Jessa was so beautiful, she took his breath away. She was a shock of cinnamon and copper against the brilliant blue sky, the white walls, and the palm trees that clanked gently overhead in the afternoon breeze. She seemed brighter to him than the vivid flowering plants that spilled from the balconies on the higher floors, and the sparkle of the fountain in the courtyard’s center. She had set aside her novel and was watching the antics of two plump little birds who danced on the fountain’s edge. She wore a long linen tunic over loose trousers in the fashion of his people, her feet in thonged sandals. Around her neck she wore a piece of jade suspended from a chain that she had found in one of the city’s marketplaces.
She looked as if she belonged exactly where she was.
Mine, he thought, not for the first time.
He crossed to her, smiling when she seemed to sense him and glanced around—smiling more when her face lit up.
“I thought you would be gone until tomorrow,” she said, her delight evident in her voice, in the gleam in her eyes, though she did not throw herself into his arms as she might have in a less public area of the palace.
“My business concluded early,” he said. He had made sure of it—he wanted to be away from Jessa less and less. In some sense, she was the only family he had ever known. What they had lost together made him feel more bound to her than he had ever been to another human being. And he could think of only one way to ensure that he never need be apart from her again. The birds chattered at him from their new perch on the higher rim of the fountain. “You have been here nearly a month and still you are fascinated by the birds?” He eyed her. “Perhaps you should get out more.”
“Perhaps I should,” she agreed. He watched as her gaze shuttered, hiding her feelings from him as she still did from time to time whenever any hint of a discussion of their future appeared. It was time to end it.
“As a matter of fact,” he said quietly, “that is what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Getting out?” she asked, frowning slightly.
“In a manner of speaking,” he said. He looked down at her, wanting to pull her into his arms and kiss his way into this discussion. That seemed to be the language in which they were both fluent. “I want to talk about the future. You and me.”
Jessa went very still. The splash of water in the fountain behind her was all Tariq heard for a long moment, while her eyes went dark.
Then she lifted her chin, defiant and brave to the end. “There is no need,” she said with a certain grace, drawing herself up and onto her feet. She picked up her book and tucked it underneath her arm with stiff, jerky movements. “I have always known this day was coming.”
“Have you?” he asked mildly.
“Of course,” she said briskly. “One of the first things you told me when you walked into my office was that you needed to get married. Naturally, you must do your duty to your country.”
She held her head high as she skirted around him. She headed across the courtyard and up the wide steps toward his private quarters. Tariq followed, watching the sway of her hips in the soft linen and admiring the ramrod straightness of her spine. He followed her inside the palace and all the way into the vast bedroom suite, where he leaned against the bed and watched her look wildly around, as if searching for something.
“Never fear,” she said in the same false tone, turning to face him. “I have no intention of making this awkward for either of us. I will simply pack a few things and be out of your way in no time.”
She looked as if she might change her mind and bolt for the door.
“You are so determined to leave me,” he drawled, amused. “It is almost a shame that I have no intention of letting you do so.”
She froze in place, her face expressionless while her eyes burned hot.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
“What do you think I mean?” he asked.
For a moment she only stared at him.
“I will not be in your harem!” she muttered, scandalized. “How could you suggest such a thing?”
“I am not planning to collect a harem.” His mouth crooked up in one corner. “Assuming, of course, you behave.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, though it was more like a sob.
“You do.” He moved closer to her, so he could reach out and hold her by her slender shoulders. “You have simply decided it cannot happen. I do not know why.”
Her mouth worked, and she flushed a deep, hot red.
“You must have a queen who is worthy of you,” she said after a moment. “One who is your equal in every way.”
“I must have you,” he replied simply, leaning forward to kiss her. Her lips clung to his for a long, sweet moment, and then she pulled back to frown at him.
“No,” she said firmly.
“No?”
“I won’t marry you,” she gritted out, and moved out of his grip. She rubbed at her arms for a moment, her head bent.
Tariq ordered himself to be patient. “Why not?” he asked, in a far easier tone than the possessiveness that clawed at him demanded.
She looked at him. Her lips pressed together, and her hands balled into fists at her side.
“I love you,” she blurted out, and then sighed slightly, as if it hurt to say aloud, even as sweet triumph washed through Tariq—making him want to roar out his victory, shout it from the rooftops. When she looked at him again, her eyes were overly bright, but her chin was high. “I cannot marry a man who does not love me,” she said. Bravely and definitively. “Not even you.”
Tariq closed the distance between them, his expression unreadable. But this was not about sex, explosive as it had always been between them. This was about something bigger.
That must be why she wanted to collapse into sobs.
“Don’t!” Jessa whispered, though she did not move—did not make any attempt to avoid him. “This is hard enough, Tariq! Please do not—”
He silenced her with his mouth upon hers, his hand fisting in the mess of her curls. He kissed her until she melted against him, soft and pliant against his hardness despite everything, until her arms crept around his neck and she kissed him back with a matching ferocity. He kissed her until she couldn’t tell who moaned, who sighed, while the fire of their connection raged between them, incinerating them both in a delicious blaze.
“I love you,” he told her in a low voice when he tore his mouth away from hers, his gaze dark and green and so serious it made Jessa gasp.
She searched his face, not daring to believe she had heard him right. She even shook her head, as if to refute it.
Tariq smiled.
“I have never loved another woman,” he said. “I never will. How can you doubt it? I longed for you for five long years. I hunted you to the ends of the earth.”
“York is not the ends of the earth,” she said, absurdly. He traced a line down her jaw, still smiling.
“That depends where you start.” He sighed. “Jessa. What are you so afraid of? Did I not tell you what would happen if I brought you here?”
She remembered he had been angry, but she also remembered what he had said—that he would keep any woman he brought to his palace. But she could not seem to get her head around it. She could not seem to believe.
“That was a long time ago,” Jessa whispered.
“I will marry you,” he said, as if there had never been any other possibility.
“You cannot!” she cried, hard emotions racking her, fear scraping through her, leaving her trembling in his arms. “I do not deserve you! Not after—” Her eyes swam with tears, blurring the world, but she could still see him, so strong and intent. “I gave him away, Tariq. I gave him up.”
“And we will miss him,” Tariq replied after a moment, his voice thick with his own emotions. “Together.”
Jessa let out a breath and, with it, something tight and frozen seemed to thaw, letting light and hope begin to trickle through her. Letting h
er wonder, what if?
He pressed his lips against her forehead. In a softer tone, yet no less demanding, no less sure, he said, “And we will have another child, Jessa. Not as a replacement. Never as a replacement. As a new beginning. This I promise you.”
The tears spilled over now, wetting her cheeks. She touched his face, an echo of that cold day when Tariq had finally understood the magnitude of what she had given up, and why. Jeremy would be an ache they carried with them for the rest of their lives, day in and day out. But for the first time, she dared to hope that they would carry it together across the years, making it easier to bear that way. And someday, only if he wished it, they would tell Jeremy the story of how much he was loved, and how well.
“Yes,” she breathed, her heart too full to let her smile. “We will be a family.”
“We will,” he said gruffly, and something powerful and true swelled between them then, and seemed to spread out around them to fill the room.
The thought of making a child with Tariq—deliberately—in joy and in love, and then raising that child together as she had always wanted to believe they were meant to do…It was almost too overwhelming.
Almost.
“I haven’t agreed to any marriage,” Jessa told Tariq then, with a small smile, while an intoxicating cocktail of hope and joy surged through her. She could feel it inexorably changing her with every second. Could dreams come true after all, after everything they had been through? After all that they had done? Was it possible?
Looking at him, she dared to believe it for the first time.
She was still twined around him, her legs astride one of his and her sex pressed intimately against his thigh. He moved slightly and made her groan as that sweet, delirious heat rocked through her.
“I suggest you get used to the idea,” Tariq said, a smile in his voice, his eyes. “This is my country. I do not require your agreement.” He kissed her again, capturing her lower lip between his teeth for a moment before releasing her. He smiled. “Though I would like it.”
“Yes,” she said softly, wonder rolling through her, making her feel as incandescent as the desert sun. Only with Tariq. Only for him. “Yes, I will marry you.”
“You will be happy, Jessa,” he vowed, fiercely, sweeping her up off the floor, high against his chest. She wrapped her legs around his waist and gripped tight to his shoulders, looking down at him as he held her. At the jade eyes that so consumed her that she had bought a necklace to match, so she might have something like him to look at when he was away. At this man she had loved for so long, and in so many different ways. Her playboy lover. Her king. Her husband.
“You will be happy,” he said again, frowning at her as if he dared her to disagree.
“Is that your royal decree?” she asked, laughing as he whirled her around and tipped her backward onto the soft bed behind them. He fell with her, following her down and then bracing himself on his arms before he crashed into her.
“I am the king,” he said, leaning over her. “My word is law.”
“I am to be the queen,” she said, shivering slightly as the idea of it began to truly take hold. She would have this man forever. She would be able to hold him like this, love him like this. She felt her eyes well up as she reached between them to trace his mouth, the hard planes of his face. Harsh, forbidding. Hers.
“So my word should also be law, should it not?” she asked.
“If you wish it.”
Jessa smiled and lifted her head to kiss him, sweet and more sure than she had ever been of anything.
“Then we will be happy,” she said and, for the first time, truly believed it, with all of her heart and soul. “Because I say so.”
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
First published in Great Britain 2009
Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Caitlin Crews 2010
ISBN: 978-1-408-91896-8
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Excerpt
About the Author
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Copyright
Majesty, Mistress...Missing Heir Page 16