by Jane Porter
“No. No, no, no.” Kahlil couldn’t do this. He had no right, not after dragging them here and putting them through hell. He’d awakened her heart, revived their love. He couldn’t throw it back at her now! “I must see him.”
“You can not, Princess—”
Bryn didn’t wait to hear the rest, running from the royal chamber, racing down the long palace corridors, feet echoing against gleaming marble. She slipped past a pair of guards too startled to stop her, bursting into Kahlil’s office suite but the rooms were dark, no one was there.
From a distance she heard Rifaat call her name but she ignored him, running on, racing toward Kahlil’s bedroom. The door was shut. She tried the handle. It was locked and soft gold light poured from beneath the door.
“Kahlil!” She cried his name, frantically pounding on the door, sensing Rifaat behind her. “Listen to me. I understand you’re angry, and you have every right. But don’t punish the baby. Fight me, but not him! He loves you. He needs you. I need you.” Her throat ached, her heart hurt, she shivered from head to toe. “Dammit, Kahlil, how can we ever make this work if we won’t ever talk to each other? Open the door, please!”
She wouldn’t let Kahlil do this, couldn’t let him shut her out again. She knew he loved her, deep down, somewhere in his hard, imperial heart. “Oh, Kahlil, talk to me. You can’t just put the baby and me on a plane and not say goodbye. What will we do without you? Where will we go? How can I raise Ben without you? If you’re going to send me away at least give me some help—answers, advice, something Kahlil, please!”
Rifaat reached her, his hands closing on her shoulders as he attempted to pull her away from the sheikh’s door. “My lady, come, don’t make me call the guards.”
Bryn broke free, pounding wildly against the door, desperation making her faint. “Kahlil, help me.” The door rattled beneath her pounding fist. “They’re going to take me away. You can stop them. You must stop them!”
Rifaat’s hands settled again on her shoulders, gently this time, kindly. “Please, Bryn,” he spoke softly, urgently, using her name for the first time since she returned, “you don’t want to be carried out in disgrace. Go with dignity, I beg of you. For Ben’s sake if nothing else.”
But she was fighting for Ben’s sake, fighting for all their sakes. Kahlil needed them, just as much as she and Ben needed him. “I will not go!” she cried, pressing her forehead against the door, fingertips glued to the wood as if she could become one with the door and melt through. “I will not.”
Rifaat applied more pressure to her shoulders, hands firm. “I must see you to the car. Come with me, Bryn, don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Salty tears raced down her cheek, streaking the door. “Kahlil.” She choked, breaking down, her vocal cords closing, shut down by her sobs.
The light beneath the door flickered casting a shadow on the other side. Hope returned, hope and anguish. “In all my life, Kahlil, I’ve only loved you.”
Bryn could sense Kahlil on the other side of the door. She knew he must be there and she imagined she could feel his heart beat, feel his warmth and his sinewy strength. Closing her eyes she pressed her palm where she thought his chest must be. She needed to reach out to touch his heart. His anger pulsated through her palm. She felt his anger, his indecision and his pride. Before he could walk away, she knelt down and slid her fingers beneath the door, entreating, “I would walk to the ends of the earth for you. I would give up my heart if you demanded it. Kahlil—” and suddenly his shadow receded. She felt him move away from her. Physically. Emotionally. He was shutting her out. Moving on. Kahlil!
Rifaat and a guard hauled her to her feet. She didn’t have the strength to resist, all air sucked from her lungs in numb disbelief.
It was over. Kahlil didn’t want her. Kahlil didn’t want Ben. He’d made the decision and he wasn’t going to change his mind.
Outside the driver waited in the limousine, behind the steering wheel. The back door to the black limousine stood open and Bryn spotted Ben, curled up on the back seat, beneath a soft blanket, sound asleep, his small arm clutching a stuffed blue elephant.
Trembling, she stooped down to lightly touch Ben, her fingers gentle against his brow. Her baby. Kahlil’s baby. “I can’t believe it’s going to end like this.”
Rifaat placed his hand on the top of the car door, stared down at her. “I am sorry, my lady.”
Bryn couldn’t speak.
“I know what he did, my lady, the sheikh’s brother. I was there that night he attacked you in your room.”
Her head jerked up, but still her voice failed her. Rifaat shook his own head once, slowly, wearily. “The surveillance cameras picked up that he’d entered the women’s quarters. I didn’t know what to do but then I heard you scream. I went into your room, and you were struggling, reaching for the jewelry box.”
Suddenly aspects of that night fell into place for Bryn, pieces of a difficult puzzle coming together. She’d wondered how she’d managed, how she’d escaped. “I didn’t knock him out. You did.”
“It had to be done.”
“Then you dragged Amin away.”
“I saw you leave the palace. I didn’t stop you.” Rifaat tapped the car door and stepped away. “I’ve thought many times I should have told his highness about that night, but you’d run away, and Amin remained close with Kahlil. How to tell a sheikh that his brother is a fraud?”
It dawned on her then that Kahlil would always be vulnerable. Everyone wanted a piece of him. Everyone expected something. She felt Kahlil’s impossible burden, and her chest squeezed tight. “You can’t,” she said softly. “You don’t.”
“I’ll talk to him now if you want.”
“And what? Turn Kahlil against you, too? I don’t think so. I love him too much to have him live without at least one true friend, and you are his friend, Rifaat.”
“If I don’t go to him, you’ll lose him.”
“I’ve already lost him.” She tried to smile but failed. “Tell Kahlil—” She stopped, cast a last lingering glance at the shuttered palace. “Never mind. I better go before Ben wakes.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
ONLY two weeks ago she had sat in this very soft, leather seat in the luxurious jet cabin, cradling her sleeping son. Now here she was again, returning to Texas, but Dallas was no longer home. Home was with Kahlil. Home was the three of them together.
The plane vibrated, engines on, noise unnervingly loud. She could smell a whiff of the fuel, and the green and white lights of the runway twinkled in the distance. They’d leave the gate any second now. Tears burned the back of her eyes, her throat raw and swollen from too much emotion.
How could it all end like this? For one night, that one blissful night of their second honeymoon, there’d been such hope. Instead it had all come apart—and she didn’t know how to ever explain the truth to Kahlil, how to make him understand that her love for him was greater than her shortcomings, greater than her insecurities, greater than anything else in the world. Real love wasn’t just passion, but faith. And yet Kahlil had no faith in her. No trust, either.
The engines thrust forward. The plane pulled away from the gate. Lights flickered, overhead lamps turning down.
It hurt, wild, raw, unjustly, that she lost him not just once, but twice. She wanted to weep with the loss but knew if she let a single tear fall, she’d lose all control.
“If you go,” a deep male voice rasped from the back of the cabin, “you must take me.”
Kahlil?
Slowly, afraid to discover his voice was a figment of her imagination, she turned in her seat.
Kahlil stood in the back of the cabin, faded jeans, T-shirt. Red-rimmed eyes, hair disheveled, his face washed but bruised. “Don’t go. Not without me.”
She couldn’t speak, a lump the size of Kentucky prevented her from uttering a word. Hot, gritty tears burned her eyes and she simply shook her head, unable to believe he was here, on the plane, even after everything
that had happened.
“I can’t do it,” he added roughly. “I can’t do this without you.”
Her lips parted, her mouth trembled. She forced sound through her throat. “Do what?”
“Rule Zwar, or lead my people.” His voice broke and he shoved his hand through his hair. “I don’t know if I can even live, feeling like this.”
“No—”
And still he hung back, in the soft shadows of the cabin. “I’m no better than my father. He said he always acted for the good of his people, but I don’t know if that’s true. He said rules—order—must always come first, but I’ve tried to live like that and it’s unbearable. My life is unbearable.”
She struggled to rise, wanting to go to him but she still held Ben and at the moment her legs weren’t strong enough to fully support both of them. “It can’t be unbearable, not when people love you as much as we do.”
Kahlil jerked forward. “So why do I have to hurt you? Why have I put us through this hell?”
“I don’t know, but there’s a reason, I’m sure.”
“No, there’s never a reason for being deliberately cruel.” He stopped a foot away, his golden eyes haunted, his expression bleak. “I can’t hurt you anymore. I have to stop, and I have to stop now.”
“You’re here now, that’s what counts.” She fought to swallow, the tumult of emotions almost overwhelming. She didn’t know whether to be happy or angry that Rifaat had broken his word and gone to Kahlil. “Rifaat told you, then? I asked him not to.”
Kahlil frowned. “Rifaat told me what?” His expression revealed his confusion. “Has something happened? Something to Ben?”
“No, nothing like that.” She hesitated, realizing Kahlil obviously had no idea what she was talking about. So Rifaat didn’t go to him…which meant Kahlil had come here on his own. For a moment she didn’t know what to think, feel, and then suddenly something powerful in her heart broke loose and Bryn felt an intense wave of joy.
“How is he?” Kahlil asked, indicating Ben, moving forward to take him from her arms.
“Good. He’s been asleep most the time.”
“Poor little man.” Kahlil cradled Ben close against his chest, muscles in his arms cording as he hugged his son. “Does he know what I did? Does Ben know I was sending you away?”
“He woke up earlier when we boarded the plane, but I didn’t tell him where we were going. I just said we were taking a ride.”
Kahlil’s jaw jutted as he swallowed hard. “I don’t know what I was thinking—I don’t know how I could send you away like that. I was there on the other side of the door, listening to you cry.” His sober gaze met hers. “I felt your hand on the door—there was heat, and pain—and yet instead of opening the door, I ignored you. I pretended you didn’t exist.” His mouth twisted, his expression raw. “It makes me sick. How could I do that to you? How could I do that to my family?”
“Probably some coping mechanism left over from your childhood,” she answered faintly.
“Doesn’t make it right. I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“There’s plenty. We al-Assads are notoriously hard on our women.”
Tears, gritty tears, pricked her eyes. She reached up to touch his face, moving her fingers down from his beautiful cheek to his angular jaw. “I love you.”
“I know. And I know nothing happened between you and my brother. You’re not that kind of a woman. Your heart is too pure. Besides, I know my brother. He’s spent his life manipulating me, playing me. I can only imagine the hell he put you through.”
“It’s over now. We have Ben back, and I have you.”
Abruptly Kahlil looked away, his jaw tightening. “Tonight, when you screamed my name, it was the same way my mother had cried out for me. I didn’t know then why she was being taken away, I just knew something awful was happening. I never saw her again.”
He drew a deep painful breath, features contorted. “I had the chance once, when I was a teenager, visiting the States. But I refused to see her.” He made a rough sound in the back of his throat. “She died less than a year later. Cancer.”
“You didn’t know.”
“Refusing to see her was one of the worst mistakes I ever made. But I came close tonight to making another one.” His head jerked around, his eyes bored into hers, searching, needing to know. “Your home is in Tiva with me, and I want you here with me. If that’s what you want.”
“I want,” she whispered, fighting tears.
“I can’t keep losing you.”
“I’ve never wanted to go.”
“Life is very hard—”
“I know. I want to spend forever with you. I want us to be together, for Ben, for each other.”
“Good. Because I don’t want Ben pulled between us. I couldn’t bear for him to know what I’ve known.” He drew a ragged breath. “The suffering did not make me stronger. It made me cruel. Please still love me.”
“Oh, Kahlil, I do. I swear I do.”
“No more separate rooms, no more harem and women’s quarters. I just want you with me.”
“Like a real couple?”
He nodded grimly, determined. “A normal couple, so we can do our best to give Ben a normal family. It’s what he deserves, what every child deserves, and it’s what I want most.”
Her heart ached, tinged by bittersweet joy. “I love you.”
“I love you more—”
“You can’t!”
“I can. I’m the Sheikh Kahlil Hasim al-Assad, ruler of Zwar, leader of my people. Whatever I say goes.” And leaning forward, Ben still tucked safely against his chest, he kissed her, tenderly. Reverently. “You can’t fight it, love. You’re not going to win.”
These were the sweetest words in the world. Smiling through a blur of tears, Bryn threw up her hands. “Fine. I surrender!”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8643-0
THE SHEIKH’S WIFE
First North American Publication 2002.
Copyright © 2001 by Jane Porter Gaskins.
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