Sheikh's Blackmailed Love (7 page)

“Does it hurt?”

“No… not at all,” she said on a sigh, and he laughed.

“You look fine,” he said, coming to lie down next to her. “How do you feel?”

“Good,” she said, and then a little more shyly, “Tired. Like I could sleep out the week.”

Dario laughed.

“Well, I think I am going to take that as a compliment, though in all fairness, you hauled tarps for a few hours in the rain beforehand, so I likely shouldn’t pat myself on the back just yet.”

Bailey frowned. She had nearly forgotten the frantic events that led them up to this little cave.

“Do you think the dig is going to be okay?” she asked.

Dario nodded firmly.

“I do not believe that things happen for no reason. Priceless treasures of my country’s history do not appear simply to be washed from the face of the land. I believe—I hope that they will be fine.”

“You truly do care about Jabal, don’t you?” she asked softly. “Not just the people, but the country, the history, all of it.”

“It is me,” he said holding her a little more closely. “Sometimes, it is hard to tell where the country ends and the man begins. This was what I was raised to do. It is my life, and I would not want any other.”

She snuggled into him, relishing the heat of him as he covered them with a thick warm blanket. Now that the heat of their lovemaking had receded, she was realizing how very cold it was with the rain pelting down outside.

“What is this place?” she asked. “Where are we?”

“I found this place when I was overseeing the setup of the excavation site,” he said. “I love being around the team. I had only a week or so to find the people that I wanted, and these were the best. I am paying them a great deal, but I know they are passionate enough about the history to come for nothing at all. Still, sometimes I find company wearying. I found this place, and I spend time up here regularly. It allows me to be alone, to collect my thoughts.”

“And now you have shown it to me.” She had meant for it to come out teasing, but there was something more awestricken about it.

“I have,” he said simply. “At the site, I feel the weight of who I am very clearly. I am the sheikh of Jabal, the First Among Ten Thousand. I lead my people in war and peace, prosperity and famine, and they look to me.

“Here… I can be who I really am. That is a special thing, and I want to share it with you.”

There were a thousand things that Bailey wanted to say, but it was too much. Instead, she only cuddled closer to Dario, hoping he understood how much this all meant to her.

“I’m glad you have a place where you can be yourself,” she said softly. “I’m also so glad that you have decided to share that with me.”

He might have had a response to that, but the exhaustion of the day finally caught up with her. The warmth of his body and her own fatigue allowed her to slip straight into a warm and dreamless sleep, a gentle smile on her face.

*

Dario stayed up far later than Bailey did. He smiled when she yawned and dropped off to sleep as easily as a child. In the dimness of the cave, he could no longer see her face, but instead, he could use the very tips of his fingers to trace the width of her brow, the contour of her cheek. What man in his right mind could look at her and think she was plain? With her diminutive height and her perfect face, she made him think of the desert spirits, the ones that stood just out of reach of the caravan fires and could bring great blessings to those they met… or great curses as well.

There were so many facets to this woman. He remembered her clear gray eyes on the day she had begged him for help, and he remembered the pale girl in the hospital bed who had looked so fragile. Then she had turned the tables on him by turning into a spitting virago, accusing him of blackmail while standing up to him in a way that few soldiers could do. Now she showed him another side, the tender lover, and each one conspired to bring him a little closer to her, a little more wrapped in her embrace.

Dario sighed, turning on his back to look up at the rough stone ceiling. This cave had existed just as it was for thousands of years, and there was no telling how many people had sheltered inside it. He wondered who they had been and what they had wanted. Had they cared for each other and loved each other, or were they simply brought together through happenstance and chance, soon to be torn apart? Had their lives been as complicated as his and Bailey’s?

The feelings he had for Bailey were intense, the most powerful things he had ever felt. Since he was a child, he had understood that the power of the Nejem line lay in its passion, but that was where their downfall came from as well. The sheikhs of the past had raced after glory and power, their ambitions carrying them to great heights before dropping them to their deepest depths. Some of them were undone by war, others by greed. Some were undone by women.

“It is a poor idea, I think, to give you a grasp on my heart,” he whispered to her. Even as he said the words, however, he had an inkling that it was already too late.

Wherever she was, no matter what she was doing, he was drawn to her. It was as if he were a compass that had found its true north. There was something in him that had seen Bailey and immediately decided that this was the woman, the one he wanted above all others.

He pushed the thought away. It was too soon, far too soon for anything like that. He needed to put up boundaries now, before things got out of hand.

Even as he thought of doing so, however, Dario flinched. She lay as trustingly in his arms as an angel, perfect and lovely. The idea of pulling away from her in any sense of the world made him feel a pang of pain.

Still, it had to be done. Perhaps there was a way they could have the pleasure without the pain that would rush up after. Listening to her soft breathing, relishing the feel of her warm body against his, he lay awake, and he thought.

*

Bailey awoke the next morning feeling surprisingly well rested for having spent the night in a cave. She was a little startled to find that though the blankets had been tucked securely around her, she was alone on the pallet.

She felt relieved when she saw Dario at the mouth of the cave, the lightening dawn sky silhouetting his shape. She was disappointed, however, to see that he was dressed, but she supposed they couldn’t really spend all their time naked and making love.

Wrapping a blanket tightly around herself, she padded over to lean against him.

“Good morning,” she said, leaning up to kiss him. She was startled when he allowed the kiss but then pulled back.

“Dario?”

“You should get dressed,” he said, his voice level. “We have a few things to talk about.”

Those words did not bring her a great deal of confidence. It felt as if a heavy stone had been dropped in her belly.

“Um, all right…”

She found her clothes where they had thrown them the night before. They were dusty, but they were mostly dry. She shook them out as best she could before putting them on again and turning to Dario.

“What’s the matter?” she asked nervously. “You look like you are gearing up to tell me that last night was wonderful, but that you’re married.”

He laughed a little, which made her feel better, but then he sobered again.

“I would not have done what we did together last night if I was married,” he told her, “but you do have something of the truth there. I am deeply connected to my country, and as the sheikh, I must always be working in favor of its interests.”

She nodded, still mystified about what he was getting at. Suddenly, she felt very cold and lonely,
a shocking thing to feel after how intimate they had been the night before.

“What are you saying?” she asked, her voice tense. “Please… just be clear. I’m not some delicate thing that cannot handle the truth.”

“I cannot give you… any true commitment,” he said, looking down. “Not really. When I marry, it will be to a woman who has a lineage and culture that matches mine, a woman who will rule by my side as a sheikha in her own right.”

Bailey swallowed hard, trying not to let on how much this stung. Any other man who had started speaking of marriage directly after their first night together she would have laughed off. However, as with all things, Dario was different. The peace and passion they had found together was a deep and stunning thing, something that felt like a once-in-a-lifetime wonder. That he would be dismissing it so casually now hurt.

“I never asked you for a wedding ring,” she started, but he cut her off.

“Please, let me finish, and then you can make your decision,” he said, his voice soft. “What we had last night was special. I have not experienced anything like what we had before. It reached me, it touched me. It woke me up in a way I never had. I… I cannot give you forever, Bailey, not even close, but I can give you this.”

“This?”

He opened his arms to encompass the cave where they had passed the night together.

“This place. This place, I want to give you as something just for us. When we are here, we have no past and no future. I cannot offer you the world, much as a woman like you deserves it, but I can give you this moment in time.”

She felt her heart breaking even as a part of her was fiercely grateful to have anything at all. Even as she had found a passion that she had never felt before, she was losing it.

“So when we are among others, down in camp, we continue as we are. And when we are here?”

“We are only ourselves. We are honest, we speak as we please, we do as we please.”

“And then we return to the others, where we have our real lives.”

The bitter laugh she got in response had the effect of quenching some of her anger in surprise.

“That is not what it feels like,” he told her. “What we had up here, that is what feels like my real life. Everything else… no, Bailey, what we have up here is real. Never doubt it. It is… perhaps the most real thing I have ever experienced.”

A part of her wanted desperately to cling to her pride. She wanted to throw his offer in his face, and march off down to the encampment. She reminded herself that in many ways she was a prisoner here, someone who had been brought to the encampment against her will and who had effectively been blackmailed into staying. The greater part of her, the one that had found such peace in his arms the night before, refused to let her pride take over.

“All right,” she said. “All right. I would like to ask one thing, however.”

He looked braced for anything.

“Yes?”

“Will you please kiss me?” It came out strangely wistful. She wished that she could take it back, but then he crossed the space between them.

He took her in his arms, and when he kissed her, she thought that his kiss was trying to say that he could not. The kiss was deep and passionate, one that wanted to brand them both so that they could never forget what they had between them.

When they pulled apart, Bailey reached up to touch her lips, marveling at how sensitive they were. When he saw what she was doing, Dario laughed ruefully.

“If you keep that up, we will never make it back down to the encampment.”

“I might not mind that,” she muttered, but she got herself ready to leave.

“Thank you,” he said, just before they left the shelter of the cave. “I… I do not know what I would have done if you would have said no.”

She met his eyes, trying to let him see how much this meant to her, trying to show him that she had feelings as deep as his.

“I might have to say no at some point,” she said softly. “This is new and strange to me, and I am not certain what I can bear. But… I will try.”

As they walked down the slope toward the still-silent encampment, she wondered what was going to become of them. Was the cave real for her, or was it the encampment and her work? What was her heart if it could be shunted off to a single place and a single time?

It was too much to think about. She knew that if she tried, she might make herself sick with grief and anxiety. Instead, she pushed it aside. She had the promise of the cave. She had the memory of a night unlike any other she had ever enjoyed.

For now, it was enough.

*

They parted ways when they returned to the encampment, but Dario couldn’t help watching after her. Dressed in the dark robes of the region, she should have been as unremarkable as any other woman, but whether it was from her gait, the way she set her shoulders, or the sweet lift of her chin, he would always know her.

He had seen the blow that her pride had taken when he made his offer, and it had cost him everything not to take it back, to give her what would make them both happy.

However, he was the sheikh. He was the First Among Ten Thousand. He was given power and money beyond the dreams of most men to act as the shepherd of his country, and nowhere in there was his happiness a guarantee.

He shook his head, trying to shake off his dark thoughts. What he had with Bailey was something precious. He would keep it as long as he could, and when the time came…

He would have to let it go.

CHAPTER FOUR

Bailey was startled by how quickly her days fell into a pattern. During the daytime, she worked as she always had. She developed friendships with the people around her, close connections formed with people who liked her and respected the work that she did. In some ways, she had never felt so accepted. She had always been the poor girl, the one on the outside working too hard to have any fun at all.

Sometimes, as she went through her day, she saw Dario, walking among his people with ease and affection. She saw how the men deferred to him, and how he gave every person their due. She could see how the people of his country would love him so well.

The women noticed him as well. She heard more than one whispered conversation about how handsome the sheikh was. She even heard one speculating about his prowess in bed, though she ducked away from that one very quickly.

It was like a wound she couldn’t stop worrying. At one point, she had finally asked one of the other women whether he was attached to anyone in particular.