by Leslie North
She stopped but only because Najid grabbed her arm and pulled her in the opposite direction. “We’re going somewhere to talk about this in private,” he told her, but low enough so that only she could hear him.
She saw Jual coming out of his office, his startled glance looking in their direction. “I’m quitting,” she told her boss. “I’m sorry, but I have to get away from here.”
Najid shook his head even as he rolled his eyes, still dragging her down the hallway. “She’s not quitting. She’ll be here tomorrow for work as usual.” A moment later, they were out in the hallway and he was dragging her towards his private suite.
She panicked, pulling against his hold even though she knew from experience that it was pointless. Najid would never hurt her, but when he wanted something, he got it. Lately, that something had been her and he could tease and torment her out of any bad mood or anger she might be in when they met for dinner. “I’m not going there, Najid! I can’t! And you won’t make me. I know you. You’re a good man underneath all of that arrogance. You’re kind and sweet and…”
He stopped and looked down at her. “Ana, there are some things we need to discuss, but we’re not going to do it in the hallway where anyone can hear. So come with me willingly or I’ll drag you into my apartment. But either way, we’re going to have a conversation that we should have had weeks ago.”
Ana had no idea what that conversation was going to be, but she knew she wasn’t going to like it. “No. I’m going to get my stuff and I’m leaving the palace. I’m also going to get on the next flight out of Safir because I…”
“Stop right there, Ana,” he warned with a low, threatening voice. “First of all, I wouldn’t let you out of this building. So there’s no way you’re leaving me. And secondly, as of this moment, you are not allowed on any commercial flight. Do you understand me? I won’t let you leave me. You love me and we’re…” he looked up, noticing his bodyguards had formed a perimeter around them. They all were looking outwards but they could still hear. And this was a conversation that needed to be discussed in private.
“Come with me,” he said and dragged her into his private suite. “Now admit it,” he finally said when the door was closed and they were alone finally.
“Admit what?” she demanded even as she walked into the closet where she’d started to keep her clothes since she was here so often. She pulled down a suitcase and laid it out on one of the dressers. A moment later, she was tossing her clothes into the suitcase. “I have nothing to admit to you,” she told him and angrily wiped the tears from her cheeks.
Najid simply leaned against the wall, watching her. “Admit that you’re in love with me, Ana.” She threw several more armfuls of clothing into the suitcase and he almost laughed at how wound up she was over this afternoon. He should probably be outraged, furious that she was even thinking about leaving him. But he knew his Ana now. He knew that she was just trying to protect herself.
She should also know by now that he would never allow her to leave him. Not the way both of them felt towards each other.
“You love me,” he challenged and watched her adorable, sexy body stiffen with outrage.
Ana spun around, her finger pointing towards his chest. “Don’t you dare! I am not in love with you! I will never be in love with you!” She’d admitted the truth to herself weeks ago, but she’d never said it to him. She wouldn’t dare! He had too much control over her already.
He could see her trembling but it was due to the fear inside of her head. She had to know he wouldn’t hurt her. But something was holding her back. The same damn thing that had been holding her apart from him, mentally, for too long. It was time to get it out of the way. “Why? Because you’re scared?”
She gasped and spun around. “I’m not afraid of anything. I’ve told you that over and over again. Why can’t you get it through your thick skull?”
He saw the fear in her eyes. The fear of being in love. Of being vulnerable to him. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and promise her that nothing bad would happen, but that wasn’t life. She needed to accept that things could go wrong and they needed to hold onto the good while they had each other.
He moved closer, his eyes softening. “Except that you’re afraid of me and what I make you feel. Isn’t that right?” he asked gently. He moved closer to her and took hold of the dress she was about to toss into the suitcase. “You’re afraid of how intensely you love me, isn’t that true?”
She opened her mouth to tell him he was insane, but instead, she threw herself against his strong chest, burying her face against that chest and wrapping her arms around his waist. “I can’t love you, Najid,” she told him with a sob.
He was surprised by her reaction for perhaps half a second. But the moment she uttered those words, he understood. His arms held her close as his cheek rested against the top of her head. “Why can’t you tell me that you love me, honey?”
She pressed her nose against his shirt. “Because I’ll get hurt. And you don’t love me anyway, so it doesn’t matter. I’m going to leave and you can get back to…your regular world.”
He breathed in her fresh, feminine scent. “You’re my world now, Ana. I want you in it and I love you.”
She stood very still, not sure she’d heard him correctly. “You don’t love me,” she asserted vehemently.
He laughed and hugged her closer. “Ana, I fell in love with you the moment I heard your horrible singing.”
She pulled back, not sure how to react to that comment. He didn’t like her singing? Wait…when had he ever heard her sing? “I don’t sing that badly,” she argued.
He looked down at her with laughter in his eyes. “Honey, your singing is worse than a cat in heat.” He pulled her closer and kissed her neck. “But you have many other attributes that make up for your deplorable singing abilities.”
She wasn’t mollified. A cat in heat? She suspected that was bad, but she’d honestly never heard a cat in heat. She pulled away from his lips. Well, as far away as his arms would allow. “And I don’t love you.”
He chuckled at her irritated expression. “Yes you do. And you’re going to marry me. We’re going to have lots of babies and you’re going to keep them all safe with your brilliant mathematical abilities.”
Wait. What?! His words were throwing her completely off kilter. Marriage? Children? She wasn’t going there! No way! Her eyes were wide as her fingers gripped the material of his shirt. “Babies?” she whispered. “You want to have kids?”
“Of course.”
Why? The thought of children had never entered her mind. She’d never allowed herself to think of the future. Day to day was as far as she could think. Math worked. Hoping for the future didn’t work.
Najid wanted children? “With me?”
He laughed again. “I wouldn’t have kids with anyone else,” he said and kissed her gently. “Are you going to keep me in suspense?” he teased.
She smiled weakly at his teasing but shook her head. “I think I am,” she told him.
He lifted his head and pretended to be angry. “In that case, there’s only one thing to do,” he told her and lifted her into the air, ignoring her squeal of protest. “Stop whining, woman!” he said and smacked her bottom playfully. “You brought this on yourself.”
She pushed her hair out of her eyes and tried to control her laughter but neither effort was working very well. “You’re a big bully.”
He flopped her down onto the bed. “I am, and don’t you forget it,” he growled as he tossed one of her shoes over his shoulder, then the other. “And you know what bullies do?” he asked her as his fingers popped the button of her slacks.
“What?” she asked as she lifted her hips, helping him discard her clothing.
“They torture their victims,” he said and nibbled on the side of her leg.
She laughed but her arms went around his shoulders. “Okay, I give in. I love you.”
He shook his head. “You’re not a very good vic
tim, Ana,” he told her as he kissed her gently.
The amusement left her face when he looked down at her. “I love you, but I’m still scared.”
His own laughter died away as well. “I know. I promise I’ll try and keep you safe, both your body and your heart. That’s all I can promise though. The world isn’t a safe place, Ana. I have to go out into it and protect it. That’s who I am.”
She let her fingers roam over his broad shoulders, considering his words. “Will you at least tell me what’s going on? I don’t like being kept in the dark. Not knowing scares me more than anything. I have a good imagination. I can come up with some pretty horrifying scenarios when left to my own devices.”
“Will you agree to marry me?”
“Will you agree to tell me what’s going on?”
He shook his head. “I can only tell my wife when state secrets are involved,” he told her, his fingers sliding over her bare stomach as he pushed her sweater higher up on her body.
“Then I guess I have to marry you,” she finally agreed.
“I guess that’s the only solution. But I have ways to help you through the nightmare of being married to me,” he said and the teasing glint was back in those dark eyes.
She had a pretty good idea of what he was thinking, but she wanted to hear him say it. “What’s that?” she asked.
“This,” he said and showed her some of the compensations. All night, he showed her those compensations. And she loved him all the more for it.
Epilogue
“I’m going to kill you!” Ana screamed, gripping Najid’s fingers in a grip that almost broke bones. “I’m swear, I’m going to kill you!”
Najid tried to hide his amusement as his sweet, gentle Ana endured another contraction. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning. His wife did not handle pain well.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me! If you don’t wipe that arrogant smile off your handsome face, I promise you, I will never let you back into our bed.”
Now those really were fighting words!
“Now Ana,” he tried to reassure her while also extricating his fingers from her punishing grip.
“Don’t you ‘now Ana’ me. You’re the one who got me into this position. You get me out of it!”
Since she was very pregnant and very cute, he wasn’t sure how she thought they could change places. “Ana, why don’t you concentrate on breathing through the pain?”
Ana glared up at the tall, handsome man that she swore up and down would never touch her bed again, much less her body if this was what might happen. “No! You breathe!”
The obstetrician and the nursing staff were having a hard time hiding their laughter, especially since their normally sweet and patient Queen Ana sounded like a possessed demon at the moment.
“Ana, we’re going to get through this together.”
The contraction slowed, then receded and Ana leaned back against the pillows. She knew another contraction was coming, so she conserved her strength. “I really don’t see how ‘we’ are doing anything together. ‘We’ aren’t on this table going through the pain of labor. ‘We’ aren’t having the most mind-numbing pain ever experienced. So please don’t say ‘we’ again until you’re strapped to this bed with wires coming out of all sorts of undignified places.” She grabbed his shirt and pulled him forward. “Get me an epidural!” she growled out. The demon-voice had gotten worse.
Najid had faced down terrorists and world leaders, but never before had he been as scared as he was at this moment. Turning to the doctor, he was about to open his mouth but the woman raised her hand to stop him. “The anesthesiologist is on the way, Your Highness,” she assured him.
A man in blue scrubs walked into the delivery room at that very moment. “I’m here,” he announced. “I’m guessing my expertise has been requested?”
Ana was already shifting her huge body around, ready for the epidural but Najid turned around, relieved and ready to greet his savior. That was when he saw the enormous needle in the man’s hand. “What the hell is that?!” he demanded, turning to extend his arms protectively around his wife.
The newest doctor looked over at his ruler and stopped, confused. “I heard that an epidural was requested.”
Najid stared open mouthed at the man, then again at the needle. “There’s no way I’m letting you near my wife with that!”
Ana was moaning in pain as another contraction hit her fatigued body. “Get out of the way, Najid. Let the man do his job.”
Najid glanced back at his wife, her lips pale and compressed as the contraction hit her tiny frame. “No. No way. That’s a…” he glanced back at the needle in the doctor’s hand. “That’s huge!”
Ana breathed in and out, slowly and carefully. She gripped the sheets covering her belly, trying very hard not to reach out and grip Najid’s shirt because she might twist too much and hurt him. “Najid,” she repeated in as calm a voice as possible under the circumstances, “if you don’t get out of the way, I’m going to order that man to give you the shot instead of me. So either move, or bend over!” By the end of her threat, she was screaming and trying to wiggle away from the pain of the current contraction. She didn’t care. The needle meant relief and her sweet, kind, protective husband was In. The. Way!
When he still didn’t move, she tried to reach out and pinch him, but there wasn’t any fat or loose skin to pinch. The man was all hard packed muscle. “Najid, MOVE!” she screamed.
Najid heard his wife’s pain and spun around, dismissing the man who might harm the love of his life. “Honey, just breathe. You can do this.”
In response, she grabbed Najid’s hair and pulled him down. “Get out of the way and let him help me!”
With that, she waved the anesthesiologist closer. The doctor looked at Najid warily, but he brought the needle over to his patient. Leaning forward, he proceeded to administer the epidural, coaching Ana through the process. A moment later, Ana felt cold liquid against her back and, almost instantly, relief hit her abdomen. She could still feel the contractions, but they didn’t produce the insanity-inducing pain.
Leaning back against the pillows once again, she closed her eyes and reached out for Najid. “Thank you for trying to protect me,” she said to him, almost crying now that the pain had lessened.
Najid didn’t understand completely, but he saw that his wife wasn’t screaming. A good thing, he thought. A part of his mind thought about turning to thank the doctor but he kept all of his focus on Ana.
Ten hours later, the epidural was turned off and Ana was pushing. Well, she was screaming again, and he suspected she was pushing, but she was exhausted so she wasn’t really sure about anything now.
After twenty hours in labor, Najid wanted to do something to help her but he was powerless. Her pretty green eyes kept begging him for help, but he wasn’t sure what to do, other than talk her through each contraction and encourage her to push.
“I can see the head, Ana,” the obstetrician announced. “One more big push!” she said.
Ana sobbed, no longer crushing Najid’s hand because she simply didn’t have the strength any longer. “I can’t,” she announced, her head shaking back and forth. But then her body told her she could. She must. “NO!” she screamed as her body pushed, almost involuntarily.
“That’s it!” the doctor encouraged.
Ana continued to push, wanting this nightmare to be over. Needing some relief. The doctor and nurses were working quickly but Ana had no idea what was going on.
A moment later, the doctor smiled triumphantly. “It’s a boy!”
Ana looked at the tiny human being that the nurse was quickly wrapping up in a blanket. When the nurse handed the infant to Ana, she started crying. “Is he okay?” Ana asked, worried because she’d always thought that babies cried after birth.
“He looks fine,” the doctor smiled reassuringly. The medical team was still working but Ana only had eyes for her perfect, wonderful son. His face was red and pinched, his eyes ba
rely open but he looked amazing.
“A son,” Najid whispered as he put an arm around his family. “A son,” he repeated, still in awe. Then he kissed the top of Ana’s head. “Thank you, my love.”
Ana looked up into the eyes of the man she loved so deeply, it still scared her at times. “Thank you,” she whispered back. “I love you.”
There was movement everywhere in the delivery room but Ana, Najid and their tiny son were an island among the chaos. It was their first moment together as a family and she was so happy, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. So she did both.
The Prince’s Challenge
By Elizabeth Lennox
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Chapter 1
“Just one more hand!” Sonya begged, shuffling the cards dramatically in a desperate attempt to entice.
The nurse just laughed and waved her hand in the air. “No way! You’re a shark!”
Sonya stared at the woman’s departing back. “But it’s UNO! Not blackjack or poker!” Uno was harmless!
The nurse still shook her head. “I have to check on the other patients. I’ll be back later when I have a break.”
Sonya watched with growing panic as the nurse walked out.
Alone. Again! Looking around, her fingers absently shuffled the cards as she tried to breathe slowly, trying not to allow the anxiety to tighten the wide band around her chest.
Darn it, she hated being alone!
She sat there in the uncomfortable hospital bed, staring at the other side of her hospital room. Nothing to do. She’d run out of UNO players after beating all the nurses and doctors on the floor.