“You said you sent Rachel money?”
“Right.”
“Did you never phone her? To see how Ethan was?”
“Yes,” she said quickly. Too quickly. “Sure I did.”
“When?” He could hear the sudden hardness in his voice. “She and I were together for three weeks. Rachel has a cell phone but you never called her once during that time.”
“Well, she wanted it that way.”
“Rachel did?”
“Yeah. I, uh, I don’t want to make her look bad—”
“She didn’t want to hear from you?”
“See, she told me how she was doing me this big favor—telling me she didn’t have time for taking care of the kid, all it was gonna involve, you know—and finally she said, ‘Look, I know you’ll be busy job-hunting, so if you send money I’ll take care of the kid. Just don’t drive me nuts checking up on me all the time.’ You know?”
“The kid?” Karim said tonelessly.
“Right. Ethan.”
Suki smiled. Licked her lips. The action was deliberate and diversionary; he knew he was supposed to notice it and he did—and thought how repellent her wet mouth looked, and how delicious Rachel’s mouth looked when it was wet with his kisses.
“You positive you don’t want to come in, Your Majesty?”
Karim didn’t consider correcting her. “Majesty” wasn’t an applicable title, but what difference would that make in what came next?
It was late, and he knew what he had to do if he was going to get any sleep at all.
He smiled. “On second thought …”
And he stepped inside the room, reached behind him, and closed the door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EVENTUALLY weariness won out and Rachel fell into a troubled sleep.
She woke abruptly, alone in a strange room, with a ceiling fan turning high overhead, rain pounding against the arched windows.
Rain in the desert.
It seemed appropriate.
She sat up and pushed her hair from her face. She’d slept in a T-shirt and panties—not naked as she’d slept in Karim’s arms …
She wasn’t going to think about him. She’d cried over him last night but he was nothing to her now, just as she was nothing to him.