by Leslie North
Carolyn smiled at him, squeezing his hands, “I’m glad you didn’t. I almost didn’t come here tonight. Did you have a back-up plan?”
Mahil looked guilty and then nodded, “I intended to ignore Ahmed and kidnap you a second time.”
Carolyn laughed and threw herself into his arms, “I might not have minded at all.”
Mahil hugged her close before tipping her head up and kissing her tenderly, putting everything he felt for her into his kiss. “I missed you.”
Carolyn returned his kiss and then told him, “I missed you too. Were you responsible for all of the advertisements that kept showing up everywhere I went?”
“Guilty again. I finally found a way to put my mass advertising classes to use.” He chuckled and then sobered, “I wanted to see you again but I knew I didn’t deserve a second chance with you.”
“Everyone deserves a second chance, Mahil. Especially you.”
Mahil looked deeply into her eyes and then kissed her again. “I love you, Carolyn Michaels. If it weren’t for you, I don’t know that I would have ever stopped feeling guilty for what happened with Lyla. I know that no matter what I do, I can never have a second chance to get things right for her. But I truly want a second chance with you.”
“I love you too,” Carolyn wrapped her arms around his neck. “And I want that as well.”
“Besides, it seems that I now owe you a date night,” he told her as she looked at him quizzically.
“I don’t understand.”
“The highest bid for the teddy bear also gets to have dinner with a sheik,” he told her, as she laughed.
“What would you have done if I wasn’t the highest bidder?”
“Shrugging his shoulders, “I was really hoping not to have to think about that; not when my dreams are of you, of us, at the paradise pool, our picnic at the oasis, even that maddening food fight.”
Leaning in to kiss him, “So, instead of just dinner, how about the next fifty years or so?” Carolyn asked him.
“Sold.” Mahil kissed her and then picked her up, carrying her to the attached bedroom. “But first, I need to feel you beneath me once again.”
“That sounds like an offer I can’t refuse. Welcome back, Mahil. I’m so glad you came back looking for a second chance.”
Epilogue
Two years later…
Carolyn was reviewing the latest sales records for her jewelry line for the Second Chance Preserve when she smiled. Thanks to the unsolicited celebrity endorsements, sales were up, along with increased awareness for wildlife rescue. Things simply couldn’t be better.
Realizing that she’d been sitting too long, she stood up to stretch before doubling over in pain. Taking a step, she wrapped her arms around herself as she cried out.
“Ma-hhhhiiiiillllllll!”
The sound of something crashing to the floor came moments before footsteps were thundering down the hall. Flinging the door open, Mahil took in her appearance.
“Cara, it is time! Just like we rehearsed,” he told her, excitedly, before running from the room.
“I know it’s time,” she told the empty room before she doubled over again. “Oh, oh, it hurts. Ma-hhhiiiiillllllll!”
Rushing back into the room, “Cara, I told you, it is time.”
“I know that you oaf, help me to the damn car,” she demanded as she held her hand out for help.
“Of course, I’m so sorry. Come. This way.” Wrapping his arm around her waist, Mahil helped Carolyn out of the room and down the hall toward the front door. As they walked, he was issuing instructions in Arabic as the maids ran around.
When he reached the door, a smiling Ahmed, opened it and taking Carolyn’s other arm, helped her walk to the car.
“I will be so glad when this is all over,” she told them, as Ahmed opened the back door while Mahil helped her slide in back.
“Over? Cara, this is just the beginning. We need enough for a full team,” he informed her as she scowled at him.
“I’ve already told you, if you want your own soccer team, you’ll have to find players another way, I am not having eleven children.”
“But Cara, you are already part way there.”
“No. Just no. Now, where is my bag?”
“Here, Sheika,” Jessenia called out as she ran toward the car.
“And my wedding ring? I know it doesn’t fit, but I wanted to bring it with me.”
“Here, it is. I put it on a chain for you, so you could wear it around your neck.”
“Thank you, Jessenia, what would I do without you?”
Smiling broadly at her, “Please call us when the children are born to tell us their sex, so that we will know how to finish the nursery,” she reminded her as Carolyn smiled.
“I will and thank you,” she called out before she clutched at her distended belly. “Mahil, why isn’t Ahmed behind the wheel yet?”
Sliding onto the back seat next to her, Mahil slammed the car door and wrapped his arms around her as Ahmed drove them to the hospital. As he drove, Mahil shouted at him in Arabic before grabbing his phone to call the hospital to make sure everything was set.
“This is not their first time delivering triplets,” she reminded him. “Just last year, those quintuplets were born to that nomadic family and they’re doing fine.”
“I am simply being cautious Cara, allow me to fuss, this is my first time too,” he told her as he began talking into his phone.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Carolyn moaned as Ahmed looked at her through the rear view mirror.
“We should be there in twenty minutes,” he told her.
Remembering her classes, Carolyn began panting, as she fought to breathe through her nose but the pain was becoming unbearable. There was no way she would survive many hours of this.
Pulling up outside the hospital’s emergency entrance, Ahmed honked at the waiting medical staff who quickly moved to the back of the car. Opening the door, Mahil jumped out and reached in to help Carolyn into the waiting wheelchair.
As they rushed inside, they ran into Kim, Karim, Claire, Taleb, Amare and Saeed Sharqi.
“Carolyn, my daughter, how are you doing?” Saeed asked, as they gathered around her.
Her answering cry of pain had the women shooing the men away as they followed the nurses down the hall to her birthing suite.
“Shouldn’t I be with her?” Mahil asked as he watched his wife disappear down the hall.
“Not if you want to live through the night,” Taleb told him. “Women can be frightening when they are in labor.”
“And you only had one baby. Mahil is about to have three. Can you imagine how much worse it will be?” Amare asked solemnly.
Turning to stare at his youngest brother, “What do you mean?”
As Amare opened his mouth to reply, a long, loud wail was heard coming from Carolyn’s room as Mahil looked up in alarm.
“You see?” Amare asked him. “Already it is much worse.”
“Amare, don’t give your brother such a hard time,” Saeed scolded. “He will have enough trouble if it turns out to be all girls. Can you imagine so many women under one roof?”
Before Mahil could reply, the others broke out into laughter as his father collapsed into the nearest chair, pointing to him. “You should have seen the look on your face,” he told him as his body shook with mirth.
Shaking his head, Mahil smiled at his adopted family. He couldn’t have asked for better. Carolyn was pleased to find out that both her sisters-in-law were American and the women became instant friends.
Pacing the hall, he looked up when Kim poked her head out the door. “Okay, future dad,” she called out. “You’re up. Come watch your babies being born.”
As Mahil took a step towards the birthing suite, he felt his legs give out as he stumbled. Taleb and Karim caught him before he fell.
“Are you ready for this?” Karim asked him, as he grinned.
“Yes. I’ve been ready since the moment I first laid eyes on
her, but I was too stubborn to realize it at the time.”
Slapping him on the back, Karim walked with him to the door. Opening it, he faltered at the sound of Carolyn’s cry.
“You sure you still want a soccer team?” Karim teased him, as Mahil opened and closed his mouth without saying anything.
Shaking his head to clear the fog, “Nothing is certain beyond this moment. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch my children come into this world,” he told him, as he walked into the birthing suite and the door shut behind him.
*****
Carolyn smiled as she looked at the babies sleeping in their incubators. Two boys and a girl. She couldn’t believe that she had managed to deliver triplets. When they had first tried to have children, she had ended up seeking assistance from a fertility specialist when attempts to try on their own were unsuccessful.
While she never dreamed that she would have triplets, looking at them now, she liked the idea that little Lyla would have two big brothers to protect her. Adam and Alexander were going to be busy too given all the plans Mahil was already making for them.
It would be at least a week or more before the babies would be big enough to come home and the maids were busy with the final decorations in the nursery including all the soccer paraphernalia Mahil had insisted on including. Given how many games he made her listen to while she was pregnant and how much the babies kicked, she’d be surprised if the children didn’t take to the game as soon as they were old enough to walk.
She gave her husband a tired smile when he walked in carrying flowers. “Are those for me?”
Nodding his head, “Yes, along with this,” he told her waving a pastry box at her.
“Is that from Adilah’s bakery?” she asked as she held her hand out for the box.
“Of course. She said it was your favorite.”
Opening the box, she broke off a piece of honey cake and popped it into her mouth. “I dream about this cake,” she told him, as she stuffed another piece in her mouth and closed her eyes to chew.
“I thought you dreamed about me,” he teased.
Shaking her head, “I’m sorry, my love, but this cake is tastier than you are,” she told him. “I mean. That is to say.” Carolyn blushed as Mahil burst out laughing.
“That’s okay. Although I wouldn’t dare say the same thing about her baklava and you,” he replied as she glared at him.
“Hey!”
Sitting on the bed next to her, he slipped his arm around her neck and leaned down to kiss her.
“And how are you feeling?”
“Mostly tired. And overwhelmed. Is it too soon to feel overwhelmed? They haven’t even come home yet.”
Kissing the top of her head, “No, it isn’t too soon. Everyone is quite excited about our homecoming, so you will have plenty of help,” he assured her as she leaned against him.
“And cake.”
Chuckling, “Yes, and cake.”
Nodding her head, Carolyn yawned, as he lightly stroked her arm. “I can’t believe how tired I am,” she commented, as she got more comfortable on the hospital bed. “I think I need another nap.”
Kissing her, “Sleep, my love. I will be here when you wake.”
“Promise?”
“Well, at least for the next fifty years,” he told her, as he brushed his lips across hers.
“Sold.”
END OF BOOK THREE
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The Rosso Family Series
Greek Billionaire’s Blackmailed Bride (Excerpt Below)
Greek Billionaire’s Forbidden Lover
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His Stubborn Lover Excerpt
When your job is protecting people, the first rule is…never mix business with pleasure.
Keira Mantz has been given the job of a lifetime, and she refuses to fail. Trained as part of an elite security team, her first mission is to protect the Sheikh of Jawhara and his wife. What she thought would be a solo operation, though, is suddenly a two-person job. Her partner is none other than Brock Wells, the Viking-like team member who trained her. The last thing Keira wants is Brock stealing her thunder, but she’ll do whatever it takes to succeed—even if it means pretending to be in love.
When Brock finds Keira in a bar fight and offers her a place on the team, he knows she is the right choice. With her mile-long legs, fierce determination, and unwavering focus, he has no doubt she can hold her own. But with the threat to the Sheikh closer than they realized, Brock has no choice but to intervene. To give them the cover they need, they’ll have to act like they’re a couple. Although Brock told himself he’d never get close to another woman, the job always comes first.
When their ruse becomes a little too real, can Keira and Brock risk letting their guards down, or will admitting their feelings put others’ lives in danger?
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Brock Wells exited the bar, heading for his ’66 Mustang. The twang of a sad love song followed him out, and his head buzzed with the four beers he’d had. The team had just finished a training operation in South America and Slade had given everyone some much needed time off—meaning Brock had come home hoping to find some female company.
He’d hit a bar that was a ways off from his usual haunts, looking for a stranger with doe eyes and a body that could make him forget just about everything. Tonight, however, his batting average was about as good as the one of whoever wrote that love song.
Well, it was probably better this way. Slade had no rules against team members getting hooked up outside of the teams, but he also didn’t like sending anyone into the thick of things if they had attachments. That was where Brock liked to be—in the middle of the worst trouble. This meant that Brock liked his girls for one night only, and every girl in that bar had had the hungry look of a woman hunting a man.
It looked like it was going to be an early night with the UFC channel and a few more beers for him.
Glimpsing movement from the corner of his eye—three figures under the glare of the parking lot lights—Brock stopped, and everything else went into automatic assessment. Some habits never went away, and the ones from his days as a SEAL were deeply ingrained.
Two guys, one woman—and yeah, he wasn’t being paid by Slade for this one, but he also wasn’t wired to look away. He headed over, took up a spot that gave him the advantage, since it put him right behind the guy holding the knife, and boxed the trio against a battered pickup. He offered a friendly grin. “Looks like a party.”
The two guys—good ol' boys by the looks of the wife-beater shirts and sagging jea
ns, and none too smart to go by the eyes glazed by drink and drugs—glanced at each other. The guy without a knife nodded at the half-empty parking lot. “Get lost.”
Brock shrugged to loosen his shoulders. “Let the girl go and I won’t have to mess up this crappy spot with your even crappier blood. I’m only asking once.”
The girl had guts enough. She kept hold of one guy’s wrist—the guy with the knife—but she glanced at Mr. Mouthy and said, her voice low and firm, “Please, I changed my mind, Toad.”
“Toad?” Brock laughed. “Seriously, dude? That’s your handle? Okay, we’re done here.” He brought his hand down on the shoulder of the guy with the knife—hard enough for the guy to let out a grunt.
Brock spun him around, punched him once in his soft gut. Not smart, dude, to let yourself go like that. The guy doubled over, spilling out whiskey-soaked breath. Brock snapped the knife from the guy’s limp hand. It clattered to the asphalt. A jerk back and the guy lay flat on the ground, on his back. Brock kicked the knife away and glanced at Toad—Mr. Mouthy. “You want a go? Your choice.”
Before Toad could even bunch a fist, the girl hauled off, caught him in the throat with the flat of her hand, and drove a knee into his groin. The guy doubled over, and Brock gave a sympathetic wince. She kicked up at his jaw with a boot, and Toad crumpled like a wad of toilet paper.
Leaving the two guys on the ground, Brock grabbed the girl’s wrist. “Come on. Let’s go before these two even think about trying a round two, or call for their buddies to come kick our asses.”
He pulled her with him, sizing her up as he went. She had long, straight hair, hitting below her shoulders; looked brown, maybe dark brown in this light. He couldn’t judge the color of her eyes, but they were big, dominating a narrow face. Pretty, he’d guess. A little too skinny. A baggy shirt hung down over her hips, hiding anything she might have for breasts, too, but she had great legs—long and lean and encased in tight jeans. Plus boots made for kicking.
