The Sheikh's Accidental Bride (The Sheikh Wants A Wife 2)

So, her sister was having her

brought into Manhattan. She’d probably meet her somewhere upscale, and continue the ruse through an early dinner or a late lunch, whichever they wanted to call it. They’d enjoy being back in each other’s company, Nadya would forgive her sister, and Jasmine would forgive her as well. All the bad blood they’d had between them would be cleared up well in advance of the anniversary party.

The buildings of Manhattan went by about as quickly as they could be expected to. The traffic was light, which in New York meant that it was moderate. Nadya began to get excited about what her sister had planned for her. Jasmine had always had great taste, and she was sure she’d pick somewhere nice for the two of them to meet.

But not this nice. The hotel the car pulled up to was just excessive. It was the kind of place that Nadya always found her head craning to look into when she passed, but that she’d never expected that she would actually walk into.

“It this it?” she asked the driver as he held the car door open for her, dropping the act entirely and allowing her disbelief to show through.

The driver nodded, and did that little half-bow thing he’d done before at the airport, though Nadya felt she could sense a bit of suspicion still lingering underneath the surface.

There were porters there at the curb, gathering up her bags. They were quick and efficient, and her bags disappeared into the hotel before she could say anything. All she could do, she figured, was follow.

Stepping over the threshold, she began to have doubts. Maybe it had been wishful thinking that had made her think that her sister would plan something like this. Sure, they’d had a fight, and sure, her new husband was loaded. But even considering both those things, even lunch at the restaurant of a place like this would be wasteful, by any standards.

“Nadya?”

Another man was calling out to her. He resembled the driver so strongly that Nadya had to do a double take to be sure that it wasn’t actually the same man. He had the same stone-faced expression, and the same impeccably-tailored suit. And, it seemed to Nadya, the same air of curiosity and slight suspicion.

“I’m Nadya,” she said. Anderson, she thought. Just say it. ‘I’m Nadya Anderson.’

But she didn’t say it. Maybe something had gone wrong. She couldn’t be the person all this was meant for. This wasn’t her kind of hotel, or her kind of experience. The way these men were acting… the way this man was calling her “Your Highness.” It had to be a mistake. Jasmine wouldn’t have taken it this far. She wouldn’t have brought this many people into it.

But it was a mistake that was leading Nadya into a world she’d never really gotten a look at. Her family had always lived in small, crowded third-floor walk-ups. And then she’d been a student, trying to get by in a dorm and on a meal plan. And since then, she’d been a waitress, just trying to get by at all.

She still had plausible deniability, didn’t she? She could follow this through and see where things were going. At least, she could let it go just a little bit further, until she could say that she thought they had her confused for someone else, and call an end to the whole thing. But in the meantime…

The elevator was taking them up, higher and higher. It wasn’t the normal elevator for guests of the hotel, Nadya noticed. This was an elevator reserved exclusively for the penthouse, that the grey suited man had needed a special keycard even to call.

“How was your flight?” the interchangeable stone-faced man asked her.

Pleasantries. She would have to make pleasantries. But not too many. If they were speaking to her like royalty, she would have to act like royalty, and royalty wouldn’t say much in this situation. That was a relief.

“Tolerable,” she said, tilting her jaw just slightly up, as she imagined that someone who thought herself above everyone else would do.

If she were in the man’s shoes, she’d be insulted. But to him, her behavior seemed to allay his doubts. He approved, it seemed, of her aloofness.

But now there was dead space between them. Usually quietness didn’t make Nadya uncomfortable. As a waitress, she’d gotten used to sensing which customers wanted to be talked to, and which wanted to be left alone. And she was happy to offer quiet to those that wanted it. But here, in this situation, she felt herself casting about for something to say, against her better judgment.

She couldn’t ask any of the things she wanted to ask – not if she wanted to see the inside of the room before announcing that someone had got something wrong. And she did want to see the inside of the room, she found. It surprised her just how strong her curiosity was.

It was a relief when the elevator stopped, and the doors opened directly into the entryway to a suite. The stone-faced man did a little half-bow identical to the one the driver had done, and gestured for her to leave the elevator car.

She did, and as the door shut behind her, she was suddenly struck with fear. There was no escape, now. Something about the sound of the elevator whooshing off down back to the first floor made Nadya feel as though she were entirely in this new world, now. And it was a very different place to the world she’d lived in for the first twenty-one years of her life.

She took a few slow breaths in and out. She got herself together. She decided to look at this as though she were a journalist. She was here to observe. She would just take a look around, and see how the other half lived. And then, when she was finished, she would pick up the phone and call hotel reception, and tell them that she thought there had been a mistake.

Nadya had been in her fair share of hotels and motels for class trips and family vacations, and in hostels for the six months after she’d dropped out of college, when she’d done some backpacking while she tried to figure out what to do with her life – only to find out that new places didn’t in and of themselves provide any answers. This place was unlike any she’d ever stayed in.

It was like a private residence. It felt like someone had designed it for themselves, and had just happened to invite you round, and let you have the run of the place. The light fixtures looked like works of art, with their combination of shiny chrome and matte stainless steel. The Chuck Taylors she’d donned for the flight sunk deeply into the plush rug, under which were beautiful, hardwood floors

This high above the city, Nadya could almost believe she wasn’t in the city at all. She knew the noise of New York well. She knew the feeling of always having people below you, above you, and around you. But here she might as well have been somewhere far away, where people have the luxury of space and privacy.

She tried to soak it all in. She wanted to remember every detail. She noted the crown molding, and the subtle shade of calming grey. She noticed the pattern on the ceiling, so very far above her. It was like lace, made from different textures of white rather that different colors.

The room was bathed in a golden light. Nadya looked up and saw a skylight above her head, letting in the warmth of the sunset, just beginning. Glints of the golden light bounced off of the mirrors, and made the white lilies in a vase by the entryway look orange.

There were no windows just here. She was in the middle of the building. There were hallways headed off in different directions toward different rooms, like synapses, and those all had the orange glow coming in from them, reflected off mirrors and glass, or in triangular shapes on the floor, made by the light coming through windows out of her field of vision at off angles.

That was when she noticed the rose petals on the floor.

Nadya’s heart began to race. She’d gone along with everything with the understanding that she’d just been accidentally taking someone’s reservation. The fallout from that would be embarrassing enough, but at least it would happen to her alone. These rose petals meant that this was more than that. She wasn’t just stealing someone’s reservation. She was stealing someone’s date.

She turned back, looking at the elevator. She would just call it back up. She would just get into the elevator, and ride down to the lobby, and head straight out. She’d take the subway to the train, an

d then call her sister from the station. She’d tell her what a strange adventure she’d been on, before promptly forgetting what a fool she’d almost been. Her finger raised to push the elevator button, but a thought stopped her. Her bags. They’d taken her bags somewhere into this hotel. Were they going to be coming here soon? Where had they been taken?