Unexpectedly Expecting the Sheik's Baby - Elizabeth Lennox Page 0,42

moving on.

The housekeeper was eyeing her strangely. Cassy needed privacy to read the note from Nasir. She couldn’t read it with an audience.

“Thank you for the coffee,” Cassy said, pulling herself up and trying to feign dignity and professionalism. She set the cup of coffee carefully onto the countertop as she tried to pretend that her heart wasn’t shattering into tiny, battered pieces. With the note still in her hand, she blinked hard, not wanting to cry where she could be seen. Cassy didn’t want anyone to know how much she hurt. So she pasted a smile on her face and headed for the hallway. “I’ll just see myself out.”

The housekeeper shook her head. “The driver is standing by to take you to the airport, Ms. Flemming,” she called out.

Cassy only smiled slightly and turned back to the front door. She grabbed her tote bag, not sure what she should be doing at this particular moment. She’d never had a lover before, so she wasn’t sure how to take such a blatant and abrupt rejection. An outright dismissal. She stuffed the envelope into her big bag, unable to read the note. It wouldn’t help anyway. Nasir wasn’t here. He’d left a note for her! A note! Of all the pathetic, horrible…shaking her head, she swung her bag over her shoulder and pulled open the front door.

Walking out, she smiled tightly at the driver who immediately jumped up and came around to open the limousine door. But Cassy wasn’t interested in more of Nasir’s patronizing generosity. She wouldn’t eat anything for breakfast because it would be one more thing that he was trying to give her and she didn’t want a ride to the airport. He’d left her.

Walking past the confused driver, she headed down the driveway, intending to catch a cab to the airport and then get on the next flight back to London. After that…well, she wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. She could only think about getting home. She needed…she needed Ella and Naya. She needed her friends, people who would understand and wouldn’t judge. Cassy knew with absolute certainty that they would drop everything and head over to her tiny apartment with several bottles of wine and an extra-large pizza. If several cartons of chocolate chunk ice cream were included in tonight’s binge, all the better.

So she focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Walking. Breathing. That was all she could do at this particular moment.

“Ms. Flemming?” the driver called out uncertainly. “I’m here to drive you to the airport whenever you are ready to leave. The pilot is standing by as well.”

Cassy couldn’t speak. She didn’t care who was standing by. She tried to form the words, but instead, she barely got out a brief smile as she walked down the driveway. Thankfully, it didn’t take long before she reached the busy street. There, she lifted her hand and a cab driver screeched to a halt at the curb. Ducking inside, she ignored the strange look of Nasir’s driver since he’d followed her down the street. Apparently, no one had ever rejected a ride, she thought. Three days ago, she would have found humor in that. But right now, she couldn’t laugh. It was taking all of her energy to keep her head held high.

At the airport, she was able to get a flight that would take off in a couple hours. It took her less than thirty minutes to get through security and find her gate and then she just sat there, staring blankly. She didn’t notice the other people hurrying to their gates, didn’t see the security personnel or the other airport employees as they went about their business. When her flight was called, she waited in the long line, found her assigned seat and stared at the chair in front of her. She refused to remember the large, leather chairs on the private plane on the way over to London. Or how she could stretch her legs out, the way the seat reclined so that she was basically in a bed while she flew across the Atlantic.

The flight back to London was dramatically different than her flight to Zurich. Economy seats were cramped, didn’t recline, and she didn’t bother to buy the calorie and salt laden boxed meals that were offered. She didn’t even see the strange looks from the flight attendants when she rejected drink offerings. She just stared, her mind and body in too much pain