Desert Rogues Part 2

by Susan Mallery

Rafiq didn’t speak the words, but they reverberated inside his brain. All his life people had left. He had learned not to care, not to let them close enough so that their disappearance was more than a sting. So it was with Kiley. He would keep her at arm’s length, but he would keep her.

  Without saying anything more, he walked out of the room and left his father. There was a solution, he thought. And he would find it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kiley was thinking that this wasn’t the best week she’d ever had. Everything had started out with such promise. How had she ended up sad and afraid? Afraid because she didn’t know how to convince Rafiq that caring about her was safe.

  “May I join you?”

  She looked up and saw Phoebe had strolled onto the deck. “Thank you, yes,” Kiley told her. “I’m tired of my own company.”

  Rafiq’s stepmother stretched out on the lounge chair and sighed. “I’m enjoying my time here. At home there are a thousand-and-one things that need my attention. Not to mention how much the girls keep me busy. But here there is only family and a chance to relax.”

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

  Phoebe turned to look at her. “You are not, I fear. Nasri and I know about your situation with Rafiq.”

  Kiley winced. “Tell me you didn’t hear us fighting.”

  “Of course not. You’ve been most discreet. But the mood changed, and then Rafiq spoke with his father.”

  “On purpose?” Kiley asked before she could stop herself. “Sorry. I just didn’t think they talked about anything personal.”

  “They don’t. Nasri never knows what to say, although he would rather slice off his arm than admit it. The fear of saying the wrong thing causes him to be critical. Rafiq expects the worst and jumps on any misstep. I have tried, but they are both stubborn. Still, they spoke. I don’t think the wounds are healed, but they are acknowledged.”

  “I wish Rafiq could get along with his father. He needs that connection.” He needed a place to call home, she thought. “He’s so good with me, and I know he’ll be good with our baby. It’s just…” She winced. “You knew about the baby, didn’t you?”

  Phoebe smiled. “Yes. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you.” She glanced back toward the open door, then lowered her voice. “Kiley, I can help you.”

  “How? No offense, but I have trouble believing you’re going to click your fingers and have Rafiq falling at my feet.”

  “Unfortunately, no. But I can help you get away.”

  Kiley shifted Fari off her lap and sat up in the lounge chair. “I don’t understand. You want me to leave?”

  “Of course not. It’s just…I know you’re unhappy and I’m very clear on the law of the land. Your child will have to be raised on Lucia-Serrat. Your choice is to leave the child or live on the island and deal with Rafiq.”

  “I figured that part out.” It was like being between a rock and a hard place. “I’ll be moving to the island.”

  “You don’t have to.” Phoebe stared at her intently. “I can take you to a place where Rafiq will never find you. There you can raise your child alone. Without him.” Phoebe sighed. “I don’t like making this offer, but as a mother, I understand how much you love your baby. You would do anything to keep him or her close. I wanted you to know this was an option.”

  Kiley wasn’t sure she could have been more surprised if Phoebe had sprouted wings. “That’s not possible.”

  “It is. It will take time, but it can be done.”

  Go away? Leave Rafiq?

  “I would have liked your offer a lot better if you’d come to me with a way to make Rafiq fall in love with me.” She sighed. “Actually, I don’t think I need help with that. I think he does love me, but he won’t admit it. Maybe he doesn’t know what love feels like and he can’t recognize it. A remote possibility but one I hold out hope for. I think it’s more likely that he’s simply not willing to trust me.”

  Kiley petted Fari. “I wish I knew how to let him know I’m not going to abandon him. Not ever.”

  “That requires a step of faith.”

  “I don’t think Rafiq is very interested in faith right now.” Kiley looked at Phoebe. “Thanks for the offer, but no.”

  “Don’t you want to think about it?” Phoebe asked.

  “I don’t need to. I love Rafiq and I love his baby. I’m not turning my back on either one. I have no idea how I’m going to make this all work out, but I’ll come up with a plan.”

  “I would be most interested to hear it,” Rafiq said as he stepped onto the balcony.

  His timely arrival and Phoebe’s look of guilt was all Kiley needed. She grabbed Fari, stood and faced her former fiancé.

  “You set me up,” she said, her voice shaking with fury. She wanted to scream and hit and punish him for doing this to her. “How dare you?”

  “I am Prince Rafiq of—”

  “No one here gives a crap,” she told him, glaring at him and wishing she was big enough to beat some sense into him. “It’s not enough that you tricked me into an engagement you didn’t mean, but now you’re using people I like and trust to set me up?”

  “I’m sorry,” Phoebe murmured.

  “I know,” Kiley said, aware that it would be a while before she could forgive the other woman. “That’s not the point.” She turned back to Rafiq. “What was the purpose? What were you looking for?”

  “The truth.”

  “What? Did you want to know if I was like your mother? You already have that answer. What other information do you need? Tell me and I’ll give it to you.” She squared her shoulders. “Which would have made you feel more like a man? Having me choose you or our child? I’m sorry, but you’re not going to get that question answered. I refuse to choose and you can’t make me.”

  She started toward him, then pushed past him and walked into the living room. Once there, she faced him again.

  “This was a big mistake, Rafiq, because now I think less of you. You hurt me and you have no right to do that.”

  “I need to know.”

  “What? What is missing? You can keep trying to trip me up, but it’s not going to work. I love you. There are no strings, no games, and only one expectation, which is that you’ll love me back. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

  Rafiq watched her walk away. Phoebe came up beside him.

  “That was a mistake,” she said. “I warned you. I didn’t want to do it and I feel horrible for being a part of your ridiculous plan. Don’t ask me to do something like that again.”

  He felt her anger, but it was nothing when compared with Kiley’s. He felt uncomfortable and didn’t know why. He had the right to do as he pleased.

  “I must be sure,” he said, as much to himself as to Phoebe.

  “Of what? That her love is real? Let me give you a word of advice. Love stretched too far can break. And then what will you have?” Phoebe shook her head. “Is that what this is all about? Are you trying to make her leave so you are once again right? Who wins then?”

  She left and he was alone. Below, on the beach, several children played in the surf. There were teenagers and couples, families and an old man reading the newspaper. Life continued and yet he felt trapped in silence. As if he was out of step with all of it.

  He wanted to believe. He wanted to trust. But how?

  He sank onto the chair Kiley had vacated and closed his eyes. Her sentences replayed in his mind. Her question asking which would make him feel more like a man—her choosing him or their child.

  He didn’t want to feel more like a man, he told himself. He wanted…

  “I wish Rafiq could get along with his father. He needs that connection.”

  Kiley’s words were as real as if she’d just spoken them again. She worried about him. She wanted him to be happy. She wanted him to have a family beyond just her.

  He knew why. He knew what her parents meant to her, and she wanted the same thing for him. She wanted him to have more. To be
more. He knew in his head that she was all he could want, but in his heart…

  Fari walked onto the deck. She trotted to the edge and looked over at two boys playing with a Frisbee. Her entire body quivered with excitement as she silently pleaded to be included.

  Rafiq stood and walked toward the puppy. She was enthusiastic and foolish. If she didn’t pay attention—

  It happened so quickly. The Frisbee sailed too close to the deck and Fari grabbed for it. She slipped easily through the railing and nearly caught the toy, just as gravity caught her. Rafiq lunged for her and barely snagged the scruff of her neck.

  Man and dog stared at each other. Fari twisted her head and licked his arm as she waited for him to pull her to safety. It never occurred to her he wouldn’t. He could drop her and she would fall nearly twenty feet. She could be injured or killed and it never crossed her tiny puppy mind.

  It was because she didn’t know better, he told himself, even as he acknowledged her instinctive faith in him. She had never fallen before and he had never rescued her, but it didn’t occur to her that he wouldn’t.

  He pulled her up to safety and set her on his lap.

  “Just as well,” he muttered to the dog. “Kiley adores you. She wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

  He thought about how she fussed over the dog, talking to her, playing with her, caring for her. How much more would she love their child? How much more would she care and fuss and worry?

  There were so many people in her life and yet she managed to love them all. How big was her heart? Big enough to hold him?

  He set Fari down and she scampered out of the room, yipping for Kiley as she went. He stood and faced the same doorway. A single step of faith. That was all she wanted from him.

  In his past were too many people who had let down a child desperately in need of affection. In his future…who could say? But he knew what was offered.

  He walked after Fari, following the sound of her barking. But instead of settling in one place, she circled through the rooms, her barks growing more frantic as she was unable to find Kiley.

  Rafiq searched, as well. He collected the little dog and did his best to reassure her, but she wasn’t comforted. When he couldn’t find Kiley anywhere, neither was he.

  She was gone along with Phoebe and his father. Had they taken her away? Was she even now being whisked to a location he would never find?

  “Kiley!” he yelled as he hurried toward the garage and jerked open the door. Her car was still there, but what did that symbolize? She’d never been overly impressed by what his money could buy.

  He raced to their bedroom and threw open the closet doors. All her clothes were still there. He stopped and breathed in the scent of her perfume. If her clothes were still here, then—

  The front door slammed. He ran toward the sound, then came to a stop when he saw her walking through the living room.

  “Where have you been?” he asked more harshly than he would have liked.

  “Watering the plants on the front porch. They were looking a little dry. Your parents have gone out to a movie. Your father said it’s been years since he’s been in a real movie theater. He’s looking forward to the popcorn.”

  She smiled as she spoke, but her eyes were still sad. He wanted to go to her and offer comfort, but he was the problem.

  Fari squirmed. He set her down and she raced over to Kiley who picked her up.

  “What have you been getting yourself into?” Kiley asked. “Something bad. I can tell.”

  “You didn’t leave.”

  Kiley looked at him. “What?”

  “I thought you’d left. I couldn’t find you and I thought…”

  She sighed heavily. “I wish I could crawl into your brain and do a little work there. I’m not leaving. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that. I’m angry. I think you’re a clueless jerk, but I’m not going anywhere.”

  She cuddled the dog as she looked at him. “I think you love me and that’s what keeps me hanging on. I think somewhere deep in the cloudy brain of yours is a seed of faith, and I’m going to figure out how to get to it.”

  “Are you going to marry me?”

  “Eventually. When you stop being stupid.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “You toss your insults around very freely.”

  She actually smiled. “So what are you going to do about it? Punish me? I’m the mother of your child and the woman you want to marry. You’re going to fall all over yourself to treat me with reverence and respect. You’re going to cater to my every wish, even the silly ones.” Her smile faded. “So I’m not scared of you and I’m not leaving. Somehow we’re going to become a family.”

  “But you won’t marry me.”

  She stared at him. “Earth to Rafiq. Could we get some new material here?”

  “So you’re willing to give up being my wife and a princess. You’ll have my child outside of marriage, return to Lucia-Serrat with me and live in the palace as the mother of my child, but you won’t be my wife.”

  She considered for a moment, then nodded. “That about sums it up.”

  She spoke the truth. He could feel it in her words and the steadiness of her gaze. Not once in all the time he’d known her had she ever lied. She’d never even stretched the truth. She acted with integrity and honored her commitments. She loved.

  He moved closer but didn’t touch her. “I learned to write very early,” he told her. “My tutors marveled at my ability to grasp the concept. What they didn’t know is that I had been waiting since I realized what writing was. I knew that if I could get a letter to my mother, if I could explain that I was alone, that I loved and needed her, she would come and be with me.”

  Kiley felt her heart crumble. As Rafiq spoke, she pictured the lonely little boy, abandoned by his parents, growing up in the company of the palace staff. Somehow this proud, strong man had survived, had thrived.

  “What happened?” she asked, already suspecting the answer.

  “It took her several months to write me back, and when she did, she told me to ask my father for a pony. She said he was plenty rich and would give it to me.”

  Kiley set Fari on the floor, then rushed toward Rafiq and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I wish I could go back in time and beat up both your parents. Or at the very least, find you and take care of you myself.”

  He kissed the top of her head, then touched her chin so that she looked at him. “I do not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I would rather have you as my wife today than as my babysitter twenty-five years ago.”

  “But the little boy needed so much love.”

  “So does the man.”

  She blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “This man needs your love with a desperation he cannot describe.” He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, then kissed her mouth. “I need you, Kiley. I need you to love me, to keep loving me. I need you to show me what is possible. What we can have together. What we can be.”

  “Rafiq.”

  Her chest tightened until it was difficult to breathe. Was this the first crack in the shell? A way to get through to him? Oh, please, let it be so.

  His dark eyes stared into hers. “All my life I’ve held myself back from the people closest to me. No one was allowed to be in a position to hurt me again.”

  “I would never do that,” she breathed.

  “I know.”

  “I love you.”

  He gazed at her for a long time, then kissed her again. “I know,” he said at last.

  Hope burst forth and made her want to laugh with happiness. “You believe me? You believe that love is possible?”

  “With you.”

  Was it wrong to want it all? “Could you love me?”

  In a movement that stunned her, in a moment she would treasure for the rest of her life, Kiley watched as Prince Rafiq of Lucia-Serrat fell to his knees. He grasped her around her thighs and buried his face in
her stomach. She felt the tension in his body, the battle that raged.

  How she ached for him, for them. If only he could—

  “I love you,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “Dear God, I love you, Kiley.”

  She dropped next to him and pulled him close. He held on to her as if he would never let her go.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered into his ear. “I think longer than I should have. Perhaps since I first met you, which, given my former engagement, is fairly tacky.”

  He raised his head and smiled at her. The powerful emotions in his eyes, the love there, was so bright it nearly blinded her.

  “Imagine if you hadn’t caught Eric cheating,” he said.

  “No. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to imagine any future without you.”

  “Nor do I.” He touched his chest. “I feel a release. The walls are crumbling.”

  Tears filled her eyes, but for the first time in days, they were happy ones. She clung to him and rested her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her.

  “Just hold me,” she whispered. “I never want to let go.”

  “Eventually you will have to. Fari will need to be walked and fed. We will get hungry ourselves.”

  She straightened and shoved him back. “We’re having a moment here. It’s not every day the future Crown Prince of Lucia-Serrat tells me he loves me.”

  He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. “Yes, it is,” he murmured. “So many times a day, you will grow tired of hearing it.”

  She was so happy, she could have floated. “That’s not going to happen.” She grinned. “So I guess the wedding’s back on.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t marry me,” he told her. “Wait until I have proved myself.”

  “What?” she repeated. “Are you crazy?”

  “A little. I want you to be sure. I want you to know that I mean what I say. That this isn’t a trick to get you to the altar.”

  She stood up and put her hands on her hips. “There’s going to be a wedding when we planned.”

  “No, Kiley. My way is better.”

  She raised her eyes to the heavens. “I’m going to have to kill him. I see that now and I apologize in advance. I’ll probably go to prison but it will be worth it.”