The Sheikh's Contract Fiancee (Almasi Sheikhs 1)

She sighed, stomping into her bedroom, assessing her strewn clothes and rumpled bedsheets. Not seeing Imaad again felt wrong somehow. But she couldn’t think about that now. She had to get packing and get out of Parsabad.

15

Imaad called Annabelle’s room for the tenth time that afternoon, and still no answer. He paced the floor of his office heatedly, anxiety mounting like an avalanche around him.

Meetings had detained him for most of the day. But just in the past hour and a half, since returning to the office, he’d found utter radio silence on Annabelle’s end. And the longer he couldn’t make contact, the more he feared the inevitable: that she’d left Parsabad without telling him.

The mere idea made cartwheels dance sickeningly through his bones, like an evil circus on parade. If she’d left without saying goodbye, it wouldn’t just sting. It would register as a blow. He wanted to be right at her side, helping her confront this. Problem solving together.

After another unanswered call, he decided he’d leave work early and head to the hotel himself. Maybe she’d been packing, blissfully unaware of the ringing hotel phone and cell phone, or taking an extra-long shower. Maybe she’d been downstairs, eating dinner. Maybe she was actively boarding a plane for New York City.

Anxiety made him tense as he headed for the lobby of the office building. Her hotel was only a few minutes away by cab, but each minute dragged on, an eternal wait to find out. He gnawed on his lip in the back seat of the cab, barely registering the pedestrians and traffic flowing by him.

He scampered out of the taxi after shoving a few bills into the front seat, and jogged into the opulent lobby of the hotel. Creamy light shone over taupe tiles, and the glittering black front desk beckoned to him like an oasis.

“Excuse me.” He gripped the edge of the smooth fake-marble receiving desk. “I need to check on a guest. Annabelle Thomas. Is she available?”

The front desk clerk coolly navigated her computer, her face expressionless. After a moment, she said, “That guest has checked out, sir.”

Disappointment crashed through him. “Can you tell me when?”

“About an hour ago,” she said. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Yeah. Make Annabelle answer her phone. “That will be all. Thank you.”

Imaad turned to leave but wasn’t sure where to go. The sane choice would be right back to his office, where he would let Annabelle do her own thing, her own way, without his interference.

But that wasn’t what called to him, not by a long shot. He’d already defied his father today. Why not take it one step further?

Imaad toyed with his phone in his pocket while an idea burbled to life. And then he slipped it out, phoning his driver.

“I’ll need you to pick me up at the Parsa Hotel,” he said. “We need to go to the airport immediately.”

As soon as he hung up with his driver, he made a call to the Minarak International Airport. An automated greeting responded in perfectly-articulated Farsi. He pressed ‘0’ for the operator and as it rang he paced the area in front of the sliding doors of the hotel, occasionally tripping the sensor and making them whoosh open.

He gnawed at the inside of his lip until it bled, planning what he might say. How he’d come across as a sane person, and not someone to be written off as a lunatic.

When an operator answered, every thought blinked out of existence. He took a deep breath.

“Ma’am, this is Imaad Almasi, son of Sheikh Dawir Almasi.” He paused, waiting for recognition, some sign that his name-dropping plan might work.

“Yes, sir. How may I help you?” The operator’s voice softened. He was through the gate.

“I’m calling with an urgent matter. A business colleague of mine is inside the airport now, heading for a flight scheduled to leave for New York City.” He took another reassuring breath. “I need to have her detained. She cannot board that flight.”

The operator paused. “Sir, are you positive she has a flight leaving Minarak Airport today?”

Hell if he knew. But it was the only thing that made sense. “Yes. Her name is Annabelle Thomas.” He rattled off a few other pieces of information at the operator’s request, and then waited as she consulted a colleague.

“I’m going to transfer you to a gate agent,” she finally said. “I’ll see what we can do.”

Imaad was on hold long enough for his driver to show up. While easing into the backseat, the gate agent finally responded. Imaad quickly repeated the situation and reinforced that this matter was of utmost importance, a business-security matter.

They couldn’t know the real reason: that he was petrified at the thought of her leaving the country and never seeing her again.

The gate agent sounded unsure but ultimately conceded. “Get here as soon as you can, and we’ll have you meet her in a conference room. You can handle it from there.”

Imaad squeezed his phone in his hand after he hung up. Yes.