked breathlessly. “The other limousine was being followed. I"m trying to get you to a new one that they don"t know about.”

Electra understood and walked faster, following his directions as he took her through the building and out a side door. Regrettably, their ruse didn"t work. As soon as they"d burst through a side door, the photographers were waiting for her. The only good part was that they had their backs to the door she had just left so Gerrard hurried her to the car.

The photographers spotted her seconds before the door slammed shut behind her. Within moments of the door shutting, the car was pulling smoothly away from the curb and she could only stare at the frenzied press that were bearing down on the guards. Very efficiently, the guards Dharr had sent moved the reporters away from the building. She lost sight of the mass when the limousine turned the corner and she had breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn"t been left alone to deal with their madness.

She didn"t notice the passing of the scenery as the car drove through the streets. Her mind was frantically trying to make sense out of the situation. She thought back to all the times they"d been together, trying to figure out if there had been a point in time when he"d accidentally told her about who he was. Her mind raced through all of their encounters, putting the words together again and trying to decipher a different meaning to them. But nothing he"d said would make her think he was anything other than a wealthy man with varied business interests.