Sheikh's Blackmailed Love (13 page)

“Oh, nothing worth talking about,” Jason said, shrugging off his greatcoat and draping it over the back of his chair before he sat down. His pale blue eyes settled on her mostly empty wineglass, and he smiled a little. “Looks like you have the right idea. Why don’t we order?”

Though Madeline had practically memorized the restaurant’s offerings, she retreated behind the shield of her menu to pretend to study the choices while Jason decided what he wanted to eat. Instead of reading the selection again, she watched Jason over the top of her menu, trying to pinpoint just what it was about him that had changed. Personality wise, Jason was the same as ever; part of the reason he was so successful at his job was because of his charming smile and glib tongue. But those charming smiles didn’t hold the same warmth as they used to when directed at her, and she was beginning to feel more and more like a needed client than a lover.

A chime went off, disrupting the silence between them, and Jason’s eyes flicked away from the menu as he withdrew his cell phone from his pocket. To Madeline’s surprise, a real smile tugged at Jason’s lips, his pale eyes warming.

“Who’s that?” she asked casually as she folded her menu and set it on the table. Jealousy stirred within her chest for the first time since she could remember. Who was this person who could cause such a reaction with a single text message?

“Oh, it’s just Max,” Jason said with a shrug, setting his phone back down on the table. “He’s just making some stupid suggestions about the bachelor party.”

“Oh.” Madeline relaxed a little as she sat back in her chair. Max was one of Jason’s best friends, and was going to be his best man at their wedding. “Has he finished finalizing your plans for Vegas yet?”

“Just about.” Jason smiled again, his grin a little wider than usual. “We’re going to have a blast.”

“Well don’t have
too
much fun,” Madeline warned playfully. She was glad they were talking about the wedding, or at least wedding-related things—it meant Jason hadn’t given up hope either. Madeline had to admit she was looking forward to her own bachelorette party. She had a trip booked to Honolulu with her five closest friends, including Vanessa who was flying all the way out from Dubai to join them. Madeline had initially expected her to already be home by now, as she was done with her medical degree, but she’d somehow managed to snag the attention of the reigning emir, and now she was married to him. Madeline and Jason had attended the wedding a few months ago, and it had been one of the most lavish and well-attended ceremonies she’d ever been to. The two of them had been so completely in love that Madeline had felt like her own heart was bursting.

She only hoped that by the time she and Jason walked up to the altar, their love would be the same.

The waiter came to take their order, and then Jason engaged her in light conversation about the wedding. But unlike the way his eyes had lit when he’d talked about his upcoming bachelor party, he seemed decidedly unexcited about the wedding. He kept checking his phone every couple of minutes, and his eyes would wander away to the window, where God only knew what was drawing his interest.

“Oh come on!” she complained after his phone chimed for the twelfth time. “Can’t you tell Max that we’re on a date! He doesn’t need to be texting you about Vegas right now!” She snatched the phone right out of Jason’s hands.

Something like panic flashed in Jason’s pale blue eyes. “No, Madeline, wait!” He tried to grab the phone back.

“No way.” Madeline twisted sideways in her chair, putting her hand out of reach as she swiped Jason’s screen. “If you’re not going to tell Max to stop texting you, I’ll do it myself.”

As her eyes landed on the screen, she realized it wasn’t Max texting Jason at all. The texts were from someone named Lucy, and Madeline’s jaw dropped as she was hit smack dab in the face with a photo of a naked blonde woman smiling up at the camera with her legs spread. Her heart sank straight into the soles of her shoes as she scrolled up through photo after photo of the same woman—all naked photos of herself in provocative positions. There were text messages, too, but Madeline didn’t need to read them. It was clear enough what was going on. Besides, her eyes were starting to blur.

She lifted her tear-filled gaze to Jason’s face. “How could you?” she whispered.

Jason’s expression was stony. “Give me my phone back, Madeline.”

“How could you!” she shrieked, jumping to her feet, the shock quickly eclipsed by a rush of pure, unadulterated rage. “You said that we were going to try and work this out, and yet here I find you sexting some bimbo who probably spends most of her time flashing her goods on forty-second and eight!” The buzz of conversation in the restaurant was starting to die out as patrons turned to look at them, but Madeline didn’t care.

“Madeline, you’re making a scene—”

“Damn right I’m making a scene!” Madeline chucked Jason’s phone at the ground as hard as she could. The loud crack and the splintering of glass and electronics was not nearly as satisfying as she wanted, so she stomped on the phone with her heel for good measure, then turned toward the gaping audience. “Hello everyone, meet my ex-fiancé, Jason Banden. He’s great with financials and he really enjoys pussy shots, as long as you make sure you shave down there first. Have a great night.”

And with Jason and the entire room gaping at her, Madeline turned away and stormed out of the restaurant.

Chapter Two

Too furious to even consider calling a cab, Madeline hoofed the fourteen blocks back to her apartment on the Lower East Side. At first she could hardly see where she was going, thanks to her tears and rage, but eventually the exercise and bite of cold caused her to take deep breaths of fresh air. Her pounding pulse slowed, along with her steps.

Maybe she’d gone a little too far by making a scene in front of everybody at the restaurant. But damn if it hadn’t been utterly humiliating to know that Jason had been sleeping with another woman, and had cared for Madeline so little that he’d thought nothing of sexting that woman while talking about wedding plans with her over a date! Had he even been at a meeting, or had he been between that busty blonde’s spread legs? Was she one of his secretaries at work, one who he’d bent over his desk on his way out the door? Or was she really some whore that he’d met in Midtown?

Either way, it was completely humiliating, and Madeline had no problem dishing out a little humiliation back at him. She wouldn’t be surprised if the incident ended up on YouTube the next day for all his coworkers and family to see, and she really didn’t care. Just how long had he been sleeping around on her? Had his cheating started during his business trip in Japan?

Tears stung at the corners of her eyes and she swiped them away angrily. She wasn’t going to waste another tear on that bastard. She’d already wasted more than enough tears, not to mention time and money! She was going to have to cancel the venue, the caterers, the hotel reservations for her bachelorette party and honeymoon…all the work and preparation she’d put into her upcoming wedding and her future with Jason was going to go right down the drain.

The very thought was almost enough to drive her straight into one of the local bars lining the sidewalks. She could call up a few of her girlfriends and drown her sorrows away with booze underneath the flashing lights of a nightclub, and they would come more than willingly. Instead, she held her head up high and waited until she’d made it back to her apartment before she called the one person she really wanted to talk to.

“Maddy!” Vanessa squealed on the other end of the line as Maddy shut the door to her apartment behind her. “Oh my God, I’m so glad you called. I have great news!”

“Oh yeah?” A smile tugged at Madeline’s lips as she hung up her coat. She wasn’t about to burst her best friend’s bubble, not when she sounded so excited. “Well I could really use some good news right now. What’s going on?” She crossed her small living room to get to the kitchen, and cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder as she reached for one of the wine bottles in her cupboard. She wasn’t going to a bar, but she still could drown herself in booze tonight.

“I got my tests back from the doctor, and I’m good to go. Adir and I are going to try to have a baby!”

“Holy shit!” Madeline set the wine bottle down on the counter before she dropped it. “That’s great, Nessa! I didn’t know you guys were trying so soon.”

“Yes, well, Adir wanted to get started as soon as possible, but I wanted to get a checkup from the doctor just to make sure before we really started trying.” Her voice turned downright mischievous. “He had no trouble showing me just how happy he was with my announcement.”

Madeline chuckled, but the sound was a bit strained. Vanessa’s relationship with Adir only served to remind her just how fucked her own love life was. “That’s great, Nessa. I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks.” Vanessa’s voice dipped a little, some of the excitement vanishing. “Are you alright, though? You don’t sound as excited as I thought you would.”

“I don’t?”
Dammit
, she thought as she poured a healthy dose of red wine into her wineglass. She really hadn’t wanted to rain on Vanessa’s parade with her own shitty problems.

“Well, usually you would have been cracking jokes or making baby-naming suggestions by now.”

Madeline sighed as she took her wine with her to the couch. “I’m sorry, Nessa. I’ve just had a rough day. Jason and I…we broke up.”

“You broke up!” The shock in Vanessa’s voice mirrored Madeline’s own shock when she’d realized who Jason was texting. “But I thought you two were getting married in just a few months! Weren’t we going to Honolulu to dance around the bonfire wearing grass skirts and coconuts on the beach?”

“We were, until I found out that the reason Jason was late for our dinner date tonight was because he was fucking some blonde whore.” Madeline gripped the phone a little tighter as her voice trembled. The more she thought about it, the surer she was that he’d been fucking her before dinner. She’d smelled the perfume on him when he’d kissed her. Her stomach pitched at the idea that another woman had been kissing those lips just minutes before she had, and she set her wineglass on the coffee table, not so interested in it anymore.

“That two-timing asshole,” Vanessa seethed. “Do you want me to send someone after him? I’m sure Adir has contacts I can tap.”

Madeline snorted. “That sounds like something
I
would say, not you.” She crossed her ankles as she sat horizontally on the couch, her back leaning against the armrest.

“Yeah, well you’re understandably out of sorts, so I thought I’d fill in.” Madeline smiled a little at the concern in her best friend’s voice. “Are you sure you don’t need something, though? Maybe a little downtime? You could always come over here for a few weeks. Adir and I would be more than happy to have you.”

“Thanks, but I’m not sure being idle is the best thing for me right now,” Madeline admitted. “I’m sure I’ve lost money on some of the deposits I’ve put down for the wedding, and besides, I need to get a job now that I’ve graduated.” She’d walked out of NYU with her biotechnology degree a few months ago, and had just recently finished a paid internship. But the laboratory she’d been working at wasn’t hiring, and she needed to find someone who was.

“You know,” Vanessa said thoughtfully, “I heard that the medical research lab at the University of Dubai is looking to bring on an additional biochemist to help with an IVF project they’re working on. I was talking to the director the other day and he said they needed someone for a couple of weeks, and if the person was a great fit they might even offer them a permanent job.”

“Really?” Madeline’s eyebrows quirked up. “Well I don’t know about permanent, but I’d love to work on an IVF project, for sure.” One of her close college friends had been struggling to get pregnant via IVF, and it was something Madeline was interested in, if only so that women who couldn’t conceive naturally had more options open to them.

“Well why don’t you apply online? They’re advertising the position on their website. And I can always put in a good word with the director for you.”

“That sounds great. Why don’t you let me think about it, and I’ll let you know about talking to the director?” Madeline was starting to feel a little light-headed. The prospect of picking up and moving to Dubai, even for such a short period of time, was a little overwhelming. She didn’t want to jump into anything just yet.

“Sure thing, hon. Just let me know soon, okay? I think he’s already got quite a few applicants, and I wouldn’t want you to miss out.”

They chatted for a little while longer, and then Madeline hung up the phone and sipped her wine in silence, staring at the blank screen of her flat-screen TV as she thought about Vanessa’s offer. Unlike Vanessa, Madeline had never really found the idea of living abroad appealing. She’d done a backpacking trip through Europe with Vanessa before they’d gone off to college, and while they’d had a ton of fun, it had also made her realize just how good she had it in the States. She’d been happy to return home. But when she’d gone to Dubai for the wedding, she had to admit she’d fallen in love with the gorgeous desert country, with its crazy architectural attractions and beautiful coastline. Surely living there for a few weeks wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

Her phone buzzed, and she dug it out of her pocket to see that she had a text from Jason.
Call me please. We can work this out.

Madeline gritted her teeth, and she had to take a deep breath in through her nose lest she smash her own phone against the wall like she had Jason’s. He’d probably just replaced the phone she’d smashed at the AT&T store. Well, if he thought she was going to be flattered that he’d chosen to text her right away after getting service back, he could think again.

But the fact that he was texting her did remind her that Jason knew her number, knew where she lived, and knew the places where she liked to hang out. If he still wanted to hang on to her, he could make it very hard for her to forget about him and move on if she were here. But if she were in Dubai, there was no chance of that happening. She could block his phone number and hop on a plane, and he wouldn’t know what the hell had happened.