S everal servants rushed toward the fallen woman. Reyhan brushed them aside and crouched beside Emma. He took her wrist in his hand and felt her pulse.
Rapid, but steady.
“Call a doctor,” he said firmly.
Someone went scuttling to do his bidding.
“She didn’t hit her head,” a young woman told him as she gently touched Emma’s forehead. “I was watching as she fainted, Your Highness.”
“Thank you. Are her rooms prepared?”
The woman nodded.
Reyhan gathered Emma into his arms. She lay limp, one hand pressing against his chest, the other dangling by her side. Her skin had paled and her breathing slowed.
He took a moment to study her long lashes and the fullness of her mouth. The thick, red hair he remembered hung in loose waves around her face. So much was the same, he thought. No doubt if he counted, he would find that there were still eleven freckles on her nose and cheeks.
How much had changed? Even as he silently asked the question, he found he didn’t want to know. He rose and walked into the palace.
The king fell into step with him.
“At least she remembered you,” his father said.
“Obviously with great joy.”
“Perhaps she fainted with relief that you were to be together.”
Reyhan didn’t bother answering. Emma hadn’t seen him in six years, and from what he’d been able to find out, she’d never made any attempt to get in touch with him. He had no idea what she recalled of their brief…relationship, but he doubted her fainting had anything to do with relief.
The guest quarters were on the second floor. Reyhan went directly there, wondering if his father would mention that other arrangements could have been made. Fortunately, the king remained silent.
Reyhan swept inside the suite of rooms he’d had prepared for Emma and set her on the sofa. A maid hovered in the corner.
“Find out when the doctor will arrive,” he said.
The woman nodded and picked up a phone from the small table in the corner.
Reyhan returned his attention to Emma. She lay perfectly still. She hadn’t moved at all while he’d carried her.
He sat next to her on the sofa and took her hand in his. Her fingers were cold. He brought them to his mouth and breathed on them.
“Emma,” he murmured. “You must awaken.”
She moved her head slightly and moaned.
“The doctor will be here in fifteen minutes,” the maid told him.
“Thank you. A glass of water, please.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Someone else could have carried her,” the king said from the seat he’d taken across from the sofa. “Someone else can care for her now.”
Reyhan narrowed his gaze. “No one touches my wife.”
His father rose and crossed to the door. “It has been six years, Reyhan. Are you sure you still wish to claim the title of husband?”
Wish it or not, it was his. As was she.
Emma felt as if she were swimming against a very strong tide. But instead of water, she was trapped by air she had to push through to reach the surface. Thoughts formed and separated, her body felt heavy. Something had happened. She remembered that much. But what?
A cool, smooth surface pressed against her mouth as a strong, male voice demanded, “Drink this.”
She parted her lips without considering refusing the request.
Water slipped into her mouth. She drank gratefully, then sighed when the glass was removed. Better, she thought, and opened her eyes.
Oh, my—it was him! Her eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on her. She could feel the heat and strength of him as he sat next to her on the sofa. His hip pressed against her thigh. One of his hands held her own, while his dark gaze trapped her as neatly as a cage held a small bird.
Reyhan.
She wasn’t sure if she said the name or merely thought it. Was it possible? After all these years?
She blinked and wondered if this was nothing more than a vivid dream. Only, her luck wasn’t that good. No, the truth was he was real and she was in his presence, which didn’t seem possible. It had been six years, she reminded herself again. Six years since he’d used her and tossed her aside. Six years since she’d hidden at her parents’ house, crying for what could have been, secretly waiting for him to come and claim her, only to find out she’d waited in vain. He’d never come, and eventually she’d returned to her life—older, wiser and emotionally battered.
“So you return to us,” he said, his low voice rumbling like distant thunder. “I don’t remember you fainting before.”
She bristled at the assumption that he knew things about her.
“I don’t faint,” she told him.
“Recent events suggest that you do. It was a long trip. Were you able to sleep at all?”
He spoke so casually, she thought in amazement. As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. As if it had been a few days rather than years since they were last together.
Outrage blossomed into fury. She wanted to yell at him, to scream or maybe even throw something. But years of being told that a lady didn’t show her anger made it difficult for her to do more than glare.
Reyhan lightly touched her cheek. “I see by the shadows under your eyes you did not sleep on the plane. At least not for long. Hardly a surprise, I suppose. You were not told why you were brought here. As I recall, you were always impatient and eager to find out things.”
Her attention split neatly between his words, which annoyed her, and the light stroking of his fingers against her skin. When his thumb grazed her lower lip, she was stunned by a jolt of awareness. The sensation cut through her like lightning, heating and melting everywhere it touched.
No! She would not react, she told herself. She wouldn’t feel anything. She refused to. If this man really was Reyhan, then he filled her with nothing but contempt. He was beneath her notice.
One corner of his firm mouth turned up slightly. “I see you want to spit at me like an ill-tempered kitten,” he murmured. “There is anger in your eyes.” He glanced at her fingers. “No claws. I doubt you can do much damage.”
Then he stunned her by kissing her knuckles.
She felt the warm brush of his mouth clear down to her toes. The hot, melting sensation grew until she wanted to purr like the kitten he’d mentioned. She thought about—
“Stop that right now,” she said, snatching her hand back and folding her arms across her chest. The instruction was meant for both of them. In the past twenty-four hours, her world had taken a turn for the confusing, but she was determined to figure out what was going on. Which meant staying focused on the task at hand and not getting caught up in being in the same room as Reyhan.
She shifted away from him and pushed herself up into a sitting position. When he took hold of her arm to help her, she shook off his hand.
“I’m fine,” she told him, her tone as icy as she could make it. “What I need from you is information. What is going on? What am I doing here? And while we’re on the subject, what are you doing here?”
Before he could speak, there was a blur of movement, then a long-haired cream-colored cat with nearly violet eyes jumped up on her lap. She stared at it in amazement. Cats in the palace?
Reyhan grabbed the animal and set it back on the floor. The cat glared at him, gave a sniff of disgust and stalked off.
“Are you allergic to cats?” he asked.
“What? No.”
“Good. The palace is filled with them. They are my father’s.”
His father? She rubbed her temple and tried to decide if she wanted to ask who his father was. While she would like the information, she was also afraid of it. Because crazy as it sounded, she had a feeling there was a better-than-even chance that Reyhan was somehow related to the king of Bahania.
Don’t go there, she told herself as Reyhan held out the glass of water again. As she took it from him she found herself caught in his gaze.
She remembered his eyes most of all, she thought. How dark they were. How well they kept secrets. She’d once thought that if she could learn to read his eyes, she would know the man. But their few weeks together had not given them the time to learn very much about each other.
Sadness threatened. She tried to banish it by recalling what Reyhan had done to her—how he’d left and how she’d been alone and so afraid. Better to be angry. There was energy in anger and she had the feeling she was going to need it.
“I don’t know what this game is,” she told him, “but I’m not going to play. I wish to return home immediately. Please call Alex and have him take me back to the plane.”
“Your escort from the State Department has already left the palace. He will spend the night at one of our most beautiful oceanside hotels, then fly back to your country in the morning.” Reyhan dismissed the man with a flick of his wrist. “You will not see him again.”
Anger faded as fear took its place. Alex was gone? So she was truly alone in the palace? Alone in this country?
Emma didn’t know if she should try to bolt for freedom or bluff her way through. Her head was still spinning and she didn’t look forward to trying to stand up, so that left bluffing. Something she’d never been very good at.
“What am I doing here?” she demanded. “Why did the king of Bahania ask me to come here for two weeks? And what are you doing here? You can’t have anything to do with what’s going on with me.”
That last bit was more plea than forceful statement.
Reyhan stared at her. His strong, handsome features could have been set in stone—or steel—for all they gave away.
“Haven’t you guessed?” he asked with quiet amusement, as if she were a child who had just performed the alphabet song flawlessly for the first time. “The king is my father, and the invitation is as much mine as his.”
Her mind went blank. Completely and totally. It was like losing the lights during a thunderstorm.
The man next to her rose and squared his shoulders. Then he stared down at her with a haughty expression possibly honed through a lifetime of royal arrogance.
“I am Prince Reyhan, third oldest son of King Hassan of Bahania.”
She blinked. Not possible, she told herself as some semicoherent thought process began in her brain. Not possible, not likely and she refused to believe it.
“A p-prince?” she asked, stumbling over the word.
No. No. No. Emma stared at the man standing in front of her. He couldn’t be. A prince? Him? But they’d met at college. They’d dated. He’d taken her away with him and…hurt her dreadfully.
“The king decided it was time for me to marry,” Reyhan told her. “There was no way I could agree to any match as I was already married. To you.”
He kept on talking, but she wasn’t listening. She couldn’t. A prince? Married?
“But I…” She swallowed and tried again. “That wasn’t real. Not any of it.”
She remembered the quiet of the Caribbean island, the soft breezes, the lap of the ocean outside their hotel room. Reyhan had asked her to go away with him, and she’d agreed because she could refuse him nothing. At eighteen, she’d been more innocent than he’d realized. She’d been too ashamed to tell him she’d never dated before. He’d been her first, in every sense of the word.
Years later, when she’d looked back on the blur of hot days and long, endless nights, she’d comforted herself with the fact that she’d been too swept up in thinking she was in love to refuse Reyhan anything. She would never have considered asking him to go more slowly, to give her time to adjust. As for their marriage—her parents’ lawyer had told her that had been a fake.
For a long time the realization had nearly destroyed her. She’d hated her weakness where he was concerned. Hated that she could still want him, even as he’d used and abandoned her. Time had healed her enough to give her perspective.
Reyhan’s dark eyebrows drew together. “What wasn’t real?”
“Our marriage. You just did that to get me into bed. Or get a green card.”
As soon as she spoke the words, she realized she might have made a mistake. Reyhan seemed to get bigger and taller as his temper grew. His anger was as tangible as the sofa she sat on, but a lot more frightening. His gaze narrowed and his mouth twisted into a disapproving and scornful line.
“A green card?” he asked, his voice thick with tension. “Why would I need that? I am Prince Reyhan. I am heir to the king of Bahania. I have no need to seek asylum elsewhere. This is my country.”
He spoke proudly and with the confidence of who knew how many generations of royalty behind him.
“Yes, well.” She cleared her throat. At the time, him wanting a green card had made sense. But now…“So that’s not why you married me.”
“It was not. I was in your country to continue my education. I earned my master’s degree there.” His expression turned contemptuous. “I honored you by giving you my name and my protection. As for trying to get you into my bed, the effort was hardly worth the meager reward.”
She shrank back into the cushions. Humiliation joined the fear. As much as she tried to block out their nights together, they continued to haunt her. She supposed her part of it could be an illustration of what not to do on one’s wedding night and the few nights that followed.
Not that it was her fault, she told herself, trying to grab on to a little temper to give her courage. She’d been the virgin. He should have done better, too.
But if Reyhan hadn’t married her to get a green card or to sleep with her, why had he?
“Are you sure the marriage was real?” she asked. “My parents’ lawyer said that it wasn’t.”
“Then their lawyer was mistaken.” Reyhan glared at her. “You are my wife. That is why you were brought here. Now that you are in my country, in my home, you will treat me with respect and reverence. Is that understood?”
The need to bolt for freedom grew exponentially.
“Reyhan, I—”
But she never got to say whatever she’d been about to blurt out. For just at that moment, a petite, curvy, beautiful young woman walked into the room.
“This isn’t good,” the woman said. “I heard Emma had arrived and fainted at the sight of you. Is that true?”
Reyhan turned his attention from Emma to the woman. His glare only deepened.
The woman rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re insulted. But don’t forget, I gave birth to your older brother’s firstborn, so you have to be nice to me.”
“One wonders what Sadik sees in you.”
The woman leaned close and smiled. “I’m a hottie. It’s a curse, but there we are.”
Emma didn’t think things could get more shocking, but she was proved wrong when Reyhan actually smiled at the woman, then kissed her forehead.
“Can you fix this?” he asked the woman.
“I’m not sure if you mean Emma or the situation. If you ask me, the one who needs fixing is you.” She held up her hand before he could speak. “I’ll do my best. I promise. Now why don’t you give us some girl time together? I’ll answer Emma’s questions and make her feel at home. You can go work on your charm.”
Reyhan raised his eyebrows. “I’m very charming.”
“Uh-huh. Just a tip here. The ‘I’m Prince Reyhan of Bahania’ thing gets old really fast. Trust me. Sadik tried it on me, too.”
“You’re a troublemaker.”
“That’s true.”
Reyhan nodded at Emma, then at the woman and left. Emma watched him go.
“Is this really happening?” she asked, feeling both weary and more confused than ever.
“It sure is,” the other woman told her. “Right down to you sitting in the middle of the Bahanian royal palace.” She plopped down next to Emma on the sofa and smiled. “Let’s start at the beginning. Hi. I’m Cleo.”
“I’m Emma. Emma Kennedy.”
Cleo looked her over. “Love the hair. My sister-in-law Sabrina puts red highlights in hers, but the color is nothing like this. Is it real?”
It took Emma a second to process the question and realize Cleo wasn’t asking about the hair itself, but the color.
“Yes, it’s natural.”
“Me, too,” Cleo said, tugging on her short, spiky blond hair. “I put in gold highlights once, but was that a mistake. I thought I’d look more elegant and classy, which is so not going to happen. I’m stuck being a tacky bottle blonde for the rest of my life. No biggie. I mean I’m a princess, so now I can be royal and tacky, which I like.”
Emma felt as if she’d fallen into an alternate universe. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
Cleo grinned. “I know. I’m rambling. Plus, do you really care about my hair? So here’s the thing. You’re in Bahania, and Reyhan really is a prince. There are four of them altogether. Murat is the oldest and heir to the throne. Then Sadik, my husband. He’s in charge of finance. Reyhan is next. He runs the whole oil thing, and let me tell you, do they have a bunch of that floating around under the sand. Then Jefri, who is putting together a joint air force with El Bahar. There’s also Zara, who was my foster sister and didn’t know she was a princess until about a year ago, and Sabrina, the king’s daughter. She lives in the desert, but that’s a whole other story.”
“Oh.” Emma wasn’t sure what to say. Her level of confusion had just gone off the scale. “That’s a lot of people.” She swallowed. “And you’re Princess Cleo?”
“In the flesh.” Cleo leaned close. “I’m from Spokane, Washington. That’s right by Idaho. I know—not exactly the birthplace of a lot of royals. I had a ton to learn—protocol and how to address everyone. I’ve gotten involved with some charity work, which is pretty cool, and I have a new baby. Calah.” Cleo’s expression softened. “She’s a dream. Just three months old.”
Emma wanted to ask for note cards so she could write all this down and try to keep everyone and everything straight.
Reyhan, a Bahanian prince? Was it possible? And if he was, why had he married her?
“Do you know—” Emma cleared her throat. “There was a wedding a few years back. I thought maybe…My parents hired a lawyer and he thought it wasn’t exactly real.”
Cleo patted her arm. “Sorry. From what I’ve heard, it was plenty real. You’re well and truly hitched to Reyhan. And he’s just like his brother. All stuffy with an ‘I’m the prince’ attitude. That reverence and respect stuff. Oh, please. Okay, I’ll do the respect thing, but reverence? It is so not going to happen.”
So she was married. To a prince. Her.
“None of this makes sense,” she whispered. “I don’t understand.”
Why had Reyhan done any of it? Why had he married her and disappeared from her life? And why, all of a sudden, did he pick now to get in touch with her? Did he want to marry someone else? The thought of it gave her an odd squeeze in her empty stomach, but still she had to know.
“Is he engaged?” she asked.
Cleo shook her head. “It’s not like that. After Calah was born, the king decided it was time for Reyhan to tie the knot and give him more grandchildren. That’s when he had to fess up about his relationship with you. That there was already a Mrs. Reyhan floating around.”
Emma felt the room begin to fold around the edges. She had a feeling that if she’d been standing, she would have fallen again.
Cleo grabbed her hand. “Keep breathing,” she instructed humorously. “I’m supposed to be making things better, not worse.”
“It’s not you,” Emma told her. “It’s everything. I can’t believe what’s happening.”
“Hardly a surprise. The good news is, the palace is beautiful and Reyhan is pretty easy on the eyes, too. If you can get past all that honor and tradition, he has a wicked sense of humor. Won’t that be nice?”
Nice? As in Emma would enjoy spending time with him? Was that the plan?
She shook her head. This wasn’t happening, she told herself. None of it.
A tall man carrying a black case entered the room. Cleo waved a greeting.
“Dr. Johnson. You’re still making house calls.”
The older man smiled. “Yes, Princess Cleo. As I will continue to do.”
Cleo leaned close to Emma. “Dr. Johnson is on call for the royal family. He’s pretty cool. You’ll like him.”
Emma stared into the man’s warm blue eyes and felt some of her anxiety fade.
He sat on the coffee table in front of her and reached for her hand. “How are you feeling? I heard you fainted.”
“I don’t know what happened,” she admitted. “One second everything was fine, and the next, I was falling.”
“Prince Reyhan filled me in on what occurred.” He released her wrist. “Your pulse is normal. Have you blacked out since regaining consciousness?”
“No.”
He glanced at Cleo. “Is she speaking coherently?”
“Yup. She’s a little shell-shocked, but under the circumstances, who can blame her?”
Dr. Johnson made a noncommittal noise, then pulled out a stethoscope.
Fifteen minutes later he pronounced Emma exhausted, a little dehydrated, but otherwise fit. After giving her something to help her sleep, he said he would check on her the next day.
“Everything will be better in the morning,” he promised as he left.
Emma watched him go, then nodded as Cleo excused herself to return to her baby. When Emma was finally alone, she stared around at the luxurious suite and the view of the ocean in the distance.
As much as she would like to believe Dr. Johnson, she had a feeling that the passage of night wasn’t going to change one thing about her situation.
Reyhan did not want to speak with his father, but the request had been worded such that he’d known he didn’t have a choice in the matter. So he’d appeared on time in the king’s private rooms and now paced the length of the salon, all the while stepping to avoid the half-dozen or so cats milling around.
“What do you think now that you’ve seen her?” his father asked.
“That Emma should not have been brought here. A divorce could have been arranged without her presence.”
“You defied me by marrying this young woman. Six years have passed, and you never mentioned her or spent time with her. I want to know why.”
Reyhan had no answers to the questions, nor did he want to make up any. Thinking about Emma, being with her…He reached the window and stared out at the garden below. Seeing her again—it had been worse than he’d imagined.
His father stood and crossed the room to stand next to him. “You are my son and a prince,” he said. “As such, you were not permitted to take a wife without my permission. Now it is done. Before I approve your divorce, I will get to know this young woman. Two weeks, Reyhan. Surely that is not too much to ask.”
Reyhan knew it was not. His father’s request was more than reasonable, and yet he would have given much to keep Emma away.
He nodded once and walked to the door. “Excuse me, Father. My presence is required at a meeting.”
The king nodded, and Reyhan left.
As Reyhan walked toward the business wing of the palace, he wondered how he would endure the next fourteen days. There was much to occupy his time—negotiations for oil purchases, dealing with a small band of renegades, reviewing a list of potential brides. Yet he knew none of that would fill his mind. Instead he would think of a woman—the woman he had married. Emma. Their time apart had done nothing to diminish his need for her. Six years ago she had been his greatest weakness, and so she remained.
He paused at the door to his office. No one would ever be permitted to know, he promised himself. Wanting her, needing her, had nearly destroyed him once before. That would not happen again. In two weeks the king would grant their divorce, she would be gone and he, Reyhan, would be allowed to remain strong. That he would live the rest of his life without her was of little consequence. He had survived this long. He would survive the rest of his days. Survive—not live. He reminded himself that most of the time, enduring was more than enough.