by Shayla Black
God, she loved those babies and she worried she would never have her own. She would forever be their sad maiden aunt because she loved three men who were too stupid to live. She dreamed about beating some sense into them, but then the dream always turned carnal and she woke up aching for them.
“I don’t believe you,” Alea said with a frown as she petted her son’s head. “I know heartache when I see it and you’ve got it written all over your face. You haven’t even tried to ditch your guard once while you’ve been here. That’s my first bit of evidence.”
“Shouldn’t a smart girl know the guard is there for a reason?” She could still remember that robber in the lobby of her building telling her what he intended to do to her.
But every time she thought about that, she thought about Oliver rescuing her…and the act that had led to. For all the pain it had caused her, Tori was glad that her first time had been her choice and no one else’s.
“I don’t know. I still try to ditch my husbands every now and then. They drive me crazy. Love you, baby.” Alea winked Landon’s way. He was standing by the door, a forbidding look on his handsome face.
“I’ll remember that when you want me to change diapers.” His lips curled up in the sweetest grin and he winked his wife’s way.
No one would wink her way. Tori was alone and she would remain that way unless she could find some way to move on. “Well, when I go back to the States next week, I won’t have to worry about guards.”
She had plenty of other things to worry about. Like a job. Where she would live. All of her things were in storage, and she’d given up her apartment when she’d agreed to work for a year in London.
She also had to figure out how to pay back her brothers-in-law for the large check they had undoubtedly written to Thurston-Hughes, Inc. because Tori had been too impatient to read her contract. Wherever she was going to be living, it would have to be cheap.
“Tal wants to send two guards with you when you return home.” Alea helped her boy stack some blocks.
“I’ve told him no and I meant it.” She wasn’t going to be caged in. She understood why Piper needed a guard. Why Alea needed one. But Tori wasn’t royal. Once she returned to Texas, no one would even know her name. There was no reason for her to have a dedicated guard who would curb her personal freedom.
Not that it mattered. She wasn’t sure when she would be ready to try dating again.
“My cousin usually gets what he wants and he wants you safe,” Alea explained. “You might find yourself with an at-distance guard you don’t even know is there.”
“As long as they stay away, I don’t care.”
Alea sighed and seemed to change her tactic. “Have you thought about meeting my al Bashir cousins?”
Tori shook her head vigorously. “Absolutely not. I can’t handle five men. No way. No how. I thought briefly about trying with three and that blew up in my face. I can’t try it with five brothers.”
She hadn’t even figured out where she would put five men. During sex, that is. Oh, she’d quite vividly figured out where the Thurston-Hughes brothers would go, but five seemed out of her grasp. She was a traditionalist when it came to her fantasy ménage.
“Sometimes people from outside our world don’t understand it.” Alea’s eyes were wide and sympathetic.
“I’m not from your world. I don’t always understand it, either.” She definitely didn’t understand how to make it work in the real world. Real was a crappy word. Bezakistan was real. It just wasn’t the norm.
“What don’t you understand?” Landon hovered a hand over the gun attached to his hip, but his expression looked non-threatening.
“I don’t know why I can’t love only one of them. Why am I so selfish? Why can’t I compromise?”
Alea smiled as she rubbed a palm across her son’s head. “That’s not the question you should ask. Perhaps the better question is, why should you compromise? Do you really believe they wouldn’t be better off sharing you? Are they not close?”
That was a good question. “I know they love each other, but they fight a lot.”
“Sharing you would bring them closer.”
She glanced up at Landon, who smiled indulgently at his wife and kid. “Did you always know you wanted to share?” She felt her cheeks flame in embarrassment. “I’m so sorry. That was rude. Please forgive me.”
He was working. She didn’t have any right to ask such personal questions of him.
Lan stepped in closer, his hand coming off the P-90 he wore over his chest like a vest. He dropped to one knee beside his wife. “There’s nothing to forgive, Tori. You ask all the questions you need to. No one here will be offended. And no. I didn’t always know. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really think about the future until I met Alea.”
His wife leaned into him. “Neither did I, my love.”
He kissed her forehead with one arm wound around her shoulder and the other ruffled his son’s hair. “Men don’t think about these things the way women do. When I did meet her, I realized she was far too much woman for one man to handle.” He chuckled lightly. “I know there might have been some alternate world where it could have been just the two of us, but I like how we work. I like having brothers to rely on. Loving a woman, starting a family, it’s a real responsibility and the reassurance of knowing Dane and Coop will carry on if anything happens to me is worth gold, in my opinion. I also like the fact that there are two people in the world who know what it means to love her. I don’t feel alone.”
Wistfulness washed over her. What would it feel like to not be so alone? She’d known for the briefest of moments. When she’d been with Callum and then Oliver, she’d been able to fool herself that all things were possible. She’d been able to dream that she could have the life she wanted.
But she knew reality now and she was going to have to make some hard choices soon. She had a couple of options to consider. She’d already decided against staying here. Besides, being coddled and cloistered like a nun, if she remained at the palace, she would likely find herself dating the infamous five cousins at some point, and she wasn’t sure she could handle that many Bezakistani men. So she’d go somewhere in the States and start over again. She had friends in New York. Los Angeles was also an option. It was a hot spot for a person who knew how to handle a scandal. Or she could be safe and go home to Dallas.
Tori couldn’t stop thinking about London and how awfully she’d left. She’d snuck out in the middle of the night. She’d packed her bags, called a cab, and shown up on her sister’s doorstep right before dawn. If she’d stayed even until morning, one of them would have shown up. Callum or perhaps Rory. Oliver might have torn through her again with his damage and demands.
But they were out of her life now. The day she’d gotten her period she’d sent Oliver a text so he wouldn’t worry about it. Then she’d promptly changed her number because the last thing she wanted was his reply. It likely would have been full of curse words.
“I’m glad you all have each other.” She smoothed down Sabir’s hair. How long would it be before she had babies? Would she ever have them? Even if she did, would she always long for little blond-haired British boys?
“Is it really over with Oliver and his brothers?” Alea asked.
“They can’t share. They can barely be in the same room with each other.”
Alea frowned. “That’s not the way I remember them. Oliver was very close to his brothers once. He was very much the head of his family and he cared for all his siblings. They would come to the palace, and it was where I first worried that Yasmin wasn’t right for him. She hated the fact that he would bring his siblings with them. She wanted all of his focus on her and she was nasty to anyone who took it away.”
“Why did he marry her?” As far as Tori could tell, Yasmin had been pure evil.
“She was lovely,” Alea explained with a sigh.
“She was also super-aggressive sexually,” Lan said. He immediately turned a nice shade of pink and c
oughed a little. “Not that I would know.”
Alea’s eyes rolled. “She hit on everyone, but she was careful that Oliver never saw. She played him very differently. She went slowly with him. She teased him and kept him at arm’s length.”
“Though she’d likely already slept with most of the men at their wedding.” Lan stood up. “I’ll shut up now.”
“Poor Oliver. He really liked Talib, respected him. She used that relationship to move him toward marriage and did a number on him. I do get that. I guess she knew exactly how to play him.” Apparently Yasmin had known him better than Tori did. The woman had figured out that her best move was to play coy with him. Tori hadn’t, and he’d made it pretty plain what he thought of her that night. Her virginity had only infuriated him. He certainly hadn’t been about to propose marriage.
Well, she didn’t have to worry about that anymore. Nope. She was definitely not a virgin now and she’d already survived her first pregnancy scare. Yay, her. She’d always been an overachiever.
“I remember Oliver before he married Yasmin,” Alea said with a sad smile.
“Douchebag,” Lan coughed.
Alea rolled her eyes. “Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t like the fact that Oliver once had a crush on me when we were young.”
Tori didn’t much like that fact, either. So Oliver’s type was stupendously wealthy, stunning royal women. She did not fit that bill.
“You’re jealous.” Alea reached for her hand. “There’s no reason to be. Oliver and I never even kissed. He married Yasmin because she told him she was pregnant. She conveniently had a miscarriage shortly after. That’s the story she told him anyway. After she nearly killed the both of us, Oliver discovered bills for clinics around London. Apparently she’d gotten pregnant twice and dealt with the problem herself, telling Oliver that she miscarried. She kept him in the dark, and when he finally emerged, the truth blinded him. He was devastated. He hasn’t been the same since, except I saw him smile the last time I was in London. It was just for a moment and I don’t think he knew I was watching. I was about to cross the street to meet Callum and Rory to talk about their company sponsoring a charity event.”
“I remember that visit.”
“Oliver was standing in the lobby, staring out the window, and the loveliest smile transformed his face. I had to stop and stare at him because he looked like the Oliver I knew. He was young and happy in that moment. I wondered what had put that grin back on his face.”
Tears threatened because she’d never seen Oliver smile like that. He’d always been polite, always scrupulously in control. Except that night when he wasn’t, when he’d taken her in his arms. “What was it?”
“Oh, darling, it was you. You were wearing a blue skirt and a white cardie and you looked like a little bit of sunshine walking down the street. By the time you walked into the building, he was suitably dour. But for that moment, he was Oliver again.”
Tori sniffled a little and was grateful Sabir chose that moment to sit in her lap. He cuddled close and she took comfort in his warmth. “Well, I’m afraid he changed his mind.”
“He’s a fool then.” Lan kissed his wife briefly before getting to his feet. “You can’t let the past rob you of a future. That’s one thing my wife taught me. You’ve got two hours before the ball. Alea, my love, we’ve got to get ready to go.”
Tori sighed. Another ball. She’d proven she was no Cinderella. “I’m going to stay far away from the ball and get in my PJs and watch Disney movies with the babies.”
“No, you can’t do that.” Alea let Lan help her to her feet. “It’s been announced you’ll be in attendance. If you don’t come there will be gossip that you and your sister are at odds.”
“Why would they think that?” This was the part of her sister’s life she couldn’t comprehend. Even when she was working for the Thurston-Hughes brothers, she’d struggled with the idea of being the target of all those vultures. She knew how to work them. She had no problem being the spokesperson or the woman behind the scenes plotting to get a client out of a sticky situation, but the idea of her life being under a microscope made her ill.
Which was another very good reason she should stay away from the Thurston-Hughes brothers. They were a bad idea all around.
“They think that because the tabloids here use any excuse to pit the royals against each other. It doesn’t help that we’ve had two cousins try to kill us,” Alea explained. “You have to come. I believe Piper said arrangements had already been made for your gown.”
The last thing she wanted was to be in another borrowed gown. PJs sounded so comfy, accompanied by a nice gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream. “You could say I was sick.” She coughed a little. “I definitely feel an illness coming on.”
“Oh, if we say you’re sick, they’ll report that you’re pregnant and bringing shame on the sheikh. They really enjoy the bringing-shame-to-the-sheikh headlines. Those sell out in record time.” Alea picked up her baby and cuddled him to her chest.
Lan flashed a devastating grin. “You’re caught, Tori. That’s what happens here. One minute you’re happy in your comfortable fatigues and the next someone’s sticking you in a monkey suit and telling you to dance like it’s freaking 1805.”
“At least you don’t have to wear heels,” Tori complained.
“Perks of manhood.” Lan winked and whisked away his wife and baby. Piper’s nanny came to take her boys as well.
She was alone again. Well, except for the next guard on duty who opened the door and took up sentry.
Tori sighed. It really was time to go home.
* * * *
Rory stepped into the sheikh’s office beside Callum with his head held high. It was located in the business wing of the palace. Tori was likely in the residential wing, but he would have to talk fast to even be permitted to walk those halls. The fact that the sheikh had chosen to use his formal office rather than the private one reserved for gatherings with family and friends told him a lot. Of course, so did the look on his face.
Talib al Mussad looked like a man in a bad mood. He sat behind his massive desk, wearing an impeccable three-piece suit, and when they were introduced he nodded his regal head and gestured to the chairs in front of him.
“Gentlemen, you may sit.” The words were polite, but Rory was fairly certain Talib would be excruciatingly polite even as he delivered a death sentence. How did they dispatch people who committed crimes against the royal family in Bezakistan? He was fairly certain it wasn’t pleasant.
“Thank you for agreeing to see us,” Rory said.
“And for letting us in the country, but you need to talk to your security people. I don’t think that full body cavity search was really warranted.” Callum had been unhappy with the extra security protocols that had been put in place since the last time they’d visited.
Yes, Rory was fairly certain the very intrusive personal search had been just for them.
The sheikh’s lips curled up the tiniest bit. “You can never be too careful these days.” His smile faded and he leaned forward. “Now why don’t you explain to me why you’ve come to my country. I know it can’t be because you’ve come to enforce the contract you had my sister-in-law sign. I believe I sent you a check for the full amount, and the jewelry you allowed her to borrow has been returned. Unfortunately, her dress was torn. I added that expense to the check.”
If words were ice, Rory would have frozen where he sat. “No, Your Highness. We didn’t come here to demand anything.”
“And the jewelry was a gift. I’m not cashing that check,” Callum insisted.
“A gift? For what?” Talib’s hawk-like glare settled on Callum.
His brother might not be the world’s most diplomatic man, but he wasn’t a coward either. He held the sheikh’s stare. “For the woman I love.”
“From what I understand you didn’t present it to her as a gift. You chose to trick her into thinking she was purchasing the items herself.”
“I
didn’t think she would accept it,” Callum said, finally starting to squirm the tiniest bit.
It was time to save his brother or this was going to go poorly. Unfortunately, Talib was the gateway to Tori. If he couldn’t be moved, there was no telling when they would see her next. If she chose to stay in the palace, they might not see her at all. “I believe what my brother is trying to say is he couldn’t stand the thought of Tori not having a wardrobe and jewels to match her beauty. You know how British society can be. She’s stubborn. She won’t accept handouts and he couldn’t stand the thought that she would walk into that room and be mocked for having to purchase last season’s fashions. She deserves more.”
Talib’s eyes narrowed. “You should do most of the talking.”
“Of that, I am very aware, Your Highness.” Rory settled in, secure they weren’t getting tossed out yet. “As for Tori’s contract, consider it null and void. I only brought it up in an attempt to keep her close. I certainly wasn’t going to demand payment. We’ve made mistakes with her, but we care very much.”
“We love her,” Callum said. “And I didn’t take back the jewels. They’re hers and they’re waiting for her.”
“You said ‘we.’” Talib sat back, regarding them both now. “I thought Callum was the only one willing to stake his claim.”