by Tina Leonard
“I fear I am trouble to you—”
“Nonsense,” Rose denied. “I didn’t spend years in a sanitarium by Layla’s treachery to give up this easily. I learned survival, and I learned determination. I side with Prince Kadar in his decision. If you both want the last few days that King Zak has granted, then we will not allow Layla to take that from you.”
“I want it,” Serena whispered, her eyes on Cade. “If my prince wishes it, Prince Kadar.”
“I have already made my decision,” he said imperiously. “You stay here with us.”
Sweet shivers ran all over Serena’s body. There was fire in Prince Kadar’s eyes, glowing for her. She felt his possession of her heart in full flame, and told herself she would walk through the worst fire Layla could conjure before leaving her prince.
IN BALAHAR, King Zak opened the letter put in front of him by an adviser. It was from Rose Coleman, and he very much looked forward to her missive. He wanted to learn how the courtship was progressing; he trusted Rose had been correct in believing that Serena and Kadar were not totally immune to each other.
But it was the photograph that fell out from between the pages that caught his eye.
The photo showed Rose Coleman with her three sons—and Rose was as lovely as he remembered. He smiled at the classic image reminiscent of Princess Grace of Monaco. Soft upswept blond hair complemented a bone structure that was aging gracefully. Her eyes held laughter, her mouth curved in a smile as her sons stood proudly on either side of her. Her son Alex he thought quite handsome. Kadar and Makin he couldn’t tell apart, though he suspected he recognized the arrogant stance of Kadar, feet apart, independent even though he stood protectively near his mother.
On the back of the photograph, Rose’s slanting penmanship confirmed his guess. All of her sons looked strong and virile, but King Zak decided he was glad Serena had chosen Kadar, even by accident. He was strong and determined, and he would need that to deal with Serena. She was very much like her stepbrother, Sharif.
That thought made King Zak flip the photo back over to stare more closely at Rose’s sons. He pulled a photo from his desk of Sharif and Serena and himself, putting the two close together so he could inspect them.
If he didn’t know better, he would think that Sharif had Rose’s classic bone structure. His imagination could be working overtime, but possibly Sharif’s stance even mimicked that of the other princes. The eyes were similar, fierce with pride.
His mouth dropped open. It simply could not be.
He remembered the baby that had been brought to him and Nadirah for adoption. His wife had said the child was the son of parents who had died. It was the year Ibrahim had been killed in an assassination attempt done right, although no one had ever learned who was behind the deed. Rose had disappeared with her children. Zak had become busy over the next nine months, as he learned how to keep peace with the new king, Azzam. Too preoccupied to question his wife’s wish to finally have a child of her own, he had granted her wish to keep the orphaned infant. He wanted someone around him to be happy, and he’d been relieved to provide her with a child, since he could not.
He had never considered treachery.
Surely his mind was merely imagining this, craving a connection of some kind to family since he no longer had the wife he loved. Or maybe he was at last getting old and his eyes played tricks on him.
Even a man’s heart played tricks on him in his twilight years, bringing him wistful memories from the past. Sometimes changing him, mellowing him.
He examined the picture again, comparing Rose to her sons, and then to Sharif.
It was not possible.
But he’d been forged by the intrigues of royalty for too long not to at least give his suspicion some consideration.
He looked at the picture again, his gaze now only on her.
She was a beautiful woman. Despite what the papers had said when Ibrahim had married Rose Coleman and decided to have only her, forsaking a harem, it was clear the deceased king had chosen well.
He wondered if the men in Texas were vying to keep the widowed ex-queen company—and decided he found that thought strangely unsettling.
Chapter Fifteen
“This is my fault you have been discovered,” Serena said to Cade and Mac as they sat at the kitchen table. “I am embarrassed to have caused this trouble to you.”
“If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,” Mac said. “I sent my brother to check you out. If I’d done my duty, we’d be married well and good by now. And there’d be nothing Layla and Azzam could do about it.”
Cade watched Serena’s and Mac’s eyes meet in consternation. He grinned as they both instantly shook their heads in the negative.
“I am sorry, Prince Makin—” Serena began.
“Well, I’m not,” Mac said. “What my brother did for a favor to me is turning out to be right for him, no matter how difficult it seems right now. You two are meant to be together.”
“We’ll have to outthink the problem,” Cade said. Serena was all his woman, destined to be his—if he could just figure out a way to make it happen on his terms.
He snapped his fingers. “I’m taking you home,” he told Serena.
“What?” she asked, her eyes suddenly filling with tears. “Do not send me back to Balahar, my prince! I would stay here with you, and not cause you trouble, although I know I will cause you some with driving lessons and other things my temper gets me into. But otherwise I will be a good wife!”
Shaking his head, he said, “I need to face this head-on, Serena. It’s the only way.”
“You will end up assassinated like your father,” she said bitterly. Instantly, she gasped. “I am sorry! I should not have spoken so!”
Cade’s eyes narrowed on his wife. “What makes you think I would be assassinated?”
“Because you have married me,” she said miserably. “And that puts you in line for the throne, no matter how much you do not want it. You can rule, because you are not a commoner by birth, as I am. Only Crown Prince Sharif would be before you, and any children he may ever have.”
“Your father will arrange his marriage next, and considering what you have told me about the ladies vying for his…what was it?” he asked Serena.
“Favor.”
“Right. Favor. No doubt his wife will do the same. They can have a bundle of babies, and I’m in the clear.” Cade shook his head. “That’s no reason for me to fear returning.”
“It doesn’t have to have a reason!” Serena exclaimed. “Nipping off the buds of the plant assures that no new growth lives!”
“Whoa,” Mac said. “You don’t want to be nipped, Cade. Maybe I should go with you as your bodyguard.”
“I’m supposed to be Serena’s, but she makes it difficult,” Cade grumbled good-naturedly. “I don’t think having both of us over there at the same time would be good for Mother’s state of mind.”
“There is that,” Mac agreed.
“Serena and I will have to go alone. We will remarry with my name in a ceremony that the people can see, so that they can stop worrying about their king’s political choices.”
“You were not a political choice,” Serena said. “I came with you of my own free will, without asking my father’s permission, even though I had discovered you were an imposter. That makes this a match between equals. I am your choice, and you are mine,” Serena said. “But I think we should stay here and get married, if that is your wish. I do not want you in harm’s way, Kadar.”
“We marry in Balahar,” Cade stated. “And invite Layla to come drink some wedding punch, preferably poisoned.”
“Cade!” Mac said with a laugh. “You’re becoming royal after all, if you’re going to start planning intrigues.”
“Fight fire with fire,” Cade said. “Serena, don’t tell your father we’re coming. This visit is going to be a surprise.”
“I do not want you to go,” Serena said. “I forbid it, my prince. I will return alone. I will not ma
rry you if you do this. It is unsafe, and I would rather be a concubine here in Texas than married in Balahar!” She burst into tears.
Cade gaped at his wife. “A concubine? Have you lost your mind? I promised your father I would not dishonor you, and I can tell you right now, lovely princess, I keep my promises. Besides which, my father did not keep a harem, a fact that scandalized his country, particularly when he did not marry his betrothed, Layla. I sure as hell am not going to break with tradition. Now get packed,” he said, angered.
Serena flew from the room, her weeping audible.
“Do you think you’re a little hard on her?” Mac asked. “She’s trying to protect you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have to hide behind her gauzy little skirts,” Cade stated. “I’ll do the protecting. I don’t think a minor prince is going to cause much of a threat to the throne, especially this prince who’s made no secret that he’ll be spending his life right here at The Desert Rose.”
Mac raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re beginning to sound more and more royal all the time. Do you remember when you used to be a fun-loving guy who never took anything seriously? In fact, the whole reason you went to Balahar in the first place was to protect me, because you said my heart wasn’t easy-come easy-go enough to enter into a marriage of convenience.”
“I don’t have time for yakking, Mac. Serena has fit herself into my world, and done her best to learn to love Texas. The least I can do is return the favor in some small measure. She left her home with little more than a hairbrush. I’ll take her back and we’ll do this thing right, for once and for all.”
“Don’t you mean, for better or for worse?”
“It’s definitely got to get better,” Cade said, heading upstairs to pack, “because in no way do I intend to allow it to get worse.”
“WHERE’S SERENA?” Cade asked his mother an hour later. He’d filed a flight plan, gotten some clothes together. But now he couldn’t find his wife.
Rose stared at her son. “She is determined not to go to Balahar where you will be in danger, so she has left.”
“Left…what?”
“This house.”
“You let her?” He was incredulous.
“She is a princess,” Rose replied in surprise. “She has a mind of her own. I know that Vi and Randy would not have raised you in my absence to be a chauvinist, Kadar, so I’m assuming your attitude has more to do with dismay that she has gone rather than annoyance that she operates under her own principles.”
“Considering the circumstances of a hundred reporters outside our gates, I’m merely expressing concern that you would advise Serena to go,” Cade said, not happy at all to hear that Serena wasn’t falling in with his plans easily.
“I did not advise her to go,” Rose told him sternly. “This is not a prison, however. She is free to come and go as she pleases—and it is not her wish to return to her country. I must counsel you to listen to your wife’s feelings, Kadar. Not listening is a mistake that ruins many a young marriage. A good foundation can be set for life if the two partners will listen to each other in the early days of the union.”
“I have Serena’s best interest at heart.”
“But she does not find it to be her best interest, and she felt you would pressure her to return. This is a crossroads you must fix between you, but I must reiterate that this is not a time to be overbearing,” Rose warned.
“I am never overbearing,” Cade said.
“I suggest you find your wife and ask her whether she finds you so and, moreover, if she wishes to return. Please listen to her answer. Flight plans can be refiled and suitcases can be repacked, but the foundation of a solid marriage is poured once in the beginning and will be lived with forever.” Rose swept from the room.
“Great,” Cade muttered. “Females aligned against me is a bad sign. This has never happened before in my life. Never.”
“I heard that,” Rose said, poking her head back into the room. “If you take your bruised pride down to the guest house, you will find your wife and all the privacy you need, if you don’t let the press see you.”
“Thanks, Mother.” Cade saluted his mother with a relieved smile.
“Well, I said she was free to go of her own free will, but I didn’t let her get far,” Rose said with a dry smile. “I am my son’s mother, after all, and I want him to have the woman he loves, even if he is slow in the love department.”
“Slow in the love department!”
“The romance department, as well,” Rose added. “Remember, this princess loves you, Cade.”
“Loves…me?” he echoed, realizing for the first time that neither of them had ever spoken those words. He wanted her, he would possess her, he would keep her forever, but he had not expected to love her. Nor to have her love in return. “Did she say that?”
Rose shook her head. “No, and I do not suspect she will tell you that she does today, either. You have upset her greatly. Be patient, Kadar, and all good things will eventually come to you.”
“Patience isn’t my strongest suit, but I’ll try.”
His mother disappeared from the room.
But before he could find his princess, it was too late.
SERENA STARED in horror at the television in the guest house as one of the news programs flashed a picture of her in her apron on the TV screen. That wasn’t nearly as bad as the next shots of her learning to drive, and then pulling up in front of the house, grinding to a bone-jarring stop. There were pictures of her wearing jeans and raking stalls, and pitch-forking fresh hay into other stalls.
Cade, of course, they only showed watching her in his customary position of arms crossed over his chest, legs spread, as if instructing her to work like an indentured servant.
But the worst part was the TV anchor speaking about them as if they had no feelings, as if they were merely any other news item.
“It seems ironic to have a princess living among us, it is even more ironic that we have had a queen for months and not known it,” the anchor said. “After spending several years in a sanitarium in Europe, Queen Rose Coleman-El Jeved returned to the States—”
“Oh, no!” Serena exclaimed. “They make her sound like a crazy woman!”
“Yes, they do,” came Cade’s grim voice from behind her. She gasped, whirling. “I did not hear you come in!”
“I didn’t knock. I walked in, hoping that no photographers had followed me. I don’t think I tipped them off. I rode Texas Heat as fast as he could gallop once I left the main grounds. I think we are safe from their lenses here.”
“We are not safe anywhere,” Serena said bitterly. “They have made me appear to be abused and downtrodden and kidnapped by your hand. My people will be outraged. Layla has done her work well.”
“We can explain—”
“We cannot explain the fact that they know a marriage took place but it was false. There is no changing the way that looks, Kadar. It did not occur to me the disaster we would wreak by not revealing your identity. By my own decision, I have hurt my father, and I have hurt my country.”
“At the time we thought—”
She whirled on him. “It does not matter what we thought at the time. That is the fishbone of all rulers that sits constantly at the top of their throats and threatens to be swallowed. Every decision is a fishbone, and if it turns out well, then it does not choke them. But if it is a bad decision, even an error in the wisest ruler’s judgment, then…” She looked at him with anguished, haunted eyes. “It’s not just my family and my country that have been hurt. Your mother will be heartbroken to have the world know she was in a sanitarium for years. And the only person who knew this was Layla,” she said angrily. “I know Layla arranged to have your father killed, because Azzam is too weak to care whether he sits on a throne or not.”
“There is nothing I can do about that situation now. It is done and in the past. But we shouldn’t allow Layla to manipulate us.”
“She has from the moment we laid eyes
on each other. It was the reason we married without revealing who you were, because I was afraid of Layla discovering there was a hitch in the wedding plans. You said you did not want to jump to Layla’s commands, but that is exactly what has happened.” It made her sad to realize how effectively Layla’s circle had closed upon her. Like a well-oiled trap, it had sprung shut with steel teeth.
Cade ran a hand through his hair. “I have to think about this for a few moments. I’m not used to plotting at this level.”
“It’s not something you can learn to do overnight. Besides which, the end result is that the people are already outside the palace protesting the fact that my father has not brought me back. This is bordering on an international incident, Kadar,” Serena said sadly.
“Surely no one will believe that I kidnapped you!”
“Another king’s wife says you did. I left hurriedly, without so much as my own clothes. What princess does that?”
He shook his head. “I don’t care what they think. None of it’s true.”
“Right. In history courses at university, we learned that several conspiracy theories exist in the United States, which grow over time to be more believed than the actual proven truth.” She put her hands on her hips. “What makes you think the same does not exist in other countries? Balaharians are used to thinking about conspiracies, Kadar, because palace intrigue has always been a fact of life. No one is going to believe anything you and I say.”
He shook his head, angry and helpless in the face of a situation from which he could not protect her. “So what do you suggest we do?”
She took a deep breath. “There is only one course of action. I must return to my home.”
“You said you didn’t want to go back!”
Her eyes met his, as brown flashed against deep green pools of unhappiness. “I am a princess, Kadar. What I want to do and what I do are two different things.”
“You are not in Balahar now, Serena.”
Her smile was slight and accepting of her fate. “Ask your mother about her life, Kadar. Ask her if there were ever times she did what she had to do versus what she wanted to do.”