“Are you well?” he went on.
Violet opened her mouth but closed it again when she realized she had absolutely no idea what she should say. This was all too much, too soon. A mere twenty-eight hours ago, she’d been the same woman she’d always been, one with a fond memory of their rendezvous to keep her warm on cold winter nights. There hadn’t been any thought of babies and there hadn’t been any thought of marriages.
She put her head between her knees. She didn’t want to throw up if he was listening.
“Violet,” he said in a whisper that was almost plaintive. “I did not mean...it was just...open this door, please.”
“I’m—just a minute,” she said, looking around. She didn’t even have a robe hanging on the back of the door. Unless she wanted to wrap herself in the shower curtain, she was out of luck. She would feel much better if she could at least cover herself. “Could you go downstairs and get me a Sprite?”
“Ah...yes? Yes,” he said again, sounding more sure of himself, and she had to wonder if anyone had ever asked him to fetch anything before. “I can do that for you.”
“Thanks.”
She exhaled when she heard the familiar creak of the floorboards as he left. Slowly, she opened her door and peeked into her room. Her clothing was scattered all over the place, but aside from that, there was no sign Rafe had been here. That’s right. She’d been so turned on, she hadn’t even gotten him undressed.
Okay, first things first—she got dressed. She slid her nightgown on and then pulled her light cotton robe over it. Second, she decided to go downstairs. For one thing, the odds of Rafe locating a soda on his first attempt were pretty slim. But more important, it just felt as if it’d be easier to tell him they weren’t getting married anytime in the immediate future if they weren’t in a bedroom that still smelled of sex.
She padded downstairs to find Rafe staring into the fridge, his eyebrows locked in a confused expression. “Ah,” he said in relief when she walked in. “I can’t find the Sprite.”
“Here,” she said, reaching around his body—of course he didn’t get out of the way—and plucking the can from behind the eggs.
“Of course,” he chuckled. “How did I not see that?”
“I have no idea,” she said, trying to be calm.
He shut the fridge door and turned to face her. “Are you well?” he asked, resting his hand on her hip and gently drawing her toward him. His shirt was untucked but still half buttoned.
“Better,” she said.
He gave her a hesitant smile, then lifted her free hand up and placed it on his heart. “Your pleasure is my pleasure,” he said, pressing her fingers to his chest. “And your pain is my pain. I would never wish to upset you. And if I have done so, I regret that.”
“Okay,” she said, clutching the cold soda can as hard as she could because the sensation was keeping her grounded in the here and now, preventing her from being swept away by his voice and words again. “Let’s get this straight, then, so there’s no confusion. It’s not really a good idea to tell a pregnant woman that she will marry you, okay?”
His eyes crinkled. “That is not done here, I take it?” Then he lifted his hand and kissed her palm again.
She smiled in spite of herself. So he’d freaked her out. But he was also capable of calming her down in a way she couldn’t help but be grateful for. “Not really, no.”
“Then I shall do better. But there is something between us that makes me lose my head.” His eyes twinkled. “Among other things.”
She could feel her concerns melting away, but she didn’t want him to sweep her off her feet—again—unless things were crystal clear between them. “I don’t want to get married, Rafe. I mean, I don’t want to say I’ll never marry you because, truthfully? You’re right. There is something here. But I’m still trying to wrap my head around being pregnant. So can we just agree that we won’t talk of marriage for a while?”
He pivoted and leaned back against the fridge, pulling her with him. “I understand, I really do. But you must also understand that it would bring dishonor upon my family and myself if my child were born out of wedlock.”
She shouldn’t be surprised by this. And honestly, she wasn’t. That didn’t mean it was what she wanted to hear seconds after one of the best orgasms of her life. She sagged against his chest, the soda can still in her hands. “Do we—will we have to get married? Is that what happens in your country?”
He paused. “In my family...we do not have a choice. We are married for power. Love...”
She closed her eyes. Love. They had talked about a lot of things, but love wasn’t one of them.
Rafe cleared his throat. He began to rub his hands up and down her back. “It is something to consider, yes. But I have made you this promise, Violet, and I will continue to make it. I will not force you to do something you do not wish to do.”
“Okay.” But honestly, did she know him well enough to believe he’d keep that promise? She had no reason not to trust him. Aside from the fact that he’d used a different name when they met, everything he’d done had been up front. “Will you stay in Royal?”
“I will be here for the foreseeable future,” he replied. “But I do not think I could leave Al Qunfudhah permanently. It is my home.”
She nodded. “I understand.”
He leaned her back and stared down into her eyes. “But I would like to suggest that we spend the time getting to know each other. Perhaps,” he said gently, pressing his lips to the top of her head for a quick kiss, “it would not be such a bad thing, you and I.”
“Perhaps not,” she tentatively agreed.
“This is not something I can decide for you,” he went on. She wanted to burrow deeper into his chest and feel his honeyed voice surround her. “You must decide that for yourself,” he went on. “All I can do is show you that I will be good for you and that I will be a good father to our child.”
She leaned back to look at him. “Do you always know the right thing to say?”
That made him laugh. “Based on what happened earlier, I would say the answer is no.” He brushed her hair out of her face. “May I stay the night with you?”
She tried to look stern, but didn’t think she was successful. “You’re not going to propose marriage, are you?”
“Ah, I have many other things I would rather be doing with you,” he replied, lowering his mouth to hers.
She sighed into the kiss. Everyone was always telling her what she should do, what was best. When was the last time someone had told her to make the decision?
So Rafe thought they should be married. And given the way he was devouring her, maybe they could be good together. Better than they already were.
She wasn’t going to figure it out if she didn’t spend some time with him, right? “Stay,” she whispered against his skin.
“And tomorrow? I want to know more about you, Violet. I want to know what you do and how you live. I only have a few old stories your brother told me many years ago.”
“Mac’s out of town for a couple of days. If you wanted, you could ride with me tomorrow.” She leaned back and looked at him. “You can ride, can’t you?”
That smile—cool and confident, almost cocky. “I can. My family maintains a reputable stable of Arabians, as well as other horses. And I would love to ride with you. But I have some business to attend to in the morning,” he said with a rueful smile. “You see, I have made a beautiful woman a promise that I would look into something for her and I would hate to disappoint her.”
“Oh.” All that languid heat flowed through her again and she thought of how good this could be. “I could meet you here after lunch? We’re working calves in the morning, so all we’ll have to do in the afternoon is herd the cattle to different pasture.”
Something in his smile softened as he touc
hed his fingertips to her cheek. “Mac told me you were a brilliant manager. I would love to see you in your elements, as they say.”
She giggled. “In my element,” she corrected and he laughed with her.
Oh, yeah, they could be good together. Usually, men said they wanted to “take her away from all this” or some such stupid claptrap, as if she only worked cattle because she had to. As if all she really wanted was to stay home, barefoot and pregnant and baking cakes. As if they could not believe that she, Violet McCallum, might actually be managing this ranch because she wanted to.
And now? Here she was with Rafe, a man who literally could take her away from all of this—away to some distant desert, as the wife of a sheikh—and what did he want? To ride with her. To see her work.
To keep his promise to her.
“Come,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. “The morning is still a long way off.”
Six
Rafe, come on in.
Rafe smiled as he pulled the note off the front door and put it in his pocket. Then he walked into Mac McCallum’s house as if he owned it.
Soon, he just might.
He had procured the services of a local Realtor, who knew Lulu Clilmer, owner of the Wild Aces. The Realtor had informed Rafe that the Wild Aces, with its 750 acres of prime grazing land, was worth approximately one million dollars but wasn’t for sale at this moment in time. She even knew about Mac’s leasing arrangements to access the natural springs on the Aces’ land.
Rafe had instructed the woman with bouffant blond hair and too-white teeth to offer Mrs. Clilmer two million dollars cash, payable within three days.
Rafe wasn’t sure the Realtor trusted him completely. It would have been better to have a local like Nolan make the offer for Samson Oil instead of Rafe but he was not going to be deterred. And the Realtor was properly motivated by the prospect of an unexpected commission. The only snag was that she wouldn’t be able to forward the offer to the owner until tomorrow because she had another closing today.
Which was fine. That gave Rafe another day or so to woo Violet. He made sure he had the box in his pocket—his other errand this morning had been to stop by a local jeweler’s. Wedding Violet was almost as important as obtaining the Wild Aces.
In truth, he would prefer to have Violet’s promise to wed him secured before he moved on the Wild Aces. His scheme had already undergone enough revisions recently. He did not want to further endanger it.
He stopped inside the front door and listened. Was she upstairs? That was where he had left her early this morning with a kiss and a promise to see her at noon.
Ah, humming—it was coming from the kitchen. And he smelled the scent of fried chicken.
Rafe silently padded down the hall. And there was Violet, assembling their meal. Something in his chest loosened at the sight of her. Her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail. Well-worn blue jeans hugged her hips. She was in her stocking feet and looked smaller, more delicate, than she did when she was in her boots. There was a peace around her that was almost infectious. Most any idiot could see that she was quite happy here.
A series of inexplicable urges hit him. He wanted to be the one that made her that happy. He wanted to walk up behind her and wrap his arms around her waist and kiss her neck and hold her. He wanted...he wanted things he could not put into words, but he could feel, pulling him toward her.
Last night, he had said things that he did not necessarily believe would come to pass. After he exacted his revenge, he had no plans to return to Royal, much less live here. He had told Violet he was considering those options without really meaning it. It had not been a lie—he could consider all his options without choosing to stay.
But this? Coming home at lunch to find her in the kitchen, preparing food? There was something so profoundly normal about it—normal by American standards, at least—that it made him think back to when he was still friends with her brother.
Rafe’s childhood had not been one filled with carefree days and playmates. He’d been put through a rigorous education so that he would live up to the iron-fisted expectations of Hassad bin Saleed. And when he failed to meet those expectations, punishment was...harsh. Rafe had quickly learned that failure was not an option, not if he wanted to survive childhood. And although he was unable to save Fareed from any such suffering, Rafe did his best to shield his younger siblings from his father’s wrath.
So when Rafe was allowed to venture out of Al Qunfudhah to America to attend Harvard, the freedom had been both sweet and somehow terrifying. It was only when Mac had befriended him that Rafe had started to understand this new world and its expectations.
And those stories... Mac had spoken so often of this house, of the people in it. How his mother still cooked dinner for them all and at least four nights a week, they were expected to sit down as a family and talk. That was such a foreign concept to Rafe. He had only dined with his father during state dinners, when he was expected to follow protocol and remain silent. To imagine a place where the mother and father openly expressed love not only for each other but also their children? Where they did things as a family?
Rafe had so desperately wanted to believe that such a world existed, that such a family existed. And he might have had a better chance to achieve that kind of harmony in his own family if he had not asked Mac to keep an eye on Nasira when she came to visit at Harvard.
In truth, Rafe had thought often of Mac’s tales of his home in Royal. But he had not allowed himself to feel this unwanted nostalgia for a dream he had once nurtured and lost.
Not until now. Not until Violet.
Perhaps, if Mac had not betrayed him, this would have been Rafe’s destiny. Before the incident with Nasira, they had even made plans for Rafe to make the journey to Royal, Texas, on holiday from university. Rafe would stay with Mac and meet all the people he had heard so many warm stories about—including Violet.
She would have still been in her teens. Would he have felt the beginnings of an attraction for her then? Or would she have just been Mac’s irritating little sister?
He would never know. And that thought ate at him.
He slipped up behind her, slid his arms around her waist and leaned down to press his lips to the side of her neck.
“Oh!” She startled in his arms and twisted to look at him. “Rafe! I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I did not mean to frighten you,” he said, pressing another kiss against her lips. “The meal smells delicious.”
She grinned and, turning back to her preparations, leaned against him. His hands slid down and cradled her belly. “I hope fried chicken is okay,” she said, lifting the chicken out and setting it on a plate to cool. On the counter were a pan of biscuits and a fresh salad.
“It will be wonderful. Here.” He pulled the jeweler’s box out of his pocket and opened it in front of her. “I brought you something.”
She gasped as she saw the pendant. “Rafe—I didn’t—I mean—wow.”
“This is, as I understand, an American tradition. If I have calculated correctly, our child will be born in August,” he said, pointing to the light green peridot stone at the center of the pendant. “And you were born in September, correct? So the sapphire is for you.”
“And the yellow?”
“Citrine for November, when I was born. It is all set in eighteen-carat white gold.”
Violet touched the pendant with a tentative finger. The three stones were strung together with the sapphire first, the peridot in the middle and the citrine on the end. “It’s beautiful,” she exhaled. “But you really shouldn’t have.”
“That is nonsense,” he said, removing the necklace and opening the clasp. He draped it around her neck and fastened it. “You are carrying my child, a gift I could never hope to match. This is but a small token. There.” He adjusted the chai
n so the pendant lay against her collarbone. “It suits your beauty,” he said seriously.
“Rafe,” she said and he heard hesitation in her voice. “Is this—I mean, is this really happening? Do you honestly think we can make this work? Or make something work? I mean...well, I don’t know what I mean. It’s all happening so fast and I just don’t want...” Her voice trailed off.
“I take it this was not in your plans?”
“No,” she said, giving him a weak smile over her shoulder while she touched the necklace.
“Nor was any of this in my plans. But I think perhaps...” He sighed and let his hands rest against the gentle curve of her stomach again. Within grew his child. No, this was not in his plans at all. “Perhaps this was what was supposed to happen.”
“Really?” She didn’t bother to conceal her doubt. “You think destiny’s been waiting for us to have a one-night stand, huh?”
He grinned against her neck. “Do you know that, at one point, your brother and I had made plans for me to accompany him home on break? We would have met then.”
She twisted in his arms, her brow wrinkled. “I would have been, what—fifteen? Sixteen?”
“And I only twenty. Do not mistake me. I would not have made any untoward attempts on you then. I can be very patient. Of that you have no idea. I can wait years for something I want.”
Odd, that. He had waited years for revenge on Mac. But what if, instead, he had merely been biding his time for this moment with Violet?
But then, what if he had come home with Mac and Violet had caught his eye twelve years ago? His father would have no sooner allowed a young Rafe to give his heart to a common American girl than he would have allowed Rafe to degrade the bin Saleed name by donning shiny pants and joining a singing group. And if Hassad bin Saleed had discovered that Rafe harbored tender feelings for Violet then, he would have had Rafe married off to the daughter of a political ally within the month and Rafe would never have had the chance to follow his own heart.
But Mac’s betrayal had come first.
A Surprise for the Sheikh Page 7
