Desert Rogues Part 1

“What are you doing here?”

“At the wedding?” Amber asked, deliberately misunderstanding. “I’m the daughter of the prime minister and a close friend of the family. That makes me a very important guest. Of course I’d expected to attend this wedding in a slightly different capacity.” Something flickered in her brown eyes as she continued to circle Dora.

“This is a disaster for all of us,” Amber continued. “I blame myself, of course. If I hadn’t fought with Khalil while he was in New York, none of this would have happened.” She paused and lowered her gaze. “It was a lover’s spat. We were both so silly. Khalil insists on dictating my life, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I told him it was over.”

She stared directly at Dora. “He was so furious. So I left. But instead of coming after me, he came to you. Into your virgin bed.”

Dora stiffened. How had Amber known that Dora hadn’t…

“He told me,” Amber said, answering the silent question. “He tells me everything. You can imagine how distraught he was to find out that you were innocent. He is, after all, a most honorable man. How could he turn his back on what he’d done? So he proposed. Of course neither of us thought you would accept.”

Dora’s stomach turned over, and her throat tightened. This fabulous creature in front of her was lying. She had to be lying. It hadn’t happened like that.

“He insisted,” she murmured, forcing the words past suddenly dry lips.

“Did he?” Amber asked languidly. She paused in front of the mirror and patted her perfectly coiffed hair. “He can be most convincing. But how awkward for all of us that you believed him. My father is distraught, as is most of the country. I am a favored daughter while you are…not.”

Dora took a step back. She didn’t know what to think or feel. She could only retreat.

Amber smiled sadly. “Then there is the matter of us still loving each other. I don’t know what to do about that.” Their gazes met in the mirror.

“He doesn’t love you,” Dora said shakily, unable to believe what was happening. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. She was dreaming except that her body was too cold, too bruised for her to be anything but very awake. Dreams never hurt this much.

Amber turned to face her. Compassion added incredible beauty to already perfect features. “Dora, has Khalil made love with you once since that first night?”

Dora opened her mouth, but she couldn’t seem to form words. Mutely she shook her head.

“And since you’ve been in my country, has he ever been with you?”

“I’ve been in the harem,” she managed to whisper.

Amber shrugged. “Khalil has managed to find his way inside my father’s house, which is halfway across the city and as well-guarded as the palace. If he’d wanted to, don’t you think he could have made his way down the hall?”

Dora could feel her face flushing, then growing cold. Her eyes burned, but she could not give in to the tears. Was Amber speaking the truth? Dora didn’t want to believe her, but the young woman knew too many details. Had Khalil discussed this with her? The humiliation made her stomach twist and rise. She had to swallow the taste of bile.

“He’s been with me every night,” Amber said quietly. “We’ve been wild for each other. I suppose some of it is the lure of the forbidden.” She sighed. “He’s so filled with passion that it lingers in his eyes even after we’ve sated ourselves.”

A sob formed in Dora’s throat. She didn’t want to believe anything Amber said, but it was too hard to dispute so many facts. If Khalil hadn’t been making his way to Amber’s bed every night, how would she know that he wasn’t with her, Dora? What about the fact that they hadn’t made love since that first night? Dora had been so sure she’d seen passion in his eyes, but had it just been for Amber?

If things had happened differently between herself and Khalil, if they’d been spending time together, she might be able to make sense of this, but they hadn’t. Except for dinner with his family, she never saw Khalil. It had been two weeks since she’d been alone with him. These were hardly the actions of a man deeply in love with his new wife.

Worse, a part of her had never believed what he told her. She’d always wondered how he could have been so swept away by her. She wasn’t the type to inspire that kind of passion. She was just an ordinary woman…nothing like Amber.

Dora motioned to her wedding garb. “Then why is he doing this? Marrying me, I mean.”

“Does he have a choice?” Amber asked, bitterness sharpening her words. “Did you give him the out he needed? Did you ever once think of anyone but yourself? Of course not. He was married before he had time to consider the alternatives, and you took advantage of him. You’re greedy and selfish.”

Dora took another step back. “It wasn’t like that,” she said softy. “I never—”

Amber dismissed her with a wave of her hand. “You think we don’t know the truth? The very day after your wedding, you went shopping and spent thousands of dollars on clothes. What about that wedding ring and the jewels?”

“There aren’t any jewels,” she protested weakly. “The hair ornament is Fatima’s. And I didn’t ask for any clothes.”

“No, but you took them, didn’t you. You refused nothing.”

Amber made her sound so horrible. Dora held on to the last thread of her dignity and refused to cry. Khalil had insisted on the clothes. She hadn’t wanted to go shopping at all. Amber could say what she liked about that, but Dora knew what had happened.

“You’re wrong,” she said.

Amber glared at her. “Am I? We’ll just see. You’ve trapped Khalil into marriage, but that’s just for now. In time his passion for me will overcome his duty, and he’ll leave you. El Bahar has made much progress in the past fifty years, and it’s surprisingly easy for a man to divorce his wife…even a prince. I wouldn’t get too used to living in the palace if I were you.”

“He wouldn’t,” Dora whispered, even as she knew he very well could.

“Don’t count on it. I know Khalil. I know him down to his soul. I know that I am in possession of his heart. Can you say the same?”

With that she turned and left as quietly as she’d come. Dora stared after her. Pain swept through her, agonizing waves that left her broken and disillusioned. All she’d wanted, all she’d hoped for, it had all been a lie. Khalil didn’t want her—he’d never wanted her. She’d been an impulse and then a mistake. He hadn’t wanted to marry her. Why hadn’t she seen that?

“Princess Dora?”

Dora looked up and saw Rihana standing in the doorway to the harem.

The pretty, young servant smiled at her. “Come, it is time for you to be married.”

Chapter Nine

The old man in front of them spoke ancient words. Around them, dozens of people sat on fat pillows, while candles lit the vastness of the room. But for Dora, the world had been reduced to a sharp pain, a futile quest for forgetfulness, and the death of a dream.

Even as Khalil took one of her hands in his and spoke, she couldn’t think about anything but what that woman had said. The lies, dear God, they had to be lies. She couldn’t have been speaking the truth. That wasn’t possible. Khalil had said he wasn’t sure he could leave New York without her, hadn’t he? She pressed her fingertips to her temple and tried to remember what, exactly, had happened the night they’d made love…and the next morning. Had she misunderstood? Was that possible? Had his proposal been a courtesy, nothing more?

No, she thought frantically. He’d insisted. She’d thought it was all a joke, but he’d pursued her, hadn’t he? Just as he’d really convinced her that he wanted her. She remembered him taking off his clothes so that he could show her the proof of his desire. She hadn’t imagined that—after all, she’d never seen a naked man before. So that part had really happened. Surely he couldn’t have been able to pretend to want her if he hadn’t felt that way. Except she didn’t know enough about men to figure out any of this. Could he have been aroused for other reasons? Had he been thinking about Amber instead? But if he’d been thinking about his fiancée, why had he come to Dora’s bed?

The holy man spoke more words. Incense filled the large hall. The room seemed to tilt and spin, and then Khalil removed her veil and pressed his mouth to hers.

The intimate contact caught her off guard. She flinched in surprise, then tried not to feel the familiar heat of his mouth. Despite her pain and confusion, just the lightest brush of his lips against hers sent liquid heat pouring through her body. If he had continued kissing her, or if he’d touched her anywhere else, she would have found herself unable to resist him.

The reality of her need for this man terrified her. They’d only been together once. How could she have changed so much in such a short period of time, and how could she go back to what she’d been before? She didn’t want to be vulnerable to him; she needed to be strong.

When Khalil raised his head, the crowd around them cheered. He grinned as he tucked the veil back in place. “Now you are officially my wife, little desert rose. What do you say to that?”

She searched his face, desperate to find a clue, a hint that he was happy and that this was what he wanted. But she didn’t know him well enough to read his expression. She could only guess, and the new questions in her mind made her question everything she found.

“Khalil?”

But he was torn from her before he could say anything. A group of men spirited him away, while dozens of women led her in the opposite direction. In a matter of minutes she and Khalil had been led across the hall into an even larger room set with dozens of huge tables. They were seated next to each other at the center of the largest banquet table. A feast lay before them, but the thought of eating churned Dora’s stomach.

She tried to concentrate on her surroundings. The beauty of the room, ancient tapestries hanging from an arched ceiling nearly three dozen feet overhead, the open windows and doorways leading to balconies overlooking the sea, the lush displays of tropical flowers filling corners and overflowing the tables, caught her eye if not her attention.

Conversation and laughter filled the room, but she couldn’t participate. The wild desert music made her head pound. She ignored the food Khalil set on her plate and barely sipped her wine.