Chapter 21 #2
She turned and let her gaze fall from his face to his broad shoulders, the crisp white shirt and black silk lapels of his jacket. She’d never seen him in a suit before, so a tuxedo was just this side of miraculous. And it was most certainly stunning.
His brows were drawn low. He looked dead serious. “Wow,” she said, hoping to elicit a grin at least.
He didn’t crack. But he glanced down at his tux and then back up at her.
“Give you a Lamborghini and a slinky blonde, and no one would think you were anything but a movie star,” she teased.
He snorted softly.
“You ready for this?” His voice was filled with concern, and she knew it was all for her. Warmth glowed inside her.
“As ready as I can be.” She stepped away from the mirror and went to join him. “Truthfully, I’m glad we’re going to this thing. I want this over with, and if that’s where he’s going to be, that’s where we’ll get him.”
He frowned. “This isn’t what I anticipated. I thought we’d watch the school for a few weeks, and you’d figure out which kid was his. Or maybe we’d intercept a call, and you’d ID his voice. Anything but this.”
She touched his arm. “I don’t know what I thought, but I always thought I’d have to see him again. Anything else would be too simple, right?”
He caught her hand in his and tugged her toward him.
The door was still open and she glanced at it, but then she went into his arms anyway.
They’d barely touched in days now, and it was almost too much to be next to his heat and hardness again.
Emotion overwhelmed her and her eyes filled with tears that she didn’t want him to see.
But somehow he knew. He cupped the back of her head and held her close.
“There are about a million things I want to say to you right now, but I don’t know how.” His voice was low and intense and she shivered.
She could feel his heart beating hard, and she closed her eyes and just let it pound against her ear. So long as he was alive. So long as he was alive…
“You don’t have to say anything. This is enough for now.”
He squeezed her to him—and then he tipped her chin up and fused his mouth to hers. She met him hungrily, greedily, kissing him as if it were the last time. Someone made a noise and they broke apart guiltily.
Hawk was standing in the doorway, his eyebrows a little higher than usual. But he didn’t say anything other than, “We’re ready to go whenever you are.”
Kev put his hand in her back protectively. His eyes flashed, as if he dared Hawk to say anything else. Instead, he turned and disappeared, and she felt Kev’s stance relax slightly.
“Busted,” she said, and he laughed.
“Darlin’, we’ve been busted for a while. They’re all just pretending not to know.”
She glanced up at him. They still hadn’t talked about the night he’d walked out when she’d told him about the divorce. “Does it bother you that they know?”
His eyes were troubled. “Marco’s gone and we’re still here.” His chest drew up tight as he sucked in a breath. “I’m working on it not bothering me.”
She squeezed his hand as relief slid through her. If he could say that much, then maybe there was hope after all.
“It takes time.” And then she drew in a breath for courage. “I won’t let any of you down, I swear. I’m focused on this.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. They’d been like family in their own way and she loved all these guys, even if she loved one in particular more than the rest.
If only she could tell him that.
“I’ll be at your side the whole way, Lucky. When you ID him, we’ll take it from there. In and out, clean and quick.”
She nodded firmly. “Copy that.”
She wanted to say more. She wanted to tell him she loved him, but she was afraid to do it when there was so much on the line.
And yet some sixth sense insisted that she needed to say the words, no matter how difficult.
That it was important to do it before they went out there tonight and the mission was the only thing on their minds. She took a deep breath.
“Kev, I—”
“Transport’s here.” Billy Blake stood in the door, and the words died in her throat. Kev took her hand and led her from the room. The moment was gone and the drumbeat of worry began its tattoo in her belly.
Tonight was the night. Abdul Halim waited for his wife to finish getting dressed as he walked to the window. The sun was sinking and Baq glowed in the golden light. Like a beacon. Like a new beginning.
Abdul Halim’s chest swelled with pride and satisfaction.
This was it. He’d worked hard and long for this moment.
He’d suffered. He’d lost everything and started over more than once.
He’d been dirt poor, and he’d been wealthy, and he liked wealthy far better.
But even better than wealth was power. The power to shift nations.
The power to make the United States sink to their knees and beg for mercy.
The power to craft his own destiny. He had that now, and tonight he would have the power to craft the destinies of many.
He heard Fatima bustling around in their room, heard the rustle of silk and the soft feminine voice as she sang to herself.
He glanced at his watch. There was time, if he wanted to have her.
He could walk into the bath and, with a look, she would drop her gown and come to him on her knees.
It was fitting on the night of his triumph that she should do so.
And yet he could not afford to wreck his concentration on the task at hand for even a moment.
Tonight, when they had the king and the mine had fallen, when the Ministry of Science was theirs for the taking, and the world trembled because the Freedom Force had pulled off a major coup, then he would indulge. And not only with Fatima.
Fatima was for sex and spending his lust. But tonight he also wanted pain. Not his, certainly not. Someone else’s. Male or female, he did not care. Someone would pay for all the angst and drama he’d had to suffer to get to this moment.
He wished it could be Lucky Reid. He lifted his coffee cup and took a sip of the sweetly bitter brew. Ah, what a glorious night it would be if he could have her too.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Not his personal phone, but the phone that mattered most to his life.
“Yes?”
It was Farouk. “All is in place for tonight.”
“Excellent. And the teacher?”
“We have just obtained a photo of her and her husband from one of our contacts. I’m texting it to you now.”
Abdul Halim waited impatiently for the ding.
When it arrived, he pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the photo.
The woman was wearing traditional garb, and her face was in profile as she looked up at the man.
A shot of ice rocketed down his spine. It was the same tall man he’d seen in the news video from the bombing near the American embassy.
And the woman. His breath caught in his lungs, stopped utterly until he forced it out again. There was no doubt it was Lucky Reid. And she would be at the reception tonight, which meant this was no coincidence. The man at her side was most likely a military operative.
His fingers curled hard around his phone.
The edges bit into his skin, and he eased his grip before he crushed the screen.
Damn them! The Americans had somehow learned about the plan to take the king.
Rage rolled through him in bright, blood-red waves.
Someone would pay for this betrayal. Heads would roll.
“Abdul Halim?”
He realized that Farouk had been repeating his name for several moments. “It is her, Farouk. The Americans are here.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a long moment. “We should call off the operation.”
They should. It was prudent and logical.
But fury held him in its grip. He was too close to winning everything to let this chance go.
“No.” His voice was a slash in the air. He stood bathed in the light from the setting sun and let his mind whirl through the possibilities. There must be a way. He would not accept defeat. Not this time.
“We’re altering the plan, Farouk. But we are still going to take the king.”