And he opted not to seek her out in whatever corner of the grand suite she’d claimed as her own, because he knew what would happen if he did. More of that distracting, opulent firestorm—need and passion and all that rich darkness beneath—that he was half-afraid might kill them both. More proof that all she had to do was touch him and he wasn’t in control at all.
Later, he thought as he left the suite. He would deal with the mess he’d made of things—of her, of this marriage, of all his plans—later.
He was finally finished with the last of his tedious series of sadly necessary morning meetings—the last with a smug and overly moisturized Manhattan financier he’d disliked on sight—when Nasser pulled him aside in the hotel lobby, his expression uncharacteristically dark, and told him something that should have been impossible.
Cleo was gone. Missing. No one had seen her all day.
“Has there been a ransom demand?” Khaled asked at once, already berating himself for failing to take Talaat’s multitude of threats more seriously. He kept his voice low, aware that he was standing where anyone could hear him in a hotel lobby mere steps from Vienna’s famous Opera House, and there was no need to involve the over-eager press.
“None.”
“Signs of a struggle?”
He didn’t want to imagine that. He didn’t want those harrowing visuals in his head. He didn’t know what he’d do if—
But Nasser shook his head. “Nothing like that, as far as we can tell. Her mobile phone and her laptop are the only things missing.”
It took a moment for that intense jolt of fear to dissipate. For Khaled to concentrate on what Nasser had said. And it was the laptop that gave Khaled pause. He blinked and considered.
The laptop, which was covered in old stickers for bands he’d never heard of and which she kept in a bright orange sleeve that was most assuredly not appropriate for the sorts of events Cleo appeared at these days. The laptop, which Cleo would have had absolutely no reason to take with her outside the hotel room—and never had, as far as he knew, unless she was taking the rest of her luggage as well. Which meant that any would-be kidnappers would have had to take Cleo and break into the hotel room to find that laptop while leaving everything else of value in that room behind—
Unlikely.
Khaled considered the scenario for a moment, looking at every angle, not wanting to admit the possibility that she could have played him. Tricked him. Impossible.
“Perhaps my wife has taken a day off.”
“From what, Your Excellency?” Nasser’s voice was mild, as ever. “Surely her life is an endless holiday.”
Khaled glared at him, and the other man had the grace—or the glimmer of self-preservation—to murmur an apology. Khaled moved away from him, pulling out his own mobile as he walked toward a secluded part of the lobby. Because the perfectly obedient creature he’d had at his side these past few months would never do such a thing.
But that wasn’t really Cleo, was it?
Her phone rang once. Then again.
The very notion that Cleo was this devious, this calculating—and this good at it, that she could have spent a night like last night with him and then sneaked out without his having the slightest clue—made his entire body tense in denial.
Denial and then, beneath it, a kick of dark, hot anticipation.
“Hello, Khaled,” she said, sounding as she usually did, calm and unruffled. Wherever she was, it was quiet.
“I’m assuming that you cannot have been abducted, then, if you’re answering your own phone. Much less killed.” He could hear her breathing, and he knew. As surely as if he’d packed her bag for her, hired her a taxi. He knew. He had to fight to keep his voice level. “Where are you, Cleo?”
“What does it matter?”
“I find it matters a great deal.”
“Then by all means,” she suggested, and she didn’t sound calm anymore, “replace me.”
Khaled let out a breath, not realizing he’d held it. He rubbed a hand over his face, unable to tell if he was furious or empty or some odd, painful combination of both. But all he could see was that smile of hers. The real one he’d missed these past few months. Wide and so bright, it had made him feel alive.
As though he could make choices the way anyone else could.
“Is that what this is?” he asked, amazed at how hard it was to keep his voice cool. “Petty revenge on your part because you didn’t care for something I said? I’d have thought that was beneath you.”