“Oh, God.” She blinked, but the tears refused to go away.
“For years, until he died, I was a prisoner in my own home.” His voice wavered and he closed his eyes, but only for a moment. When he opened them again, he looked almost unmoved by what had happened. But she could see now that it was a lie. He wasn’t incapable of emotions. He was just hiding the pain. “Fareed is the only reason I am still alive. He snuck me food and medicines and did his best to convince our father to free me—or at least treat me better.”
Violet’s heart about broke. Oh, Rafe.
“It does not excuse my behavior,” he said sternly. “But during those years, there was but one thought that sustained me. I had lost everything. My freedom, my life, my friend. And I believed that it was because of Mac that everything I loved had been taken from me.”
She didn’t know what to say. So instead, she hung her arms around his neck and held him to her, as if that could take the pain away.
Rafe went on, “I told myself that I had to avenge the family name, I had to make us even for Nasira’s honor. That was what my father beat into me. But I see now that it was never that. I suffered greatly. And I wanted to make Mac feel the same hopelessness I had felt.”
Violet’s throat closed up and she had to choke down a sob. So that was it. His father hadn’t delivered a metaphorical beating—hell, it wasn’t even a single beating. The horrible man had treated Rafe like a whipping boy.
She couldn’t stop the tears that traced down her cheeks. All those times when a shadow had crossed his face—was he remembering what his father said or did to him?
This wasn’t fair. He was making her feel things for him and she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to feel anything but hate because he had been prepared to take everything she loved away from her. She absolutely did not want to feel this urge to pull him into her arms and hold him tight and tell him that as long as she lived, no one would ever do that to him again. A silly girl’s silly promise—Rafe was a man now, and more than capable of taking care of himself. But, as silly as it was, she wanted to say it to him. She wanted to tell him that she would never let anyone treat their child like that either.
She wanted to keep him safe. After all these years of being guarded and protected, this sudden urge to defend Rafe was almost overwhelming.
Stupid pregnancy hormones. She had no idea if she was mad or sad or upset or so, so happy because Rafe really did love her and he had come back to apologize. He wasn’t going to destroy her.
He wasn’t going to destroy the two of them.
“All those years ago, Mac had entranced me with stories of your happy family and your beautiful ranch and your town. And for years, I waited for a way to destroy those things. But when I was with you, it all came back to me. And I felt like... I feel like I had finally come home again.”
“Oh, Rafe,” she gasped. “Why couldn’t you see it sooner? I would have been your family. We all would have been. This could have been your home—with me.” She lifted his hand and put it against her stomach. “With us.”
That look of sorrow passed over his face again, then he cupped her cheeks in his hands and touched his forehead to hers. “I understand. My treatment of you has been unforgivable and I will regret until my dying day that I hurt you so. The Wild Aces is yours, but I know that it can never truly make up for my actions. I will leave tomorrow and I will not trouble you again.”
She froze, a feeling of horror building in her chest. “Wait—what?”
Rafe gave her a sad smile. “I wish to stay—I wish to be with you. You are my only happiness. But to do so would bring dishonor upon my family name. But more than that, it would dishonor you and your family. I cannot do that, not anymore. I cannot destroy what I love.”
“I swear to God, if you ever talk about doing something stupid out of honor again, I’m going to shoot you myself.”
At this announcement, Rafe’s eyebrows jumped up so high they almost cleared his forehead. “What?”
“You keep talking like it’s too late—well, I’ve got news for you, buster. Just because you hold a grudge for over a damned decade doesn’t mean I have to.”
“But—my actions—I have hurt you.”
“You’re damn right you have.” She glared at him, trying to put her thoughts into something that resembled order. “But you’ve also faced down my brother to apologize. You survived a horrific childhood and yet here you are, trying so hard to do the right thing that you’re about to go and screw it up again.” She threw her hands up, almost hitting him in the chin. “God! Men!”
Rafe was staring at her, a puzzled look on his face. “What are you saying?”
“You begged my forgiveness. That’s what you said, right?” He nodded. “Well, I forgive you. I forgive you, Rafe.”
The impact of these words hit Rafe as hard as if she’d actually shot him. He fell back against the couch, clutching at his chest. His eyes went wide and he turned a scarily pale color.
Violet panicked. “Rafe? Are you okay?”
“You—you forgive me?” He said it in such a way that it was clear that the thought had never crossed his mind. Forgiveness hadn’t been an option. “I nearly ruined your life!”
“But you didn’t,” she reminded him. This was right, she decided. She could hold this misguided attempt to rule the world against him—but that would be punishing the son for the sins of the father. And Rafe was more than that.
He was the father of her child. And she would not let those sins ruin them all. “I forgive you, Rafe. I hope you can forgive yourself.”
He was physically shaking. She really had no choice but to wrap her arms around him and hold him tight—tighter than she’d ever held anyone before.
“I do not deserve you, Violet. I am not worthy of your love.”
“Is that what he told you—that bastard of a father of yours? Because it was a lie, Rafe. You are the man I want—when you’re not trying to be what he wanted you to be.”
Rafe looked at her with so much longing and pain in his eyes that she had trouble breathing. “Violet...”
“Found it,” Mac said, walking into the room. He took one look at the two of them curled up on the couch together and groaned. “Am I going to have to shoot you or not?”
“In my country,” Rafe said without flinching at all, “when a man wishes to marry a woman, he would ask permission of her father or her oldest male relative.”
Mac’s mouth opened, but Rafe didn’t let him get a word in. “However,” he said, his gaze never leaving Violet’s face, “we are not in my country, are we?”
Violet’s heart—the same heart that had very nearly stopped beating only a few minutes ago—began to pound. “No,” she said, quietly. “We aren’t.”
“Lord,” Mac scoffed. “I will shoot you if you do anything stupid to deserve it ever again.”
Rafe laughed. “I have a feeling you won’t have the chance.”
“You’re nuts,” Violet said. “Both of you. Now, Mac—if you don’t mind, I think Rafe was trying to ask me something?”
“I don’t want to know,” he muttered, turning on his heel and stalking out of the room. The last thing Violet caught before the front door slammed was, “...little sister—gross!”
She laughed and Rafe laughed with her. “I’m sorry my brother almost killed you.”
“I deserved it. I have no right to ask this of you and you have no obligation to say yes—but Violet McCallum, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She wasn’t sure she remembered how to breathe, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Rafe was here and there were no more lies between them. “Are you sure we can make this work? You’ve got to admit that nothing about this has been a normal relationship.”
“You have shown me there is another way.” Rafe rested his
hand on her belly. “I want nothing more than to spend my days riding by your side and my nights in your bed. I want to hear our child’s heartbeat and be there when you bring him or her into this world. I want to do all the things my parents did not do, all the things Mac spoke of that gave me hope. Dinners and birthday parties and movies with popcorn and love. I want your love, Violet. I do not deserve it but—”
He didn’t get to say anything else because Violet had pulled him down to her and covered his mouth with hers.
“Do you love me?” she asked, pulling away before she lost what little control she still had. “Really?”
“I have never loved anyone before, but I love you. You grace my thoughts during the day and haunt my dreams at night, my beautiful, mysterious Violet. I love you more than I can hold inside me. I think I always have,” he whispered against her forehead.
“It was always supposed to be this way,” she said, remembering his words. She leaned into his touch, curling her hands into the fine cloth of his shirt and holding him to her.
“I was always supposed to be yours,” he agreed. “I just did not realize it until it was too late.”
“It’s not too late,” she told him, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him. “But no more shocks, okay?”
“No more shocks. You know the worst of me. All I can hope to do is show you the best of me. Your pleasure is my pleasure,” he said into her hair. “And I swear I will spend the rest of our lives giving you nothing but pleasure.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” she cautioned him. “Because your pleasure is my pleasure, too.”
He cupped her face in his palm and stared into her eyes. “I love you, Violet McCallum. Marry me. Be my family. Because I want there to be an us.”
Us. He might have torn them apart, but he was going to put them back together. “I love you, too. Stay with me, Rafe. Let me protect you.”
“Only so long as I can protect you. This is your last chance, Violet. If you say no, I will leave, peacefully and quietly. I will support our child, but I will not interfere with your life again.”
For some reason, she thought of their conversation in the elevator their first night together. He’d given her a chance to say no then, too—but she hadn’t. “And if I say yes?”
His grin grew wicked. “If you say yes, you will be mine, you understand? And I will be yours. For always and forever.”
“Then I better say yes. I am yours, Rafiq bin Saleed.”
He touched his forehead to hers. “I am yours, Violet McCallum.”
And that was all either of them said for quite some time.
* * * * *
Don’t miss a single installment of TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB: LIES AND LULLABIES
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COURTING THE COWBOY BOSS
by USA TODAY bestselling author Janice Maynard
LONE STAR HOLIDAY PROPOSAL
by USA TODAY bestselling author Yvonne Lindsay
NANNY MAKES THREE
by Cat Schield
THE DOCTOR’S BABY DARE
by USA TODAY bestselling author Michelle Celmer
THE SEAL’S SECRET HEIRS
by Kat Cantrell
A SURPRISE FOR THE SHEIKH
by Sarah M. Anderson
IN PURSUIT OF HIS WIFE
by Kristi Gold
A BRIDE FOR THE BOSS
by USA TODAY bestselling author Maureen Child
* * *
Read on for an exclusive sneak preview of ONE NIGHT CHARMER from USA TODAY bestselling author Maisey Yates and HQN Books!
* * *
If you’re on Twitter, tell us what you think of Harlequin Desire! #harlequindesire
Copper Ridge, Oregon’s favorite bachelor is about to meet his match!
If the devil wore flannel, he’d look like Ace Thompson. He’s gruff. Opinionated. Infernally hot. The last person Sierra West wants to ask for a bartending job—not that she has a choice. Ever since discovering that her “perfect” family is built on a lie, Sierra has been determined to make it on her own. Resisting her new boss should be easy when they’re always bickering. Until one night, the squabbling stops...and something far more dangerous takes over.
Ace has a personal policy against messing around with staff—or with spoiled rich girls. But there’s a steel backbone beneath Sierra’s silver-spoon upbringing. She’s tougher than he thought, and so much more tempting. Enough to make him want to break all his rules, even if it means risking his heart...
Read on for this special extended excerpt from ONE NIGHT CHARMER by USA TODAY bestselling author Maisey Yates.
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One Night Charmer
by Maisey Yates
CHAPTER ONE
THERE WERE TWO people in Copper Ridge, Oregon, who—between them—knew nearly every secret of every person in town. The first was Pastor John Thompson, who heard confessions of sin and listened to people pour out their hearts when they were going through trials and tribulations.
The second was Ace Thompson, owner of the most popular bar in town, son of the pastor and probably the least likely to attend church on Sunday or any other day.
There was no question that his father knew a lot of secrets, though Ace was pretty certain he himself got the more honest version. His father spent time standing behind the pulpit; Ace stood behind a bar. And there he learned the deepest and darkest situations happening in the lives of other townspeople while never revealing any of his own. He supposed, pastor or bartender, that was kind of the perk.
They poured it all out for you, and you got to keep your secrets bottled up inside.
That was how Ace liked it. Every night of the week, he had the best seat in the house for whatever show Copper Ridge wanted to put on. And he didn’t even have to pay for it.
And with his newest acquisition, the show was about to get a whole lot better.
“Really?” Jack Monaghan sat down at the bar, beer in hand, his arm around his new fiancée, Kate Garrett. “A mechanical bull?”
“That’s right, Monaghan. This is a classy establishment, after all.”
“Serious
ly,” Connor Garrett said, taking the seat next to Jack, followed by his wife, Liss. “Where did you get that thing?”
“I traded it. Guy down in Tolowa owed me some money and he didn’t have it. So he said I could come by and look at his stash of trash. Lo and behold, I discovered Ferdinand over there.”
“Congratulations,” Kate said. “I didn’t think anything could make this place more of a dive. I was wrong.”
“You’re a peach, Kate,” Ace said.
The woman smiled broadly and wrapped her arm around Jack’s, leaning in and resting her cheek on his shoulder.
“Can we get a round?” Connor asked.
Ace continued to listen to their conversation as he served up their usual brew, enjoying the happy tenor of the conversation, since the downers would probably be around later to dish out woe while he served up harder liquor. The Garretts were good people, he mused. Always had been. Both before he’d left Copper Ridge, and since he’d come back.
His focus was momentarily pulled away when the pretty blonde who’d been hanging out in the dining room all evening drinking with friends approached the aforementioned Ferdinand.
He hadn’t had too many people ride the bull yet, and he had to admit, he was finding it a pretty damn enjoyable novelty.
The woman tossed her head, her tan cowboy hat staying in place while her blond curls went wild around her shoulders. She wrapped her hands around the harness on top of the mechanical creature and hoisted herself up. Her movements were unsteady, and he had a feeling, based on the amount of time the group had been here, and how often the men in the group had come and gone from the bar, that she was more than a little bit tipsy.
Best seat in the house. He always had the best seat in the house.
She glanced up as she situated herself and he got a good look at her face. There was a determined glint in her eyes, her brows locked together, her lips pursed into a tight circle. She wasn’t just tipsy, she was pissed. Looking down at the bull like it was her own personal Everest and she was determined to conquer it along with her rage. He wondered what a bedazzled little thing like her had to be angry about. A broken nail, maybe. A pair of shoes that she really wanted that was unavailable in her size.
A Surprise for the Sheikh Page 16
