Leila nodded and her vision blurred, a deep ache squeezing her heart. How much of the incident had he seen? “What’s going to happen now?”
“Well, if you’re all right.” Xander turned to prop his legs up on the mattress and leaned back into the pillow. She eased herself into the crook of his arm as a soft sigh escaped her lips. She hadn’t felt this safe in a long time. “You’ll be released in a few days. Then we have to stick around for some questioning. They’re very interested to know what exactly happened on that boat.”
Leila sucked in a shuddering breath. “It was Soliman. It was him all along.” It all spilled out. She told Xander everything that happened from the moment she found herself trapped on the boat with Montu until Soliman pointed the gun at her and fired, then when he tried to dial the number and she crashed the yacht. She even told Xander the things her mother had said before Faris shot her and threw himself off the cliff.
“I don’t even know what’s real anymore,” Leila finished sadly. She’d been deceived all this time. Manipulated. Betrayed. Used.
Xander rubbed her arm gently and explained a bomb had been found the day before in the British Museum. As they disarmed it, they saw it indeed had a cell phone trigger. But the danger had passed. Soliman’s phone had been lost in the Aegean Sea.
Leila shook her head, staring at the white wall opposite the bed. “I mean, there were times when a little craziness came through, but I just thought he was passionate about what he did… passionate about Egypt. But his hatred for Faris was greater. We should have seen it coming in The Archive. He’d taken the scrolls and used them himself.”
“I’d rather not talk about him right now, honestly,” Xander said, staring straight up at the ceiling. “It’s… a lot to process.” He shifted and rolled onto his side, anchoring his eyes on her. “What I need to know is if you’re all right. And I just want you to know that it’s okay not to be. You’ve lost friends. And you’ve lost your mum… in more ways than one.”
Leila swallowed against the sting in her throat, lowering her gaze. “Just give me some time. But…” she looked straight into his warm gaze, “I think I’ll be okay. How about you?”
Xander’s mouth twitched. “I’ll be fine. Mark’s already contacting lawyers he knows.”
Leila frowned. Why would Xander’s brother-in-law be contacting lawyers?
“He thinks I’ve got a good chance, but we’ll see. It’ll be a long process—”
“Wait.” She swallowed, dreading the answer. “What do you mean?”
Xander let out a long breath. “I made a deal, you see. You walk free, no charges against you, and I’ll take full responsibility.”
“For what?”
Xander shrugged. “Oh, you know. Evading arrest, instigating escape, impeding an investigation, assaulting an officer, that kind of thing.”
“No,” Leila breathed.
“Yeah. Facing ten years or so.”
“No,” her voice cracked, growing desperate. She turned to him and raked her fingers through his hair until she held the back of his head.
He smiled sadly. “I have to.”
“I’ll come with you. You don’t have to do this alone.”
“Is that what you want?” He pulled one of her hands down and wrapped it with his own. “You don’t want to go back to Egypt?”
“I can’t, not if you’re stuck in London because of this mess.”
“What are you going to do in London?”
Leila fell silent. She supposed there were options. She could look for jobs at museums, universities, but there were no guarantees. And it wasn’t Egypt. It wasn’t home.
“If it’s what you want, then come,” he whispered, “or you can stay in Egypt, stay out of trouble, and… wait for me? Maybe?”
“But ten years. You can’t go away for ten years.”
“That’s worst-case. Like I said, Mark doesn’t think it’ll be that bad. I’ve got dirt on them too, you see. So, you can go back to being a normal archaeologist while I get things straightened out.”
A helpless smile tugged at her lips. “After everything that’s happened, I don’t even know what a normal archaeologist is supposed to do anymore.” Forget normal. Was she even a real one?
“Well, I know of this island off the coast of Greece that’s chock-full of stolen artifacts. Someone’s going to have to sort them all out.”
Leila’s pulse sped up. “And there’s a chamber in the Sinai Peninsula that has records of the burial places of all the pharaohs of Egypt.”
“Why not? Someone’s got to do it. But…” His face darkened. “You have to promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“No more secrets.”
She couldn’t help herself. She smiled. A sad smile for what they had to overcome, but happy they did. “No more secrets.”
“And one more thing,” Xander added quickly. He twisted away, dug something out of his pocket, and turned back to her. Between his fingers was the engagement ring she hadn’t seen since she was first arrested at Soliman’s house. “This is yours. If you still want it… I mean, if you still want me.”
Her gaze locked on the sparkling stone. Sucking in her breath, she nodded.
“So you’ll marry me when I come back?”
Leila nodded again, not even caring how wet her cheeks felt. Somehow, everything was going to work out. She’d have her life in Egypt back, and she would have Xander at her side. “I promise.”
“Shake on it?”
Leila shook her head, then pointed to her lips. The promise was sealed with a kiss.
