by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
Her heart gave a sickening lurch, as though it were trying to turn upside down inside her chest. Trembling like someone just risen from a sickbed, Leila climbed out of the bathtub and wrapped herself in a thick, soft towel. She dried herself quickly, ignoring the shivers, then bravely tossed aside the towel and naked, faced her blurred reflection in the steam-fogged mirror. With her lips pursed in a thoughtful pout, she turned this way and that, trying to see herself from all angles. Yes.. .her breasts were full and yet still firm, with the nipples tightened now into hard, tawny buds.. .hips also full, but, she thought, not too wide.. .slender waist and firm, flat stomach...thighs wellmuscled—probably from horseback riding—and her buttocks, what she could see of them, round and smooth, and, she hoped, not too big.
Almost as an afterthought, with a defiant little flourish, she pulled out the combs and pins that held her hair high atop her head and let it tumble, thick and dark, down her back and over her shoulders. As she watched it her breathing quickened. Her lips parted and a rosy flush spread across her cheeks. The eyes that looked back at her in the mirror seemed to kindle and glow, as if from a fire somewhere in their depths.
He kissed me. He desired me then, I know he did.
Confidence welled up in her like a fountain, and her thirsty soul found it more intoxicating, more erotic than wine. He desired me once, and I will make him desire me again.
Buoyed on a magic carpet of restored self-confidence and new resolve, Leila brushed her teeth and her hair and rubbed her skin with scented oil until it felt soft and smooth as silk. She put on a modest but alluring gown in a soft, shimmery blue-green—the color of the water in a shallow cove near the palace where she and her sisters liked to swim and sunbathe. Somewhere along the line she noticed that the butterflies had come back, although now it did not seem at all an unpleasant sensation.
I am ready, she thought as she paced nervously, glancing from time to time at the clock on Cade's bedside table. Ready for my husband...
It was half past midnight when she heard the creak and scuffle of footsteps outside Cade's bedroom door. Her heart skittered and bolted like the squirrel she had seen that afternoon in the lane as she watched the doorknob slowly turn and the door swish inward, silent and stealthy as a thief in the night, to frame the tall, imposing figure of her husband.
For a moment he hesitated, looking as if he wasn't sure whether he'd got the right room. Then he stepped through the doorway and carefully closed the door behind him. All the while his eyes never left her face, and they reflected the glow of the lamps she'd turned on low beside the bed so that they seemed to catch fire and flare hot as he looked at her.
Her stomach gave a lurch as the magic carpet of confidence she'd been riding on went into a steep crash dive.
Chapter 7
She was every man's dream. And Cade's worst nightmare.
He'd just about driven himself crazy, trying to think what he was going to do about this, his so-called wedding night. How did a man avoid consummating a marriage that never should have happened in the first place, without seeming to reject the woman he'd married and had already thoroughly humiliated once?
In the end, it had seemed to him that the best course of action was also the easiest one: Do nothing at all. If he stalled long enough, he reasoned, Leila was bound to fall asleep, as thoroughly jet-lagged as she must be. Then he could tiptoe in, snag his overnight bag and sneak off to the guest room, and his excuse would be that she needed her rest and he hadn't wanted to disturb her—what a considerate guy he was. Tomorrow morning early he'd be off to work, and after that—well, he had the pretty good excuse of a prior commitment, a weekend hunting trip to the ranch with a client he was trying to woo. No reason he couldn't arrange to fly out a day early, if the client was willing.
On Sunday when he got back, he'd sit Leila down and have a serious talk with her, and they could both try to figure out what they were going to do. By then, he told himself, they'd both be rested up and thinking clearly, and between them they ought to be able to come up with a way out of this farce with a minimum amount of embarrassment for all parties concerned.
It had seemed so reasonable to him, sitting there in his study sipping bourbon and enjoying a cheroot he knew he was going to catch hell for from Betsy tomorrow. He'd dozed a little bit in his chair and woken up stiff and groggy to find that it was well past midnight. Thank God, he'd thought, figuring there was no way in hell Leila would be awake at that hour. It ought to be safe to venture into his own bedroom.
Reeling with the effects of travel fatigue and whiskey, he'd mounted the stairs and made his way down the hallway, conscious of the silence all around him and his heartbeat ticktocking away like an old-fashioned grandfather clock. He was used to the silence of an empty house, but it was odd, he thought, how weighty silence seemed in a house that wasn't as empty as it should be. He was thinking about that, about the usual silence and emptiness of his house at night, when he turned the knob and pushed open his bedroom door.
Then his only thought was: Oh God, what now?
There she was, not only awake but looking like the overture to some erotic dream, a vision in sea-green silk that covered every inch but failed to disguise one centimeter of her curves, her hair cascading down around her shoulders like midnight rain. Every man's dream.. .his worst nightmare.
He didn't know how long he stood there in the doorway looking at her. Just looking at her, with all sorts of emotions shooting off in every direction inside him so that for a moment his brain function felt more than anything like an explosion in a fireworks factory. Now what? What was he supposed to say to her? He couldn't think of a thing.
It came to him gradually, as the shock subsided and his mind began functioning again, that he'd made a serious miscalculation. With all that had happened, he'd forgotten that, from almost the first moment he'd laid eyes on Leila Kamal, he'd wanted her.
He remembered it now. He remembered that the idea had amused him at the time, that he'd laughed at himself for his adolescent foolishness. He wasn't laughing now.
"You're still up," he finally said—as inane an observation as ever there was.
"I waited for you." She said it without a trace of seduction in her voice, facing him bravely with the light from a bedside lamp shimmering in her hair and making deep, dark mysteries of her eyes. She looked so incredibly beautiful.. .and nothing at all like the buoyant, flirtatious girl he remembered meeting in Tamir. Right now what she looked like more than anything was a virgin waiting to be sacrificed.
"You shouldn't have," he said, but in a gentle tone to temper the abruptness of it. He launched into his prepared justifications as he came into the room, keeping at a wary distance from her like a hiker circling a pit of quicksand. "Look...Leila. You've had a long day—you must be tired. I know I am." He stifled an ostentatious yawn. "I, uh.. .had a few things I needed to take care of—business things that couldn't wait." He brushed them aside with a diffident wave of his hand. "Things pile up when I'm away. I'm going to be doing a lot of catching up during the next several days
"Oh yes," she murmured, "I understand."
For some reason her acquiescence annoyed him, made him feel fraudulent and unworthy. He cleared his throat and ventured a look at her, squinting as if she were a light too bright for his eyes. He continued almost defiantly, "In fact, there's something—this weekend I have a thing I'm supposed to do—I promised a client I'd take him hunting out at the ranch."
A frown appeared between her eyebrows. "The...ranch?"
"Yeah—I told you about it—west Texas?"
"Oh—yes, yes—I remember." She sounded eager, now. "And you will fly there in your airplane?"
His insides writhed with guilt. Furious with himself for it, furious with her for making him feel it, he fought the urge to fidget and cleared his throat instead. "I'll be leaving tomorrow, actually. Straight from work. So I won't be—"
"Tomorrow?" He could hear a different breathiness in her voice now... unmistakable to
uches of panic.
"Look—I'm sorry. It's been scheduled for a while. It's a client—I couldn't very well cancel at the last minute." Cade chose that moment to escape into his bathroom, too cowardly to risk another look at her. He didn't need to see the shock, dismay and disappointment he knew would be written all over her face.. .that incredibly expressive face that sometimes seemed to him like watching a video tape on fast forward.
Just inside the bathroom doorway, again he stopped dead.
In only a matter of hours his bathroom had become an alien place. A lush and steamy greenhouse garden, redolent of all sorts of flowery, exotic scents, where jewel-toned bottles sprouted like mushrooms from the marble countertops and a rainbow of fabrics intertwined with the more subtle hues of damp towels bloomed in tropical profusion over every available surface.
Closing his mind to both the chaos and the disturbingly evocative smells, Cade set about gathering up the toiletries Betsy had unpacked for him, putting them back in their travel case. And while he was doing that he went on glibly talking, telling Leila in a logical, reasonable way how he thought she should spend the time while he was gone, catching up on her rest, settling in, getting to know the place...
But not too well, he reminded himself. No sense in her getting too settled in and comfortable here. This "marriage" was only going to be temporary, after all.
Listening to himself talk like that, without Leila's disturbing presence to distract him and just the sound of his own voice and his reassuringly normal reflection glaring back at him from the mirrors, he could feel his self-assurance coming back. Everything he said sounded reasonable and sane—even logical and wise. And why shouldn't it? He was Cade Gallagher, successful Texas businessman, a self-made man who'd had his first few million under his belt before his thirty-fifth birthday. A man with a far-ranging and well-earned reputation as a deal-maker, a man who knew how to play the game—and win.
Play the game... and win.
It came to him then, a flash of self-awareness like a spotlight trained on a dark corner of his soul, just what had happened to him back there in Tamir. In the first place, he'd gone to Elena's wedding with a business deal in mind. Once there, he'd gotten so caught up in the game and so blinded by the idea of winning, he'd lost his perspective. In order to win the game he'd let himself be coerced into marrying a woman he didn't love, with whom he had nothing whatsoever in common.
But the truth was, he didn't need this "win." He didn't need the old sheik's oil deal. He'd made his millions right here in Texas, and there was plenty more where that came from.
He'd been an ambitious fool and had paid the price, but all was not lost. He could still get out of this. He could still get his life back.
Just as long as he did not consummate this marriage.
That was it—the key to his deliverance. Because, from what he'd learned of Leila's culture so far, it seemed to him that when it came to marriage, it was all about the consummation. Even the Walima, the marriage feast, was to celebrate, not the wedding, but the consummation. The way Cade saw it, so long as he didn't make love to his wife, he wasn't even really married.
No problem. So what if she was one of the most beautiful and seductive women he'd ever seen in his life? He was thirty-six years old—a grown man, not a randy teenager. The image that looked back at him in the mirror was confident and mature.. .eyes world-weary, smile wry, eyebrows set at a sardonic tilt. Yes, he told himself, he had more than enough willpower, he ought to be able to resist one little black-eyed virgin princess.
He picked up his toiletry kit and turned around. And there she was, the virgin princess herself, standing in the bathroom doorway, filling it up so his only escape was going to have to be either through her or over her. Unless she moved out of his way, which she was showing no inclination to do.
As a test of that theory, he took a step toward her. Sure enough, she didn't budge an inch. Instead she watched him with great luminous eyes, and he saw her lips slowly part.
Apprehension shivered through his insides. He took another step.. .and another. Only a foot or so separated them now. And then she did move, but not away from him. Instead, she lifted one soft, scented hand and laid it alongside his jaw, a touch as cool and light as a flower. His heart began to pound.
"Leila—" With no spit at all in his mouth, it was all the sound he could manage.
She didn't say a word, just touched one petal-like finger to his lips and shook her head. For a long and terrifying moment she looked deeply into his eyes, and he no longer felt the least bit logical or wise. Then she stretched way up on her tiptoes and kissed him.
His heart and stomach performed impossible acrobatic maneuvers and shimmers of panic danced behind his closed eyelids. His confidence had already evaporated. He snatched at a breath that seared the inside of his chest while every impulse and desire in him pleaded with him to give in.. .to kiss her back and then some. To carry her to his bed and make love to her for what was left of tonight and let tomorrow and the rest of his future—and hers—take care of themselves.
He might have done it. He wasn't sure what would have happened, in fact, if he'd had both hands free. As it was, while one hand, already tingling with anticipation of the feel of her, hovered indecisively inches from her shoulder, his other hand, filled with the small leather case that held his toiletries, made a lump, a slight but significant barrier between his chest and hers. One she couldn't ignore.
She drew back, one of her hands still resting on his shoulder, and looked down at it. After a long moment, her eyes came back to his. "I do not understand," she said in a husky voice. "These are your personal things. Why do you need them? Where are you taking them? Now.. .tonight?"
The air seemed to back up in Cade's chest. His tongue felt thick as he tried to explain. "I.. .uh, I thought I'd, you know, sleep in the guestroom—it's just across the hall..." Why did he feel like an inept thief trying to explain the goodies in his sack, an unprepared schoolboy without his homework?
"But, this is your bedcham—bedroom." She wasn't touching him at all, now, but somehow he knew she was trembling. "Betsy told me. If you do not wish me—" She broke off suddenly, as if she'd been choked, and swallowed hard several times. Then he saw her body stiffen and her chin lift, and his own heart sank. With her face now pale and frozen as a statue, she said in a proud and quiet voice he'd never heard before, "If you do not wish me to sleep here with you in your bedroom, then you must tell me. It is I who should move to the guestroom, not you."
"It's only for tonight," he heard himself say, as his free hand doublecrossed him by lifting to her cheek. He felt himself brushing it with the backs of his fingers, and it was hot and smooth, like the skin of a ripe peach. What the hell was he doing? And why had he ever imagined this would be easy?
"We are both so tired," he gently explained, "and I'm pretty sure if we share a bed tonight, neither of us will get any sleep. There'll be other nights...." Was it a lie? He didn't even know for sure. And if it was, why did it come so easily to him? He wasn't—or never had been—a dishonest man. "We'll have plenty of time. When I get back. Tonight.. .you just rest, okay?" He ducked his head and touched his lips to her forehead. He'd never felt so confused and ashamed of himself. "Get some sleep," he said huskily, and walked away and left her there.
* * *
Leila woke up in a very large bed and for a moment could not think where she was. She felt sweaty and her heart pounded the way it had sometimes done when she was a very little girl, waking from a nightmare she could not remember.
But she was not a little girl, and there was no Salma to stroke her hair and kiss her cheek and tell her everything was all right. And besides, she remembered it all, now. She was in Texas, in America, and the wife of a man named Cade Gallagher, whom she did not know. And did not understand at all!
In Tamir he had kissed her. She understood that well enough. He had desired her then—surely she had not been wrong about that. And now that she was his wife, he did not se
em to want to kiss her at all.
And yet...he had been kind to her. Considerate, yes, and even tender. She stretched languorously, pushing her arms amongst the pillows, then lightly touched the place on her forehead where he had kissed her. The memory of his lips, how warm and smooth they had felt against her skin, made a startling little shiver go through her.
And—she realized it now, though she'd been too humiliated at the time to appreciate the fact—he'd actually proposed marriage to her to save her from public disgrace! A foolish thing to do, but in a way very sweet....
Sweet? She remembered now—that was what Elena's friend Kitty had said about Cade. That he was sweet, like a.. .what was it? A marshmellow? Leila actually giggled; it had seemed then, and still did seem a very unlikely way to describe a man.
Maybe—the thought came suddenly—it was not such a good thing for a man to be too sweet. At least, not all the time.
But her outlook was brighter as she threw back the covers. She felt much more like her usual buoyant self. It was as Cade had said, that they both had been very tired yesterday, from all the traveling and the emotional stress of what had come before. Her husband had been right, and wise, to postpone consummating their marriage until they had both had a chance to rest and—how had he put it?—yes, settle in.
Little shivers rippled through her as she dressed for the day in cool gray slacks and a simple white blouse. It is true—it has really happened. I am in America—in Texas! A married woman! Over and over she said those words to herself, adding to those another, perhaps incongruous thought, I am free!
She realized that for most women marriage might mean the opposite of freedom, but for her it seemed to promise endless possibilities. Yes, she was a wife, and she would work hard to be a good one. But she was in America. Here she could do anything—go to college, become a doctor, or a teacher—perhaps even a lawyer, or the head of her own company, like Elena. No longer would people laugh indulgently at her and treat her like a child. She was Mrs. Cade Gallagher, and she was in America. She was free.