Prince Under Cover
Auteur
Adrianne Lee
Lezers
17,8K
Hoofdstukken
20
Chapter One
Chicago—present day July
“I won’t lie to you, Ms. Mohairbi.” Dr. Elias Forbes’s long face seemed even longer this afternoon, his slanted eyes grayer, as solemn as his tone. He tapped his pen on an open file folder. “Your mother’s condition is deteriorating. The sooner she gets that heart transplant, the better.”
Miah clutched her hands in her lap, reminding herself to breathe. Her mom’s name had been on the national registry for ten months now, but so far no donor had turned up with Lina Mohairbi’s rare blood type. All they could do was wait and pray as precious time, time she might not have to spare, slipped away.
“Should I be preparing for the worst?”
“Well, now, I can’t—”
“Darling, don’t put Dr. Forbes on the spot,” her mom said, interrupting the doctor.
The door to the examining room had opened so silently, Miah blinked seeing her mother standing there. Lina Mohairbi crossed the elaborately appointed office in this exclusive section of Chicago on Lake Shore Drive, touched Miah’s shoulder with affection and settled her tiny frame on the neighboring chair.
As the doctor repeated for Lina what he’d told Miah, Miah considered the pair, thinking it odd that though this man held her well-being in his hands, her mom could not bring herself to call him by his first name, as though she believed keeping their relationship formal somehow preserved or increased his surgical skills.
But Miah knew Elias Forbes was just a doctor. A better doctor in every way than that cold-blooded jerk at the neighborhood clinic who had treated her mother like one of the mannequins she used to dress in Macy’s windows—before becoming too ill—instead of a living, breathing woman who deserved compassion along with a diagnosis.
Thank God, Fate had stepped in and given them the means to afford this doctor whose credentials were impeccable, who kept his patient load small these days in order to pursue other interests, professionally and privately, in his spare time. She’d been assured he was the best surgeon for the job. Lina’s best chance of surviving. Worth every cent he was costing. But she liked what she’d seen with her own eyes, in particular his concern for her mother and his attention to detail.
Miah shoved a thick lock of long ebony hair from her cheek. “I was trying to get the doctor to give us an idea of how much longer we should expect before a donor comes available.”
“Well, now—” The doctor started once again, tapping the pen with renewed vigor as though punctuating the point he hoped to make. “That’s just it. We could have one tomorrow. Or next week. Or—”
“Next month,” Lina added. “Or the month after that.”
The doctor winced, and Miah’s stomach dipped. His dour expression confirmed her worse fears. Her mom was rapidly running out of time. Miah wanted to scream. Instead, she gave herself a mental slap. Panic would serve nothing. Only depress her mother. Frighten her. Stress her out. Weaken her ailing heart more. Miah had to stay positive. Upbeat. No matter what.
“Miah, Dr. Forbes is giving you his best guess. That’s all he can do. We knew from the start that my rare blood type was a factor. But on the upside, it also puts me on a much shorter waiting list. So, we’re going to live for today. Enjoy every moment we have together and leave the donor up to God.”
“That’s the attitude, Lina,” the doctor said. “At all costs, continue to avoid stress.”
Avoid stress, Miah thought with bitter irony. Six months ago, the clinic doctor had prescribed that very medicine. And as though he’d been predicting disaster on the horizon, stress arrived on their doorstep within days of the warning—striking like a tornado. But with the tornado had come the wherewithal to secure this doctor, and his care had managed to keep her mom stable through all of the heartache and all of the joy; even too much good news could bring stress.
No more extremes, Miah determined. She would see that stress stayed far from her mom in the days ahead.
“Oh, one thing more, Doctor.” Lina scooted to the edge of her chair. “Will I be able to travel overseas at the end of the month?”
“No, no, no.” He glanced up from her chart, shaking his head. “It’s out of the question. Not only should you avoid flying, you need to be near the hospital should a donor become available.”
“Oh, of course.” Her mom looked chagrined, as though just remembering the doctor had already told her this a while ago.
Miah wondered if the heart problem was cutting off or short-circuiting some of the blood circulation in her mother’s brain, affecting her memory a bit.
“Don’t frown, Me-Oh-Miah,” her mom said, teasingly calling her by the pet name she’d used since as far back as Miah could remember. “I’m not happy about missing your coronation and the royal wedding in Nurul either, but that’s okay. It has been an incredible and lucky time for both of us, darling. It’s no good to be selfish. To want more.”
But Miah did want more. So much more. She wanted her mother’s heart healed, healthy. But if her mom wasn’t going to survive, wasn’t going to be lucky enough to find that special donor, Miah didn’t want whatever time they had left shadowed by negativity. She covered her mother’s tiny hand with her own much larger one, feeling these days as though she were the protector, the parent, and forced a grin.
“All right. I’m smiling. See?”
“That’s better, darling.”
As the doctor wrote something more in her mother’s chart, Miah and Lina sat in silence, holding hands. Miah wrestled with the inner struggle that consumed most of her days lately. Last winter, she and her mom had been getting by paycheck to paycheck. Then the tornado had swept in, picking up their lives and spinning everything around and around, then counterclockwise, so that when the dust settled, nothing looked the same.
The unpredictable winds of change had dumped on them a golden rainbow, a key to utopia. Wealth beyond their wildest imaginings. Of course, there were conditions attached, but experience had taught her early on that most things in this world came with conditions.
Miah could still taste the desperation she’d felt just before then, and recall the desperate bargaining with God. She’d have sold her soul to save her mom. Fortunately, the required conditions asked considerably less of her.
She touched her engagement ring—a white-gold band with a three-carat diamond surrounded by emeralds on one side and blue sapphires on the other. Her betrothed said the ring was an heirloom, passed from his grandmother to his mother to him. No, Miah didn’t regret the bargain she’d made. It had given her options she’d never dreamed possible.
Her first priority had been this doctor.
Lina smiled. “At least I’ll be able to give my daughter away at her wedding tomorrow.”
Miah squeezed her mom’s hand. The arranged marriage—the main condition attached to the golden rainbow—would bring her a royal title, her own wealth, the incredible and new sensation of everyone treating her as if she were special, making her feel special. On the other hand, she barely knew her groom-to-be, and that scared her. She had, however, kept this secret worry to herself.
She glanced lovingly at her mom. Lina seemed even smaller than usual, frail. Her lips a bit blue beneath her pink lipstick. Even her hair, which had always been thick and black like Miah’s own, was thinning, graying. Her mom didn’t need to know about Miah’s misgivings. Couldn’t deal with even one extra burden. She needed to smile as she was smiling now, a Mona Lisa glow in her brown eyes.
Lina stood. “I’ve been afraid, Dr. Forbes, that I’d finally be joining my darling Grant, leaving our daughter without either of her parents to see her married. Or that I’d be bedridden, in which case Miah would insist on the ceremony taking place in my hospital room.”
“I would do it, too.” Miah gathered her purse and rose.
“Yes, I know. But I’ll be grateful if a donor doesn’t show up tomorrow to spoil your wedding.” Lina’s smile widened as she joked. “Day after tomorrow would be fine, though, Dr. Forbes. See if you can arrange it.”
Laughing, she winked at Miah, and Miah allowed herself to embrace the joy she saw in her mother’s eyes, that she felt trickling through her worry. Life had held so little happiness in the past, she still struggled with accepting the good things that had befallen them these past six months. She’d wake up some nights in a cold sweat, certain it had all disappeared because she’d believed in it too much, enjoyed it too much.
“Go and enjoy yourself.” The doctor held the door open. “You’re a fighter, Lina. Just keep fighting.”
Miah ushered her mother out of the doctor’s office, down the hall and onto a crowded elevator. All the while, she mulled over the doctor’s last words. As far back as she could recall, her mom had had to fight for everything. She’d been widowed when Miah was twelve. Grant Mohairbi had been a freedom fighter in his youth, and a firefighter later on. He’d died a hero’s death, rescuing three small children and their mother from their blazing apartment building, before being overcome with smoke inhalation.
Grant and Lina had shared the kind of love everyone strives for and few find. He had been a wonderful father to Miah. His loss had devastated them both.
But instead of falling apart, as she had had every right to do, Lina had wanted to honor Grant’s memory, make him as proud of her as she had always been—and remained still—of him. She had picked up her five-foot frame, gathered her ninety pounds and assessed their situation, then threw herself into doing whatever it took to keep a roof over their heads.
The survivors’ pension had only stretched so far. Lina had worked two minimum-wage jobs, coming home worn-out, but always finding time for Miah—helping her with homework, listening eagerly to her talk about her day, keeping their connection strong and intact—before falling exhausted into bed.
So tight was their bond, Miah had never had an inkling she was adopted. It had come as quite a shock, one she still battled to believe, even with daily, hourly proof staring her in the face.
Like the chauffeured limousine awaiting them at the curb, provided by her birth father—her real-life fairy godfather—Sheik Khalaf Al-Sayed, a multimillionaire oil mogul. It amazed Miah how quickly a person could come to accept luxuries as the norm.
The chauffeur helped Lina into the back seat, then turned to Miah. “Ms. Mohairbi, I found this on the floorboard. I thought perhaps it had fallen out of your pocketbook.”
Miah frowned, accepting the envelope. The moment she recognized the block lettering, she froze. This hadn’t come from her purse. Someone had placed it in the car. When? How? “Did you leave the limousine unattended at any time, Mehemet?”
His black eyes became evasive. “Only one moment…to answer nature. But I lock first.”
“Okay.” It was a silly thing to lie about, but she knew he couldn’t have locked the car. Otherwise, the note would not have been in it. And it was unlikely he’d seen whomever had put the envelope inside it. She quickly read the enclosed note, feeling the heat drain from her cheeks.
“Avoid stress,” the doctor had said. But this…this… Miah squished the blackmail note in her fist and shoved it into her pocket. This would bring her mother’s ailing heart to a dead stop.
Miah squelched the urge to curse and got into the car, letting the soft leather embrace her. She’d thought the first payment to the vile extortionist would be the end of it. But there had been a second demand. And now another. God, how naive she’d been. He wanted ten thousand more or he’d ruin her wedding. Destroy her mother. Start a scandal that could strip her of her future. She stared out the window as the limo merged with traffic. She hated the shivering in her stomach that felt as if she’d swallowed a full glass of ice shavings.
Fear.
Truth didn’t scare Miah. Lies did.
Perhaps that was because she’d discovered last January that her whole life had been a lie. Had Grant Mohairbi’s life also been a lie? Had the father she’d grown up loving, adoring, honoring been who her mother and she had thought he was? Had he been a freedom fighter? A hero? Or had he been a mercenary? An assassin?
“Darling, is something wrong?” Lina touched her clasped hands. “You’re very pale. For a moment there, you looked absolutely…terrified.”
“Terrified? Don’t be silly. No, no,” she managed to say in a tone that sounded normal. “I was thinking about the wedding. Nothing for you to fret about, honest.”
But her mom’s brow knit, a sign she wasn’t going to let this go so easily. “Are you having second thoughts about marrying someone you’ve been betrothed to since you were a baby?”
She doubted anyone would blame her if she were having second thoughts, but she couldn’t afford them. She had agreed to the marriage without coercion from anyone, agreed to it for all that it would give her—including her own money, an enormous inheritance that would allow her to pay off the extortionist once and for all. She said, “No second thoughts.”
None she would admit to out loud, anyway. Not to her mother. Not to herself. Outside, stifling damp heat prevailed; inside, air-conditioning froze the sweat on Miah’s brow.
“You’re going to be a beautiful bride, darling.” Lina touched her hand as the car inched along in heavy morning traffic. “I’m so excited about tomorrow.”
Miah’s internal alarm went off, shredding all thoughts of the blackmailer’s note. “Well, you don’t want to get too excited, Mom. Perhaps you should take a nap this afternoon.”
“That sounds like a great idea, but not if you’re going to pace the floors, bored while I rest.”
“I’m not going to pace. Fact is, there are a few minor details, a couple of items for my trousseau I want to pick up. So, I’ll be plenty busy.”
The limousine pulled up to their building farther along Lake Shore Drive. They occupied a penthouse with a magnificent view of Lake Michigan. It was a far cry from the tenement apartment they’d called home for most of her life.
Miah walked Lina through the lobby to their private elevator. “I’m just going to change into something a little more comfortable.”
“MORE COMFORTABLE” was impossible for Miah to achieve. The ice chips in her stomach still had her shivery half an hour later. She had to get the money and drop it off before one today, and it was nearly that now. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass doors as she exited the apartment complex. Her long, lean legs flashed from beneath the scrap of hot pink skirt that hugged her slim hips, while her slender upper body sported a neon green, sheer top over a creamy camisole. Her thick, blunt-cut raven hair swung across her mid-back and shoulders with every step, and framed her face…which looked shades too pale at the moment.
Her outfit drew a look of disapproval from the chauffeur as she met him at the curb. She climbed into the back seat of the limo and waited until he closed the door, then tugged on the hem of her short skirt. Her mother had tried to steer her toward the conservative styles she favored, but Miah needed variety. Color. Flash.
Making her clothing allowance stretch had meant shopping in consignment stores and thrift shops. Even though she could now afford to buy her favorite designers new, or spend thousands on a single blouse, she still shopped in the same stores she’d always frequented.
She liked her style. But no one else seemed to. Not her mother, not her newly discovered father, and especially not her fiancé. Too bad, she had decided. She was who she was. Nothing could change that. And today, she needed the “old” Miah more than ever to get through the next hour.
The chauffeur intruded on her thoughts. “Where would you like to go, Ms. Mohairbi?”
Oh God, she’d been daydreaming, wasting time she didn’t have. Her heart moved with uncomfortable quickness. “Chicago First Federal, Mehemet.”
Miah tried relaxing, but the traffic moved with aching slowness while time seemed to spin off the dial of her wristwatch. Would the blackmailer keep his threat if she was late? Would he send his vile story to the editor of The Clarion, a local tabloid that thrived on exposés and half truths? Her father, the sheik, had warned her that a scandal in the States could affect her acceptance by the people of Nurul. She could not afford to let this story get out. Not even if it were a lie. She tapped her foot, feeling ill, helpless, muttering, “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
After what seemed an hour, Mehemet pulled into the bank’s parking area. Miah was out of the limo and to the front doors before he could unstrap his seat belt. When she returned a few minutes later, he was standing beside the open back door of the stretch car with his dark face clenched, but he said nothing, only nodded.
Miah swept past him. She clutched her purse—with the ten one-thousand-dollar bills secured in a plain white envelope within—to her thudding heart. Mehemet had been hired by her father and likely ordered to keep watch over her. She was not making his work easy, and a flash of concern that the chauffeur might report her odd behavior to the sheik scraped her aching nerves raw. She didn’t want to have to explain herself. Her actions.
She edged onto the seat, gripping her purse in both hands as if someone might reach into the locked car and snatch it from her. “The Brinkmire Cavalli Gallery, Mehemet.”
As the words slipped from her, Miah realized she’d repeated this trip with Mehemet two other times in the past four weeks, first to the bank, then to the Brinkmire Cavalli Gallery. Three times in the past four weeks. She groaned inwardly. The blackmailer was draining her financially and emotionally. And the chauffeur had to notice that even though she always went to the bank first, she never bought anything at the gallery. Would he start to get curious? Mention it to her father? Her fiancé?
The ice chips in her stomach seemed to be forming into a solid block.
The gallery was located near Grant Park, the end building in a row of refurbished warehouses. It was a mid-size structure, four stories tall. The original second floor had been removed in order to create the high ceilings. The top two floors were used as offices and storage, the gallery occupying only the ground level. The main salon dissected into dozens of spaces that could be widened or narrowed depending on what was being exhibited at any given time. There were also several intersecting rooms that allowed a steady stream of foot traffic to pass through without causing a bottleneck.
Miah need not have worried about that this afternoon. She seemed to have the place almost to herself. Her spike heels clicked on the tiled floor, echoing the quick, fearful thud of her pulse in her ears. She’d cut this close. Too close. Was the blackmailer here already? Struggling to swallow, she picked up her step and hurried through the salon toward the interlocking rooms, her destination the back exit. She raced past exhibits by the newest up-and-coming artists, through the room displaying paintings by established favorites, and one full of antique weaponry, guns and swords.
Toward the back of the building, near the public bathrooms, she stopped and glanced around, making sure no one was watching or paying particular attention to her. But she seemed to be alone, the eerie silence broken only by her footfalls. How she’d love to be able to ram one of her pointed heels into the extortionist’s shin. She ducked into a narrow hallway, striding to the single waste bin near the door. She plucked the envelope from her purse and dropped it into the bin.
Divesting herself of the money seemed to suck the air from her lungs. She tried to inhale, but it was as if her throat had closed. A panic attack? She glanced up at the exit door. No. Going out this way would probably set off the security system. A prickling sensation hit her neck—that uneasy sense that someone was staring at her.
The blackmailer.
She spun around. A woman stood at the end of the hall, eyeing her questioningly. She wore a security uniform. “Can I help you, miss?”
“No.” Miah was amazed she could find her voice, but the woman seemed to have startled away her panic. She tucked her purse under her arm, gesturing toward the trash bin. “I—I was just throwing out a tissue.”
Though the panic didn’t return, the sense that she was being watched lingered as Miah retraced her path back to the main salon. She cast periodic glances over her shoulder, studied the faces of those she passed. Was he nearby? The nasty puke who seemed to know details about her life that were no one else’s business—such as the fact that her recently opened checking account contained enough money to pay the exorbitant amounts he demanded for his silence?
Outside, the heat struck her with the force of a blow, and she realized she was so tense that a light breeze could probably blow her over. She needed some TLC. Needed Cailin. Her best friend.
Needed a tall thirst-quenching beer. Needed one last afternoon to be the wild woman she’d been before January. Tomorrow, her life changed forever. Today, she could indulge some of her favorite things, could forget a blackmailer’s demands. His threats. Could bank the fires of worry about her mother. Stave off the apprehension she felt about the marriage.
She instructed Mehemet to leave her at Finnigan’s Rainbow—a family-owned and operated bar and grill—on Michigan Avenue in the heart of the shopping district, and take the rest of the day off.
Cailin was working the bar with her brother, Rory. Both wore Kelly green polo shirts and black pants. He grinned at Miah and hollered above the din, “Princess, what brings you slumming on the eve of your wedding?”
Princess. Miah slid onto a bar stool. She had to admit that aside from the money for her mother, the fact that she would be an honest-to-God princess after saying “I do” touched a chord inside her, as though something internal had aligned, connected.
Cailin snapped her brother’s backside with a bar towel. “She’s not officially a princess until tomorrow, you doof.”
The Finnigans all had fiery red hair and mischievous blue eyes. Cailin was the only girl, a natural beauty. She greeted Miah with a smile. “Hey, girlfriend, nice to see you looking like your old self.”
“Thanks.” Miah caught her friend’s gaze darting to the door. Bobby “The Buzzard” Redwing, Cailin’s ex-boyfriend, had been hassling her. Miah had no more interest in encountering the Buzzard than Cailin; he was a reporter for the very tabloid to which she feared the blackmailer would sell his story of Grant Mohairbi.
She drew a shaky breath. She had to lose this mood. Quit thinking about the blackmailer. Determined to do just that, she forced a smile. “Hey, Rory, can ‘almost royalty’ get an ice-cold one and a slice of pizza in this dive?”
Cailin laughed and drew the attention of a couple of men at the end of the bar. She had a knockout figure, round where Miah was lean, skin like peaches and cream. Rory set a frosted mug of foaming beer before Miah, then went to fetch her pizza, leaving Miah and Cailin to chat. But the first thing out of Cailin’s mouth was “Uh-oh.”
Her gaze fixed on something over Miah’s shoulder.
Miah tensed. “Is it ‘The Buzzard’?”
“Nope. This one’s all yours. The Gorgeous One.”
Miah’s heart thumped. Talk about stress-inducing. He would not be happy to see her dressed like this. She gathered her poise and glanced around at her fiancé. Six feet of gorgeous male animal, the most handsome man she’d ever encountered. Hollywood should have come knocking on his door years ago. Prince Zahir Haji Haleem. His dark, heated gaze landed on her like a sensual stroke played over her body. There was something possessive in that look, something that sent heat into her belly and fire through her blood.
She swallowed hard against the knot forming in her throat. It scared her, this heat she felt every time he was near. If his look, his casual touch could make her this flustered, this hot, he might just burn her up during serious intimacy. And she didn’t doubt for a minute that this man—who had, before their engagement, been linked in tabloids with several of Chicago’s top socialites, married and single, and who had so obviously majored in Pleasing Women 101—would be more than proficient at lovemaking.
Miah was no prude herself, no innocent. But she felt such shyness around this man. This stranger. Could she actually go through with marrying him? The thought brought an image of her mother’s smiling face, and Miah knew she not only could, she would. Nothing must cause her mother’s smile to vanish.
She took a swig of the beer, then thumped the mug onto the bar, slipped off the stool and, on her three-inch sandals, crossed to where he waited as though he’d sent her a silent command to come to him.
“Hello, Zahir.”
“Miah.” His gaze did a lazy climb from her gaily painted toenails, up the strappy heels and skimpy clothing to her face. She clenched her hands against the blush his sexy perusal brought to her flesh, lifted her chin and stared him in the eye. “Like what you see?”
He smirked. “Every man in the bar seems to.”
“And you object to that?”
“I believe objections, were I to have any, would fall on deaf ears.” He wore a black, Armani three-piece suit. His raven hair curled against the virgin white of his shirt collar. He smelled of a spicy autumn afternoon, and seemed somehow able to defy the heat.
“I like color,” she said. If he had his way, she’d be covered from head to toe in flowing veils all fit for a funeral. But that she would never do.
“Color likes you back.” He caught her chin in his big hand, startling her.
The blush swept her body again, gaining heat this time as it reached her face. She could pull away, but sensed the room watching them. She whispered, “What are you doing?”
He leaned closer, as though to kiss her. Her breath jammed in her throat at the raw sexuality in his very touch, his very nearness. The pad of his thumb traced the soft flesh above her upper lip. “Foam…from the beer.”
“Tha—thank you.” She took a faltering step back. “How did you know to find me here, Zahir?”
“Actually, I wasn’t looking for you, love.” His voice was a mix of Northeastern crisp and Middle Eastern mellow. “I had no idea you were here. I was passing by and spotted that tabloid reporter—what’s his name— Redwing, outside.” He glanced at the door as though he half expected The Buzzard to burst through it, camera flashing. “The last thing I want is him getting wind of where and when the wedding is coming down.”
Coming down? That was a strange way to refer to their wedding. She lowered her voice. “Bobby Redwing has been hassling Cailin. He’s probably not after you or me.”
“In the past, he’s been very persistent, very good at ferreting out…secrets,” Zahir said in a distracted voice as though he were speaking to himself. He touched his chest near his heart and an odd expression played around his alluring mouth. Then he seemed to shake himself and flashed her a too-quick, too-bright grin. “You don’t have anything to hide, do you, love?”
Miah flinched. “No. Nothing.”
Nothing except a blackmailer’s secret.
“What about you, Zahir?” What don’t I know about you?
His gaze flicked away from hers, a sure sign he was hiding something. Miah felt the uneasiness returning, the second-guessing. She was marrying a man she didn’t know. A stranger. One who could have secrets she didn’t even suspect.
Maybe dangerous secrets.
