Desert Rogues Part 2

Two years after her self-imposed ban on relationships, she’d flown with her sister to Bahania, where she’d met a handsome prince. He’d charmed her and made her feel special. When he’d held her in his arms, she could tell that he thought she was amazing. It had been a temptation she’d been unable to resist.

And now that man wanted to marry her. But not for herself. Not because he loved her and couldn’t imagine a world without her, but because she was pregnant with his child. Without the baby she was nothing.

Cleo forced herself to breathe slowly. She didn’t want to cry again. She didn’t want to feel anymore. Certainly she didn’t want her feelings for Sadik to continue to grow.

Why had she given in? Why had she allowed herself to turn her back on her vow? She would pay the price for the rest of her life.

Then the truth settled on her—heavy, thick and inescapable. Her anger came from the death of her fantasy. Deep in her heart she’d wanted him to fall in love with her. Obviously, he hadn’t. Instead he’d gotten on with his life. Now he was going to do the right thing and propose, but that didn’t mean she mattered at all. All her hopes and dreams dried into dust. When they blew away, she would have only an ugly reality made up of two inescapable elements: a man who had married her out of duty and a heart hungry for so much more.

“Cleo?”

Cleo stirred, recognized Sadik’s voice and groaned. After a sleepless night she’d finally fallen into a light doze shortly after dawn, only to awaken a half hour ago with unexpected and unwelcome morning sickness.

Having thrown up and brushed her teeth, all she wanted was a chance to sleep for the rest of the morning.

“Go away,” she called, knowing he would be able to tell she’d cried long into the night. Unfortunately, despite the size of the suite, there wasn’t anywhere for her to hide.

He strolled into her bedroom looking tall and fit, as if he’d rested well. He probably had, she thought bitterly. No ghosts from his past had kept him up into the wee hours. As far as he was concerned, everything was settled.

He approached the bed, then settled on the mattress next to her. He smoothed her spiky bangs off her face. “You do not look well.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Rest is important for the baby.”

“I know that,” she said between clenched teeth. “I don’t want to see you. Please leave.”

He ignored her. Like that was a surprise. After taking her hand in his, he brought it to his mouth where he kissed first her knuckles, then, turning her hand, the inside of her wrist. Cleo really hated the shivers that instantly danced up her arm and then shimmied around the rest of her body.

“We will need to be married quickly,” he said, as if picking up a conversation that had recently been interrupted. “The baby will come early, but that is of no consequence. The future prince will be the light of my life. My father will also be delighted. A first grandson. That is an event of great happiness here in the kingdom. It has been many years since there was a baby in the palace.”

He frowned slightly. “I will have to research the correct naming of our son. There are traditions to be upheld. Also there are certain schools I wish to contact. They will hold a place for him. Do you know when the baby is due?”

She stared at him. They weren’t actually having this conversation. No, this had to be some kind of strange dream or out-of-body experience.

When she didn’t answer right away, Sadik just kept on talking. “When you know for sure, let me know. Not that it matters for the schools. They are always pleased to have a member of the royal family attending. The British schools are excellent, but as you are American, that might be better.”

His lips kept flapping. Cleo couldn’t believe all that he was saying. He wanted to talk about schools and universities, while their child wasn’t much bigger than Sadik’s palm.

“You can make all the plans you want,” she said, “but I haven’t changed my mind. I’m not marrying you.”

Sadik looked mildly annoyed. He returned his attention to her wrist where he did slightly illegal things with his tongue. She felt herself starting to melt, so she snatched her hand free of his hold and sank deeper into the bed.

“You are pregnant with my child,” he said, as if speaking to a child. “The firstborn grandchild of the king of Bahania cannot be born illegitimate. Nor would I allow such a thing. We will be married.” He hesitated, then almost as an afterthought asked, “Why do you resist marrying me?”

At last he wanted to know what she thought of all this. The good news was she’d cried herself out last night. This morning there just plain weren’t any tears left. So she was able to listen to him go on about marrying for the sake of the baby without feeling more than a stab or two to her heart.

“You’re only interested in the baby,” she said. “I’m willing to be cooperative, but getting married isn’t an option.”

Sadik stood and glared down at her. “I honor you by this proposal.”

“No, you honor yourself. You don’t care about me at all. The baby is all that matters. Frankly, I don’t see that as a recipe for happiness, so why would I want to commit to staying here with you for the rest of my life?”

Her words seemed to have genuinely shocked him. He opened his mouth and then closed it. “I am Prince Sadik of Bahania. I am proposing.”

“I don’t think your station in life is a big surprise to me at this point, and I got that there was a proposal on the table.” She sat up and leaned against the headboard. It was time to tell him the truth…or as much as she could say without giving away too much. “I don’t want to marry someone who doesn’t care about me.”

“We have mutual respect and passion. That is a strong beginning for a marriage.” He frowned. “I will not be taking another wife. Is that your concern? Not only does Bahanian law forbid it, but I find you difficult enough.”

She supposed that was something.

They were at an impasse. Bottom line—he’d given his heart to Kamra and it was no longer available. Even if it was, she was hardly going to be his first choice for happily ever after.

“Mutual respect and passion isn’t enough, Sadik,” she said gently. “You’re not listening, and you’re not thinking this through. I’m the wrong woman for you to marry. Can you really see me as a princess?”

“Of course.”

He answered without thinking. In a way it was really sweet, but totally unrealistic.

She hadn’t wanted to get into this. To be honest, she didn’t want him to know the truth about her past. But it seemed that she didn’t have a choice.

She scooted over in the bed, then patted the mattress. “Have a seat.”

When he settled next to her, she studied his face. His dark eyes, the sharp plane of his cheeks, the firm, stubborn jaw. What on earth had she been thinking, falling for a handsome prince? Of course, if he hadn’t been handsome, the situation still would have been really complicated.

“I want to cooperate,” she said slowly. “I’m resigned to staying here. I know I can’t take my child and hide out from you. Not only would you eventually catch me, but it would be wrong.” She drew in a deep breath. “We can come to terms about the baby, but I can’t marry you.”

Annoyance clouded his face. He started to rise, but she put a restraining hand on his arm. “Hear me out, Sadik.”

“Women are always difficult,” he muttered.

“Perhaps, but I’m being difficult for a good reason.” She bit her lower lip. She tried to forget her past as much as possible. Her circumstances had nearly broken her many times, but she’d always found the courage to go on. She was going to have to do that again.

“I’m pretty sure my parents were married,” she began. “I never found a marriage license, but my mother said they were, and I have my dad’s name. I never knew him. He died before I was born. He overdosed on drugs.”

Sadik’s expression turned unreadable, but she guessed he hadn’t expected to hear this kind of story.

“My mother was also an addict. She was in and out of rehab or jail for as long as I can remember. She’d usually leave me with a neighbor. Sometimes the state stuck me in foster care. Sometimes she just disappeared and I did the best I could until she showed up again.”

Cleo spoke the words without considering their meaning. If she actually focused on what she was saying, the past overwhelmed her and she found herself drowning in the memories. It was far better to stay disconnected.

“There were times when we lived with her friends and times when we didn’t have anywhere to go. I remember spending nights on the streets or in shelters.”

“How old were you?” Sadik asked.

She didn’t look at him. Instead she stared at the blanket covering her, at the weave of the cotton and the smoothness of the fibers she rubbed between her fingers.

“I don’t know. Young. I remember being about four or five and hiding in a doorway. I didn’t go to school much. We were always moving around the city.” She smiled. “I was born in Los Angeles and lived there until I was about eleven. I’ll bet you didn’t know I was from the land of movie stars.”

She risked glancing at him and saw she had his full attention. His dark eyes stared into hers. She looked away because she didn’t want him to see too far into her soul. He would find it a disappointing place.

She cleared her throat. “Anyway, things got pretty bad. Mom was sick and then one day she died. The state bounced me around in foster care. I was labeled a problem child. I did badly in school. Then I was placed with Fiona and Zara.” She shrugged. “Fiona was a bit of a flake, but she had a big heart. The first thing she did was buy me all new clothes, along with a big stuffed bear. She told me I was pretty. I pretended not to care, but she was the first person in my life who ever saw me as a real person and not just an inconvenience.”

She had to pause for a second to swallow tears. “Zara was pretty cool. She was smart and cute, but a social retard. We made a good team. She helped me with my schoolwork and I helped her to fit in. When Fiona decided to move on, she simply took me with her. I guess the state lost my paperwork or something because no one ever came looking for me.” She shrugged. “So that’s how I came to be Zara’s foster sister.”

“You survived a great deal,” he said.

She raised her chin and glared at him. “I didn’t tell you all that to get the sympathy vote. My point is I’m hardly princess material. You have to see that.”

“What I see is someone strong enough to overcome humble beginnings. I am impressed by your ability to rise above your circumstances and become the charming, intelligent woman I see before me.”

She groaned. The man was as thick as a plank. “Sadik, get real. I’m not smart. I barely finished high school, and that wouldn’t have happened without Zara. I wanted to go to college, but I didn’t think I could make it.”

“Intelligence and education often have little in common,” he said. “Your spirit and drive bode well for our son.”

She leaned toward him. “Are you listening to even one word I’m saying? What happens when the press finds out about my past? I promise you, they will. They’ll go digging, and that’s what they’ll find.”

“I do not care what they find. Their opinions are of no consequence to me.” He took her hand in his and laced their fingers together. “You may protest all you want. You may scream and cry and tell me more stories from your past, but make no mistake, we will be married.”

Chapter Eight

S adik watched the battle rage in Cleo’s eyes. She was both grateful and furious. Grateful that he’d accepted her past without judging her and furious that he still insisted they marry. At times women could be annoying and complex, but at other times they were very simple.

“Did you think you could frighten me off so easily?” he asked, stroking her palm. Her skin was soft and warm. Just this simple touch aroused him. He fore-saw many long, glorious, passionate nights once they were married.

“You are so missing the point,” she grumbled.

“Then enlighten me.”

“I’m not princess material!” She practically shouted the words. “How can you want to marry me after knowing all this? It should change everything. I don’t have the breeding or the training.”

“You are not a prize mare for the horse stable. A documented bloodline is not required. Your breeding is apparent in how you conduct yourself. In what you think and say.”

“Oh, sure. And I climbed right into bed with you. Hardly a recommendation to the pedigree committee.”

“I seduced you,” he said easily.

She jerked her hand free. “Dammit, Sadik, listen to me. You did not seduce me. There have been other men. I didn’t come to you some whimpering virgin. I had a very active sexual past when I was a teenager. I confused sex with love and I was a lonely kid. I went looking for connection and meaning, and what I found was a ticket to nowhere. I figured out reality a few years ago and I vowed to keep away from a sexual relationship until I knew I really cared about the guy.”

Which meant she’d cared about him. He had suspected as much, but having confirmation pleased him. As for her past…“I know you were not a virgin. Nor was I. I have a past, as well. In an effort to show you that ours will be a successful marriage, I will not judge you in any way for your past. Now that we are together, you will be faithful only to me.”

She flopped on her side, her back to him, and covered her face with her hands. “You are so infuriating,” she mumbled. “I can’t stand this.”

He walked around the bed and pulled her hands from her face. “I have told you I will not judge you for your past. I have listened to the story of your childhood and found only that which I admire. I have discovered you are carrying my child and I propose marriage. Tell me what I am doing that is so wrong.”

Her mouth worked, but she didn’t speak. Sadik watched her, pleased that he had finally stunned her into silence. She could not possibly have an argument to refute his; therefore, they would marry.

In truth he was a little annoyed that she had resisted so far. Did she not realize that he could have chosen to marry anyone? Women around the world would be honored to be his chosen bride. Yet Cleo acted as if he had asked her to cut off her arm.

“Life in the palace is not a hardship,” he reminded her. “You will never want for anything. Your sister will be close, and I will allow you to visit her as much as you would like.”

He hesitated, not sure he wanted to give away so much. He reasoned that once the baby arrived, however, Cleo would not be eager to make the journey to the City of Thieves.

“You may shop in the finest stores in the world. You will have dazzling jewels to wear and parties to attend.”

She raised her head and glared at him. “Do you really think you can buy me off?”

Many women could be controlled by the privileges of wealth, but Sadik suspected Cleo was not one of them. “You will be a princess,” he reminded her. “A member of the royal family of Bahania.”

Her temper eased slightly. “I always wanted to be part of a family,” she murmured. Then she sat up. “But you’re missing the point.”

“Which is?”

“The fantasy of being rich doesn’t make up for the realty of being married to a man who doesn’t care about me. You’re only doing this because of the baby. That’s not how I plan to start my marriage.”

He genuinely did not understand. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to say it’s about more than the baby.”

“Of course it is more. If I found you repugnant, I would still suggest marriage so my son would not be a bastard, but it would be with the understanding that it was a short, temporary arrangement. In a year or two, we would divorce.” He straightened. Now it was his turn to be annoyed. “I am not suggesting that. I am offering a genuine marriage, with all the commitment that entails.”

Her blue eyes flashed with scorn. “I don’t believe you for a second.”

The challenge delighted him. He moved close and bent low to kiss her mouth. “I can prove it,” he murmured, instantly aroused and ready to make love with her. It was always like this when they were together, he thought contentedly.

Instead of responding passionately, she pushed hard on his shoulder, momentarily forcing him to step back. Cleo then slipped off the bed and headed for the bathroom.

“I won’t marry someone who doesn’t love me,” she announced loudly, stepped into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her. Sadik heard the distinct click of a lock being turned.

He glanced from the door to the bed and back. What had gone wrong? Why did she speak of love? Then he shook his head and walked out of her bedroom.

“Women,” he growled. “They are not worth the trouble.”

Cleo spent the morning pacing the length of the living room in her suite. She figured if nothing else, she was at least getting a workout. That had to be good for the baby, even if the worrying wasn’t.

Every time she thought about what she’d told Sadik, she wanted to die from embarrassment. Just thinking about her final words was enough to make her cheeks heat and her palms grow sweaty. Worse, she hadn’t known what was in her heart until she’d spoken the words.

She was an idiot. Unfortunately, she was also doomed to a life of unhappiness.

I won’t marry someone who doesn’t love me.

The statement echoed in her head, repeating itself over and over again. She hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to even think it. She also hadn’t meant it to be true.

There was only one reason that Sadik’s affections mattered so much. This wasn’t about pride or station or being happy or even what was right. It was about her heart.

She loved him.

Cleo didn’t know when or where she’d been foolish enough to fall in love with an emotionally inaccessible royal prince who, by the way, was still in love with his dead fiancée.

What on earth had she been thinking? She stopped in midpace and drew in a deep breath. She hadn’t been thinking. She’d been feeling and dreaming and hoping, and she’d been darned stupid.

Now she was trapped by circumstances she couldn’t control. She would fight the wedding for as long as possible, but what if she didn’t win? What if she really had to marry Sadik? She would spend her life in love with someone who wouldn’t love her back. It was her worst nightmare come to life.

She crossed to the sofa and sat. The pain she’d felt when Ian had told her that she was the kind of woman men had affairs with but didn’t marry was a pinprick when compared with the ache of living with and loving Sadik, all the while knowing he was in love with the one woman he could never have.

She wrapped her arms across her chest, as if to hold in the bleeding. The only bright spot on her otherwise bleak horizon was that Sadik was too self-centered to guess what her declaration had meant. He would probably think that she was demanding love in the way of selfish women. He wouldn’t think that she was actually already in love with him herself.

Small comfort, she thought glumly, but she would cling to it, as it was all she had.

There was a knock on the door of her suite. Cleo straightened, then braced herself for another altercation.

“Come in,” she called.

The door opened, but it wasn’t her prospective bridegroom who entered. Instead a very confused Sabrina walked inside.

The king’s youngest daughter looked elegant as always in a black pantsuit with a teal shell. She wore her hair piled up on her head.

Cleo rose. “I thought you and Kardal were heading home today,” she said.

Like many of those attending the wedding, Sabrina and Kardal had spent the night in the palace.

Sabrina nodded slowly. “Kardal already left for the city, but I stayed behind. Sadik came to see me while I was packing.” Her gaze dropped to Cleo’s midsection.

Cleo wanted to cover herself. In the past week she seemed to have doubled in size, as if the baby developing inside of her had had a growth spurt. The dress she wore had been loose at one time, but now it stretched tight over her belly, making her condition more than obvious. She would never have worn the garment out of the suite, but as she hadn’t been expecting visitors, she’d pulled it on that morning after her shower.

She put one hand on her belly. “I guess this sort of says it all.”

Sabrina nodded. “When Sadik told me about the wedding, I’ll admit I was surprised. I knew there was something between the two of you but I didn’t know it was serious. Then when he mentioned the baby, I realized—”

“He what?” Cleo knew she was interrupting a princess and that it was probably considered bad form, but she couldn’t stop herself. “He said we were getting married?”

“That’s why I’m here,” Sabrina admitted. “To help with the wedding. He said we would have to move quickly.” She eyed Cleo’s stomach. “How far along are you?”

“I’m a week into my fifth month.” She circled the sofa and walked over to Sabrina. “Look, I appreciate you coming here, but I have to tell you, there’s not going to be a wedding. Not now, not ever. So if you want to head back home with your husband, I suggest you do so.”

Sabrina shook her head. “This is worse than I thought.” She took Cleo’s arm and led her back to the sofa. “Let’s sit down and we’ll start from the beginning. Obviously, there’s more going on than Sadik let on.”

“I’ll just bet,” Cleo muttered.

As she plopped onto the seat cushion, she realized that Sabrina’s surprise meant the king hadn’t told everyone about her pregnancy. Only a select few. Zara and…

She swallowed. Sadik, she thought, suddenly breathless. And if the king told Sadik, he had to have a reason. Which meant he already knew who was the father of her baby. Which meant the situation had just gotten a little more complicated.

“Okay,” Sabrina said, angling toward her. “Obviously, you and Sadik got involved when you were here five months ago. If you’re pregnant, there must have been a spark.”

“There was plenty of that,” Cleo agreed. “There still is, but that’s not the point.” She opened her arms, her palms up. “Look at me. I’m not even close to princess material. I don’t know anything about your country or your customs. I’m a protocol disaster. Zara might have been ignorant about a lot of things, but she turned out to be an honest-to-goodness princess. I’m some kid from the streets who barely scraped through high school. Trust me, this is not someone you want in the palace.”

Sabrina smiled. “You’re being a little hard on yourself. You’re a beautiful, articulate woman. Zara and I have spent dozens of hours hating you for your curves. You’re also a good friend and from what I hear a great sister. Why wouldn’t you fit in here?”

Cleo tried a different approach. “Sadik and I would be miserable together. We have nothing in common.”

“You have enough to make a baby.”

“Passion fades.”

“What about love? That endures.”

“He doesn’t love me,” Cleo said flatly.

She was grateful when Sabrina didn’t ask the obvious question as in, Did she love Sadik? Instead she said, “I’m guessing my brother doesn’t know what he feels right now. Things change over time.”

Cleo wanted to believe that was true. Would Sadik eventually come to care about her? Was that hope enough to build a marriage upon?

“I just don’t think I can marry him.”

Sabrina’s expression turned serious. “Cleo, my brother asked me to help you plan your wedding. I’m happy to do that. In fact, I’ll do anything I can to help. But if you don’t want to marry him, you don’t have many options. We’re talking about the child of the royal family.”

“I’m familiar with Bahanian law,” Cleo said stiffly. “I also know that exceptions can be made.”

Sabrina’s good humor returned. “I know. I’m walking, breathing proof of that. But while my father was willing to allow me to be raised outside of the country, there’s no guarantee that he’ll let you take his first grandchild away. I wouldn’t count on making that your backup plan.”