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“Don’t worry,” Daveed said as they stood outside in the freezing cold. He pulled a small black chip from his suit pocket. “I have an app on my phone that traces all the police scanner calls and will alert me before they arrive.”
Murphy shrugged out of his uniform jacket and slid it over Shayma’s bare shoulders before pulling her tight into his side to share body heat. “Thanks for saving my ass in there, guys.”
Daveed gave him some serious side eye. “Perhaps you should’ve considered that before going rogue. You’re lucky Shayma had Mel contact me. Otherwise you’d be rotting in jail tonight.”
Murphy rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “C’mon. You know how I am. I’ve always just thought it’s easier to do stuff like that on my own.”
“Yeah, we know.” Heath gave him an irritated stare. “Why do you think we bothered showing up here tonight? You’re like our brother from another mother, man. You don’t think we know what a stubborn-ass control-freak you are? But we’re there for each other. Always have been.”
“Yeah, we do.” Murphy rubbed his hands up and down Shayma’s arms to warm her as she shivered against him. “It’s this whole thing with my sister that’s got me all messed up. I’m honor-bound to keep my promise to her. I figured since it was a private matter, how I chose to do that is my business. Besides, I tried to call you earlier, but neither one of you picked up. But I guess you answer for your girlfriends, huh?”
“Leave them alone,” Shayma said, her teeth chattering as Heath’s Bentley pulled up in the alley in front of them and they all piled in. “You needed your friends tonight. Even if you were too pigheaded to admit it.”
Murphy, Shayma, and Daveed got into the backseat, while Heath climbed into the front with the driver. As they sped out of the alleyway, blue lights and sirens entered from the opposite end, reminding Murphy of how close he’d cut it tonight. He was lucky to have escaped, with the help of his friends.
“Thanks,” he mumbled under his breath, staring out the window at the scenery flying past.
“Sorry?” Heath asked, catching his eye in the rearview mirror. “Didn’t hear you.”
Murphy exhaled slowly. Apologies weren’t in his nature, nor was admitting he was wrong, but he owed his friends a lot for getting his butt out of a tight spot tonight. They’d proved to him that going it alone wasn’t always the best way and made him rethink his strategy for finding his sister. He swallowed hard and forced the words out of his tight throat. It came out gruff and more like a curse than anything else. “I said thanks.”
Daveed and Shayma exchanged a look he didn’t miss, then Daveed raised a dark brow. “You’re welcome, you idiot.”
Beside him, Shayma sat primly with her hands folded in her lap, not touching him at all—which was saying something in the tight confines of the car. She didn’t look at him at all, just stared straight ahead as if he weren’t there.
Yep. He’d screwed things up with her royally. He prayed it wasn’t too late to make amends. As they swerved up to the front of the Plaza hotel a few minutes later, she took Daveed’s hand to get out of the car, not Murphy’s, and walked into the hotel with her head high and not looking back at him once.
“Looks like you’ve got some feathers to unruffle there, buddy,” Heath said, thumping Murphy on the back as he walked inside with Daveed, leaving Murphy alone on the sidewalk, cold and lonely and wondering how in the hell he could ever get Shayma to forgive him.
8
“How’d it go?” Mel asked Shayma when she walked into the hotel suite a few minutes later. She was still wearing her fuzzy pink robe and her matching bunny slippers were soundless on the thick padded carpet as she followed Shayma into her bedroom. “You’re wearing Murphy’s Navy jacket, so you must’ve seen him, right?”
“Oh, I saw him. Right before the security guards called the police on me and tried to throw me out.” She slipped Murphy’s jacket off her shoulders, missing its heat immediately and resisting the urge to hold the material to her face and inhale his scent one last time. “I told him everything. Laid my feelings bare to him.”
“And what did he say?”
Shayma blinked hard against the tears stinging her eyes and slipped off her stiletto sandals before removing her jewelry. “He said I deserved better. He said he’d been honest with me from the start about what was between us. He said I don’t love him, I love some fantasy of him I’ve created.” She gave an angry sniffle and swiped the back of her hand across her damp cheek as she pulled her suitcase out of her closet and started shoving her belongings inside. “Trouble is, he’s right. About all of it.”
“Sweetie, I—”
“No.” Shayma held up a hand to halt Mel’s protest. “He’s right. He is. He doesn’t deserve me. I do deserve better than being with a man who can never love me back. And yes, I did have a fantasy of him. I loved the man I saw deep inside him, the man he was capable of being if he would’ve let down his walls and trusted me.” After cramming her things inside the luggage, she shrugged out of her gown and laid it atop the other clothing in her bag before buckling it shut. Then she tugged on a pair of jeans and her Santa sweatshirt. “I need to go.”
“Go where?” Mel frowned, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “It’s nearly ten o’clock at night.”
“The airport. I’ll see if I can book a red-eye back to Al Dar Nasrani. If not, I’ll wait there until morning.” She shook her head and took a deep breath. “Anything’s better than staying here. It’s too painful. I’m sorry.”
“No. Don’t be sorry.” Mel stood and hugged her tight. “It’s me who should be sorry. After everything that’s happened, I should’ve been a better friend to you tonight. I shouldn’t have let you go to that party alone. I should’ve been there to protect you, to negotiate for you and Murphy.”
“It’s too late for negotiations, I’m afraid.” Shayma leaned back and gave her a watery smile. “At least he said he got some information from the senator and the other guys were there like they planned, pretending to be the senator’s aides, so hopefully they got some good intel too. Considering how the rest of this mess turned out, I just pray he finds his sister safe and sound and gets her home again in time for the holidays.”
With that, she let Mel go and grabbed the handle of her rolling suitcase. From the outer room of the suite, Shayma heard the guys arrive, their voices
hushed as they discussed Aileen’s case and the senator’s connection to it all. Summoning her last ounce of dignity, she squared her shoulders and headed straight for the closet to grab her coat.
“Where are you going?” Daveed asked, looking up at her from his seat on the sofa.
“Home.” Shayma didn’t look at Murphy at all. That would hurt too bad. Instead, she focused on the door ahead. The door that would lead her away from all this turmoil and temptation. The door that would take her away from Murphy and toward her new life. Alone.
