Desert Rogues Part 1

Khalil reached into his pocket and pulled out a diamond ring. Dora stared, first at the glittering piece of jewelry, then at him. Was that for her?

“Fit for a princess,” he murmured and slid it on the ring finger of her left hand.

She opened her mouth to protest. It was too extraordinary, too lovely, too expensive. Then she remembered she was not only marrying royalty, but into one of the richest families in the world. To Khalil this was probably as significant a purchase as her buying a nice pair of panty hose.

The judge started talking again, but she wasn’t listening. Instead she found herself captivated by the stunning ring that glittered on her hand. The band was wide, nearly reaching to her knuckle, and the entire ring was a circle of diamonds. Square-cut stones nestled together, each diamond as long as the band was wide. She didn’t know how many diamonds it took to make up the ring, but each had to be at least two carats. It wasn’t a piece of jewelry she would have picked for herself, but it was lovely and felt as if it had been made for her hand.

“You may kiss the bride.”

She looked up in time to watch Khalil bend down and press his lips to hers. The kiss was sweet and far too short. Then he squeezed her hand.

“Do you feel any different?” he asked.

“Being married?”

“That, of course, but I was wondering how it felt to be a princess.”

Princess Dora Khan of El Bahar, she thought to herself and had to fight back a burst of hysterical laughter. “I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” she told him, wondering if it would ever sink in.

“Congratulations, Your Highness,” one of the bodyguards said, as he shook her hand.

Dora smiled automatically, but otherwise her body had gone numb. A princess? Yeah, right, that was her. Who was she trying to kid? Reality was she was a secretary from Los Angeles who had stumbled into a crazy situation. She had to get out before she said or did something stupid. Like throw up…or worse…believe all this was really happening.

Except she didn’t get to make her escape. Before she’d realized what was going on, the judge was gone and the bodyguards had retreated to their rooms. She was alone with her new husband, watching him pour them each a glass of champagne.

Who was this stranger? she thought warily as she moved to the sofa and settled in the corner. What had she done? Her nervousness increased, as did her shaking, and when he handed her the glass of champagne, it was all she could do to keep from spilling the bubbling liquid all over her lace dress. In an effort to keep that from happening, she swallowed a mouthful of champagne, decided the taste was exceptionally nice, then finished her glass. Khalil refilled it without saying a word.

He put the ice bucket on the table in front of her and settled next to her on the sofa. “Are you all right?” he asked.

He sounded kind and sincere, she thought frantically. So normal, as if he did this kind of thing all the time. Except he couldn’t, right? “Isn’t this making you crazy?” she blurted.

He took a sip of his drink. “What? The wedding? I thought things went smoothly.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Clockwork in motion, or whatever.” She paused. The saying was “poetry in motion,” so where did the clocks come from? She rubbed her temple. Her stomach tingled and she thought it might have something to do with the champagne. Just to be sure, she drank a little more. She hadn’t eaten that day, and she was also thirsty. The fizziness tickled her throat. Was it her imagination or did her head suddenly feel heavy?

“I think I should probably eat something,” she mumbled.

“Of course,” Khalil told her. “Dinner is waiting whenever you’re ready.”

“Great.” Except the thought of standing up was suddenly too complex. “Maybe in a minute.”

She looked at him, at his handsome face. The lines of his profile were sharp, like a statue of granite. He was dark and dangerous, like the desert at night. Not that she had any personal experience with the desert at night or during the day.

“I know this is unfamiliar,” he said, lightly touching the back of her hand. “We need to spend a little time getting to know each other. Why don’t we talk about our past? After that, we’ll eat dinner, and then we’ll make love until dawn.”

Making love, she thought hazily. Now that would be very nice. Maybe they could skip the other parts and get right to doing it. She hiccuped softly, then took another drink. She wanted to do it again and again until she learned everything about it. She wanted to touch Khalil and have him touch her back. She wanted to see him naked, in fact she thought this little chat about their past might be more enjoyable if he took his clothes off right now. She would very much like to see the “it” that made doing it so very enjoyable.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

His question cut through her fantasies and left her confused. Then she remembered that they were getting to know each other. A sensible plan. Khalil was right—once they knew more details about each other’s lives this wouldn’t be such a strange situation.

She finished her glass of champagne and started to set it on the coffee table, but Khalil filled it instead. She thought about refusing, after all, her head was already spinning, but wouldn’t that be rude? It was his wedding, too, and…What had been his question?

“No, I’m an only child.” She leaned back against the sofa. “My mom never said anything, but I think I was a mistake. She and my dad got married about two months before I was born. After that, he was never around much. They divorced when I was seven.”

“I see. I’m the youngest,” he said. “I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be an only child.”

“It’s lonely,” she said bluntly. “Probably not for some kids, but it was for me. My mom worked a lot to support us, and my dad wasn’t one for regular visitation. Plus, I wasn’t really popular at school.” She shrugged, then rolled her head so that she could look at him. “Too smart. I wasn’t pretty enough to get in with the right girls, and I think I scared all the boys away. Plus I was shy, and I never knew what to say to anyone. It was easier to hide out in the library and read.”

She took another sip of champagne. It tasted tartly sweet and slipped down easily. The tingling in her belly had spread to her whole body, and her brain definitely felt thick, but in a nice way. Like she was protected from anything too scary.

“When did you stop being lonely?” he asked.

She angled toward him and pulled her knees up onto the sofa. “Yesterday, I think. I can’t really remember.”

Khalil’s features started to blur together. Had she had too much to drink? Or was it just the soft lighting in the suite? Her eyes fluttered closed, and she felt warm fingers brush against her cheek.

“College wasn’t too bad at first,” she said dreamily, getting lost in the past. “I had a scholarship that paid for most things. I liked being in a place where it was considered a good thing to be smart and to work hard. But living on campus cost more than I thought, and I had to get a job to supplement my expenses.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “My mom didn’t have any extra money to spare. I don’t suppose that’s ever been a problem for you.”

“No, it hasn’t.”

“Must be nice.”

“Sometimes, but we’ve had other problems.”

“I guess everyone does. Anyway, I started tutoring. I worked with athletes a lot. Mostly because they paid the most. But they weren’t interested in anything but getting by. They didn’t want to learn. Isn’t that horrible?” She blinked and found that her eyelids were extraordinarily heavy. She swallowed a little more champagne to help her stay awake.

“One day I found my study notes missing. I confronted a couple of the guys, and they wouldn’t admit they’d taken them.” She sighed remembering the hurtful things those boys had said. “I refused to tutor them anymore. About three weeks after that, a bunch of the guys were caught cheating. They were going to be expelled, but they weren’t content to go quietly. They said that they were using a cheating system I’d come up with and had charged them for.”

Her words caught in her throat. That had been so long ago, she would have thought it didn’t have the power to hurt her anymore, but it did. She remembered her time in the dean’s office, when it had been her word against theirs.

“Six of them told the same story. Six,” she repeated quietly. “No one believed me, not about the notes or that I refused to work with them, or that I hadn’t had any part of the cheating. So I was expelled along with them. I went home, got a job and saved my money. A year later I started at my local community college, then I received my associate’s degree.”

She pressed her lips together. “This probably isn’t what you wanted to know, is it?”

“I want to know whatever you want to tell me.”

She tried to smile, but her face felt numb. “I don’t think so. I doubt any part of my life is very interesting.”

“That’s not true.” He stroked her cheek again, and the contact felt lovely. “Why didn’t you go back to college and get your four-year degree?”

She shrugged. At least it felt like she was shrugging on the inside, even if she didn’t feel any movement on the outside. “I was afraid of what might happen. I didn’t want to go through that again. Except for when Gerald left me in that airport in Kansas, it was the most alone I’ve ever felt.”

Khalil leaned close and took her glass from her, which was a good thing. When had her fingers gotten so stiff? She could barely bend them.

“You, my desert rose, tell a very sad story,” he murmured. “But all that is about to change.”