by Jane Porter
Kahlil was the only one in the room. He slowly turned from the window and moved to a massive chair with burgundy cushions and sat down even more slowly.
He didn’t make eye contact. He didn’t even look at her.
Bryn’s stomach dropped. This was bad. Very, very bad. Something terrible had happened to Ben.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“TELL me,” she whispered. “Tell me what’s happened.”
“Come closer.”
She was frozen, petrified of what he might say. “Tell me first. Just get it over with.”
His dark head lifted, his eyes, brilliant with emotion, met hers. “I’ve heard nothing about Ben. This has to do with you.”
She shuffled forward, one step, and then another, adrenaline still surging, too much tension and exhaustion for her to think clearly. “Me?”
“Yes, my dutiful wife, you.”
“What have you heard? What’s this about?”
“What have you heard?” He repeated her words, enunciating the consonants as though they were sharp things in his mouth. “Oh, I’ve learned quite a bit, read quite a bit, too.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You bluff, Princess.” He rose from his chair and descended the dais. His feet were bare, his robe open, revealing long white trousers and the bronze of his chest.
“Sit down.”
She sank to the cushion in front of her, a burgundy silk embroidered with gold thread. “You’ve totally confused me. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“None?”
She leaned away from Kahlil as he marched a circle around her, scowling, his hands knotted behind his back. He wasn’t making sense. She’d been nowhere, gone nowhere. How could she have displeased him? “What does any of this have to do with Ben?”
“The correct question should be, what does any of this have to do with Amin?”
The sinking feeling returned. Kahlil had obviously heard something, learned something. Had Amin made a threat? Told stories? How had he incriminated her now?
“Well?” Kahlil stopped in front of her, rocked back on his heels. “You’re not going to defend yourself?”
Beads of perspiration formed across her forehead and on her nape. “I can’t defend myself if I do not know the charge.”
“I want to know about your affair with Amin.”
Her skin felt clammy and cold despite the warm morning and the moisture on her brow. “There was no affair.”
“That’s not what the videotape shows.”
“There is no videotape of Amin and I together—”
“There is plenty of video tape of you two together.”
“But not of us having sex.”
“Tell me, was he, or was he not in your room?”
Dear God, how did he know that? It must have been Amin. Amin must have confessed. “He was, but nothing like that happened.”
“Yet you ran away. Perhaps because you felt guilty?”
She couldn’t believe he’d do this now, when Ben was missing. “We had no affair. We never had sex. Look at your videotape for proof!”
“There’s no surveillance camera in the harem. The camera stops at the door.”
“How convenient!”
“But this wasn’t a one-night stand. You have been passing love letters for months.”
“They weren’t love letters, they were notes, very childish notes—”
“I don’t think they’re all that childish,” he ground out, drawing slips of paper from a pocket in his robe. “Amin, you’ve been too wonderful. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” He unfolded another. “I must see you tonight. When can we meet? Or, how about this one? You’re an angel. I adore you.” Kahlil’s dark head lifted. “I adore you? What the hell does that mean?”
“It means nothing, it meant nothing. They were schoolgirl notes. I was eighteen!”
“And married to me.”
“I know it looks bad—”
“Looks bad? It is bad. What the hell were you doing writing love letters?”
“They weren’t love letters, they were messages between friends. Amin was giving me advice—”
“I bet he was.”
She flinched at the snarl in his voice. “It’s not like that, Kahlil. Please try to understand. We’d returned to Zwar and you immediately buried yourself in work. I was lonely, overwhelmed, I felt totally out of my element.”
“So you turned to Amin.”
“For friendship, and friendship only. He once was very kind to me. He listened to me, encouraged me, made me believe that everything would soon be better between you and me.”
“So I’m at fault? I was a lousy husband?”
“No, Kahlil, please try to understand. When we were dating you were so attentive, you made me feel special, and very loved. Maybe I was spoiled—”
“Maybe?”
“All right, I was spoiled, and immature, but the fact is when we returned here, you buried yourself in work and you had so little time for me. Amin befriended me. He realized I was lonely, lacking confidence, and he made me believe everything would be okay.”
“You don’t tell another man you are lonely and lacking confidence. You tell me. You don’t turn to another man for comfort, you turn to me.”
The savagery in his voice ripped through her. His features contorted, a dark violence in his expression, a bitterness she’d never seen before.
“Kahlil, please forgive me. I beg you.”
“Spare me the apology, Bryn, it’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
“I never meant to hurt you. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
He made a rude sound. “Amin says Ben is his.” His voice whipped her again. “If that’s so, Amin has every right to take the boy. I have no legal or moral reason to recover him for you.”
“No!”
“The search has been called off.”
She nearly screamed in protest. Hands outstretched. “My God, Kahlil, you can’t mean it. Ben’s a baby. He must be terrified.”
“Amin can handle it.”
“Amin isn’t Ben’s father. You are. And I’ve never been with another man, so even if you’re angry, don’t punish Ben. He doesn’t even know Amin!”
“It’s not my problem anymore.”
“Not your problem? You’re the sheikh of Zwar. Your cousin has kidnapped your child. You say it’s not your problem? Who runs this bloody country anyway?”
Kahlil grabbed her wrist and swung her against his chest, slamming the air from her lungs. “Do you know who you’re speaking to?”
“My husband!” Tears rushed to her eyes. “My arrogant, prideful pigheaded husband. You know why I turned to Amin all those years ago? Because you shut me out. You stopped seeing me, hearing me, talking to me. I was lonely and I wasn’t very good at being lonely, but I never slept with Amin and if you dare risk your child’s safety out of pride—” she drew a deep, staggering breath “—I swear, Kahlil, I’ll…”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll search for them myself. I won’t eat, sleep, rest until I find them.”
“You’re a woman in the Middle East. You have no money, no transportation, no friends. You’ll never find them.”
Her heart was breaking. “Why do you hate me so much? Is it because I’m weak? Because I have needs?”
“Your needs drove you into my brother’s arms.” He released her swiftly, his scathing tone blistering, drawing blood to her cheeks. “You make me sick.”
She didn’t hear the last part, just the first part and it echoed in her head. His brother? “You mean cousin’s arms.”
“Amin is my brother.” He swallowed, his jaw thickening. “My half brother. My mother’s bastard son.”
Stunned, Bryn held her breath. She felt the blackness of Kahlil’s mood, his confession wrung in pain and anger. “I thought your mother died after you were born.”
“She didn’t die. Not until I was in high school. When my fath
er discovered her affair with his best friend, he exiled her from Zwar.” His lashes lowered, accenting the harsh sweep of his prominent cheekbones. “My father was kind. Under our law, she could have been killed.”
“If your father was truly kind, he wouldn’t have deprived you of your mother!”
“My mother chose to betray the marriage vow. She paid the consequence.”
“No, you paid the consequence! She made a mistake and you suffered for it. Just like you want Ben to suffer for my mistake, but that’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, Bryn. It’s never been fair. Ben might as well learn that now.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do. Life’s full of hard knocks. I was lonely as a child. I suffered, too, but I’m here, stronger for it.”
“Knowing that you suffered, remembering the pain, you’d inflict that on your own son?”
“I don’t even know that he is my son.”
“Yes, you do. He’s you, he’s yours. You might be angry with me, but you can’t deny your own child.”
“Did you sleep with him, Bryn?”
He’d changed the conversation, switched the focus in a split second, but she followed the leap, and her emotions swung from rage to pity to helplessness. “No, Kahlil, no. I’m not attracted to Amin. I’ve never been attracted to Amin.”
“But these notes, his visit to your room, they clearly show that there was more than a friendship between you.”
“Not on my part. I never wanted him, never imagined more. I can see how the notes could be misinterpreted, and I realize now how immature I sounded, but truly, Kahlil, there was no affair, no desire, no physical relationship.”
His lashes lifted again, revealing the brittle glitter in the golden depths. “Just an emotional one.”
He wasn’t going to go, wasn’t going to help with the rescue, but when word came that Amin had been located, Kahlil didn’t even hesitate. He might be furious with Bryn, but he’d never make the boy suffer. Without changing clothes, he dashed to the waiting limousine, settling into the back seat although his hands itched to take the steering wheel himself. He still couldn’t fathom how Amin could take a child—not just his child, but any child. How could a man stoop so low?
As the limousine sped through the city Kahlil rubbed his temple, fingers massaging, but the tension didn’t lift. It was time peace was restored to the palace. And time to exert some order. It had been so long since Kahlil felt in control. So long since he felt easy in his own home.
Bryn was going to have to go.
Kahlil closed his eyes and gritted his jaw against the livid thrust of pain. He barely felt the car jolt as it hit a deep pothole in the road, his emotions running hot and wild, a black violence he fought desperately to suppress.
He loved her. No doubt about it. He’d once worshiped her, too, but that was before she shattered his trust, never mind his heart.
For long moments he saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but a raging grief—half anger, half sorrow—the same irrational emotion a young child would feel. Knuckles pressed to squeezed eyelids he forced the scalding tears back. No crying over spilt milk. He couldn’t change what had happened, and life moved on.
Move on.
Move on, Kahlil, move on for God’s sake.
Long minutes later he dropped his hands, and gazed blankly out the limousine window. White bleached dunes swirled up around the sides of the road. Finally he could draw a breath without wanting to scream. He’d been through worse pain before; he’d survive losing Bryn. He’d survive losing all of them. He was Sheikh Kahlil al-Assad and his word was law.
In the palace Lalia was doing her best to calm the princess, wringing out a damp scented cloth and placing it on Bryn’s forehead. “Shh, my lady, you mustn’t cry like that. You’ll make yourself sick.”
Bryn turned her head away, knocking off the cloth Lalia had pressed to her forehead. She didn’t want a cool, damp cloth, mint tea, or conversation. She just wanted Kahlil, and Ben. She just wanted her family together again.
Bryn awoke with a start. Voices outside were shouting and an engine roared close to the palace entrance.
She’d fallen asleep while the sun was still bright, but now her bedroom was bathed in the lavender of twilight, the interior space violet, gray and cool.
Even as she sleepily stumbled to her feet, her bedroom door burst open. Dirty, bloodied, Kahlil marched toward the bed.
“Get up,” he demanded. “We’ll have this out. Once and for all.”
A scarlet slash marred his forehead and his jaw was swollen. Another gash streaked his cheekbone. “You’re hurt!”
He ignored her concern. “We have Ben, he appears fine, but I’m having my doctor see to him anyway. You will join him shortly.”
“Thank God.” She flung herself at Kahlil, wrapped her arms around his waist and held tight. “I knew you wouldn’t leave him like that. I knew you’d find him.”
He stood stiffly. “I did it for him, not for you.”
She felt his rigid muscles, the tightening of his limbs. He was grinding his teeth, enduring the embrace. She could feel his anger and apathy, and his revulsion terrified her. What if he’d never forgive her? What if he couldn’t forgive her? How would she live without him? “Kahlil, I love you. I have always loved you and—”
He dragged her arms from him and pushed her away. “I don’t want to hear this.”
“But you must—”
“No. It’s too late. Too late for any of this.” With a hoarse sound, he pushed her away once again, holding himself stiffly. “Amin waits for us. Let us get this over with.”
It was madness, what Kahlil was asking of her. Did he want her to confess to adultery, betrayal, to crimes she hadn’t committed? Bryn refused to confess to anything other than failing to trust Kahlil when she was a new bride, but the rest she refuted verbally, and physically, with adamant shakes of her head.
Not Amin. He talked, or more accurately, smirked and talked, indicting her in his twisted fantasy. He insisted on clinging to his outrageous story, enlarging on it as the evening passed. He called her hot, passionate, insatiable.
Bryn shuddered as Amin elaborated, his lies making her skin crawl, his remembrances destroying her innocence, making her trust in him appear sordid.
Kahlil didn’t look at Bryn as Amin talked. He stood before his ornate chair, arms crossed, expression blank.
And Bryn, knowing how his mother had failed him, knowing how he’d never felt secure in his father’s love, realized she, too, had failed him. If Kahlil had wanted to torture her, he couldn’t have picked a better punishment.
She saw Rifaat from the corner of her eye and the man stared off into space, silent, invisible. She shuddered, wondering what he must be thinking, what he must feel for a disloyal bride.
She’d failed them all.
Next time she’d do it differently. Next time she’d be stronger, tougher, braver. Next time she’d speak her mind early and ask the right questions and not hang on to grudges. Next time she’d be quick to forgive and even quicker to forget. Next time…
She closed her eyes, trying to keep the tears from falling but they gathered on her lashes and trembled there, against the curve of her cheek.
Kahlil. I love you, Kahlil. Forgive me, Kahlil. You are my sun and my moon and everything…
Kahlil’s fingers snapped, loudly, too sharply. She opened her eyes to spot Kahlil marching toward Amin. “Enough, I’ve heard more than enough. The police are waiting outside, and somehow I think prison won’t be as comfortable as your apartment in Monte Carlo.”
“As if you ever cared,” Amin snarled.
“I cared. You are my brother. You are my blood.”
His mouth worked, his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Blood? Since when? I’ve been nothing but your obligation, your charity case.”
“I’ve shared with you everything.”
Bryn shuddered at the rawness in Kahlil’s voice. He sounded utterly bewildered.
>
“You shared with me nothing. You took my mother—”
“I lost her, too!” Kahlil interrupted hoarsely. “When my father sent her from Zwar, it broke me, too.”
“But you recovered, crown prince of Zwar, you had all the opportunities, every advantage. Boarding schools in England. Graduate school in the U.S. Money, power. You had it all. I just wanted my share.”
“My wife wasn’t an option.”
Suddenly Amin laughed, a high, hysterical pitch. “Wasn’t she?”
Bryn covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t bear it. She could hear the guards drag Amin from the room but didn’t watch, didn’t even look up until the heavy doors banged shut. But Amin wasn’t the only one gone. Kahlil had left, too.
Bryn sat still for an agonizing moment, nervously rubbing the silky skirt of her gown. Rifaat remained in the room but he didn’t speak to her. Finally, unable to bear the silence another moment, she blurted, “When is he coming back?”
Rifaat didn’t immediately reply. She turned, glanced at him, noted his peculiar expression. “He is coming back, isn’t he?”
“No, my lady.”
She wasn’t sure she’d heard correct. She bent her head. “But later, he’ll send for me.”
“I am to take you to your car. It’s out front, waiting.”
“And…Ben?”
“He’s already in the car. With your things. Your servant has packed everything.”
Bryn didn’t understand, felt stupid for not understanding but it was all the excitement and the late hour and the fear of losing her baby. Now if only Rifaat would speak more slowly, explain it all again. “Why is Ben in the car? Where are we going?”
“Home.”
But this was home. Kahlil and Bryn and the baby. This was where they belonged. So why was Ben in the car by himself? What was Kahlil doing putting Ben in the car by himself? How could Kahlil do that, how could he be so cruel? She jumped to her feet, her throat threatening to seal closed. “Where is Kahlil?”
“I know this is difficult, Princess, but perhaps his highness is correct. It would be wise to make a clean break. I am sure the crown prince is probably asleep in the limousine, and once you’re on the plane, you will sleep, too. Soon this will just be a memory—”
