Page 18 of The Geek and the Sheikh

James walked over to the car that was waiting and held open the back door. Jameel strode forward and slid into the backseat. James climbed into the driver's seat and waited for instructions.

"Hilton Hotel, London Tower Bridge," he instructed.

"Yes, sire," James replied.

Jameel tapped out a message to Bugs. He had sent a dozen messages over the last hour to both her and Wells. Neither had answered him.

"How long will it take to get there?" Jameel asked.

James glanced in the rearview mirror with an apologetic expression. "An hour-and-a-half in London traffic, sire. That is if we are lucky and there are no accidents or major construction, I'm afraid. I will do my best to shorten it."

Jameel groaned and tapped out a message to Bugs.

In London. Traffic delay. On my way. RU Ok?

He impatiently tapped his fingers against his leg, hoping she would finally reply. His fingers tightened around his phone when the familiar ellipsis started dancing. His heart dropped to his stomach when her reply popped up along with a screenshot.

Yes. Already took care of this.

His loud curse caused James to glance at him in the rearview mirror. He needed more hands and devices to deal with this situation. Hell, he needed the whole Jawahir army!

"James, I need your phone," he said in a terse tone.

James didn't ask why. He simply retrieved his phone from his pocket and held it over his shoulder. Jameel took the offered phone and quickly punched in his brother Tarek's private number. Using his own phone, he typed out a message to Bugs.

Where did you get this?!

Your friend? Think she may be RC. Not sure. Piecing things together. She (friend/RC ?) wants to meet.

"This is Tarek."

"There's a bomb under my desk at the HQ," he said.

Tarek's low curse rang in his ear. "I know. Idella got a warning about it. Where are you?"

"London. I'm meeting Bugs. She is in danger. Someone knows where she is… which probably means Coldhouse and Bronislav."

He listened to the muted conversation between his brother and Idella. It was hard to concentrate on what Tarek was saying and what he wanted to say to Bugs. He typed out a message.

Don’t meet her! Where are you?

Hotel pool. Told her I would meet in an hour.

“Jameel… are you there?”

Tarek’s clipped voice pulled him back to the second conversation he was having.

“Yes.”

“Listen, I’ve contacted Junayd. He is in midair on his way back to Jawahir. They are going to land in Nasir soon. As soon as they do, he has assigned Hyder Faiz and Yahya Walid to meet up with you,” Tarek said.

“What about the bomb?” he asked.

“I’ve alerted security. The bomb squad is taking care of it and we already have a suspect in custody,” Tarek replied.

“Jameel, this is Idella."

Despite the tense situation, the sultry sound of Idella’s voice soothed him. There was something almost unearthly about the woman. It was more than her voice; the few brief times he had met her in person she had struck him as almost mythical in her presence.

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