Sweet Revenge

hadn’t mentioned it to Philip. The necklace was her insurance.
    Philip would be at his meeting with Spencer by now. There was some secret there, she mused. He’d been distracted when they’d gone their separate ways that afternoon. Actually, he’d been distracted from the moment Spencer had called to say he’d arrived.
    Not her business, she reminded herself. Hadn’t she just finished telling Celeste that she and Philip had an agreement? If he had secrets, or problems with his superior, he was entitled to his privacy. But she wished—couldn’t help but wish—that he had confided in her.
    She saw the long black limo outside her building. It wasn’t an unusual sight, but her heart began to hammer. Somehow she knew even before the door opened who would step out.
    Abdu had exchanged his
throbe
for a business suit, hissandals for good Italian leather, but he still wore the headdress of his country. They stood watching each other in silence.
    “Come with me.”
    She eyed the man beside him, knowing he would be armed, knowing he would obey without question any command from his king. Fury might make Abdu want to have her shot on the street, but he wasn’t a fool.
    “I think it best you come with me.” She turned her back on him and held her breath as she walked into the building. “Leave your man outside,” she said as she felt him behind her. “This is between the two of us.”
    They stepped onto the elevator. If anyone had looked, they would have seen a handsome, distinguished man in a dark chesterfield and a young woman, obviously his daughter, in mink. Some might have noted what a stunning picture they made before the elevator doors closed them in.
    She was hot. It had nothing to do with the heat of the building or the warmth of her fur. It wasn’t fear, though she was well aware his hands were strong enough to choke her before they’d reached the top floor. It wasn’t even triumph, not yet, but merely anticipation of the moment she’d waited for so long.
    “You got my letter.” Though he didn’t answer, she tilted her head to look at him. “I sent you another years ago. You didn’t come then. Apparently the necklace is worth more than my mother’s life.”
    “I could have you taken back to Jaquir. You would be grateful to have only your hands severed.”
    “You have no hold over me.” She stepped out as the doors opened. “Not anymore. I loved you once, and feared you more. Now even the fear’s gone.”
    She opened the door of her apartment and saw that his men had already been there. Cushions were slashed, tables upturned, drawers tossed out. It was more than a search, more personal, more vindictive. Fury leapt out and into her eyes.
    “Did you think I would keep it here?” She moved into the room, skirting the rubble. “I’ve waited much too long to make it simple for you.” She was expecting the blow and managed to step back enough so that it glanced off her cheek. “Touch me again,” she said evenly, “and you’ll never see it. I swear to you.”
    He clenched his hands at his sides. “You will return what belongs to me.”
    She took off her coat to toss it aside. The Chinese box lay broken at her feet, but it had done its work. The necklace was once more in a vault. This time in a New York bank. “I have nothing that belongs to you. What I have belonged to my mother, and now to me. That is the law of Islam, the law of Jaquir, the law of the king.” Her eyes were a mirror of his. “Do you defy the law?”
    “I am the law. The Sun and the Moon belongs to Jaquir and to me, not to the daughter of a whore.”
    Adrianne walked over to the portrait of her mother that had been ripped from the wall and thrown aside. Carefully, she righted it so that the glorious face was turned toward him. She waited until he looked, and saw, and remembered.
    “It belonged to the wife of a king, before God and before the law.” She crossed back to him. “It was you who stole—her necklace, her honor, and in the end, her life. I swore I would take it back, and I have. I swore you would pay, and you will.”
    “It is like a woman to lust after stones.” He gripped her arm, fingers digging. “You have no knowledge of their true value, their true meaning.”
    “As well as you,” she said, and managed to pry free. “Perhaps better than you. Do you think I care about the diamond, about the pearl?” With a sound of disgust she whirled away from him. “It was the gift of it that mattered to