Friday, June 17
“I hate to leave him,” Ava said.
It was two days since they’d found her father and he was well on the way to recovery. She’d spent time at her father’s bedside but she’d also spent time with Faisal. He’d offered her a suite in the luxury hotel his family owned and that he called his home away from home. But she’d spent more time with him than in the suite he offered, as they made up for the time they had lost. They’d laughed together and they’d seen a different side of Miami, a more laid-back, romantic side, as they strolled the beach at sunset and had supper in a quaint café they discovered by accident one day.
Now, the late afternoon sun streamed in through the picture window as she sank into the thick luxuriousness of a mint-green leather couch. When they’d left her father after learning he’d been found, she’d felt at peace for the first time in days, knowing that he was safe. Now, she glanced around the Nassar company–owned penthouse suite in Miami. It was luxury with a toned-down touch. Classic rock played in the background and reminded her of Faisal’s love for seventies-era rock. Five years ago, she’d shared that love with him at parties and even a few lazy evenings like this. But she’d been twenty then. It seemed a long time ago. She held a cup of tea, a soft blanket over her shoulders as she tucked one foot beneath her and stretched the other leg out. “Dad’s been through a lot and when he’s discharged he’ll be going home alone...” Her voice trailed off and her lips tightened. “I don’t like it, but...”
“You can’t be late to start your own life.” He cupped her chin, his eyes looking into hers. “You have a career to begin, a life ahead of you, a new job waiting. Your father knows that.”
“I know.” She smiled as he dropped his hand and put his arm around her shoulders. “I can’t wait for that, at least I couldn’t until all of this.”
“It will be fine. The excitement for your career will come back. The memory of this trauma will fade.”
“Will it?”
“I promise,” he said with a low growl in his voice.
“Still, I owe him—”
“You owe it to him to be happy,” Faisal said, looking at her with a smile. “You heard what the doctor said, he’ll be discharged soon,” Faisal assured her as they sat in the Miami penthouse suite. The suite belonged to the Al-Nassar family but was used primarily by him. “You need to start your own life, your own career,” he repeated as if saying the words in a different way would somehow make them more real to her.
“How did you get so smart? You’re right. That’s exactly what my father would want.” She lowered her teacup and looked at him with a sheen of tears in her eyes. It was all so much to comprehend and yet she still felt she owed her father.
“He wants nothing but your happiness,” he said.
“I know you’re right. He’s said it often enough to me.”
“It’s what every parent wants. I know mine did and I know Dan does too,” he said.
She looked at him and saw something else in his eyes, a hint of nostalgia, sadness even. She put the tea down and took both his hands in hers. “I’m so sorry, Faisal. You lost your parents when you were a teenager. And here I am thinking of going off, of leaving him—”
“Ava, quit dramatizing,” Faisal interrupted with a smile. “My parents’ accident was tragic but it has nothing to do with any of this. Sure, I’d change it if I could, but even so, no parent would hold back their child. That’s what kids do, grow up.”
She looked down at her hands and smiled at the fact that they looked so small, almost lost in his. He seemed to notice not at all. Instead he pulled her against his chest, his arm going around her as if he was never going to let her go.
“I think it’s time we began thinking about our own lives, our own family.”
“What do you mean ‘our’?” She looked at him with a frown, her beautiful eyes troubled.
“Don’t deny that there’s something special between us. There always has been.”
She met that statement with silence.
“I know we were apart...”
“Five years,” she said with a hint of regret. “I thought of you often.”
“I love you, Ava. I always have. And now with you in the same state, there isn’t even geography to separate us.”
“That never separated us,” she whispered.
“No, you’re right. It was our youth.”
She turned her face up, an invitation she’d wanted to offer a long time ago. He took it as easily as she’d dreamed in the past. He leaned down and kissed her with all the passion of the unsaid words that lay between them.
“Come with me,” he said thickly. He led her to a bedroom hidden down a hallway of soaring ceilings and skylights. The skylights dusted sunshine along the mellow wood floor. The floor reminded her that he had told her all those years ago that he was restoring old flooring he’d obtained from a demolished church. The old and the new wove together to make the suite breathtaking. On the floor by the sprawling bed was a woven Moroccan wool rug, its colors a dark, muted brown that was accentuated with patches of cream. Overhead a skylight streamed light into the room. Against one wall was a stereo system with a collection of vintage vinyl records lined up on either side. She didn’t see any more after that. Instead, she let him lead her to the downy seduction of the bed, which seemed to fill the room with a promise.
It was she who pulled him down onto the bed as she fell backward, playfully testing whether it was as soft and as inviting as it looked. But it was his firm lips on hers, his readiness against her that took all her playfulness to the next level. Their clothes disappeared in their roughhousing of play and desire. An hour later they lay naked in each other’s arms.
“This is how it was meant to be,” she whispered. “I hear Wyoming calling.”
“Just Wyoming?” Faisal said with a laugh.
“For the moment, yes,” she said with an answering laugh. “I love you, do you know that?”
“I should hope so,” Faisal said. “I don’t want to lose you again. I only hope you feel the same way.”
“You won’t be given that option,” she said with a smile in her voice.
He leaned over and kissed her, hard and deep, and yet briefly. When he rose up on an elbow, he looked into her eyes. “You’re everything to me, do you know that, Ava? I love you,” he finished before she could reply.
Tears glistened in her eyes as she reached up to draw him to her. “I wish every moment of our life could be like this,” she said.
“Like what?” he asked thickly.
“Spent together.”
He ran a thumb along her collarbone. “That sounds perfect to me. Any way we cut it, we’ll be together...”
“Forever,” she finished. “It’s everything I want, Faisal.”
“We’ll be married,” he said as he plopped down beside her.
“What kind of marriage proposal is that?” she asked with a giggle. She turned over on one elbow so they were nose to nose. Chest to breast, and despite how erotic it all was, for a moment they were serious.
“Ava Adams, would you do me the honor of being my wife?”
“Forever and always,” she replied as her lips met his. And the kiss seemed to last forever.
When the kiss finally ended, they lay shoulder to shoulder. The air-conditioning caressed their heated skin and Ava thought she might have reached nirvana. It was then that Faisal reached under the pillow and brought out a box. “To seal the deal, my love.”
“Are you always going to be this romantic?” she said with what she knew was a loving, yet sarcastic edge to her voice.
“Open it,” he said with only a small hint of the Al-Nassar command she’d teased him about when they’d been together at school.
She opened the box and saw a ring that was like none she’d seen before nestled in a satin bed. She wouldn’t even ask how he’d gotten it so quickly. She was quickly learning that it was the Al-Nassar way. Instead, she could only look at it with damp eyes. The band was delicate strands of gold that appeared to be braided together. The heart-shaped diamond sparkled in its setting. The ring truly reflected the love he’d so recently admitted.
“It’s beautiful.” The words weren’t enough and yet that was all she could say. “It’s unique, romantic...” Tears threatened. She had no words to explain how she felt. It was a moment she’d never dreamed of despite how she’d always felt about Faisal. He’d been everything. He was everything.
“You’re everything,” she said as if he would know what she meant.
And the look in his eyes told her that she had said it all.
“It represents my love and the love of family.”
“You mean children?” she asked, looking into his dark eyes.
“Maybe or maybe just the love of those we allow into our lives.”
“That’s beautiful, Fai,” she said, leaning over to kiss him.
He pulled her closer. His eyes looked deeply into hers. Then he kissed her, long and hard and hot. The kiss lasted a minute and then two before it ended. She looked at him with all the love she was feeling, the ring clutched in the palm of her fisted right hand as if she would never let it go.
But a few minutes later she watched as he slipped the ring onto her finger. A ring that was unique and rare, much like the man she’d always admired and loved and had now agreed to marry. It was a ring fashioned from love, hope and a promise.
Outside the sun shone even brighter as it offered all the hope and warmth of the promise of their future together.
* * * * *
Check out the previous books in the
DESERT JUSTICE series:
SHEIK’S RESCUE
SHEIK’S RULE
SON OF THE SHEIK
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