by Shayla Black
God, she was lying to herself now. She wanted everything Oliver, Callum, and Rory could give her, but she wasn’t brave enough to take it.
“I never promised them a thing.” Her appetite was gone. She wanted to go to bed. Her own bed. She would pull the covers over her head and try to pretend she knew what she was doing. She would try to forget that dream where Callum had been taken out by his former lover while Rory and Oliver nearly stood over the corpse and killed each other over her.
“They came together for you,” Piper said quietly.
She shook her head. “It was just sex.”
It was all she could allow it to be.
Piper stood and set the coffee mug down. It looked like her sister talk wasn’t going the way she’d planned. “I don’t understand what’s going on and I don’t know that I even want to, but I’m going to ask. Are you ashamed of me?”
What? Tori could barely fathom the idea. “How could you say that? Piper, I love you. You’ve been everything to me. My sister, my mom, my best friend. Why would you ask me that?”
“Because I can’t figure out why else you wouldn’t want to be with them when it’s so obvious you love them. I think it has to be that you don’t approve of the life I lead.” Tears shone in her sister’s eyes. “It’s not like I haven’t heard it before. I have. I’ve seen the tabloids. I’ve been called a whore many times.”
Rage welled up. “I sued the holy fuck out of some of those tabloids.”
Piper nodded. “But still you don’t want it for yourself. I’m trying to understand why.”
“Because I’m not sure I want one husband I love, much less three.”
Piper frowned. “You don’t want to get married? There’s nothing wrong with that, but I always thought you wanted a family.”
“I do. I do want a husband and kids. I simply don’t want to lose my soul to some man. I don’t want to die if he leaves me or something happens to him, and I’m really afraid that’s how things would end with those brothers. So I think I should walk away.”
“Do you love me?” Piper asked in a quiet, almost halting voice.
“Of course.” Did she even have to ask?
“But in a distant way, right? You hold yourself back so if anything ever happens, you won’t miss me too much.”
Tears welled in Tori’s eyes. How could she make her sister understand? “That’s not true.”
“I think it is, at least a little bit,” Piper said with a sad sigh. “Now that I look at it, I can see how you hold yourself back. You do the same with your job. You train people how to handle the worst, how to put on a good face and move on. But you deal with the superficial, smoothing things over so no one has to see the truth underneath the façade.”
“The truth is rarely as pretty as we want it to be.” And the truth was, she’d made a mistake. She’d thought she could have one night with them. She’d thought she could sneak around the whole love thing.
If she never loved anyone, she never had to lose them.
Had she held her sister a bit at arm’s length? Had she treated her more like a role model to worship and less like family?
Piper stared, shaking her head gently, as if she had no idea who Tori was. “Don’t have children, Torrance. It’s not fair if you can’t love them with every bit of your heart and soul. If you can’t give them your all, you’ll ruin them.”
It was the first time her sister had called her by her professional name. Tori felt the distance she’d always tried to maintain widening between her and her sister. And it terrified her.
“I love my nephews.” Her stomach was in a knot. It was so much less painful not to think about the depth of her relationship with Piper. Couldn’t they just be friends? Did they really have to talk about profound stuff?
Wasn’t it enough for her to be kind to the people around her? She didn’t have to be tangled up in their hearts and their lives if they were just “friends.”
Piper narrowed her eyes as she studied Tori. “Do you? I think you think they’re safe because they’re young, but children can die, too, and if you think for a second you wouldn’t be utterly destroyed by losing one of your babies then you haven’t thought this plan out.”
God, she’d never thought about it. She’d thought about being friendly with a husband—she could get by without really needing a man—but she’d always wanted kids. The idea of anything bad happening to little Sabir and Michael flattened her with agonizing grief—and they weren’t even her babies.
The world could be a terrible, sometimes intolerant place. No one was guaranteed forever. No one was guaranteed joy and happiness. What happened if something unspeakable happened to one of her children? How could she go on living? How would she endure the pain?
“Are you all right?” Piper asked.
She shook her head. “No. I’m not. I can’t stand the way you’re looking at me. Please, Piper. I’m not some kind of monster.”
Piper crossed the room and hugged her tight. “I love you, but you have to figure out what you want and how much of yourself you’re willing to risk to have it. You have to look at what happened to our parents through different eyes. You’re still seeing it like a child would.”
“I don’t understand.” She didn’t understand anything.
The night before had been so beautiful, and now she felt as if she stood in a maelstrom of emotion. She wanted the Thurston-Hughes brothers. She ached with terrible desperation, yet that very ache told Tori that she should walk away now. If she didn’t, she could be left in pieces someday. Already, she could feel tears of sorrow and loss rolling down her cheeks. If the worst happened and she started crying, would she ever stop?
Piper slanted a gaze her way, compassion in her blue eyes. “You are taking that loss as the sum of their lives. You aren’t looking at all the joy they had before. I don’t believe Dad killed himself. He was mourning her, but eventually he would have come out of it. He would always have missed her, always have loved her, but he would have found a life again. I get that you’re scared, but it’s time to move past it. You don’t honor them by living a life where nothing and no one can touch you. You were blessed with two parents who loved each other. Learn from them. Grasp love and joy and happiness with both hands. God, Mindy, you have to let yourself feel because there’s no life worth living that doesn’t also involve loss. If you don’t ache sometimes it’s because you have nothing inside.”
So much for avoiding the profound conversation.
Tori tried not to flinch. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
Her sister took her hands. “You have to try or you will lose them. And you will spend your life alone, regretting their loss every day. Would you rather lose them now, without ever really knowing what their devotion feels like, or what kind of husbands and fathers they would be, or how they would hold your hand through the good and the bad? Or would you rather lose them after years of storing treasured memories you could recall on a rainy day once your hair is gray and you’re surrounded by your grandchildren?”
Piper’s words hit her like a blow to the chest, and Tori wasn’t sure she could breathe. Could she walk away now and never feel them again?
“And consider this,” her sister added softly. “They’re taking a chance on you, too. They’re willing to love you now, knowing loss may come someday. They’re willing to trust you with their hearts. Maybe you think that’s easy for Callum and Rory. But for Oliver…”
After what Oliver had endured with Yasmin and her betrayal, she couldn’t have blamed him for being the most hesitant of all. Yet here she was, holding out on them.
Tori sent her sister a glance filled with uncertainty, fear, and shame. But she didn’t know what to say.
“I raised you with love.” Regret filled Piper’s voice. “I thought I taught you better.”
“Piper? Are you here?” a masculine voice called out.
The moment was broken, and Piper wiped her eyes as she turned. “Rafe? We’re in here.”
&nbs
p; Tori took a deep breath and tried to hold back tears. She didn’t want to cry in front of her brother-in-law. In front of anyone.
Rafe stepped in. “I’m glad you’re here with your sister. We need to talk.”
“What’s happened?” Oh, the look on his face told Tori it was bad. Her hands started shaking. Had something happened to Callum or Oliver or Rory? Oliver had been through so much. He couldn’t handle any more. Callum could be reckless. Rory drove too fast sometimes.
She couldn’t breathe. Her whole body felt stiff with anxiety. This was what it would be like. She would always worry. “Are they all right?”
“Who?” Rafe gave her a puzzled frown.
Piper raised a brow. “The Thurston-Hughes brothers.”
Rafe shrugged. “As far as I know, they’re fine. What I wish to talk to you about is this.” He held up a paper. “The British tabloids picked up the story of your fall. I’m sorry, Tori. We did everything we could to stop it, but apparently someone took video and it’s on the Internet.”
She looked at the paper. She’d told herself it was only a little slip and it wouldn’t be a big deal. Deep down, she’d convinced herself that it would go away. Talib had a lot of power, but apparently nothing was as big as the Internet.
One look told Tori the images were worse than she could have imagined. It wasn’t a single shot but a collage of her gracelessness. There was a shot of her looking grim as she walked down the stairs behind her luminous sister. The second shot showed her tripping, her face contorted in the ugliest way possible. In the third, she was nearly on her ass. The last shot revealed her breast, the mound on full display. It wasn’t a mere nip slip. No, this was pretty much her whole boob. The shock on her face somehow looked an awful lot like a smile, one that suggested she’d meant to “trip” and expose herself to be the center of attention.
Bezakistan Shame: Queen’s Younger Sister a Graceless Gold Digger.
The headline said it all. Tori wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole.
She glanced at the article. The scathing write-up was worse than she could imagine. Not only had someone captured those pictures, but they knew she’d been behind closed doors with the Thurston-Hughes brothers all night long. Knowing a video existed for anyone on YouTube to watch only demoralized her more.
She’d helped a starlet once who had a sex tape go viral. The woman had been humiliated, called every kind of name. Tori hadn’t intentionally made a sex tape. And who would want to hire a publicist who caused a scandal? No one. These images could kill her career. Once that was gone, she wouldn’t have anything left.
She especially wouldn’t have the men she loved.
Panic threatened. Dizziness washed over her. She reached out for anything to balance herself but found nothing. No one.
“Mindy, this is not a big deal,” her sister said. She felt a hand on her shoulder. “Why are you crying?”
Her nephews would see this one day. Her prospective employers. Her friends. Her men. Nothing ever went away on the Internet.
Maybe Oliver would read the words and think she was just as bad as his ex-wife.
Tori feared she would spend the rest of her life defending herself from rumors and allegations. She loved the people in her life—especially the three Brits who had captured her heart—but she couldn’t handle this.
Her heart was pounding as if it was going to come right out of her chest. Her feet went numb. Everything else tingled as if she’d swallowed a jar of bees.
“I think she’s having an anxiety attack.” Someone was speaking. She thought it was her brother-in-law.
“Mindy, calm down. Take deep breaths. Rafe, I think we need a doctor.”
Why did her sister sound so far away?
It didn’t matter. Her brain was whirling. As she stared at the newspaper, the pictures and words seemed to swirl together.
She heard someone shout as the world became a blissful black.
* * * *
Rory stared at the paper. He’d read it twice and the words still didn’t make sense.
The pictures of his lovely Tori could only be described as humiliating. At least he was sure she would see them that way. He thought she was cute, and damn he loved that breast. He just wished the rest of the world wasn’t seeing it.
However, the piece written by one particularly vicious bitch had been picked up by more than one British paper. That article made him want to gut someone.
The “journalist” had described Tori as a gold-digging whore out for a perverted version of the love her sister had found. They’d even talked to Callum’s ex, who implied that the former footballer had left her for Tori in order to please his brothers, who were under her spell. Thea had lied to the reporter, saying that Callum had asked her to marry him, and as a result, Rory and Oliver then threatened to cut him off from the family wealth. She claimed Tori had been behind the recent stories that her pregnancy was false and she was out to bilk her baby’s father.
“We have to be certain Tori never sees this,” Callum said, his face ferocious.
Oliver shook his head. “I’m sure she’s already seen it. The press office of the palace receives newspapers from across the globe and they’ll definitely inform the sheikh. He won’t allow her to walk around ignorant. He’ll sit her down and tell her what’s happened.”
“Surely he’ll tell us first.” But Rory suspected he wouldn’t. Talib al Mussad would likely keep up his responsibilities to his sister-in-law until the moment they put a ring on her finger.
After a cursory knock, the door to their suite opened, and Piper stepped through followed by Rafiq and Kadir. She was pale and wore what looked like elegant pajamas, which were much more casual than he’d ever seen her.
Her eyes went straight to the papers. “You’ve seen it, then.”
Oliver stepped forward. “Yes. Where’s Tori? When we woke, she was gone.”
“She told me she was going to the bathroom. She never came back,” Rory explained. “It’s been over two hours.”
Rory feared she’d run away like a scared rabbit. He’d thought they’d settled things last night, but it looked as if they still had issues. Now he had to deal with the tabloids as well.
He swiveled a glance at her sister. If anyone knew how to deal with Tori, it was Piper. “Where is she?”
“In her room resting,” Piper explained. “She didn’t handle the news story well.”
Rory could only imagine. “Why did you show her the article?”
“There was no way she wouldn’t learn the truth,” Rafe explained. “You don’t understand how bad it is. These pictures come from a video.”
Rory swore. “Which is all over the Internet by now.”
“Yes,” Kade affirmed. “Every tabloid has added its commentary. It’s even made the news in some of the U.S. rags. She had to be told. We couldn’t leave her to discover the news alone.”
“Telling Tori should have been our responsibility.” Callum stared at the al Mussad brothers. “She’s ours.”
Rafe launched into some ridiculous story about how they hadn’t wanted to disturb the sleeping brothers, but Rory was watching Piper. She’d winced, turned pink. He’d worked in business long enough to know how to read a person. Rafe and Kade would never give anything away, but Piper’s reaction told him she had something to hide.
“Your Highness, what do you know that we don’t?” Rory would be polite, but he meant to get to the heart of the matter.
Kade stepped in front of his wife as though shielding her. “She didn’t make this decision. The sheikh did, and we back him. Tori isn’t your wife. Until such time, we assume responsibility for her.”
“You’ll have to forgive them,” Piper said, trying to move around her husband. “They never left the Dark Ages. For them, a woman goes from her father—or in this case, her brothers—to her husbands.”
Rafe shook his head. “It’s not quite as bad as that, but in our world, Talib is the head of the family. Tori is a member o
f that family. We feel she requires someone to watch after her. She’s obviously a smart girl, but there’s more at stake than her own reputation. This trashy article, despite the fact that its origin is about an innocent fall, has the possibility to harm us all. We have to protect our own.”
“Then you won’t mind turning Tori over to us. That way, she won’t be your problem anymore,” Rory growled more harshly than he intended, but he meant every word. He didn’t appreciate the idea that the royal family now viewed her as a publicity liability.
Callum stepped beside him, presenting a united front. “She’s a person, not some figurehead. I won’t have her hurt in order to save the people who should love her a few problems. The palace can go to hell for all I care. She’s the one who matters here.”
Piper smiled, but there was a wealth of sadness behind it. “I’m very grateful you feel that way. I knew you were all good men.”
“But?” Oliver stood. He’d stayed out of the circle of conversation, holding himself back. It was something he did frequently, so Rory hadn’t thought much of it. Now he could see a chill settle over Oliver. His eyes had gone positively arctic as he looked at the queen. “I assume there’s a but somewhere in that sentence.”
Oliver was shutting down right in front of him. The night before he’d been so open, like the Oliver he’d known before Yasmin. With every second that went by, Rory watched his brother rebuilding his walls again.
Worse, he suspected Oliver was correct. “Where is Tori?”
Callum shook his head. “The wedding ring is a formality at this point. We decided last night. She belongs to us. Piper, we’ll take good care of your sister. We love her. I don’t understand why there’s a guard posted outside her door.”
That was news to Rory. “When did you go looking for her?”
Callum shoved a hand through his hair, the gesture rife with frustration. “When I woke up and she was gone. The guard wouldn’t let me in. Then when I found the paper, I went into problem-solving mode and I forgot to tell you. Obviously, Tori is embarrassed, but there’s no reason for her to be. None of this was her fault. The press is being vicious, and we’ll sue every single paper that runs a story disparaging her. And I’ll beat the living shit out of the reporters.”