ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance (29 page)

Miles took a drink of his beer and went over in his mind again what he was going to say to Boss when he showed up. This had to end. He had enough saved up to help pay for things while he found another job. The prospect of working at a pizza joint or even Saundra’s dad was sounding better and better after every night out with Boss. The money was good, no doubt, but it just wasn’t worth the price of his soul.

“Hey there, champ,” Boss said, taking a seat beside Miles. Boss held up to fingers to the bartender then looked back to Miles. “Ready to get busy tonight? I’ve got a to-do list the size of my arm.”

“I can’t do this anymore.” Miles hissed and grit his teeth together. That wasn’t what he meant to say.

“What?” Boss turned in his seat, a bemused smile on his face.

“Sorry, I meant to lead up to that, but it’s out, so screw it. Yeah, I just… Look, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I can’t do this anymore. I have to quit, okay?”

Boss laughed. The bartender brought him his beers, and Boss smiled and gave the guy a nod.

“No, that’s not going to happen,” he said as he sipped from his first beer.

Miles took a breath. He didn’t imagine this was going to be easy, but he spent the last three weeks beating people half to death. If that’s what it took to make Boss leave him alone, so be it. He expected nothing less. Mike looked to Boss, ready to smash his beer into the man’s head if it came to that.

“Yes, it is. I’m done.”

Boss, still smiling, pulled his cell phone from his pocket. As he punched a few buttons with his thumb he said, “Do you think you’re the only person under my employ?”

“Excuse me?”

Boss turned his phone to show Miles. It was a picture of Miles’ apartment, a clear shot of Saundra through the window. In the pic she wore the clothes she was wearing when he’d left that day. That was a fresh picture.

“For example, I hire a man, big guy too, to stand outside your place just in case you get uppity.”

“You son of a—“

“Ah, ah, ah,” Boss said warningly. One word from me, and your girlfriend is tragically killed in a home invasion accident.” He quirked his mouth, took a swig of beer, and said, “Or maybe not. I can do worse than murder. Maybe just take her captive and send you pieces.”

Miles could feel the tension in his hand growing and knew if he didn’t loosen his grip, the beer bottle was going to shatter in his hand. “You lay one finger on her…”

“And you’ll do nothing. Which is exactly what you’re going to do right now: nothing. You’re my dog. You do what I say. I don’t pay you to think. Thinking will get your girlfriend killed. Not you, though. You I’ll leave alive. Maybe cut off your hands just to make sure you don’t get any funny ideas, but I’ll leave you handless and alone to simmer in the knowledge that you killed your girlfriend.”

Then his eyes went wide and he gasped. “Maybe I’ll frame you for her murder! Wouldn’t that be delicious? Rotting in prison for the death of your girlfriend. And handless. Ya know, that means you’ll only have one way to keep yourself alive in prison.”

Boss turned his mouth into an “O” and fellated the beer bottle for a moment before taking a swig.

“All right,” Miles said, holding up a hand to block the view. “All right! You win. Just don’t hurt her. Please. I’ll do whatever you want, just leave her alone. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

Boss laughed and clapped Miles on the back. “There’s my man. I knew you had it in you.” Standing from his stool, he downed his two beers in two great gulps. “Bring your beer. We’ve got work to do.”

Saundra woke up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom. When she rolled over, Miles wasn’t there. For the first time since they’d made up, he wasn’t home. She checked her clock and saw it was three in the morning. He was always home by then, even when he was out drinking. She went to the bathroom, but couldn’t fall back to sleep. Where could he be? Was he okay?

Anxiety gripped her with fearfully strong fingers. She knew something was wrong. She let herself believe everything was okay, but it wasn’t. He was dead in a ditch somewhere, or got into an accident because he’d been drinking. Her mind raced with possibilities every minute until she heard his keys in the lock. She was out of bed and halfway down the hall by the time he had the door shut.

“Where have you been? Are you okay?”

“Mhm,” he said as he walked past her to the kitchen. No hug, no kiss.

“Miles,” she said to get his attention, but he seemed a thousand miles away.

He walked into the kitchen, looking at the cabinets, the fridge, the oven, but didn’t touch anything. It was as though he didn’t know where he was, or what was happening.

“Miles, talk to me.”

“We’re done.”

“What?” The word left her mouth before she realized she spoke. With his odd behavior, she had no idea what he was talking about. What was done?

“We’re done,” he repeated. “That’s it. I’m leaving.”

“You’re…” Saundra hugged her arms around herself as she tried to process what he was saying. “You just got home. Where are you going?”

Miles rubbed one of his eyes roughly with the palm of his hand and she realized he was crying but trying to not show it. “Saundra, I’m leaving you. We’re done. I’m just grabbing some stuff and then I’m leaving.”

“No you’re not.” After everything they’d gone through she was surprised by her defiant response, but it was as true to who she was as anything she’d ever said. Before, he had been spiraling down, satisfied to let his life dissolve into nothing. Now, though, something was wrong. He wasn’t breaking up with her because he was unhappy with her. She could see it all over him, from head to toe. This was a full attitude change in the span of hours. Something had happened.

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he said and walked past her. “This just isn’t working out.”

“Bull,” she said, following him down the hallway. “I’m not letting you just leave me. Not now. Not after everything we’ve been through for years. Years, Miles.”

“That’s why I’m leaving! It’s been years. It’s obvious this isn’t going to work out. We should just cut our losses and let that be that.”

“That’s not good enough. That’s not nearly good enough.”

Finally he spun around, throwing his arms out. “What do you want from me?”

“Answers.” She cocked one foot to the side and crossed her arms. She could tell he was upset, but she was expecting anger. In the dark twilight coming from the one light on in the kitchen, what she saw on his face wasn’t anger, but frustration.

“It’s not safe,” he said, his voice breaking. “For your own good, you need to stay as far away from me as possible.”

“Miles, talk to me. What happened?”

“I messed up, Saundra. I messed up bad.”

“Tell me what’s wrong. We can fix it. We’ll work through—“

“No!” He shoved past her and strode down the hall. She called after him, but without looking back, he left the apartment and slammed the door behind him. Saundra flinched at the sound and stood in the relative darkness of the hallway, alone.

Saundra sat at her desk, grading papers. She hadn’t heard from Miles in days. Not a call, not a text, nothing. She’d tried to get in touch with him, but he just sent her right to voicemail. Emails, texts, everything all left read yet unanswered.

She tried calling all of their friends, but none of them had heard from him. If any were lying about it, they were damn good liars. She spent a couple nights going to all of the bars she knew he liked to go to. Nothing. No one had even seen him, or anyone like what she described, come in for a while.

In all her life she’d never felt so lost. It was one thing when they were fighting. He was still there. Now, though, she felt the emptiness that he left behind. When a funny commercial came on, her first instinct was to tell him about it. Now she couldn’t. When she thought of food, sleep, work, anything, he came to mind.

Their lives had been so intrinsically entwined for so long, everything she did involved him or thoughts of him in some way. To be without him was to be without half of her life. All she could do was hope he would get in touch with her again, and get on with her life in the meantime.

Moping at home wouldn’t solve anything, even though she could never quite talk herself into exactly why she had to get out of bed every day. She simply did it because running on autopilot was easier than anything else.

When she got home that day, there was a large manila package waiting in their mailbox. It was addressed to Miles, but the return label had some attorney guy on it. Whatever it was, it would concern both of them. She sat down on the couch and hoped for answers as she tore open the package.

Inside was a mountain of paperwork detailing something about a child and back pay for child support. Could this have been the issue? Did he think she would be mad if she found out? The only thing she was upset about was that he felt he couldn’t trust her with this. After everything they’d been through, this was something actually out of his control. If anything, they could refute the claim and demand a DNA test. Four years was a long time to wait to claim someone as a father. They had to have the right to protest it.

Saundra slapped the papers down on the coffee table and sighed thinking that maybe she was seeing a bigger, clearer picture of what was going on.

Miles shouldered his way into the motel room that had become his home for the last few days. The paper grocery bags crumped as he set them on the small cheap table beside the door. On the table beside the bed, his cell phone rang.

He stopped taking it with him because of all the times Saundra was trying to contact him. She was such an engrained part of his soul, that every time she called, every time the phone lit up with a text from her, it gave his heart a painful thrill. It was getting harder and harder to refuse her. He missed her so desperately it was physically painful. He walked over to the phone and looked down to see a picture of Saundra’s smiling face look up at him. There was that racing of the heart.

He turned away from it and went to put the cans of beans and premade spaghetti against the wall with the other food and cracked open a can of soda. He was trying to cut back on the drinking, despite the fact that all he wanted to do was drink himself into a stupor and never wake up. Instead of just a missed call, the phone lit up again to denote a message.

When he went over to check it again, he saw she left a voicemail. That was new. After a moment’s debate, he decided to listen to it. He’d be able to hear her voice without actually having to talk to her. That was okay, wasn’t it? It wouldn’t hurt anything. He just needed to hear her, to hear that she was okay. Even if she was angry, at least she’d be alive and unhurt.

When her voicemail started, the strength went out of his legs and he plopped onto the edge of the bed. Had her voice always been so sweet? She explained that the package arrived for him. He cringed, expecting her to chew him out but instead she said she wasn’t angry, and she wished he felt he could talk to her about this. Now that she knew, though, she didn’t see why he had to stay gone. If only it was that simple. He hung up without deleting the voicemail, just so he could hear her voice again whenever he wanted.

The phone lit up and rang in his hands. He was so emotional that the sudden action startled him and he nearly dropped the phone. It was Saundra again. He shouldn’t answer it, he knew that, but his thumb hovered over the green button anyway. He couldn’t let her believe that the kid was the only reason he left. She’d be so confused if he didn’t come back now. He couldn’t leave her like that. He sighed and closed his eyes. Lying to himself didn’t help anyone. All he wanted was to hear her voice and to talk to her again. He needed to be grounded. Without her, he waivered in the wind like silk strands.

Answering the call, he held it to his ear, but couldn’t bring himself to speak.

“Hi,” she said tentatively.

“Hi.”

“You’re there,” she said, and he could hear the relief in her voice. “Did you listen to my message?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, then you can come home.”

“No,” he said, knowing he shouldn’t have answered this.

“Why?” The pain in her voice was like a razor against his chest.

“Saundra, please, it’s not as simple as that.”

“Can we talk about it? Meet me somewhere if you won’t come home. Just talk to me.”

The word “no” formed in his mind, but he was having difficulty forcing it down to his mouth. He needed to tell her no, he needed to hang up the phone right that instant. “Please.” The tiny, pathetic plea was too much. His will crumbled.

“All right.”

Despite his better judgement, he agreed to meet her later that night in a small restaurant just outside of town. He hoped the location would be far enough away that Boss wouldn’t find out. The last thing Miles wanted to do was put Saundra in danger because of his own selfish need to see her. As he thought about being near her again, the joy in his heart was nearly too much to bear.

It was so ridiculous to be so excited about seeing someone, right? He smiled at his phone after hanging up with her, running his thumb over her picture.

He’d never love anyone again like he loved her. It was a bittersweet truth, but one he had to accept.

Saundra idly tore her straw wrapper into tiny pieces as she waited for Miles to show up. When he did, she almost squealed at the sight of him.

He came in, and though he spotted her right away, he kept looking around as though he was looking for her. Even as he walked toward her table, he was looking out the windows and around them. He searched so fervently that it got her looking around, too, as though she could see whatever it was he was looking for.

She stood up to give him a hug, but he purposely pulled out a chair and sat down without touching her. She didn’t bring attention to it. Things right now were so ridiculously delicate that she didn’t want to do anything to start an argument. That wasn’t why she was there. Something was wrong, and she was determined to find out what it was.

“How are you?” she asked him.