by Tina Leonard
“She would not want you to leave me, I know that.”
Serena nodded. “I know. She did not want Ibrahim assassinated. She did not want her sons in jeopardy. She did not want to be incarcerated in a sanitarium. But all these things came to her, and she dealt with them. As I will deal with this dilemma, as well.” Searching his face for understanding, she said, “Kadar, I am asking you to take me home. You said, if I ever asked you, you would take me back immediately. Now, I am asking for that very thing.”
Chapter Sixteen
Cade felt as though a boulder had just been heaved against his chest. He was caught between his promise to Serena, and the pain of giving her up. Once he took her back to Balahar, he knew he would never see her again.
“No,” he said stubbornly. “That isn’t the answer, unless I go with you. But I’m not dropping you off like a container of milk, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Then I will fly on a commercial plane.” Her chin rose. “And I will be gone before you or the press ever knows I have left The Desert Rose.”
“Now, look here, Princess,” Cade began, but Serena cut him off.
“No, you look here. Our marriage was supposed to bring stability to my country, to satisfy the people that the rule of my father is ongoing and secure. This has not happened. This was an arrangement, Kadar, and sometimes arrangements do not work out.”
“It was working fine.”
“Not really, because you and I never became compatible.”
He stared at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She turned her back. “You know very well.”
“Wait a minute, Princess. I can only speak for myself, but I think we’re very compatible. We’ve been hamstrung by this royalty problem since the word go, however, and—”
“We’ll be hamstrung by it forever, Kadar. Don’t you see that? I am what I am, and you are what you are. You have spent many years being shielded from the heat of being a prince. But you can no longer ignore it. You must make decisions that are unerring and unselfish.”
He was a man. He liked simplified details. What was he supposed to do? Allow this woman to fly out of his life without a protest?
“It would be best if we parted amicably without causing further distress between us,” Serena said, her voice gentle, her back still turned. “I do not wish to remember you awkwardly.”
His brows shot up into his hair. “You are not going to have to remember me at all, because you are going to be living under my roof, as my wife, until the day we draw our last breaths.”
“I am not your wife now, Prince Kadar, and there isn’t anything you could say to make me change that fact. My people are unhappy with our alliance. I will not do anything further to upset them.”
He had forgotten that one tiny detail. They were not legally married, and he’d been determined that if Serena wanted to leave him in the two weeks her father had granted them, she would return to her father in the condition he had promised.
Untouched.
“I’m caught in my own good intentions,” he said with dawning realization. “We wouldn’t even be discussing the bizarre idea of you returning if I’d made love to you day and night like I wanted to.”
Now she turned around to face him. “I do not believe you on that score, Prince Kadar. You didn’t get within two feet of me without me scheming to get there.”
“Well, believe this—certain parts of my anatomy felt like they were bursting because I wanted you so badly. But what could I do? I made a promise.”
“As I have made a promise to the people my father rules. He is a king, Kadar. Everything we do is supposed to benefit the people. While I do thank you for your integrity and honor in keeping me intact—which will be verified by a palace physician—I am going home whether you take me or not.”
Cade’s brain couldn’t think any faster of how to get them out of the mudslide sucking them down. “I’m not dumping you off in Balahar,” he repeated. “I’ll go to the palace with you.”
“That is very heroic, but you will be most likely assassinated, either outside the palace by the people or inside by Layla’s spies. Not a course of action your mother would sanction.”
“I’ll take bodyguards, and I won’t eat the food.” He shrugged. “You’re not going without me.”
“Once upon a time I thought you would be a good ruler because you possess determination,” Serena stated, her eyes flashing. “But now I see that your stubbornness would be the downfall of you, and maybe anyone under your rule! You cannot always write your own destiny, Kadar. It’s bad for the throne when people make decisions that benefit only themselves and hurt other people in the process!”
He threw himself on a sofa and lifted his boots up onto the table, careless of the scarring the heels might cause. Staring at her, he said, “Okay, Princess, tell me exactly what it is that you want me to do. Draw me a map and make it real clear, because I’m more cowboy than prince and I make simple decisions because I rule livestock and not people.”
“Now you are angry. You feel I have insulted you.” Serena sat down across from him, but she might as well have been in another room as far as Cade was concerned. The gulf between them was widening further all the time.
His gaze was direct. “Let’s not worry about my feelings. Let’s concern ourselves with what we have to do.”
“I have to return home,” Serena said slowly. “By myself.”
“Our marriage will be, well, hell, it doesn’t even have to be annulled, because it was a sham to start with.”
“Correct.”
“You’re off the hook totally, aren’t you, Princess?” The pain that shot through Cade’s heart was agonizing. “Excuse me, I injected emotions into the conversation,” he said sarcastically. “Let me refocus the plans. When would you like to return?”
“Tomorrow? Would that be convenient?” she asked, her delicate face alight with hope that would be etched upon his soul forever. She wanted to go home. He had told her he would take her if she ever decided to go.
“Yes. I can do that,” he said, getting up from the sofa. His boots scraped scratches into the table wood as he stood, but Cade didn’t notice. The pain in his chest took precedence as he bowed stiffly to his wife. “There are three rooms in this guest house. You may sleep in one, and I will take another. Trust me, Princess, you need have no fear that I will inconvenience you. But you are not sleeping in this guest house without protection—paparazzi and Layla and everyone else be damned. We leave in the morning.”
SERENA’S HEART fell apart when her husband stalked out of the room. No, Kadar is not my husband, she reminded herself. That’s why you have made the decision to leave him.
Maybe it seemed cruel to have spoken to him the way she had, but she could see no way out of the problem that encircled them. If he went to Balahar, there was a very real chance he would be killed, and she would not do that to Rose even if Cade thought he could survive anything Layla could throw at him. His father had not—Serena shivered. No. History would not repeat itself on her behalf.
She flipped to CNN, wincing at the pictures of her carrying buckets. Zoom lenses were a curse to anyone who wanted to live a life without intrusion! Glancing at her hands, she saw not the hands of a pampered princess, but one who saddled her own horse, picked horse hooves clean. A burn on the other palm from picking up a too-hot pot. Cade had kissed her hand, she remembered, and she’d insisted that made her feel better than the ice he’d applied right after.
The reminiscent smile slid from her face. Her father had to be completely dismayed by these events. She felt that she had shamed him in some way.
She wasn’t the kind of woman who thought a good cry made things better, but she didn’t notice the single tear that slipped down her cheek as she went into her bedroom alone.
WITH ABDUL-RAHIM at her side, Layla stared at the photograph her spy, Shadi, had spirited from the palace. After all these years, to see Rose smiling and happy with her grown boys
—it was more than Layla could bear. Hatred licked inside her, lighting a flaming fire that had lived on memories for years.
Ibrahim should have been hers. Their families had betrothed them. But Rose Coleman had come along and stolen the prince she should have had, while Layla had to settle for a very lesser prince.
And now Rose was ever closer to her goal. Because no one would miss the resemblance between Sharif and the brothers in the photograph.
“They are very like,” Abdul-Rahim murmured.
“Yes.” King Zak would remember who had brought that infant for him and his wife to raise. Layla’s only hope of being spared was if Azzam should rise to his feet and demand a return of the rule that he had slowly abdicated over the years.
Layla’s shoulders slumped. He would not do that for her. He would not even do it for himself. Like a besotted drunkard being plied with his favorite wine, King Zak had been very wise to gift the harem with beautiful nubile young women who kept Azzam very satisfied.
Layla threw a perfume bottle across the room, shattering it on the marble floor. She might as well take Cleopatra’s out and place an asp to her bosom.
But then Rose wins forever, the voice whispered, that shepherd of her inner dreams. Must you live and die unloved?
Slowly Layla indicated that Shadi should leave the room. He gestured for the photograph, uneasy that he had been gone from Balahar’s palace too long.
“You have no need of the photograph, Queen,” Abdul-Rahim said.
Ignoring her adviser, she shook her head in the negative. The servant’s eyes widened with apprehension. Before their shocked gazes, she tore the picture in four parts and set them in a lit brazier to turn to bright bits of flame.
“King Zak must have misplaced the photograph,” she assured the servant. “No one would possibly imagine that I had any interest in it at all. You are safe.”
The servant nodded, bowing as he left the room.
Layla knew why Rose had sent the picture to the king. She had known he would see the resemblance, had known she was putting the knife edge to Layla’s throat.
It would not matter. Rose, she vowed, would never see the throne of Balahar.
“WE CAME TO SAY GOODBYE,” Rose told Serena as a group filed into the guest house. Looking somber, Mac and Jessica, Randy and Vi, entered behind Rose.
“I brought you your suitcase,” Jessica offered. “Maybe you’ll have the chance to wear all the stuff we bought you one day. Especially the lingerie.”
Serena’s gaze flashed to Cade before flitting away. Look all you like, he thought. You are not leaving me forever.
She wanted to be with him, and he knew it. They belonged together. For that reason alone, he would take her back to Balahar. Time would prove to her that there was a way to work out their situation.
He would not agree to an annulment. Serena was his wife and she was staying that way—unless she told him without outside interference that she didn’t want to be with him anymore.
As far as he could tell, all that stood between him and Serena was a palace, a country and a scheming old witch.
He could take on those odds.
THE RETURN FLIGHT to Balahar was quiet between them. Cade had arranged for a co-pilot, someone to spell him as they weren’t delaying on the way except for fuel when necessary. With a third person aboard, an awkward wall was created, adding to the feeling of estrangement. Common courtesies were observed, but Cade didn’t try to change Serena’s mind. She was glad, because her dilemma was great enough as it was. The political turmoil facing her country was peaking, her family’s rule questioned. She knew how the newspapers had made her look. Denials would never be believed.
It was best to return home and give up an unpopular marriage—no matter how much it broke her heart to do it. A princess didn’t always get exactly what she wanted—that was a fairy-tale myth.
Rose Coleman certainly had not gotten what she had wanted out of life. Extreme suffering had been visited upon her. For Serena to do her duty with less courage and conviction than Rose had shown during her life would be wrong.
On the landing strip, she was met by Sharif, her father, and a palace driver who silently took her single bag. She embraced her father and brother while Cade stood behind her stoically. Tears stung her eyes as she buried her face against her father’s chest. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Al Hamdo Lillah Ala Al Salamah,” was all he said, the traditional Arabic greeting to say that he thanked God for bringing her back safely. But when she looked up she found her father staring at Cade, as if the greeting encompassed him, too. The look on her father’s and brother’s faces held no animosity, nor criticism. Cade’s was blank, as well.
But there was a silent current of communication. To Serena, it felt like a question that was not going to be answered by her husband. Ex-husband. Or never-husband, however one catalogued a left-behind spouse.
Cade’s gaze fell to her then, like a laser beam landing on her, deep and dark in intensity. He nodded before reentering the jet. Her father and brother walked her to a waiting limousine and, though she desperately wanted to look back, to run to Cade, she forced herself inside the long car and only allowed herself a glance back at his plane after she was concealed behind the impenetrable windows.
CADE WAITED until the car carrying Serena and her family left the premises, the long slash of black smoothly snaking from the airport road onto an access road. He’d hoped against hope that at the last moment—at any moment—she might change her mind. But she had not. The car left his range of vision. It felt like a deep black hole opened up in his chest.
“Next stop—Saudi Arabia,” he told the co-pilot. “The closest place to wait until my wife realizes she doesn’t even need a one-way ticket to get home to The Desert Rose.”
And home to me.
WHEN LAYLA HEARD that Serena had returned to Balahar without her husband, she smiled. Victory!
Now was the time to secure the throne. With unrest roiling between the states, the logical next step was to suggest a further alliance between them for the sake of domestic relations.
Princess Serena should marry Prince Ali Denarif, distant cousin to Azzam. Even King Zak would have to admit the benefit of cooling the recent storm that Serena’s precipitous marriage had caused. She was in disgrace, as well as good as cast off by her Western husband. This would make the bargaining cheap for Layla’s side of the transaction, a point that stingy Ali Denarif’s family would appreciate. They well knew their son’s proclivities did not run to females in general; he had been uneasy about making a marriage that would test him to produce heirs. This match would be appealing to him, because who else would want a headstrong princess that another man did not want? And Layla’s country would benefit from this alliance—and thereby, she would be admired for bringing about a favorable resolution for all parties concerned. Not to mention ridding herself of further possible heirs from Serena’s branch of the family tree—for her, there would be no children. Marrying Serena to Ali Denarif would be like watching a door irrevocably close, and the very image of that door shutting gave Layla great pleasure.
If no one else remembered the treachery of Rose Coleman, Layla had never forgotten. Layla’s loyalty to her country ran more fiercely than a raging river. Had Ibrahim married Layla, his true betrothed, instead of the scheming Rose, he would have reached a greater destiny in his abbreviated life.
However, now her loyalty had to be to her husband, the rightful king. How rich and well deserved it will be to bargain for Princess Serena for a mere song of quick thinking on my part. One day, Azzam will understand how brilliant I am, and appreciate everything I’ve done.
For him.
Chapter Seventeen
“I have received three offers of marriage this very morning,” King Zak told Serena with some surprise. “I must admit some astonishment, considering the situation.”
“Refuse them all,” Serena said listlessly, “if you can, Father. I do not wish to marry ag
ain so soon.”
She might have an annulled marriage, but in her heart she had been married to Cade. It was impossible to imagine herself with any other.
“I am not eager to encourage you to do that which you do not wish,” her father replied. “However, there is one proposal that must receive stringent consideration. Prince Ali Denarif offers the goodwill of his country, and his family, if you will consent to wed with him.”
“Prince Ali is a worm, and his family a den of maggots!” Serena said with horror. “You cannot be serious thinking of such an alliance!”
King Zak shook his head. “I only said his proposal bears measured thought. You are as aware as any that one should keep their friends close to them, but keep their enemies closer. Layla and Azzam conspire constantly against us. With a marriage to Denarif, they would feel more appeased.”
“Ugh!” Serena thought about Jessica and the expressive language her friend would have used if she were in Serena’s shoes right now. No one would get Jessica to wed if she did not want to. She smiled, thinking about Kadar’s claim that no one would ever marry his bossy cousin with the mismatched eyes.
“You find something amusing, daughter?”
“No,” she murmured. “I was just thinking about someone I liked very much.”
“Prince Kadar?”
She shook her head. “It is not a smile that comes to my face when I think about him. I want to kick him in the pants.”
“That’s an interesting way to speak of someone whom you seem quite…unable to forget,” the king observed wryly.
Blowing out a breath, she said, “Kadar is an exasperating man, Father. Just when I thought he would not budge an inch, he would willingly give me a mile. But I still want to kick him in the pants.”
“Did you always feel that way?”
