sounds like a great idea, but not if you’re going to pace the floors, bored while I rest.”
“I’m not going to pace. Fact is, there are a few minor details, a couple of items for my trousseau I want to pick up. So, I’ll be plenty busy.”
The limousine pulled up to their building farther along Lake Shore Drive. They occupied a penthouse with a magnificent view of Lake Michigan. It was a far cry from the tenement apartment they’d called home for most of her life.
Miah walked Lina through the lobby to their private elevator. “I’m just going to change into something a little more comfortable.”
“MORE COMFORTABLE” was impossible for Miah to achieve. The ice chips in her stomach still had her shivery half an hour later. She had to get the money and drop it off before one today, and it was nearly that now. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass doors as she exited the apartment complex. Her long, lean legs flashed from beneath the scrap of hot pink skirt that hugged her slim hips, while her slender upper body sported a neon green, sheer top over a creamy camisole. Her thick, blunt-cut raven hair swung across her mid-back and shoulders with every step, and framed her face…which looked shades too pale at the moment.
Her outfit drew a look of disapproval from the chauffeur as she met him at the curb. She climbed into the back seat of the limo and waited until he closed the door, then tugged on the hem of her short skirt. Her mother had tried to steer her toward the conservative styles she favored, but Miah needed variety. Color. Flash.
Making her clothing allowance stretch had meant shopping in consignment stores and thrift shops. Even though she could now afford to buy her favorite designers new, or spend thousands on a single blouse, she still shopped in the same stores she’d always frequented.
She liked her style. But no one else seemed to. Not her mother, not her newly discovered father, and especially not her fiancé. Too bad, she had decided. She was who she was. Nothing could change that. And today, she needed the “old” Miah more than ever to get through the next hour.
The chauffeur intruded on her thoughts. “Where would you like to go, Ms. Mohairbi?”
Oh God, she’d been daydreaming, wasting time she didn’t have. Her heart moved with uncomfortable quickness. “Chicago First Federal, Mehemet.”
Miah tried relaxing, but the traffic moved with aching slowness while time seemed to spin off the dial of her wristwatch. Would the blackmailer keep his threat if she was late? Would he send his vile story to the editor of The Clarion, a local tabloid that thrived on exposés and half truths? Her father, the sheik, had warned her that a scandal in the States could affect her acceptance by the people of Nurul. She could not afford to let this story get out. Not even if it were a lie. She tapped her foot, feeling ill, helpless, muttering, “Hurry, hurry, hurry.”
After what seemed an hour, Mehemet pulled into the bank’s parking area. Miah was out of the limo and to the front doors before he could unstrap his seat belt. When she returned a few minutes later, he was standing beside the open back door of the stretch car with his dark face clenched, but he said nothing, only nodded.
Miah swept past him. She clutched her purse—with the ten one-thousand-dollar bills secured in a plain white envelope within—to her thudding heart. Mehemet had been hired by her father and likely ordered to keep watch over her. She was not making his work easy, and a flash of concern that the chauffeur might report her odd behavior to the sheik scraped her aching nerves raw. She didn’t want to have to explain herself. Her actions.
She edged onto the seat, gripping her purse in both hands as if someone might reach into the locked car and snatch it from her. “The Brinkmire Cavalli Gallery, Mehemet.”
As the words slipped from her, Miah realized she’d repeated this trip with Mehemet two other times in the past four weeks, first to the bank, then to the Brinkmire Cavalli Gallery. Three times in the past four weeks. She groaned inwardly. The blackmailer was draining her financially and emotionally. And the chauffeur had to notice that even though she always went to the bank first, she never bought anything at the gallery. Would he start to get curious? Mention it to her father? Her fiancé?
The ice chips in her stomach seemed to be forming into a solid block.
The gallery was located near Grant Park, the end building in a row of refurbished warehouses. It was a mid-size structure, four stories tall. The original second floor had been removed in order to create the high ceilings. The top two floors were used as offices and storage, the gallery occupying only the ground level. The main salon dissected into dozens of spaces that could be widened or narrowed depending on what was being exhibited at any given time. There were also several intersecting rooms that allowed a steady stream of foot traffic to pass through without causing a bottleneck.
Miah need not have worried about that this afternoon. She seemed to have the place almost to herself. Her spike heels clicked on the tiled floor, echoing the quick, fearful thud of her pulse in her ears. She’d cut this close. Too close. Was the blackmailer here already? Struggling to swallow, she picked up her step and hurried through the salon toward the interlocking rooms, her destination the back exit. She raced past exhibits by the newest up-and-coming artists, through the room displaying paintings by established favorites, and one full of antique weaponry, guns and swords.
Toward the back of the building, near the public bathrooms, she stopped and glanced around, making sure no one was watching or paying particular attention to her. But she seemed to be alone, the eerie silence broken only by her footfalls. How she’d love to be able to ram one of her pointed heels into the extortionist’s shin. She ducked into a narrow hallway, striding to the single waste bin near the door. She plucked the envelope from her purse and dropped it into the bin.
Divesting herself of the money seemed to suck the air from her lungs. She tried to inhale, but it was as if her throat had closed. A panic attack? She glanced up at the exit door. No. Going out this way would probably set off the security system. A prickling sensation hit her neck—that uneasy sense that someone was staring at her.
The blackmailer.
She spun around. A woman stood at the end of the hall, eyeing her questioningly. She wore a security uniform. “Can I help you, miss?”
“No.” Miah was amazed she could find her voice, but the woman seemed to have startled away her panic. She tucked her purse under her arm, gesturing toward the trash bin. “I—I was just throwing out a tissue.”
Though the panic didn’t return, the sense that she was being watched lingered as Miah retraced her path back to the main salon. She cast periodic glances over her shoulder, studied the faces of those she passed. Was he nearby? The nasty puke who seemed to know details about her life that were no one else’s business—such as the fact that her recently opened checking account contained enough money to pay the exorbitant amounts he demanded for his silence?
Outside, the heat struck her with the force of a blow, and she realized she was so tense that a light breeze could probably blow her over. She needed some TLC. Needed Cailin. Her best friend.
Needed a tall thirst-quenching beer. Needed one last afternoon to be the wild woman she’d been before January. Tomorrow, her life changed forever. Today, she could indulge some of her favorite things, could forget a blackmailer’s demands. His threats. Could bank the fires of worry about her mother. Stave off the apprehension she felt about the marriage.
She instructed Mehemet to leave her at Finnigan’s Rainbow—a family-owned and operated bar and grill—on Michigan Avenue in
