Desert Rogues Part 2

by Susan Mallery

  “The most expensive thing I’ve ever borrowed before was a pair of shoes from my sister. I guess I’m lucky the jewelry didn’t come with security guards.”

  “The insurance company only requires them when the value is over one million dollars. This is slightly under that.”

  A million? Dollars? She touched the earrings.

  “I’ll be really, really careful,” she promised.

  “Don’t worry yourself.”

  He led her into a massive ballroom decorated in gold, silver and black. Balloons floated overhead, while mirror-covered pillars reflected light. A few hundred well-dressed people filled the space, the sound of their laughter competing with the orchestra.

  Rafiq greeted several couples he knew and introduced her. Kiley smiled politely and tried not to wonder what they were thinking. No doubt they were used to seeing him with a different woman every few months. She felt odd, being considered one of his women—not because she minded the association, but because she didn’t think she was his regular type.

  “Would you like to dance?” he asked. “Or would you prefer to find our table and sit?”

  She glanced at the fairly empty dance floor, then back at him. “Can we dance? I took lessons for the wedding so I have some moves.” She grinned. “Okay. ‘Moves’ would be strong, but I think I can follow.”

  His dark eyes flickered with an emotion she couldn’t read. “You and Eric took dance lessons.”

  “Oh, please. We signed up, and he always had an excuse not to be there. But I was able to practice with other guys there. Am I explaining too much?”

  “Not at all.”

  He guided her to the dance floor and took her in his arms.

  “This is nice,” she said as he pulled her close and settled his hand on the small of her back. The song was slow enough that she was able to just think about the moment rather than where to put her feet.

  “I agree.”

  His low voice rumbled in his chest.

  She closed her eyes and lost herself in the music. Rafiq held her as if she was something precious. She liked how their bodies moved together. The idea of the fund-raiser made her nervous, but being with Rafiq made it worthwhile. Especially the later part. When he took her home.

  Anticipation made her breath catch as she thought about them returning to her place. She would invite him in and they would…well, she wasn’t exactly sure what they would do, but she was sure it would be exciting. She’d stopped by a gourmet store and had picked up chocolate-covered strawberries to get things going. The price had nearly made her faint, but she’d bought them anyway. Chocolate-covered strawberries sounded exotic and sexy, and Lord knew she needed all the help she could get in both departments.

  Although she wasn’t sure when they were supposed to eat them. Before they started anything? During? Wouldn’t they be sticky in bed?

  “You move very well,” Rafiq murmured in her ear.

  “Thank you. So do you.”

  “We are well matched.”

  She liked the sound of that.

  “Take a deep breath,” he told her.

  “What?”

  “Take a deep breath. Eric is here.”

  She heard the words, but they didn’t make sense. Eric? “My ex-fiancé?”

  “Yes. He just came in. He’s alone.”

  “But he’s supposed to be in Hawaii. Our reservation was through Sunday.”

  Rafiq turned so that she could see the entrance to the ballroom. Sure enough, Eric stood there, looking around.

  Everything else faded until she saw only him. Medium height, reddish-brown hair, green eyes. He wore a tuxedo and looked good. She continued to stare, waiting to feel devastated. Surely now her emotions would overwhelm her.

  But there was only anger at what he’d done and a strong desire not to have anything to do with him.

  “Do you wish to speak with him?” Rafiq asked.

  She turned away from Eric and smiled at Rafiq. “No, thanks. I prefer to spend my time with you.”

  One corner of his mouth turned up. “I must admit, I prefer your company to Eric’s, as well.”

  She laughed. “Gee, that’s not much of a compliment.”

  “How unfortunate, as I meant it as such.”

  He turned her and they moved back into the growing crowd of dancers.

  “Shall I distract you by telling you who else is here?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “There are several television stars. A few from daytime soaps. I shall have to keep you from them so you aren’t tempted by their handsome faces.”

  She looked into his handsome face and smiled. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I’m not so sure. These pretty boys can be sly. But if they would challenge me for your affections I would take them all.”

  “So speaks the desert warrior.”

  He smiled and joked, but she knew he was only partly kidding. There was a strength to him, a determination. Not that she was interested in anyone else. She’d given her word to be faithful to him for their time together and she would honor that commitment. He made it easy, she thought. Every time he took her in his arms, she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

  Later that evening Kiley excused herself and walked toward the champagne fountain. As she reached for a glass, she felt someone come up behind her.

  “Kiley? What are you doing here?”

  She picked up the glass, then turned and saw Eric next to her.

  The last time she’d spoken with him, she’d caught him in bed with another woman. Her first thought was to wonder how she could have been so stupid where he was concerned. Her second was to wish she’d stayed with Rafiq rather than getting something to drink.

  “I’m attending the fund-raiser,” she said quietly, turning to where Rafiq still stood in conversation with a business associate. “I’m surprised you’re not still in Hawaii.”

  Eric shook his head. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. About us.”

  “How unfortunate for you.”

  She started to leave, but he put his hand on her arm. “Wait. You have to listen.”

  She stared at his hand on her bare skin and waited to feel something. They’d been engaged for three years—there had to be some emotion left.

  But there wasn’t. Not about Eric, anyway. All she felt was a strong need to return to Rafiq.

  Which said what about her? That she hadn’t loved Eric? That he’d become a habit? Was it possible? But as much as she searched her heart, she couldn’t seem to find anything stronger than bruised pride and anger at being played for a fool.

  “I’m talking to you,” Eric snapped.

  She blinked as she realized he had been saying something.

  “I guess I’m not interested in listening,” she said, and pulled free of his touch.

  “Are you with him now?” he asked, pointing at Rafiq.

  “Yes.”

  Eric’s eyes narrowed. “I always knew there was something going on between the two of you. Dammit, Kiley, you lied to me.”

  “I did no such thing. Until Monday morning, he was simply my boss. Of course, all that has changed now.”

  She had the satisfaction of watching Eric go pale. “You can’t be sleeping with him.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “You’re nothing like his other women.”

  “I suppose that’s true, but I’m okay with that.”

  Eric swore under his breath. “I treated you like a porcelain doll.”

  “Oh, is that what you call it? From my perspective, you were a lying bastard who cheated on me regularly. It’s not my idea of respect or affection.”

  “We had something great together,” he told her.

  “That would be my line to you.” She took a step back. “You could have had me, Eric, and you blew it completely. Now it’s over. Ironically, I’m grateful. A few days away from you have shown me there was a whole lot less to our relationship than I realized.” She turned
to leave.

  He stepped next to her. “Rafiq doesn’t give a damn about you. He’s just using you for sex.”

  “Perhaps that has happened in the past, but in this case, you’re wrong. He’s not using me for sex. I’m using him.”

  She thought Eric was going to faint. The color fled his face and his breathing stopped. “You can’t be. You were saving yourself for marriage.”

  “You’re right, and look what it got me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must return to my lover.”

  With that she walked away.

  Kiley sipped from her champagne glass and tried not to grin too broadly. But it was hard to act calm when she wanted to race to Rafiq’s side and give him a high-five.

  She’d faced Eric and had walked away the winner. He hadn’t intimidated her or made her feel bad. She’d said what she’d wanted to and then she’d left. It was a huge victory and she felt like celebrating.

  But as she approached their table, she saw Rafiq was no longer speaking with an oil executive from Bahania. Instead he was engaged in a very intense conversation with a beautiful woman.

  She was petite and perfectly dressed in dark red. A little older than Rafiq, perhaps, but only by a few years.

  Kiley stopped and watched them for a few seconds, then headed for the restroom. Her excitement at her victory over Eric faded and in its place was a low pain in her stomach.

  She wasn’t crazy enough to worry about every conversation Rafiq had with a woman. But there had been something different this time. An intimacy. They knew each other and had for a long time. There was a past between them.

  He had demanded fidelity and had promised the same in return. Had he meant it? Were all men incapable of being faithful, or did she simply bring out that trait in the ones she knew?

  Chapter Six

  They left the hotel shortly after midnight. Rafiq never liked to stay to the end, and Kiley had seemed pleased when he’d suggested leaving. He wondered at the reasons. Sometime after dinner she’d gotten quiet.

  Now, in the silence of the car, he prepared himself to find out what was wrong. In the way of most women, she would at first say nothing. He would be forced to ask again and again until she finally told him. It was a flaw in the female psyche—an inability to state the problem the first time asked.

  Often Rafiq simply didn’t bother. The pain wasn’t worth the reward. But in this case he wanted to know what troubled Kiley and, if possible, fix it.

  “You are very quiet,” he said. “Did something happen tonight to upset you?”

  Was it Eric? She’d told him about her conversation with the other man. At the time he would have sworn she felt nothing for her ex-fiancé, but perhaps she was remembering what could have been.

  He didn’t like that, but there was little he could do to stop her from missing Eric. Reminding her of what the other man had done to her seemed cruel. He knew Kiley was sensible enough to recover eventually, but selfishly, he wanted her attention now.

  “I saw you talking with someone,” she said. “A woman. Petite. Beautiful. I told myself it was probably nothing, but the conversation seemed…intimate.”

  It took him a moment to realize what she was talking about. Had she actually answered his question without prompting? He was so surprised, he nearly missed the point of her words.

  “Are you concerned there is a woman from my past who may come between us?” he asked.

  “Sort of.”

  Her honesty surprised him. He recalled the evening and searched for someone who fit her description. There had been no ex-lovers there. No one who could have made Kiley uncomfortable. His conversations had been with business associates and their wives.

  Except for one woman.

  “Was she a few years older and wearing a red dress?”

  Kiley glanced at him. “That would be the one. You know her. You have a past with her. I understand that it’s very likely that you’ll run into women you’ve known. I’m not saying you can’t be friends with them, but we have an agreement that we’ll both be faithful. As you can imagine, I’m a little touchy on the subject. I need to know you’ll keep your end of the deal.”

  Under any other circumstances, he would have laughed, but he was aware of how difficult it had been for her to speak her mind.

  “I assure you, I will never be unfaithful to you. I do not give my word capriciously, and once given, it bonds me to the death.”

  He glanced at her and saw her eyes widen.

  “Wow,” she murmured. “Okay, then. I guess I have to believe you.”

  “Even if you did not, I can assure you that the woman I spoke with earlier will never be a threat to you.”

  “A bad breakup?”

  “Not in the way you mean. She is my mother.”

  He enjoyed the sharp intake of breath, then Kiley’s stunned silence. They arrived at her apartment before she could gather her thoughts.

  After parking, he escorted her inside and waited while she turned on the lights.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she asked. “I have wine in the refrigerator.”

  “I’ll get it,” he told her, and made his way into her small kitchen.

  Signs of her were everywhere. In the brightly colored curtains at the window, in the stack of books on the kitchen table and the cartoon mug in the sink. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out the bottle of white wine. As he did he noticed a clear plastic container with several chocolate-dipped strawberries and smiled. Did she plan to seduce him later? He must remember to make it easy for her to do so.

  When he returned to the living room, she’d kicked off her high heels. He took off his jacket, then settled next to her on the sofa and opened the bottle of wine.

  “Tell me about your mother,” she said quietly. “If she’s here and your father is happily married in Lucia-Serrat, I’m guessing they divorced?”

  “They never married.” He handed her a glass of wine, touched it with his, then leaned back in the sofa. “Many years ago, she was an actress. She came to the island to film a movie. My father was young, just seventeen and he fell madly in love with her. Or he wanted to sleep with her. At seventeen they can be the same thing. I’m not sure what she felt about him—she never said. I know they had an affair, and I was the result.”

  Kiley sipped her wine and put the glass on the coffee table. She reached up and unfastened her earrings. “It could have been romantic. Young love, an impetuous relationship that results in a baby.”

  “It wasn’t. My father was too young to marry and his father disapproved. My mother pushed hard to be a princess, but when that didn’t happen, she agreed to a cash settlement.”

  Kiley paused in the act of undoing her necklace and looked properly outraged. “Money? She took money for her baby. She let herself be paid?”

  “On the condition that she leave me behind and not have anything to do with me until I came of age.”

  “That’s horrible.” Her blue eyes darkened with compassion. “Rafiq, you must have been crushed.”

  “I was an infant and unaware of the circumstances.” He shrugged. “I was raised by several attentive nurses and nannies. I wanted for very little.”

  “I don’t believe that.” She slipped the jewelry into his coat pocket. “Don’t forget you have those. I can’t believe she left you. Her child. I can’t imagine any mother doing that.”

  Her combination of practicality and compassion delighted him. She was as he had imagined—without pretense. He could gaze into her eyes and see directly into her soul.

  She leaned close and touched his face. “What she did was very wrong and I’ll never forgive her.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be disappointed.”

  Kiley smiled. “You know what I mean.” Her smile faded. “Are you close now?”

  “Not at all. We speak. I have lunch with her once or twice a year. She likes me to come to parties so she can show me off. Sometimes I agree to her request.”

  He had no opinion of his mother one w
ay or the other. She had made her choice long ago. He had grown up without her and couldn’t imagine a world in which she mattered to him.

  “What of Eric?” he asked, capturing Kiley’s hand in his and kissing the tips of her fingers. “You spoke?”

  She nodded. “Not for long. Did you see us?”

  “Yes. He was angry.”

  “I guess.” She ducked her head. “When he said you were going to take advantage of me, I informed him that it was the other way around. I was using you for sex.”

  Rafiq laughed. “Good for you.”

  She looked at him. “I didn’t feel anything. I tried, but there was nothing. A little anger that he was such a jerk and I’m still embarrassed by what I saw when he was doing it with that other woman, but that’s it. Shouldn’t I be really upset by now? Shouldn’t it all matter? What if I didn’t love him?”

  “Then not getting married is for the best.”

  “I know, but what does it say about me that I didn’t realize I’d fallen out of love with him?”

  “Sometimes we can’t see what’s right in front of us. You escaped. Be grateful.”

  “Oh, I am. He’s the last man I would ever want to be with. What a loser.”

  Rafiq had grown tired of speaking of another man. He lightly licked her palm, then asked, “What are you wearing under your dress?”

  The question stunned Kiley but didn’t embarrass her. She recognized the light of passion flaring in Rafiq’s eyes and couldn’t wait to get close to the fire.

  “A strapless bra and panties.”

  Nothing about his expression changed, but she felt the tension in his body. Her own answered with a slight quiver. He stood and held out his hand.

  “Dance with me,” he said.

  She allowed him to pull her to her feet. There wasn’t any music, but somehow that didn’t seem necessary. The evening was perfect—something out of a movie, and she was the star.

  He pulled her into his arms. She snuggled close and relaxed into the slow, swaying movements. She was aware of the night, the shadows in the corner, and the quiet. Her senses captured every detail of the moment—the scent of his body, the heat growing between them, the smooth fabric of his shirt, the way his cheek brushed against her temple. She wanted with an intensity that surprised her. He would be her first time, but somehow that thought no longer made her nervous. She welcomed his touch and his instruction.