His Christmas Gift & Decadent Holiday Pleasures
Auteur
Janice Sims
Lezers
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Hoofdstukken
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Chapter 1
October in New York City. The day was cold, gray and blustery, but in her Harlem loft, Alia Joie Youngblood-Braithwaite was warm and toasty. She lit a candle at the makeshift shrine to her husband, Adam, on the fireplace’s mantel. She hadn’t thought of it as a shrine in the beginning, only as a way to sort out her feelings about Adam’s kidnapping over two years ago. At that time, it had been a photo of him in a frame. A photo she’d talk to and sometimes scream at when her emotions got out of control. Now there were several framed photos of her and Adam at various stages of their relationship, fresh flowers and candles in decorative candleholders. The longer Adam was gone, the more it felt like a permanent shrine to his memory.
Lots of things had changed after Adam had gone missing. She’d moved out of their old apartment and purchased the building she was living in now. She’d had it fully renovated, taken the top floor for herself and rented the other apartments on the remaining four floors, to artists mostly. There was an elderly couple on the fourth floor who were not in the artistic community but had needed an affordable, safe place to live in the neighborhood. Alia was able to provide that place because she was fortunate enough to come from an independently wealthy family. Her family owned Youngblood Media, a company with interests in television, publishing and the internet. Alia was the company’s marketing director. These days she worked her own hours, many of them away from the office, and devoted a large amount of time to her artistic endeavors. She was a talented painter and was working on a series of paintings that were scheduled to be shown at a Manhattan art gallery a month from now.
Tonight her girlfriends were taking her out to celebrate her birthday, which had been a few days ago. Before she left to meet them, she wanted to get in one more therapy session with Adam’s shrine.
Alia was a tall, attractive woman with warm dark-chocolate skin and golden-brown eyes. She wore jeans that fit her shapely body as if they’d been designed specifically for her and a red cashmere square-necked sweater. On her feet were black leather boots. Her natural dark brown hair was in glossy braids that fell to the middle of her back.
She paced the hardwood floor as she poured her heart out to Adam’s photo. “Two years! You said you’d be back before I missed you! But where are you? Still missing! I know I shouldn’t be angry at you, but I am. I’m angry because you’re too trusting. You’re a big man with a big heart, and it never occurred to you to say no when the military came calling. Maybe you were flattered that they knew about your research, which was supposedly being kept secret. Did it ever occur to you that if the government wants to find out something, they have ways of finding it out? I’m so mad, I don’t know what to do!
“Now here I am, alone, getting ready to reveal my heart, my soul, to the world in the form of my paintings, and you’re not here to share it with me. I don’t care if I sound selfish to the universe. You should be here holding my hand. Holding me!”
And with that, she burst into tears, grabbed one of Adam’s photos off the mantel and hugged it to her chest. Taking a deep breath, she held the frame away from her and peered at his face. When the photo had been taken, he’d had a full beard, dreadlocks down to his waist and a devastatingly beautiful smile. His milk-chocolate-brown eyes sparkled. He had a square-jawed face underneath that full beard. His skin was reddish brown with golden undertones. An island boy from the Bahamas, he loved the sun, and his skin tone changed from season to season. She could almost hear his voice, a mix of standard English with a proper British accent, to Bahamian English when he lapsed into the way he had spoken when he was growing up in Nassau. He was a big man, at six foot four, and through hard work had built up muscles that rivaled professional athletes’ toned bodies.
But it was his vibrancy that had won her heart. He had a zest for living that spoke to her soul. Just being around him made her feel more alive.
Did she miss him? With all her heart!
Alia put Adam’s photo back on the mantel and sighed sadly. That was enough wallowing in misery for one day. The fact was, she didn’t know whether her husband was dead or alive. She’d paid a detective to try to find him, with no results except for the warning from the government to stay out of it. The official rationale was that the people who were holding Adam might do something drastic and violent if they found out civilians were trying to stick their noses in their business. The government assured her they were in negotiations with Adam’s captors. They would eventually get him set free. She had to be patient. What was more, she and her family had to make sure nothing about Adam’s situation was leaked to the media.
In other words, for over two years, Alia had been helpless to do anything to alleviate her husband’s suffering. And she knew he had to be suffering. Knowing Adam, he was doing everything in his power to get back home to her. Her rants in front of his shrine were not an indication that she had lost faith in him. They were simply a way to get her frustrations out. She loved him, and would always love him.
Sylvia’s, the soul food restaurant that was a Harlem landmark, was alive with the sound of its patrons enjoying themselves: silverware on fine china, glasses clinking, voices buzzing like bees and tinkling laughter. Alia looked around the table at the lit-up faces of her dearest girlfriends: Macy Harris, her best friend, a security company owner; Diana Winters, a lawyer; and June Stratton, a surgeon. She’d known Macy since childhood and Diana and June since college.
June, a redhead with light green eyes, raised her glass of white wine. “To Alia,” she said brightly. “Thirty-three today, but you look twenty-three. I don’t know how you do it, girl. But keep doing what you’re doing because it’s working for you!”
The other women raised their glasses and laughed. Macy, a petite beauty with caramel-colored skin and dark brown eyes, clinked her glass’s rim with Alia’s. “Unless, of course, you’ve made a Dorian Gray–type pact with the devil and have a portrait of yourself in an attic somewhere that’s aging while you stay young. In which case, I say, repent at once so that your soul won’t burn in hell!”
“Ignore the preacher’s daughter,” Diana advised Alia. She turned sober eyes on Alia. “Seriously, though, how are you holding up? No news about Adam?”
Alia took a deep breath. She’d been wondering when the subject of Adam’s absence would come up. Her friends were well-meaning, but she’d grown tired of discussing it. All they knew was that he’d gone missing two years ago. A sad occurrence, but one that happened to many people every year. Her friends weren’t privy to what was really going on. Only her family was aware Adam and his colleagues had been kidnapped.
“Nothing at all,” she said softly, eyes downcast because she didn’t want her friends to see she was fighting back tears. Macy, who was sitting beside her, reached over and gently squeezed her hand. Emotions under control, Alia smiled and glanced up at her friends, who were looking at her with sympathetic expressions in their eyes.
“I’d much rather talk about your upcoming wedding, June,” she said.
June grinned. “Two doctors getting married is a logistics nightmare. We can’t decide when to get married, where to get married. Our schedules are booked up. I suggested we just elope and forget about an elaborate wedding. Maybe go to the courthouse and get it over with. But my guy says his Italian mother would kill him, literally!” She laughed. “I’ve met her. I don’t think he’s exaggerating.” Everyone laughed at that.
“It’s the marriage that counts, not the party,” Macy said. “You and Tony love each other and have for a long time. Do what you two want to do and don’t worry about anyone else.”
“I don’t agree,” Diana said. “You only get married once, hopefully, and it should be celebrated. Memories should be made. I don’t mean go broke getting married, but have a party for friends and family. They should be there on your special day.”
“I didn’t know you were so sentimental,” Macy countered. “You treat men like playthings. You haven’t been in a committed relationship in years.”
Diana rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t mean I don’t eventually want to get married and have children. It means I’m still not finished having fun.”
“The trouble with people who think like you do is when you get married, you look at it as something boring. You’re having fun now. What will you have when you have a husband? Will he satisfy the fun girl in you? Or will you lose interest in a matter of months?” Macy asked.
Diana frowned at Macy, and Alia wondered if this was going to turn into another slugfest between the two of them. Diana was very opinionated and liked thinking of herself as a truly liberated woman who behaved like a man when it came to relationships. That is, she juggled men, used them and tossed them aside when she’d had enough of them. Macy, a preacher’s daughter, believed love was sacred and hearts were not to be played with.
“Girls...” June, who acted as mediator when Macy and Diana got into arguments, cautioned. “We’re here to celebrate Alia’s birthday, remember? Not to discuss the merits of breaking or not breaking men’s hearts.”
“Your problem,” Diana said to Macy, ignoring June, “is you’re still looking for Prince Charming, that perfect man who was born only for you. Listen up—he doesn’t exist. He’s a fictionalized character created by greeting card companies, rom-com movie producers and romance writers to satisfy their customers. You’ve never fallen in love or lust with anyone!”
Alia was well aware that Diana’s assertion that Macy had never been in love was untrue. Macy was in love with Alia’s brother, Brock. But that was a secret she’d shared only with Adam, and he wasn’t going to tell anyone.
Macy only smiled. Alia hoped that smile meant Macy’s temper was held securely in check, because Macy could be dangerous when provoked. She owned a security firm for a reason. A third degree black belt in karate, she’d joined the Marines right out of high school and earned the rank of gunnery sergeant by the time she was twenty-five. She’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan. She could probably kill Diana with her little finger. Diana knew all of this, yet she seemed to get a kick out of sparring with Macy. Alia didn’t believe Macy was a killer. But still...
“Girl, you were born to be a lawyer. That tongue of yours can be vicious when you want it to be, and your heart as cold as ice,” Macy said. “But I know you’re hurting and that’s why you lash out at people who love you. And I do love you, even though you like to draw my blood at every opportunity.” She continued to look Diana in the eyes, her smile never wavering.
Diana sighed heavily. “Your daddy did a number on your brain. You actually do turn the other cheek.”
“I’m no saint,” Macy said. “I’ll probably beat the hell out of my sparring partner at the gym tomorrow. But just so you know, Diana, I’m the one who controls how violent I get. So don’t think you’re going to provoke me into whipping your behind, because it’s not going to happen.”
Alia was amazed by the look of relief on Diana’s face. Was that what Diana was trying to do? Goad Macy into physically attacking her? That made her wonder just how psychologically damaged Diana was inside. Who had hurt her? Diana had never spoken about it. She had said she became a lawyer because she wanted to help abused women. Could she have been an abused woman in the past?
“Are we done?” Alia asked hopefully. “No more hurting each other with cutting words.” She saw their waiter across the room and called for him. “We’d like to order dessert!”
Her friends started to protest, but she insisted. “You’ll just have to work out a bit more tomorrow,” she said. “But you’ve stressed me out so much that I need dessert tonight. So shut up and order something decadent.”
Her friends’ protests promptly ended when they saw the array of goodies on the dessert tray as the waiter wheeled the cart next to their table.
After the waiter had served them and left, they dug in.
“A bit more running won’t kill me,” Macy said as she spooned a piece of strawberry cheesecake into her mouth.
“I’m sure Tony will be happy to help me work off the extra calories,” said June teasingly, a naughty expression in her eyes as she tasted a piece of pecan pie.
“I’m not going to pretend,” Diana said as she tucked into her apple pie. “I’m just going to enjoy this and not care about the extra calories. Do you think men care if they enjoy a huge piece of pie after dinner? They don’t give it a second thought. We’ve got to chill out, ladies.”
Alia smiled as she enjoyed her red velvet cake. It had been a wonderful birthday dinner. She could always count on her girlfriends to entertain, enlighten and generally keep it real.
Because of their friendship, it would be a little easier facing another lonely night without Adam.
“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine...one hundred!” Adam Braithwaite breathed as he finished doing his push-ups. He got to his feet and walked slowly around the eight-by-eight-foot room he’d been kept in since they’d brought him to this facility. He wasn’t exactly sure of his location, but he guessed it was somewhere in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. After his capture—however long ago that had been—the van he’d been tossed inside of hadn’t driven far enough to leave the country, in his estimation. Before his capture, he and his colleagues had been living in Dubai, the UAE’s biggest city, working on a government project.
As he walked in a circle in his room, his heartbeat returning to normal after his exertions, he wondered what day it was. His captors hadn’t provided him with a calendar, or anything to keep track of time passing. They had taken his watch, which he wouldn’t have cared about, except that it had been given to him by his wife, Alia Joie. They’d also, of course, taken his cell phone.
When he and his team were taken from the lab they’d been working in, those among them who had resisted, including himself, had been roughed up, but since that day they had not been physically abused as far as he knew. He saw his colleagues about once a week when their captors allowed them to have a meal together in a communal dining room in the facility, and he hadn’t noticed any bruises on them. While they ate, they were free to converse. All of his team were still in relatively good health when he saw them: Arjun Sharma, a particle physicist, Calvin Hobbes, a quantum physicist, and Maritza Aguilar, a theoretical physicist like himself.
They had all lost some weight, which he attributed to the fact that their captors were not giving them enough to eat to maintain their body weights. Adam had been told by his primary inquisitor that if he began talking, they would increase his rations. Once or twice, Adam had been tempted, but was too obstinate to comply. He was glad to note his colleagues were, as well. When they’d first been allowed to eat together once a week, Adam was afraid that each time he walked into the communal dining area, he would find a colleague missing until the number dwindled down to just him. Their captors hadn’t threatened them with death if they didn’t cooperate, but Adam still feared violence. However, that hadn’t happened yet, for which he was grateful.
Adam had no idea how long he’d been held prisoner at the facility. After some time, he’d begun to make scratches each day on the wall next to his bed, but he knew the amount of scratches didn’t come close to the actual number of days he’d been here. He counted 563 scratches on the wall. That amounted to a little over a year and a half. To him, the time away from Alia Joie felt like it had been much longer.
Keeping Alia Joie foremost in his mind was what gave him the strength to keep going. Being held against his will was eating away at his sanity. The silence was sometimes unbearable. He was a big, happy, gregarious guy who relished life. No four walls could contain his spirit. Yet he had been bound by four walls for what felt like forever. His captors might not physically abuse him, but they certainly were mentally abusing him. What’s more, he wasn’t allowed to read or have paper and pen to write down his thoughts or mathematical equations, which he had a habit of doing for relaxation. There was no relaxation in here.
The doorknob jiggled and he knew someone was about to enter his room. He’d observed the face of every man who brought him his meals. Four different men were apparently assigned to his care and feeding. They brought him meals, changes of clothing, soap, towels, toothpaste and toothbrushes when the need arose, and about three times a week they escorted him to the office of his inquisitor, who questioned him about the work he and his colleagues were doing for the US military.
The man entering his room today had a familiar face. Adam didn’t know his name. He didn’t know any of their names. He’d named this particular man simply Number Three. Number Three was an Arab of average weight and height wearing a green military uniform and black combat boots. He had wavy black hair and a mustache and beard. Adam noticed beards were common, as all four of the men he saw on a regular basis wore them. He had his own full black beard now, while he used to have dreadlocks down his back. He’d held out as long as he could, but had recently asked to have his locks cut off because he was unable to wash his hair often enough and didn’t have access to the essential oils required to keep his hair healthy. Now he was bald headed with a full beard and mustache.
At six foot four, he towered over the Arab. The man peered up at him, and Adam waited with interest for what would come out of his mouth. He was so bored in here that the variety of options intrigued him. Would he go see his inquisitor or go see his colleagues? It was obvious the man hadn’t come to bring him a meal because there was no tray in his hands.
In halting English, the man said, “You will have a meal in the dining room. Follow me.”
“I’ll put on my boots,” Adam said, and went and sat down on the bed while he did that.
Adam was dressed in his usual attire of a khaki shirt and slacks—no belt—and black combat boots. Whoever ran the facility had a very basic dress code. Except for Maritza, who had been supplied with apparel appropriate for an Arab female, all of his colleagues wore the same thing.
In the dining room, Adam was relieved to see that the whole gang was there. The air was redolent with the heavy spices cooks in that part of the world used when they prepared meals using a combination of vegetables and meats like lamb, beef, chicken and sometimes camel. Adam hoped it wasn’t camel today. There was never any pork because Dubai was a Muslim area.
Maritza, a petite brown-skinned woman with coal-black hair and soft brown eyes, smiled when she saw him coming. Adam thought that of all of them, this time had been the hardest to endure for her. Maritza was the mother of a small child. Her husband, Raul, was taking care of little Mariana while she was here. The rest of the team didn’t have children. But all of them had loved ones who were missing them as much as they missed them.
He sat down at the table, and for the next few minutes they clasped hands tightly. Adam remembered that before they had been kidnapped, they had rarely been demonstrative with each other. They were scientists, after all. They were friends, too, but their caring was expressed by doing good work together. Now, though, they were not embarrassed to hug or clasp each other’s hands with affection. They were survivors, and it did their hearts good to see that they were all still here from one week to another.
“You look good with a bald head,” Maritza told him, smiling.
“He looks like a genie,” Calvin joked. Calvin was British, with pale skin and gray eyes. He vaguely reminded Adam of British actor Colin Firth, but younger and fitter. Calvin was a devoted runner.
“Leave him alone. He looks like Will Smith in Suicide Squad,” Arjun, an Indian American with warm brown skin and deep-set brown eyes, chimed in. Arjun was the youngest among them at twenty-five. He’d been a math prodigy before turning his focus on physics. Adam believed he was also the smartest among them, although Arjun was too kind and modest a fellow to own up to it.
Adam chuckled. “I’m happy to see you all are well, too,” he said in his British Bahamian accent. He dug into the meat stew on his plate. It was sitting on a pile of white rice, and there was a bottle of water beside it. After chewing and swallowing, he said, “My guess is lamb.”
They played a game of “guess the mystery meat” every time they were together. Maritza smiled. “My family kills a goat every year and Mama makes a stew out of it that tastes just like this. I’m going with goat.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Calvin said. “This is camel. I saw some hair in mine. I’m positive it was camel’s hair.”
“You’re going to make me gag,” said Arjun. “My money’s on beef. Which I really shouldn’t be eating, anyway. It’s a good thing I have no appetite.”
They laughed. Adam said, “You win.”
After their laughter had died down, they started speculating, as they usually did, on when and how they were going to be rescued. Being in enemy territory, though, they kept these conversations low-key and at a soft volume.
“I had a dream last night,” Maritza told them in a whisper, her brown eyes animated. “We’re going to be rescued soon, and the military is going to do it in the middle of the night with commandos everywhere! It’s going to be like an action movie on steroids.”
“I hope it’s soon,” Calvin said in equally low tones. “I know Beverly is probably dating someone else by now. She doesn’t strike me as someone who’ll wait until the end of time like Alia.” He tossed a meaningful glance in Adam’s direction.
Adam’s heartbeat quickened at the mention of Alia Joie. He missed her so much it was a physical ache in his heart. What was she doing right now? He knew there was an eight-hour time difference between here and New York City. When it was midnight in NYC, it was eight in the morning here. When she was going to bed, he was rising. He supposed it was only fitting that they were living opposite lives now. But when he got home, everything would be in sync again. What they had was meant to last forever. He fervently believed she would never give up on him. Somewhere, she was out there thinking of him and praying for his return, as he was here, praying to be returned to her.
