The Sheikh's Rebellious Mistress

“Grace Hudson,” Taggart said.

Salim nodded. As if he needed to be told. Of course it was Grace. She was standing on a street that might have been located in any city, wearing a suit and high heels and she looked guileless and innocent and, damn her to hell, she was neither.

“She’s living in San Francisco under the name Grace Hunter.”

Salim looked up. “She’s in California?”

“Yes, sir. Lives there. Works for a private bank. She’s their chief auditor.”

A step down from the assistant CFO of Alhandra Investments but then, Grace would have been unable to produce a letter of reference. Salim frowned. Not that she needed any. Ten million dollars, and his former mistress was working as an auditor?

“Hunter was her mother’s maiden name, and the job gives her a low profile. It’s a common enough pattern among smart thieves. Give it a year or two, she’ll head to Brazil or the Caribbean and start spending the money.”

Salim nodded. Grace was smart, all right. But not smart enough.

“How come the authorities couldn’t locate her?”

The P.I. shrugged. “They have a lot of urgent stuff on their plates.”

Salim looked at the photo again. Somehow, he’d expected her to look different. She didn’t. She was still tall, still slender, with eyes that were neither brown nor green but something in between. All that spectacular hair was, as always, pulled to the crown of her head and carefully knotted.

He could remember the feel of that hair. Silky. Soft. How it curled lightly around his fingers. How it tumbled down her back when he undid the pins, the way it kissed her shoulders and the sweet, rosy nipples of her uptilted breasts.

“Does she have a lover?”

His voice was rough; the question surprised him. He hadn’t known he was going to ask it. The answer didn’t matter but he was curious. He knew her sexual appetite. She was not a woman who would go long between men.

“I didn’t check for that.” Taggart gave a small smile. “Her boss seems pretty interested, though.”

A fist seemed to slam into Salim’s belly. “Meaning what?”

The investigator shrugged. “Sees her home some nights. And he’s taking her with him to a conference in Bali. They’ll be there a week.” Another little smile. “You know how it is, your highness. Good-looking woman, man notices—”

Yes. He knew. Damned right, he knew. And now he knew, too, why she was working at the bank in San Francisco.

“Can’t say I blame him, if you want my op—”

“I don’t pay you for your opinion, Taggart.”

The investigator swallowed hard. “No, sir. I didn’t mean—” He cleared his throat. “Everything you need is in that file. The lady’s address, the place where she works, even the name of the hotel in Bali where she and her boss…where that conference is being held.”

Salim nodded stiffly. Why blame the messenger for the message? That Taggart was perceptive enough to see the truth about Grace when he hadn’t was no one’s fault but his own.

He put his hand lightly on the detective’s shoulder and walked him toward the elevator.

“You’ve been most helpful.”

“Do you want me to alert the authorities, Sheikh Salim?”

“I’ll deal with this from now on.”

Taggart nodded. “If you’re going after her yourself, I can find out what kind of extradition arrangements we have with Bali.”

A perceptive man, indeed.

“Just send me your final bill—and thank you for all you’ve done.”

Taggart stepped into the elevator. Salim waited until the doors slid shut. Then he walked slowly through the living room to the window.

But why would he go after Grace himself? He had contacts at the State Department. They could bring her back; he would confront her once they did.

A blur of motion.

It was the hawk, plunging through the sky, talons extended toward a gray shape on the sidewalk. Its prey fluttered in the hawk’s grip as the bird soared upward. By the time the hawk landed on the parapet, the gray shape was still.

The hawk looked around with fierce intensity, then bent to its well-earned reward. It had done what it was bred to do.

Salim’s jaw tightened. And so would he.

He took his cell phone from his pocket, hit a speed-dial button. His pilot answered on the first ring.

“Sir?”

“How quickly can you ready the plane for a flight to Bali?”

“Bali,” the pilot said, as if Salim had asked about a flight to Vermont. “No problem, your highness. All I have to do is figure out the refueling stops and then file a flight plan.”

“Do it,” Salim commanded.

Then he snapped the phone shut, cast one last glance at the hawk and hurried from the room.

CHAPTER TWO

GRACE HUDSON prided herself on being well-traveled.

She had studied at universities that offered overseas academic programs and she’d participated in them. On scholarship, of course, because it had been tough enough working at places like Hamburger Heaven and The Sweater Stop to earn money to pay her regular tuition. But she was a good student—why be unnecessarily modest?—and so she’d spent six months studying in London and another six months studying in Paris by the time she was twenty-two.

Then she’d interviewed for a brokerage firm in New York, spent a couple of years there before moving on to another. Both companies had sent her abroad on business. London again, and Paris, and Brussels and Dublin and Moscow.

She was not new to foreign destinations.

But Bali? Bali, halfway around the globe? A place of beautiful beaches, brilliant seas, lush sunshine? When she’d first heard that was where she was going, she was amazed. She was new to her job. Was James Lipton the Fourth—her boss preferred using his full name—really going to give her such an incredible opportunity?

She’d looked at the brochure he’d dropped on her desk again.

Seventh Annual SOPAC-PBA Conference, it said. Inside was a heady list of speakers and workshops.

“Surely you know what SOPAC-PBA is, Miss Hunter,” Lipton had said in his usual cool tones.