Pursued by the Desert Prince(27)

"My father is not grinning and your brothers are not bearing." And he  was not interested in talking about reality. They had stepped beyond  time, at least until morning. He wished to enjoy it.

"Relaying my safe word didn't reassure them?" She sounded genuinely surprised. Small wonder.

"I didn't relay it."

"Kasim! Don't do that to them." She swam a little closer.

He reached out his feet, but she was too far away to catch and drag  close. "Your sister knows you came with me willingly. What do they think  I'm going to do with you?"

"Just tell them I'm all right," she said impatiently, looking again to where the servant had disappeared.

"My father knows where I am. He can arrange to transport them here if they need proof of life so badly."

"Or you could send a message."

"I'm just as happy to let them pressure him into having you returned to the palace."

"You're using me," she said with a lilt of outrage. "Using them to back  your father into a corner. I thought you didn't play those games." She  made a V in the water as she headed away from him, toward shore. "What  would that even accomplish? He can still disinherit you, can't he? Are  you going to risk that so I can stay for the wedding? For one day?"

She was really asking if he was fighting for a broader future with her.  And she was right that he would be disinherited for that sort of  transgression. He was playing a dangerous game as it was, thinking he  could steal this night with her.

"Why can't you just enjoy what we have?" he challenged. That's what he was doing.

"I was. Sex and skinny-dipping is great. But apparently I'm not here for  that. You want to punish your father. You're using me to embarrass him  because you're angry about Jamal." As she climbed from the water, her  shoulders hunched, even though the air was still velvety and warm.

"Stop accusing me of only wanting sex from you." He pulled himself up  and out, pushing to his feet so water sluiced off his naked body in a  trickling rush. "I brought you here because this is where I'm happiest. I  wanted you to see it."

He waded along the ledge until he reached the path on the shore, then he  circled through the high grass to where she stood, towel wrapped around  her middle, arms hugged over it.

"Will you take me back? Please?"

"To the palace? You're going to choose a night with your family over one  with me? Live your own life, Angelique! Quit hiding behind your  sister."

She recoiled like he'd taken a swing at her.

"This is me. I don't hurt the people I love."

"Meaning I do?" Now who was delivering the sucker punch?

She dropped her gaze so he only saw her pale eyelids, not whatever emotion might be glimmering in her eyes.

"You're better at holding yourself apart from things. I even understand  why you had to become that way. But I feel things, Kasim. Do you think I  came to Zhamair for a midnight swim in an oasis? No. I came because my  heart was torn apart by a family so broken I couldn't stand it. I came  despite knowing I would probably wind up in your bed and be shattered at  having to leave it again."

"Then don't," he growled, hating to hear that he was hurting her when it  was the last thing he wanted to do. He thought of her sitting in his  lap, crying for him, and his guts twisted.

"And what?" she challenged softly. "Become Wife Number Two? Look how  well that turns out!" Her profile was shadowed with despair as she gazed  over the moonlit water.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The last time they'd had  this conversation, he had fought to exclude one day from their lives.  Now he saw the single day they might steal-only a night, really-slipping  away.

"You want me to call your brothers with your code word, fine."

"Your father will still know I'm out here and resent it. Do you really  want to fuel the fire? I don't want to be the reason you two went to war  the day before your sister's wedding. Kasim, I love you."         

     



 

The words struck him with such a blast of heat and light, he rocked back  on his heels, speechless at how powerful the statement was.



"I know you don't feel the same," Angelique rushed to say, appalled that  she had spilled her heart out at his feet like that. Crushed that he  only stood there looking stunned. How could he not have expected this?

"I don't want to know how you feel," she added quickly. "It would make  this even more impossible to deal with," she babbled on, drowning in  yearning. "But that's who I am. If you think I hide behind my sister,  it's because I don't know how else to protect myself from feeling so  much. You get past even that and it makes me feel so defenseless."

She wanted to look at him, but was afraid what she'd see. Pity? Weariness with yet another woman falling at his feet?

"You could talk me into being a second wife, and we'd both lose respect  for each other for it," she said, feeling as though one of his falcons  had taken her chest in its talons and was squeezing relentlessly. Her  voice thinned. "So I'm asking you not to wield your power over me. Be  the man I love and show respect for someone weaker than you. Don't use  me in your fight with your father. Take me back and make peace with him  for your sister's sake."

He let out a breath like she'd kicked it out of him.

"Don't be selfish like my parents," he summed up, voice as dry and  gritty as a wind off a sandstorm. "You should give yourself more credit,  Angelique. You're plenty brutal when you need to be."



He took her back to the palace and let her go without so much as a  reluctant "goodbye." She didn't suppose she would ever forgive him for  that, even though it was exactly what she had asked for. She had hoped  for some kind of miracle though. Foolishly hoped.

Henri met her off the helicopter and escorted her wordlessly back to  their suite where she half expected Ramon to be waiting up. He wasn't.  They were all asleep.

"Is Trella okay?" she asked as Henri firmly closed the door behind them.

"Bien. She's your champion. You know that." He unstoppered a bottle,  smelled the contents, and set it away with disgust. "Cordial. How do  they survive without a decent brandy? Do you want to tell me what you  were thinking, disappearing like that?"

She lifted a hand and huffed out a breath of despair. "Do you want to tell me what went wrong between you and Cinnia?"

He jerked his head back. "Non."

She tilted her head. He knew how she felt then. Sometimes things were far too painful to share.

He sighed and held out his arm. "Je m'excuse, Gili. Come here. I hate fighting with you. It just makes me feel like a bully."

She laughed faintly. "Because I don't fight back?"

"You just did. Most punishingly." He hugged her. "But it tells me how hurt you are when you hit below the belt like that."

"I'm sorry about you and Cinnia," she murmured as she hugged him back.  "It's so hard to find people we can trust. Even harder to keep them,"  she added in a voice that thinned to a whisper.

He squeezed her and set her away. "You should get some sleep. We may be packing to leave first thing."



They didn't. Kasim pulled strings and Angelique was allowed to stay for  the wedding. At least, she assumed Kasim had arranged it, until she and  Trella caught up to the bride to help her dress.

Hasna had been crying, as most brides were wont to do, and was running  late while her makeup was fixed. Her suite was being cleared, everyone  leaving to take their seats. Angelique offered Fatina a smile as the  woman hurried past her, but Fatina didn't even acknowledge her. She was  ashen beneath her olive complexion. She looked both wispy and frail, yet  had an incandescent glow behind the wetness in her eyes.

Angelique's blood chilled with premonition, but she was pulled back to Hasna's reflection as she spoke.

"I told Mama to tell Papa I want you both at the wedding. I realize  there are politics, but..." She touched the pendant at her throat and  Angelique wondered if there were other reasons for the smudged mascara  and puffy eyes, the haunted shadows behind Hasna's somewhat  shell-shocked expression.

Oh, Kasim. Angelique wished, illogically, that she could have been with  them when he'd given Jamal's gift to his sister, to hold his hand and  bolster him as he had made his explanation.

"That's fine," Hasna said with a flustered dismissal of the makeup  artist, sounding very much the princess as she said, "Go. I just want to  be married and live with my husband. Help me dress."         

     



 

The woman left and Angelique and Trella helped Hasna into her gown. She  was a vision, with a distinct line of maturity setting her shoulders and  running like a line up her spine. Some might see it as her wedding  causing this coming-of-age moment, but Angelique knew it was the  necklace she kept touching. The memories of time lost with a cherished  brother.