Their Virgin Concubine(91)
Darkness swallowed him whole, but not before one final thought consumed him.
I love you.
Chapter Fifteen
Three weeks later
Dallas, TX
Piper stared out at the night lights and tried to come up with a single enthusiastic thought. From the James family’s penthouse suite, the views of Dallas were beyond spectacular, but all she could think about was how peaceful the gardens had been in Bezakistan. At night she would wander on to the balcony and watch the palms sway. Eventually one of her husbands would find her, slip an arm around her waist, and tell her how beautiful she was.
She’d had three amazing men. And now she was alone.
No longer a concubine. Never a queen.
“Hey, Jessa and I were wondering if you were going to come in and have a glass of wine before dinner? Come on. Someone has to drink for me.” Hannah James stepped out onto the balcony, stroking her swollen belly. She started with a smile, but lost it when she looked at Piper. “Hon, you’re crying again. I wish you would tell me what happened. All I know is you came home and needed a place to stay, and suddenly Cole and Burke were deeply interested in where you were twenty-four seven.”
She sighed. Ever since her return, she’d been out of sorts. She felt homeless, aimless. The night she’d landed in Dallas, she’d wondered how she would get from the airport to a hotel. She’d been given a thousand US dollars and a credit card she vowed to never use, but as far as she’d known, no one had been advised that she was returning to Texas.
To her surprise, Burke and Cole Lennox had been waiting for her. Tal’s big brooding guard, the one named Dane, had handed her over to them, and she’d found herself on her way to the James penthouse. She no longer had an apartment, thanks to Rafe and Kade. She’d cried because she didn’t have a home. Oh, a real estate agent had contacted her the morning after her arrival in Dallas, a very nice woman who indicated that Piper could have any house of her choosing in the city, all paid for. She just had to select one. Piper hadn’t returned the woman’s calls. She wanted nothing more from the al Mussad brothers. So she’d been the James’s very quiet houseguest for three weeks. And she’d been unwilling to share even a moment of her heartbreak. But maybe it was time.
Tomorrow, Piper would thank Hannah and her husbands for their hospitality, find her belongings in storage, then rebuild her life and try to move on.
“You know Tal was shot, right?” Piper said.
Hannah nodded. “I read it in the paper. He was shot by his cousin. I heard that’s not the first time he tried to kill the sheikh.”
No. It wasn’t the first time Khalil had hurt the al Mussad family, and it wasn’t really the last. His legacy of pain seemed to be destined to last a lifetime. “He’s dead now, but Tal decided he didn’t want to marry me.”
“I don’t understand that.” Hannah put a hand on her arm. “I saw the pictures of the four of you together. You all looked so happy.”
Piper couldn’t stand to look at those pictures. “Tal is afraid that Khalil won’t be the last person to try to hurt him by hurting me.”
“He’s scared of losing you,” Hannah said, sympathy in her voice.
“But he’s not scared of pushing me away.” She looked back out over the dazzling lights of the city. “He wouldn’t even let me say good-bye. I wasn’t allowed into his hospital room. As soon as the doctors told us Tal would live and fully recover, he had his security detail take me away like some loose end he couldn’t be bothered to deal with.”
It had been horrible. One minute she’d been overjoyed, and the next she was being escorted away by two grim guards. She’d called out to Rafe and Kade, but they had disappeared into Tal’s recovery room.
No one answered her calls. No one replied to her emails. She’d been so sure at least Rafe and Kade would stay with her, but they seemed to have decided that Tal was right.
After a few days, she’d realized what a fool she’d made of herself. Then last week, the news had come down that the Bezakistani Parliament had moved swiftly and decisively to strike down the law that the sheikh had to marry by age thirty-five. It seemed the incident at the palace had finally forced the government to allow the change, and they’d managed it without opening their constitution to unwanted influences. Hassem and the rest of Khalil’s conspirators had been rounded up, arrested, found quilty, and sent to prison.
Tal, Rafe, and Kade were free…but they didn’t want her anymore.
Piper knew the time had come to move on.
“Honey, do you think he might change his mind if you talk to him?” Hannah asked. “It just seems to me that he was in a bad place when he made that decision. Maybe he needs time.”