Carys’s eyes welled up as she stared at the message.He was so…confident and amazing!Why couldn’t she just…trust him?
“I do miss you,”she typed out, then pressed send before she lost her courage.Then she tossed her phone down on the couch beside her.Before she could berate herself for opening herself up to being hurt by his rejection, the phone rang.For a long moment, she stared at it, not daring to answer because she knew it was him.
But the thought of missing his call, not hearing his voice, was too painful.So she grabbed her phone and answered it.
“Was that so hard?”his deep, sexy voice asked.
She hesitated, closing her eyes and tilting her head back.“Yes,” she whispered.
“Then your words means all the more,” was his deep, velvety response.For the next few minutes, he asked her what she’d done today and she learned that he’d flown to Rome for meetings.In the end, he sighed.“I have to get back to work.Will you have dinner with me when I get back to Philadelphia?”
“Of course,” she replied without hesitation.“When is that going to happen?”
He groaned.“I’m flying out to California tomorrow, then New York the following day.So…in three days?Maybe four?”
She grinned, snuggling deeper into the sofa cushions.“Make it three, Rafi,” she whispered to him.Then ended the call before he could.
Carys jumped up and rushed to her bedroom, almost as if she were trying to run away.But before her feet hit the carpeting in her bedroom, her phone pinged with another message.“Three Days.Be Naked!”
Carys laughed as she padded barefoot into her bathroom, preparing for bed.It was after ten o’clock and it was nice to anticipate a full night’s sleep.Not that she wouldn’t love having Rafi’s arms around her, she thought as she reached for her toothbrush.
It wasn’t there!
Carys stared at the spot where her toothbrush usually stood in the cup.She never put her toothbrush anywhere else.In fact, she’d been rushing this morning and tossed her toothbrush into the cup too hard.The cup had toppled over.Carys vividly remembered straightening the toothbrush holder this morning, even muttering to herself about how she needed to move to a building with a bigger bathroom.
So, sheknewher toothbrush had been there this morning.
Looking around, Carys noticed a few other things out of place.Her bed was made again.The pillows on her bed were out of order.When Carys took the time to make it, she preferred the flowered pillows to sit in front of the plaid ones.And she always placed the pillow that she’d embroidered in front of the rest.
As she frowned at the pillows on her bed, she noticed the embroidered pillow was on one side with the flowered pillows, peeking out from behind the plaid ones.
Someone had been in her bedroom.And her bathroom!But…why?Why would a burglar steal someone’s toothbrush and rearrange pillows?Her television, the only thing in her apartment that had any value, was still sitting in her living room.Were items missing from her kitchen?Carys hadn’t bothered to cook recently, so it was possible someone had stolen her pots and pans, but nothing else in her home was worth much.
“This is so weird!”she whispered, sitting down on the edge of her bed.A moment later, she jumped up and walked through the apartment, checking the locks on her doors and windows.Her windows were all locked and she’d connected the chain to her front door.The only other way in was through the balcony door and Carys always put one of those wooden bars in the way, so the sliding glass door couldn’t open.
Everything was in place.Still, she’d feel better once the camera she’d ordered arrived because it would be nice to know what kind of person was coming into her home and cleaning stuff.Or even weirder, who the hell would steal a toothbrush!That was Goldilocks meets “get out” level creepiness, in Carys’s opinion.
Chapter 17
Laith walked into his brother’s home office and eyed his twin.Rafi was staring out the window, looking…odd.
“What’s going on?”Laith demanded.Grimacing, then sighing with resignation when Aida jumped up from the floor by Rafi’s feet, Laith reached down and scratched behind the fluffy non-guard dog’s ears.“You’re an idiot.You know that, don’t you?”he asked the dog.Aida merely grinned his doggy smile, happy that someone was petting him.He had simple needs, that one.
At the sound of his brother’s voice, Rafi swung around, offering his brother a smile as Laith brushed the fur from his hands.“Not much,” Rafi replied, referring to his twin’s first question while ignoring the others.He walked back to his desk, shifting some papers around while Laith threw himself down in the leather chair in front of Rafi’s desk.
“You look lovelorn.”Aidi’s big head rested on Laith’s thigh, his tail thumping cheerfully against the carpet.
Rafi rolled his eyes and gave up trying to find the contract that he didn’t really care about.He stared at his brother, contemplating telling him about Carys.He and Laith hadn’t ever kept secrets from each other.They had kept many secrets from the rest of the family, but never from each other.
And yet, for some reason, Rafi was hesitant to tell Laith about the woman who had rocked his world.
“I’m fine,” he finally replied.
“Yeah, that’s a lie.”Laith crossed his legs, his ankle resting on his knee while he continued to scratch the dog’s ears.“Are there problems in Rome?”
Rafi sighed, leaning back in his chair.“No, I was able to sort everything out there, although I think that we should close the factory in Cambodia.If we move operations to Vietnam, we’d have better shipping options.Plus, the–”
“Stop it,” Laith ordered firmly, then leaned forward, ignoring the attention-hound’s whine.“I have a team working through the financial details.The company was in worse shape than we realized, but with our combined efforts, the sales have already started to turn around.I love the ad campaign ideas you sent me.They are brilliant.”He paused, looking at Rafi’s features.“But you’re not worried about business issues.”He tilted his head slightly.“What’sreallygoing on?”
