The Life She Left Behind (5 page)

“She is getting sicker, Sheikh.” Hana, one of the maids trusted with Angelina's care, stood before him, wringing her hands. “She is not keeping any food down. Not all day.”

“Do you think she needs a doctor?” he asked.

Hana shrugged. “The doctor has been. He says as long as she does not lose too much weight…he says her sickness is normal. Bad, but to be expected.”

Hana was one of the few on staff who was aware of the fact that Angelina was pregnant, but as she was attending her, Taj had felt it important.

“There is nothing that can be done?”

“She was given medication for motion sickness, which helps some women. Though she's reluctant to take it. It makes her nervous.”

“Stubborn woman,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “Is she asleep now?”

“Yes.”

“I will go to her. Keep everyone away from her end of the palace. I do not want her disturbed. Today, she is in my care.”

He stalked across the palace, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor, staff scurrying aside when they saw him coming.

His heart was pounding heavily by the time he reached the entrance to her quarters. He moved through her rooms, the elegant seating area, her sunroom, to her sleeping chamber. He paused at the door, a strange unease filling him.

He'd never cared for anyone in his life. Not on a personal level. On a grand scale, he cared for his people. But he sent others to do his bidding. He signed papers, he waved from vehicles. It was his administrative staff who assigned the execution of tasks.

He was aware, for the first time, of how different ordering care and giving it were.

He pushed the gilded door open and saw Angelina. She was in bed, the covers drawn up beneath her chin, her hair damp, sticking to her forehead.

“You are too hot,” he said, striding across the room, sitting on the edge of the bed and putting his hand on her forehead.

She stirred, opened her eyes, the expression in them confused and sleepy. “I…I'm not. I just…I threw up again and it makes me sweaty. What are you doing here?”

A good question. He felt completely and totally out of his depth. A foreign experience. “I heard you were unwell.”

“I'm morning sick,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“It is three in the afternoon.”

“Morning sickness isn't always confined to morning, I've discovered. But other than feeling like death warmed over, the doctor says I'm fine. The baby is fine.”

“You do not look fine,” he said. “You look like a ghost.”

“I'm not one, though. Promise.” She put her hand on his cheek, his skin warm against his.

“What do you need?”

“What?”

He stood. “What do you need? I will order…I will get it for you.” He didn't know why, but it seemed important. There were other things he had planned on doing today, but this seemed essential. It seemed like the most essential thing he could do with his time.

“I don't…I don't know. I…”

He looked around the room and saw a bowl sitting on the vanity with a white washcloth draped over the side. The bowl was filled with water. He touched his fingers to the surface and found it cold.

“One moment,” he said. He went into her opulent bathroom and refilled the bowl with warm water, bringing it back into her room.

He dipped the cloth in the water, wringing out the excess before returning to her bed.

He pushed her damp hair from her forehead, resting his palm against her skin for a moment before replacing it with the cloth.

She sighed, her eyes meeting his. “Thank you. I felt disgusting.”

“Did you?”

“Sweaty.” She arched slightly. “My shirt is sticking to me.”

He frowned. “Do you need a bath?”

“I wanted one. I was afraid I would pass out.”

He hesitated to ask the next question, because intimacy between them, even the basest intimacy of greeting one another in the corridors, had been cut off since their argument two days earlier. But he had to ask. “Can I stay with you? Can…can I help you?”

“I…yes.”

Angelina watched Taj disappear into the bathroom. She had no idea what had caused his sudden desire to take care of her. Concern for her? For the baby?

Of course he was worried about the baby. It was his heir.

She bit the inside of her cheek. That wasn't really a fair thought. Taj wasn't a terrible person, and he'd never acted cold and detached in regards to the baby. It was her he seemed to feel nothing for.

Well, nothing beyond lust and possession. He wanted her, but that wasn't the same as caring. A man could want riches, but it came from greed. From the need to possess. Not from caring.

She was nothing more than an acquisition to him. Like a new car. A lucrative business deal.

He returned a moment later. He had taken his shirt off, his muscular torso bare and beautiful to her, even in her current state. He bent and scooped her from the bed. She looped her arms around his neck and allowed him to carry her into the bathroom, where he set her gently in front of the newly filled tub.

“Do you need help?” he asked.

“With…with my clothes?” Her heart beat unevenly. “No.”

He turned his back, the muscles shifting, enticing. Somehow, her appreciation of his body transcending her nausea. Almost.

She wobbled slightly as she stepped out of her pajama pants then pulled her top over her head. She got into the tub, the water coming over her breasts, the bubbles helping preserve her modesty. As if she really cared. As if Taj hadn't already seen it all.

“I'm in,” she said.

He turned, the tension in his body obvious, his jaw tight. He knelt down on the floor beside the tub and she rested her head against the back of the tub. She felt Taj's hand on her neck, his strong fingers slowly kneading away the ache in her muscles. She hadn't realized how tense she'd gotten.

But then, heartbreak and constant vomiting could do that to a girl.

He put his other hand on her shoulder, working at the knots there. She released a breath, trying to ignore the other kind of tension that was flooding through her while the muscle tension receded.

This was what she craved from him. This caring. This touch that went beyond a need for sex and satisfaction. A touch that gave.

She wanted to stay with him like this forever. And she also wished he'd never shown her this part of himself. Never shown her this fleeting glimpse of how it could be if he loved her.

If only things could be different.

She closed her eyes, and felt a tear roll down her cheek. “I wish things were different.”

I wish things were different.

Her words echoed in him. Mocked him. Tore at his insides. He replayed them over and over as he helped her from the tub, drying her, trying to keep his body disinterested, as he carried her to bed and tucked her back in.

As he walked out into her sitting room and collapsed onto the sofa, his hands were shaking as he forked his fingers through his hair.

She was unhappy. He had known it. Had seen the unease in her from the moment she'd arrived in Rahat and he had not cared. Because he had her. That was all that had mattered to him. That she couldn't leave him again. That he would be able to keep her.

Keep her? As if she was an exotic pet or a rare collectible? His stomach rebelled at the thought.

She was a woman. The only person he had ever…

It hit him then, like a punch to his jaw.

He loved her. She was the only person he had ever loved. He had, from the moment he'd met her. And what had he done? He had set out to buy her, like an item. Like anything else he hoped to acquire in his life. Because currency, power, that was what he understood, not feelings.

Three years later he understood. Why he had not wanted another woman since he'd met Angelina. Why it had felt so essential to hold her to him when he'd finally found her again.

But at what cost? He had only thought of himself. Had only thought of what it meant to him to have her.

How had he not realized it was a prison sentence to her?

He would rather go through life alone than subject her to it. Than to force her to be with him when she had no desire to be his wife.

She never had.

Fate. She had blamed fate for forcing them together when he had been the one forcing things all along.

She wanted things to be different. And they would be.

 

“Taj?” Angelina crept out of her darkened bedroom and into her sitting area. Taj was sitting on her couch, still shirtless, the lights off. He appeared oblivious to the fact that the sun had gone down. He was just sitting, looking at his hands.

“Taj,” she said again, moving to sit beside him. “Is everything all right?”

He looked at her, his face lost in shadow. “You are here, and you are safe. How could anything be wrong?”

There was something off about his tone. Something dark in his voice. Gritty.

“I just thought…”

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“I'm fine. Better. Actually I feel ready to eat, which is a first for a few days. Either the hormone induced nausea is over, or it's the eye of the storm.”

“I hope it's over,” he said, his tone still flat.

“What's wrong?”

“You asked me, Angelina, if fate had forced us together.”

“I…I remember that.” She wanted to touch him, but something stopped her.

His gaze was distant. “I have the answer now. There is no such thing as fate. Only sheikhs who think they are God. I will not play at a profession so far above myself. Not anymore.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We will not marry.”

Angelina felt like the floor tilted sideways. “What?”

“You ask far too many questions,” he said, standing. “I have made myself, my wishes, very clear. We will not marry at the end of the week. We will not marry.”

“And…where will I go?” she asked, not caring about his anti-question mandate. Because she had questions. Lots and lots of questions. And giving voice to them, needing the answers to them, was the only thing keeping her heart from splintering. “What about our child?”

“I will see our child. I will support our child in every way possible. But I am not holding you here.”

“What changed?”

“I cannot lock us in a situation that would be unendurable for us both.” He turned his back on her, and she felt a sharp stab hit her in the chest. “You may stay here in the palace as long as it suits you. I will not have you move under the present circumstances. It is your choice where you go when you feel able to leave. If you choose to stay in Rahat, a home will be provided for you.”

“And if I choose to leave the country?” she asked, ice coating her words, her body, her heart, offering protection. Shock providing insulation against the pain.

“Visitation will need to be arranged,” he said, his eyes black holes in the darkness of the room. “I will be there when my child is born, make no mistake. You will not shut me out.”

She felt like she was breaking inside. Slowly cracking apart.

But she wouldn't beg. She wouldn't show him. Already, she loved him while he felt…what did he feel? He had been so kind earlier and now this. Now he could cast her off as quickly as he'd brought her into his world.

Already he had too much power. She wouldn't let him know it.

“I promise, Taj.” She tilted her chin up, called on every bit of strength inside of her and used it. “If you want to see our child, anytime, day or night, you will be able to. I will never keep them from you.”

“Good.”

“Can you please go?”

He nodded once. “I'm on my way out.”

He walked out of the sitting room and she heard the double doors to her segment of rooms close behind him.

Only then did she allow tears to fall.

On the day that would have been her wedding day Angelina took one last look at her suite of rooms in the Rahatan palace, and closed the double doors behind her.

She didn't know where she would go. She'd given up her house in Italy to follow Princess Carlotta to her new home in Santa Christobel, and she'd given up her position there to come and marry Taj.

She could go back to Texas. That thought only brought intense regret.

She looked out the window at the sun-washed desert and wondered if she would ever feel home anywhere else. Anywhere besides this place that had seemed an alien planet when she'd first arrived.

She moved through the corridor and tried to ignore the way the staff moved around her. The way they ignored her presence. She supposed she was written off now. Cast off by their sheikh, cast off by them.

Taj. Oh, Taj.

Her heart bled his name with each beat.

It was hot outside. It was always hot there. She should be glad to leave the miserable heat. She would be happier if she had any idea of where she would end up. Anywhere beyond the lovely, modern hotel in the center of the capital city.

That was her next stop. It would do for now.

She closed her eyes and looked to the sun, letting it warm her face. She ignored the limousine that had pulled up to the front of the palace courtyard, waiting for her. Waiting to take her away.

“Angel?”

She turned sharply, her eyes opening. “Taj?”

He was standing at the entrance to the gardens. She hadn't seen him in the days since he'd broken things off with her. She'd assumed he'd gone to one of his other homes. It was what she'd been told.

“I didn't think you were here.”

“I wasn't,” he said, his voice rough. “I was trying to keep away until you'd left.”

“Am I so repulsive to you?” she asked, her voice crisp, masking the wound his words left in her heart.

He closed the distance between them, his strides long and fast. “Are you repulsive to me?” he asked, his expression stark. Open. “You can't ask me that? Do you realize that for the three years since I first met you I have wanted no one else? That I've had no lovers because the memory of your kiss was enough to keep me from being aroused by any other woman?”

“Lust.” The word came out a whisper. She couldn't believe it. That he hadn't wanted anyone else. That he hadn't had anyone else. It didn't seem possible. “Lust is all that is. It isn't enough.”

“Lust is cheap, Angel. If it were lust I could have satisfied it with any number of women in any number of ways. That's not what it is.”

“Then why are you making me go?” she asked, her voice breaking, her pride forgotten for the moment.

“Because I will not hold you prisoner. I will not bend your will to fit with mine. I will not make you miserable to ensure my own happiness. Not anymore.”

“I…I don't understand.”

“I saw you, in your father's home, so beautiful. So perfect. And I wanted you. I sought out to buy you like I would anything else I coveted. Because nothing in my life had ever been denied me. I simply asked, or wrote a check, and it was mine. I thought you would be no different. But you left me. And I thought I would forget. But I couldn't. When I saw you again, standing in the balcony at the palace in Santina, I thought only of satisfying my desire for you. Of having you. Possessing you. Exactly like the first time.”

Angelina crossed her arms beneath her breasts, tightening her hold on herself. She would stand upright. She would not dissolve. “And now what? You've decided you want to return me?”

“Then I had you. And you left,” he said, continuing as if she hadn't spoken. “I swore I wouldn't chase you. I swore to forget you. Still I could not. And when you told me you were having my baby…the chance at last to tie you to me forever. To bring peace to my world. I was happy. Happy because you could not leave me. Because this time you had to stay.”

He shook his head, a sudden flash of disgust curling his lip. “But something changed. I found myself wanting to give to you. And as I did, I realized how much your happiness meant. How much more it meant than my own. How could I be happy when you were so miserable? How could I hold you prisoner and call you mine?”

“But…but… Does my father have anything to do with this…has he?”

“Nothing,” he said, his voice fierce. “I rejected his offer of a partnership after I lost you. It was I who rejected it, not him. Because I couldn't face having a connection to you without having you.”

“You said you kept in touch.”

His expression turned bleak. “I called sometimes. To see if there had been word of you.”

“You did?”

“I love you,” he said. “I love you more than I love myself, and I don't think I have ever felt that way. I'm certain I haven't. I want…I want your happiness so much more than I want my own. So you must promise me, Angelina, that you will be happy. And then I will let you go with a smile.”

Angelina's breath caught, her hands shaking. “You…love me?”

“Yes,” he said.

She shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. “I…I can't do what you asked just now. I can't go and be happy.”

“What do you need?” he asked, his eyes shining. “What do you need and I will give it to you.”

“You,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face. “I need you.”

One of his arms curved around her waist and he lowered his head, pressing his forehead against her shoulder. “Why did you wish so badly for things to be different, then?”

“Because you didn't love me. I wanted your love and knowing I couldn't have that…that's why I was sad.”

He raised his head, his eyes meeting hers. “I did love you. I didn't know what to call it. And I did not love you in the right way. I know with certainty that I've loved you since the first moment I saw you. But now I'm ready to love you right.”

“What changed?” she asked.

“I did. I think it's because of you. No, I know it is. You have changed me. You have humbled me. And I needed it, badly.”

“I love you, Taj. I loved you then. But I couldn't stand the thought of marrying you just because you wanted to strengthen your nation's economy. I wanted to be more to you than that.”

“You are,” he said. “Though I could not have said it then. I was foolish.”

“Maybe we both were.”

“Maybe we will be again,” he said.

“But we love each other. And that's why we'll stay together.”

“You'll stay with me then? Be my wife?”

“Yes,” she said, pressing a kiss to his lips, her heart swelling with emotion, tears sliding down her cheeks.

He kissed her deeper, tightening his hold on her.

“I'll get a procession of camels, right, sugar?” she whispered, nipping his earlobe.

He chuckled. “Nothing is too grand for you.”

“On second thought, I don't need the camels.”

“You don't?”

She shook her head, raised her hand and traced a line of moisture on his cheek. “No. I only need you.”

* * *

Turn the page to read the first chapter of
The Price of Royal Duty
by Penny Jordan, the first full novel in The Santina Crown series….