Royal's Wedding Secret (12 page)

Only then did he pick up his tempo, crashing into her like a wave on the shore. She felt the power of his need for her, and she clung to him, as if he were the only safe port in a storm of her own making. When he froze, spilling inside her, she closed her eyes, giving herself up entirely to the ecstasy of being with him.

I love you,
she thought.
I love you so much …

*

"I want you to take her." Marnie said softly.

He stirred a little, groggy and too tired to understand what she was saying at first. "What?"

"I want … I want her to have everything that you promised her. All of the best. The best doctors, the best schools. I learned today that no matter how careful I am, no matter how much care I take … Philip I can't protect her, and I know that you can."

She lay on her side, her back to him. He could tell, though, from the tremor of her voice, that she was crying.

"Marnie …"

"It's the truth. I've always thought that a mother's job was to do what was best for her child. I see what that is, right now, and it's you. Not me, in this little apartment on my own, but you. You can make her into a … a princess, and …"

"I could make her a princess just as easily by making you my queen," he said softly.

Marnie was quiet. "I don't understand," she said at last.

"I'm through playing," he said, his voice growing in firmness and strength with every moment that passed. "That's what I was doing before. I did all the fun parts of being a parent, and I thought that that was all I was capable of. When you called me, Christ above. I felt as if I was being stabbed through the heart with a steel spike. I had never been that afraid before. And … I was fine. I thought clearly. I wanted the best for her and for you, and I was planning to take care of it. I think I am finally worthy to be her father … and perhaps that means that I am finally worthy to be your husband."

She sat in bed to look at him. Her eyes were red, her hair was a rat's nest, and she looked as if she could be toppled with a feather. Philip thought that she had never looked more lovely.

"Philip?"

"Marry me," he said. "I don't care what my father or mother say. I don't care what's right or proper. Eventually, they'll get over it, and we'll go be a family in Navarra. Maybe we need to spend some time in New York getting our feet underneath us, and I can get a job, or maybe we'll do something entirely different.

"The important thing to me, Marnie, right now, is that we are a family. A real one. I want to be Victoria's father. I want to be your husband. And … Marnie, I love you. I've always loved you, and when I think of the years without you … I never stopped loving you. Will you marry me?"

For a moment she was as still as a statue, her eyes wide and as bright as stars. Then to his shock, she hid her face in her hands, and the only sound he could hear was a sob.

Philip felt a moment of sheer panic. He had spoken from the heart, but what if it wasn't good enough? What if she thought that he couldn't change? Did she not want him? Had he hurt her with somehow careless words?

"Marnie …"

With a strength and speed that surprised him, she reached for him, pulling him close. Surprised, he wrapped his arms around her as she shook. He realized that she was saying something, saying it over and over again, and he bent his head to hear.

"I love you," she said. "I love you, I love you, I love you …"

Philip let go of a breath that he hadn't even been aware that he was holding, holding her even tighter and kissing her on the crown of her dark head.

"So you will?"

She looked up at him, her eyes shining. "I do," she said, her voice as soft as velvet. "I love you, and I want to be with you forever. You and I and Victoria will always be a family, and it will be perfect."

"We can tell her when we take her home tomorrow," Philip promised. "Do you think she'll like the idea of being a flower girl at our wedding?"

Marnie laughed. "If you leaving put her in the hospital, telling her that she gets to keep you and that you are her father will send her to the moon!"

*

Four Months Later

"There," said Doreen, touching the glittering diamond blossoms in Marnie's hair. "Perfect."

"I don't feel perfect," Marnie admitted to her soon-to-be mother-in-law. "I feel like I'm going to topple over and drown under fifty pounds of silk and beading …"

The last four months hadn't been easy, but to Marnie's surprise, Doreen had been her staunch advocate the entire way. The uproar when Philip came home with a novelist wife and a five-year-old daughter had been immense, but Doreen had taken one look at a jet-lagged, grumpy Victoria and decided that she would move heaven and earth for her grandchild. Doreen had been the one to smooth the way for Philip and Marnie, softening Alexander's heart before they saw them. Soon enough, the wedding was planned, and now Marnie stood in the bridal chamber of St. Ignacnio, the ancestral church where all the Demariers had been wed for two hundred years.

"You are beautiful, and you will be fine," Doreen said firmly. "Now, I need to get to my own place. Do you need anything else?"

To have eloped four months ago?
But she certainly couldn't say that.

Instead, Marnie waited for her musical cue, her trembling hands hidden by her bouquet. She knew that Doreen would make sure that Victoria knew where to go. She knew who would be waiting for her at the end of the aisle.

The orchestra—there was an orchestra at her wedding!—had been playing the wedding party down the aisle, and after a brief pause, they struck up her bridal march.

She might have been worried about the ceremony, but about the man at the end of the aisle—never. She walked out of the bridal chamber towards the aisle, and when she looked ahead to the altar, she couldn't stop an enormous smile from crossing her face.

At the end of the aisle was her daughter and the man she knew that she would love until the day she died. At the end of the aisle was her future.

When she finally took her place at the altar, Victoria, nervous over all the eyes on her, took her hand tightly, making Marnie smile. She turned to face Philip holding her daughter's hand, and when she saw his black eyes lit up with love for the both of them, she knew that she had found a love story far better than any she could ever write.

THE END

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Sheikh's Blackmailed Love

By: Sophia Lynn

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Sheikh's Blackmailed Love

By: Sophia Lynn

All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2015-2016 Sophia Lynn

CHAPTER ONE

One year ago

Bailey didn’t know what she was going to do. Rent was two months late, and she was fairly sure the only reason she hadn’t been evicted yet was because her landlord was actually in the process of going bankrupt and couldn’t rent out her tiny basement apartment anyway. When she looked in the fridge, she found a stick of margarine, four eggs, and a strange variety of condiments.

The twenty-three-year-old bit her lip, staring at her computer screen. She had been up all night at her night auditor job at the local hotel, and she had gotten next to no job searching done because one of the hotel’s inhabitants had come down to ask her repeatedly if she would join him in his room. He had said he would make it worth her while, and Bailey was horrified when she realized that she’d actually thought about it for a minute.

I need to get out of here
,
she thought for what felt like the millionth time, but she had no answer to the next question, which was
but where are you going to go?

Last year, Bailey had graduated with a double degree in art history and Arabic studies, close to the top of her class. She was a proud scholarship student, who had made it through her academic career working two jobs while keeping her grades high. She’d had plans to continue her education, but after graduation, things had changed.

In face of losing the student job that was contingent on her enrollment, discovering the high fees to take the advanced placement tests for grad school, and her mother’s sudden illness in Iowa, her plans had gone down like a plane shot out of the sky. As she watched her classmates go on to find jobs in the corporate or art world, she had been left behind in a small apartment that was infested with mice, and in a situation no better than she would have been in if she had skipped college altogether.

Every day, she was a little closer to seeing if the strip club on the shady side of town was willing to hire a skinny twenty-three-year-old who was barely taller than some teenagers. With her plain brown hair and olive skin, Bailey suspected that the answer would be to come back when she looked a little more exciting.

For a moment, she simply gave in to despair. It looked as if there was no way out, and that fancy degrees or no, she would simply be working at the hotel until she died. If she was lucky, maybe she would become a manager someday.

She took a deep breath, opened her ancient laptop, and got to work. At this point, it didn’t matter what the work was or where they wanted her to be. If it would get her out of her tiny college town, she was going to take it.

It was almost two in the afternoon when she looked up, working a crick out of her neck. She noticed that her phone had two messages on it.

A job offer?

With trembling fingers, she listened to her messages. The first one made her deflate. It was her mother.

“Hey, sweetie, it’s just Mom. Guess you’re not around for calls, so I’m just going to hope that you’re taking some time off for fun. You’ve never been great at that, but now that you’re out of school, maybe you can! Just wanted to let you know that we got the last check you sent home. You should keep more for yourself… Do you have a savings account? Well, I’ll try again later. Love you, sweetie.”

Bailey could feel tears of frustration prick at her eyes. She loved her mother dearly. It had been just the two of them over the last few years after her father had died. She wanted to help her mom so much, and now it looked like she might have to move back, be another mouth to feed. She couldn’t be a burden on her mother—she couldn’t bear it.

The other message was from a number she didn’t recognize. As she listened, Bailey could feel her spirits lift, her eyes widen in hope.

“This is the number that we have for Bailey Tyler, so hopefully that’s who we’re talking to. Hello, my name is Dennis Christensen, and I’m with the firm Christensen and Wilde. We’re an archaeological funding concern based out of St. Louis and the UAE, and we are looking for qualified members for our next dig. We have looked at your resume and researched your accreditation, and you sound like just the kind of person we’re looking for. If you would be interested in exploring this opportunity further, please give me a call back at this number.”

Bailey had to listen to the message twice before she could really believe it. It was the first callback she had gotten at all. She tried to tell herself that it wasn’t really a job offer, or at least, it wasn’t yet.

However, she couldn’t keep her thoughts from soaring up higher than they ever had. A job, and not just any job, but one in her field. Some of her peers had taken their degrees in topics as varied as art history and anthropology and then gone on to safe careers in offices. She had been willing to do that, but a job in what sounded like her field… that was the holy grail.

She wanted nothing more than to call her mother to tell her, but then she restrained herself. Later. She could call her mother when she had the job offer in hand.

I might be okay after all
,
she thought with an excited grin.

*

Next to Dubai, Jabal was one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world. From all over the world, doctors came both to work and to learn, and it was considered to have one of the best hospitals on the continent.

Why, then, Dario wondered, could it not do something as simple as keep his father alive?

His father, Sandros al-Nejem, the sheikh of Jabal, who had borne the title First Among Ten Thousand for more than forty years, was now lying twisted and wasted on his hospital bed. Pumps helped him breathe, and his sister Mala sat by his side holding his hand while Dario held the other.

The doctors had said that it would not be long now. His father’s illness had been lingering and long, and he had not been conscious for almost two days.

Silently, Dario cursed the illness that had laid his father low. It was easier than thinking about what was to come. Over the past few years, he had started taking on more and more of his father’s responsibilities as sheikh, but he was under no illusions. Becoming the First Among Ten Thousand himself would be altogether different.

Unexpectedly, his father stirred. For a moment, his mouth only moved silently, and then, to Dario’s shock, he turned his head to one side, gazing at his only son with clear eyes.