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Thank God, in a way, that the Maldives were the playground for all the ultra-rich. It helped me sidestep a little bit of red tape.
By the time I got all my paperwork filled out in Sri Lanka for a replacement passport, I was just about ready to get back to the Maldives and strangle Bellamy for all the hassle.
He would deserve it, if you asked me.
Instead, I got a cheap hotel room and some food to hold me over until the next day when I could get my damn papers and get on my way.
All this while, I absolutely did not spend hours and hours thinking about the bastard who put me in this situation.
I actually felt guilty about leaving them stranded there, even though I knew they were “stranded” in a luxury villa with plenty of food and water. And that, eventually, Adnan’s wife would realize he was missing, and would find a way to go looking for him.
They would be fine.
And, hopefully, Bellamy would just cut his losses and head back to the states to drown his disappointment in top-shelf champagne in one of his other mansions.
I didn’t want to think about him looking for me, finding me.
Partly because a part of me had no idea what my reaction to seeing him again would be. Trying to stab him, or jumping him? But also partly because I understood the kind of wealth that Bellamy had. It was the kind of money that could help bribe people into saying they saw nothing when he kidnapped a woman off of a street in broad daylight. He could get away with making me disappear a second time if he wanted to.
I had to get the hell away as quickly as possible.
Luckily for me, the Embassy had been understanding of my so-called boating accident where my important documents fell overboard and sank to the bottom of the ocean. And I was relatively easy to look up once they had me there.
So I got my new photo ID.
I handed over my DS-64 and my DS-11, paid my hundred-fifty bucks for my new passport out of Bellamy’s stack of cash, and I was finally allowed to leave Sri Lanka to head back to the states two days later.
With no sign of Bellamy.
And I absolutely was not disappointed about that fact.
And I didn’t obsess about him or fantasize about his private plane over the course of the twenty-something hours of travel I did from Sri Lanka to Qatar, from Qatar to New York, then from New York back to New Jersey.
I felt like I’d been beaten up when I got back to my house, finding my car parked out front.
“Oh, please please please,” I begged, going to the door to plug in my key code, and then popping the trunk. “Thank God,” I sighed, finding my wallet, keys, and my long-dead phone in the hidden compartment by the spare tire.
I needed an hour-long shower, something made of fake cheese and cheap carbs, and a couple of solid hours of sleep in my own damn bed to feel halfway human again.
Unfortunately, though, I only got two out of three.
Because it was a workday.
And I’d been absent for long enough that someone was probably sending out a search party by now.
So I downed three cups of coffee—and did not think about Bellamy’s fancy machine and even fancier beans—after my quick shower and clothes change.
Then I jumped in my car and pushed the speed limit on the way to work.
“I was two minutes away from filing a police report!” Nasir, my cousin, said as soon as I pushed open the back door of the building of Saeed Jewels, the family business. Where I, yes, part-time did modeling, but my main job was designing.
Fancy-ass, expensive-as-sin jewelry.
That people like Bellamy Whoever-He-Was likely bought as throwaway gifts for his many female conquests.
That thought did not make my stomach turn and my spit taste sour.
Nope.
Because that would make absolutely no sense at all.
“Did your parents notice I was gone?” I asked, wincing at the idea of them worrying about me. I could deal with Nasir worrying about me. The man worried if the forecast called for a sprinkle. He was just on the high-strung side.
I was related to Nasir on my mother’s side, but had an absent father who I figured was white judging by the differences between my features and Nasir’s and my aunt and uncle.
Nasir was tall and lean with darker skin than me and brown eyes, but had the same silky black hair that he kept pushed back from his face. Where my face was wider, rounder, his was thin and chiseled. He was objectively handsome, but had none of the arrogance that came with that. He was usually too anxious about things to pay much attention to things like his looks. I’d been working on convincing him to grow out a beard for ages, knowing it would grow in full and thick like his father’s. And with his otherwise good looks, he would easily find himself a woman who could hopefully help him relax a little.
