Alea nearly cursed when she heard the soft knock on her door. The last thing she wanted was more conflict. At least she was dressed this time, having donned silk pajamas after a punishingly hot shower. “Please, Dane, can we talk about it in the morning? I’m so tired.”
Dane would be the one they sent. He always delivered bad news or a lengthy lecture on how stupidly she was behaving. She knew putting him off wasn’t right, but she couldn’t handle another confrontation tonight.
The door opened, and a pretty brunette in a designer gown floated in. Piper al Mussad stood halfway in the room, her hands raised in a silent gesture that pleaded for peace. “It’s just me. Don’t blame me because my husbands are nitwits.”
Alea couldn’t help but smile. Despite the terror, uncertainty, and shame of the last hour, Piper was a breath of fresh air. Her cousin-in-law was one of those people who lit up the room simply by walking into it. “You really should have had their IQs checked before you decided to marry them.”
Piper shrugged. “Give a girl a break. I was blinded by their hotness.”
“Okay, as a girl who remembers them during their prepubescent years—ewww.” But Alea smiled. Piper had been so good for her cousins. She’d become the sun they all orbited around. It reminded Alea of the joy her aunt and uncles had once shared and how happy the palace had been during her youth.
Piper closed the door behind her, her radiant face suddenly serious. “Are you all right?”
Alea was so far from all right that it was ridiculous, but she didn’t need to drag Piper any farther into this mess. And she wasn’t about to cause problems in Piper’s marriage. “I’m perfectly fine. My cousins have always been protective. I’m positive they would’ve told me in the morning.”
“You’re taking this way better than I would have. I have to confess, when Talib admitted what had happened, I thought about shoving something up his backside.”
“Piper!”
She shrugged. “It’s his favorite form of discipline. We should see how he likes it.”
Alea felt her face flush. She shook her head as she sat on the couch in the living area of her apartment. “I don’t understand how you can talk about things like that.”
Piper eased down beside her. “Because it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Tell me something. Was your aunt very proper? I know when she was the shaykhah she was every inch a lady in public, but was she reserved in private? I’ve only known her in private and she’s so open. I’m wondering how she dealt with the public side of this life.”
Alea laughed. Her aunt had been the same whether cameras were on her or not. “She used to tell us that she wouldn’t hide how much she loved my uncles. She’s very British, my aunt, but that stiff upper lip completely softened around her husbands and children. She is a lovely woman. She was the perfect queen in her day. You actually remind me a lot of her.”
“Thank you.” Piper smiled. “I’ve heard enough stories about when their fathers were alive to know that my husbands weren’t raised in a household that lacked warmth. When they were children, their parents often displayed their affection and told my husbands that they were loved. So were you. She still loves you.”
“My aunt and uncles created a wonderful environment to grow up in, though I missed not really knowing my own parents.”
“Do I offend you when I talk about my intimate life with Tal, Rafe, and Kade? It’s not my intention. You’re my closest friend here. I’m afraid I like to talk about everything. It helps me process all that’s happened. The last few months have been full of change for me.” She laid a hand over her still-flat stomach.
“Oh, god, Piper, you don’t offend me at all. I just can’t understand.” And Piper was such a sneaky woman. Now Alea understood why she’d been asking about the family. Piper had been backing her into a corner, and it was easier to simply answer the question she knew would eventually come. “Yes, I grew up in an open household, and yet I’m very reserved about sex. I’m sure it’s because of what happened to me in South America. I’ve been to several of the world’s best therapists. I know what my problems are.”
Shrewd eyes stared back at her. “But you don’t seem interested in fixing them.”
Alea stood up every time she talked about it, she got restless, uneasy in her own skin. “I don’t like who I am right now. It’s weird because I can remember the girl I used to be, the one who didn’t blow up at everyone, the one who wasn’t isolated. But it feels like all of that was a dream and I had to wake up. Believe me, if I could forget what happened, I would.”
“You’ll never forget, Alea. Forgetting shouldn’t be your goal. But it’s up to you whether or not you allow them to win. Though I admit, watching you continually give in to your captors is painful.”
“I’m not letting anyone win, damn it.”
Piper sent her a skeptical stare. “Tell me you don’t want those men who guard you, Lea.”
Everything always came back to Dane, Cooper, and Landon. Since the moment she’d seen them, it seemed as if her thoughts had started to revolve around them, if not her world. If she’d been the same exuberant girl who’d left for New York, she would have had all the confidence in the world to try a relationship with them. But this was now.
“I don’t want them.”
Piper sighed. “You can lie to yourself, but I know the truth. I think they know it, too.”
Tears welled, unbidden, unwanted because she wasn’t that girl anymore. “It doesn’t matter.”
She didn’t see how she could possibly be pretty enough, sensual enough, or healed enough for them—ever.
Piper leaned forward. “What happened? Did you get mad because they tried to keep that meeting secret? I don’t think you should blame them. Tal said it was his call.”
Because Tal always shouldered the responsibility. “No. This whole plot reeks of Dane, too. I can see him arguing that they needed to get the whole story before they talked to me. He wouldn’t want to worry me until they had a plan in place. He would have taken all the data and come to me with a detailed ‘op,’ as he would say.”
Piper’s eyes went wide. “It sounds like you know Dane pretty well.”
Alea shrugged. “Cooper and Landon would have argued, but Cooper can be swayed. Landon is the one who would fight him. Cooper would hesitate to tell me bad news, but Lan would just shove it all out there because he doesn’t know how to be dishonest.” She sighed. “Not that they were intentionally unkind, but, damn it, Piper. It’s my life on the line. I have a right to know.”
“I agree,” Piper said calmly. “Obviously Landon did, too. I heard he nearly got his balls kicked in. But you can be very difficult to talk to about this subject. You were the one who asked Tal to keep huge, deeply relevant portions of what happened to you in Colombia out of the reports. You understand how that hampers the investigation?”
God, she didn’t want anyone to know. She hadn’t even told the therapists everything. “They have all the information they need.”
Piper sat back with a long sigh. “No, they don’t, but you’re not going to believe or admit that. You did nothing to be ashamed of, Alea. What happened was a crime perpetrated against you. You didn’t cause it, but only you can give yourself permission to heal from it. Only you can let go of the pain and really beat the bastards who hurt you.”
“There are no winners here, Piper. Just a whole lot of losers.” Alea crossed her arms over her chest.
“Ah, there’s the bitter girl.” Piper smiled tightly. “You’ve been almost happy lately. I’ve been wondering if she’d finally left the building, but no. She’s in full force tonight.”
Bitter. Yes, that described her. She sat down again. The surroundings were so familiar. She’d been happy here at the palace long ago. Now she just felt stuck.
Alea let a long moment pass before asking the question that had plagued her for months. “Do you think it would be best if I left the palace?”
“What?” Piper leaned closer. “How can you think that?”
“Because you’re having a baby. I’m not the nicest person. I don’t mean to lash out, but I can’t seem to help it. I’m wondering if…maybe it might be best if I went away. This should be a happy time for you.”
Piper sighed and shook her head. “You see everything in the worst possible light. I’m not pointing out bitter girl to blame you. I’m simply saying that you’ve seemed more relaxed these last couple of months. You’ve even been smiling when you walk the grounds with Dane or sit in the garden with Lan and Cooper.”
Yes, she’d enjoyed all those times, but they were over now. She would likely be assigned new guards. She’d ruined everything. Maybe they’d all just give up on her now, even Tal. He could ask her to leave because she was like a wounded animal and no one knew when she would kick or bray and hurt someone around her.
“Well, I rather thought the whole sordid kidnapping mess was over. I found out tonight that it’s not. So forgive me if I can’t quite find my charm.”
“No. That’s not it. I’d hoped you were healing, but you’ve just gotten more adept at hiding your feelings. Alea, no one wants you to leave. You’re more like a sister to my husbands than a cousin. You’ll be my baby’s aunt, and I want him or her to know you. We love you for the strong woman you are. You say this isn’t a game, but in many ways it is. You didn’t mean to play, but you’re holding the cards now and you have to decide whether or not you want to win or let the bastard behind your kidnapping crush you.”
Alea shook her head. “I can’t win. I wouldn’t even know how.”
“You win the minute you decide to become a survivor instead of a victim. The minute you accept that you can’t go back and you elect to move forward. You win when you allow the fact that you’ve survived to strengthen you, to make you a better human being than you were before. When you take all the horrible things that happened to you and make something good out of it—that’s a moment of triumph. And you win the minute you let yourself love those three men.” Piper stood and placed a hand on Alea’s shoulder. “I hope you decide to win, because the rest us of love you and want to feel close to you, like family should. We hate that you’ve isolated yourself. We’re all here for you. You just have to decide to join us in the love and laughter. In the light. This is your home. I hope you start acting like we’re your family, too.”
Piper brushed a kiss across her cheek, and it took everything inside Alea not to pull away. Piper must have felt or sensed it because she had the saddest look on her face as she turned away.
And she’d screwed up again. Alea sank to the couch. It seemed like the only thing she was capable of lately. The doors closed behind Piper ,and Alea suddenly felt how very alone she was. Piper’s words rustled around in her brain.
“Lea?” a soft voice called out.
She should lock her doors.
Alea sighed. “Yes, Yas?”
Yasmin walked in, still in her perfectly tailored gown. “I heard there was trouble.”
“It’s nothing.” She didn’t want to bring her cousin in on all the problems of the evening. She really just wanted to shut out the world and go to bed.
“I doubt that.” She spoke with an upper crust British accent, no hint of her Bezakistani roots at all. Yas had worked for years to fit into the English ideal of perfection. She’d bleached her hair a platinum blonde and maintained a slender figure. She wore the right clothes and the right makeup. She was everything Alea wasn’t. Somehow picking out the perfect outfit for the season didn’t matter so much anymore.
Find the good. That’s what Piper had recommended. There was no good. She was wrong.
“Lea? Are you still with me?”
Alea shook her head. “Sorry. I’m really tired.”
“I heard about what Tal and those horrible guards of yours did. Is it true that he gave them complete control over your security?”
“What?”
Yas leaned in, sympathy softening her face. “Tal released those brutes from his service tonight and dedicated them to your protection full time.”
It was the absolute worst outcome. Dane, Cooper, and Landon would be on her case twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And now they had no reason to be nice about it. They would watch and hover, silent and unsmiling, a constant reminder of how awful she’d been. “Are you sure?”
“Oliver overheard them. You know he’s always been dreadfully concerned about your welfare. It’s very difficult for me to forget that he was interested in you before he was interested in me.”
And this was why she didn’t spend much time with Yas anymore. Her cousin was never content to merely talk. She had to find a way to turn the conversation to herself, usually about how terribly she was being treated. It wasn’t that Yasmin was a bad person. She’d simply always felt like a lesser relation because her parents hadn’t lived in the palace. “We’re just friends, Yas. He married you.”
“I know.” Her eyes turned down. “I just always wonder if he regrets not marrying the real princess.”
Not that again. “Yas, I only have the title because our uncles legally adopted me, and they only did that to protect me. They were still my aunt and uncles. That’s what I called them, not mom and dad. They made certain I didn’t forget my real parents.”
“Still, you’re referred to as a princess and you have the trust fund to go with it. Most men would be interested in marrying into that.”
“Well, it’s Bezakistan. Even as a ‘princess’ who isn’t in line to ascend, if I marry, I’ll be expected to take at least three husbands. Our country is modern compared to some of its neighbors, but it’s still steeped in tradition. Be grateful you got a choice to marry exactly who you want and love.”
Three husbands. Big and broad men who could protect her and care for her if she would only let them. Dane, Coop, and Landon’s faces swam through her thoughts.
Yasmin frowned, turning away slightly. “You might be surprised. Sometimes I think Oliver and his brothers would have been happier with the Bezakistani way of life. But that is neither here nor there. I didn’t come here to talk about my problems. I came to help solve one of yours.”
Alea wasn’t sure how any of her problems could be solved, but Piper’s advice was still fresh in her mind. If she was ever going to have a life, she had to at least try not to shut her loved ones out. “Which problem are you talking about?”
“You need a vacation. I can’t imagine how stressful it is for you here.”
It would be just as stressful in London, and now, thanks to Tal, a big chunk of the problems she was trying to escape—three big ones—would be on her heels. “I don’t think I want to go to London right now, Yasmin. I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think I would make great company.”
“Oliver and I were talking. He’s always the voice of reason. I think you’re right. The last thing you need is to be surrounded by people. But what if you could get away on your own, all alone for a while? Oliver and I were supposed to leave tomorrow morning in our plane for Sydney.” Yas shrugged. “A little alone time before the baby comes.”
“That sounds lovely.” But she wasn’t sure what it had to do with her. She didn’t want to intrude on their babymoon.
A weary look crossed Yasmin’s face. “But the thought of getting on another plane makes me sick. I’d already decided to tell Oliver that I would rather stay here at the palace for a few weeks when he suggested a change of plans. Everything is ready to go at the apartment in Sydney. It’s private. It’s well protected. And no one would know who or where you are. Oliver’s brother already hired security for us. They can just protect you instead.”
No one would know? Not Tal? Not Dane or any of the others? If she could pull that off, she would be totally alone, without anyone’s expectations weighing her down. Despite what the press suggested, she wasn’t a prisoner at the palace. For just for a few days, she could pretend she was normal and maybe she could sort out her thoughts, find a little peace. With that much tranquility, maybe she could figure out what to do next. It sounded heavenly, but… “I don’t know. Tal would be furious.”
“Oh, it’s only for a short while. Oliver and I won’t say anything. So Tal won’t have any idea where you’ve gone. If anyone asks about the plane, I’ll simply tell them that we sent it along with notes and supplies for the Reaching Across Cultures’ Sydney office. We’d planned a vacation, but I was hoping to squeeze in just a little bit of work. I really do need to send some things there, so it’s not a total lie. You wouldn’t mind dropping them off, would you?”
If it meant she got to escape all the censure and pressure here, if she truly got to be alone to sift through the rubble of her life, she wouldn’t mind. “Just leave me instructions, and I’ll take whatever you need. Oh, Yas, do you really think it could work?”
A bright smile curved up her cousin’s lips. “Oliver is very smart. Trust my husband. He always tries to do the right thing for his family.”
Alea nodded, and they started to make plans. By this time tomorrow, she would be far, far away.
* * * *
Landon couldn’t sleep. The events of the evening kept playing out in his head over and over again. He shouldn’t have risen to Alea’s bait and been so hard on her. His first instinct had been to reach out to her, to hold her and try to coddle her back to reality.
But he’d been doing a version of that for over a year and it simply didn’t work. She was farther from them than ever before.
He stepped out of the quarters he shared with the full-time guards. Tal had offered all three of them rooms in the palace, but Lan had turned him down. He wouldn’t know what to do with the space. Dane and Coop had made their apartments look something like homes, but Lan felt more comfortable out here with the help. He looked up at the palace, and his stare inevitably drifted to her room.
What was it about this one female that made him so fucking crazy? He’d seen more beautiful women before, but none of them moved him the way Alea did. It wasn’t just her tragic past. He wasn’t chasing her for the challenge. It was like…his heart recognized her. God, that sounded dumb and girly. Maybe he was a masochist who only craved what he couldn’t have.
The trouble was, he’d seen the soft woman under all that armor. He caught glimpses of her when she was working with children or visiting the hospital. He loved to go on those duties with her because somehow she managed to shove aside her own pain to help others. And that’s when he saw her most genuine smiles.
“Lan? Is that you?”
Landon sighed and touched his right side. Cooper had done a number on his kidney. He would be lucky if he wasn’t pissing blood for a week. “Yeah, Coop, it’s me.”
Cooper rounded the corner, and Landon noticed he was carrying his medical kit. “Hey, I was just coming to see you. I thought I should probably check you out since I was the one who damaged you.”
“You barely managed to hit me.” Lan rolled his eyes.
Cooper laughed a little. “Well, I’ll feel better if I check you out. Amuse me.”
“Fine.” Lan looked up at the palace one last time before turning and leading Coop back into the barracks.
Cooper looked around at the large, mostly antiseptic building. There were twenty small rooms, each with a single bed, closet space, and a desk unit. Cooper followed Landon into the room that belonged to him. “You know you left the Army, right?”
Lan was deeply aware of the fact that his room had no personal elements. Cooper had pictures of his brothers and his parents on his walls. Dane had decorated his apartment with paintings and books and other things he picked up in his travels. Lan had only had his grandmother, and she’d never let him forget that his mother had dropped him on her doorstep on her way out to her next party and never come back. There were no pictures of his childhood, no family photos with smiling faces. “I like to keep things simple.”
“You keep things spartan.” Cooper set his kit on the bed and opened it with a flick of his wrist. “Are all your parts still working?”
“I don’t know. Strangely enough, I haven’t had a chance to use my balls since you decided to shove them halfway up my ass.”
Cooper chuckled. “Well, you were trying to kill me at the time. How about we just call it even?”
That was fine by him. “I guess we all made mistakes tonight.”
A calculated expression crossed Cooper’s face. “Or we all did the right thing, and we were just wrong because we didn’t do it together. I think I was onto something tonight. She was interested. Maybe not in me in particular, but she was curious about sex. She needs to experiment. We need to set ourselves up in some intimate situations with her.”
“What? Like walking in on her while she’s buck naked?”
“Hey, I didn’t plan that. I really was trying to check on her.”
Lan shrugged. “Maybe I’m just jealous. So she really did respond? I was a little surprised she let you see her naked. Did she fight you?”
Coop shook his head as he pulled out a couple of bottles and some washcloths. “Not really. She gave me a weak ‘go away’ before things got really heated. I know what a woman looks like when she’s aroused. She wasn’t afraid. She was inquisitive and hot. And she enjoyed having her pussy loved on.”
God, he really was jealous of Cooper now. “So she responded.”
“Yes, she was moaning and shoving her cunt at me. She wasn’t scared, not until I wrapped my arms around her. That’s when she screamed. I wasn’t hurting her, Lan. I was trying to get closer.”
Damn it. He hated being a reasonable man. He slapped at Coop’s arm, a brotherly show of affection. “You probably didn’t do anything I wouldn’t have in your situation. If I had the chance to get my mouth on her, I would. It just makes me worry that she’s never going to be ready for what we want to give her. And if she can’t handle one man, what about three? If you holding her was too much, how the hell will she ever handle Dane?”
A part of the submission Dane needed fell squarely into the bondage category. Lan had watched Dane with more than one submissive. He took their needs very seriously, but those women had always needed what Dane had to offer. Alea would be terrified.
“I think the key is to experiment,” Coop went on. “We need to retrain her. Her captors did a number on her. But she can never have a normal life if she can’t accept love and affection, or enjoy sex. Are you willing to let her live that way just because you’re squeamish?”
Put like that, it seemed like a cowardly thing to do. “I get what you’re saying, man. I just don’t know that she wants me.”
Cooper groaned, his eyes rolling. “You have got to get over the insecurity thing. She wants all of us. She wants the whole ménage thing, or at least she did when she was a kid. I was doing a sweep of the palace the other day and I wound up in the library. Did you know Talib still keeps everything the way his fathers left it? Including the pictures taped to the wall. One of them is Alea’s. I would bet she was about eight or nine when she drew it. It’s of a woman with dark hair and three men. And the title of the picture is ‘my three husbands.’ I think we could be those men for her.”
“I’m in.” Lan didn’t hesitate.
Cooper was right. If they loved Alea, they had to be willing to risk everything to make sure she could enjoy life again, even whatever shot they had at a relationship with her. “So how do we get ourselves into…what did you call it? Intimate situations?”
It would be damn near impossible here. The palace was filled to the brim with people and would be for weeks to come because of the coronation. Between family, friends, and visiting dignitaries, Lan wasn’t sure when they would get more than two moments alone with her.
There was a short knock on the door, then it opened. Dane’s large frame filled the doorway. “Hey, I came to check on Lan.”
“Jeez, guys, my balls still work.” He hadn’t gotten hit that hard. Not that he’d admit, anyway.
The corners of Dane’s mouth curled up wryly. It was good to see him smile for once.
“I’m glad because, unfortunately, your balls are important to my plan. But once we put the plan in motion, we all need to watch our balls, guys.”
Thank god he was joking. After what happened earlier, Lan had been worried Dane would turn into a morose asshole, and there was only room for one of those on the team. He’d taken that place a long time ago and he wasn’t giving it up. “Does this mean I’m not fired?”
Dane nodded. “You know I hate paperwork, man.”
“Excellent. Now, when can I use my still fully functional balls on our girl? Because the way I see it, it’s going to be a long while before we can get her alone.”
Dane held up the folder he’d been carrying. “That’s where you might be wrong. This is the flight list for tomorrow out of the palace’s private airstrip. I get a daily update and something odd happened.”
“Shit,” Coop said. “How many more people do we have to vet? Tell Tal to stop with all the coronation celebrations. Slap a tiara on Piper’s head and call her a queen, damn it.”
Lan didn’t understand the need for all the ceremony, either. Spending a ton of money didn’t make Piper any more official. It just created more work for them. He hated running background checks. He would rather just shoot people. “How many are there?”
“It isn’t the people coming in who caught my eye. It’s the people leaving, or rather the person leaving. Oliver and Yasmin Thurston-Hughes changed their plans. They’ve decided to stay in Bezakistan for the next few weeks. They were planning on heading for Sydney tomorrow, but now they’re only sending their personal assistant.”
And that affected them how? “So?”
“So? You guys need to pay more attention to palace gossip. Their assistant is that little brunette who’s been fucking the hell out of Tal’s valet, who told me tonight that he was very happy because she isn’t leaving tomorrow after all. This is a small craft. The weight on the plane is delicate and has to be fairly precise. So when they changed the flight plans, in addition to the flight crew, they listed a single female passenger, weighing approximately one hundred forty pounds.”
“But that chick might weigh ninety pounds when she’s soaking wet.” As far as Lan was concerned, that assistant needed to eat a cheeseburger.
“Yes. She would likely hyperventilate if her scale said that, yet she’s the one who filled out the change-of-flight form,” Dane finished.
“Son of a bitch, she’s running,” Cooper cursed.
“I don’t think she can run in those heels. Yas’s assistant seems really puny and unhealthy.” Lan was pretty sure she wasn’t a runner.
Dane laughed. “He’s talking about Alea, buddy. She’s the one who’s the right weight. They’re trying to pass it off as the other girl. They’re giving her the means to leave on her own and away from all these people, including us.”
Damn, he should have caught on. That sounded like the kind of play Alea would pull. “I saw that Thurston Hugs-a-Lot fucker listening in on you and Tal. The slimy bastard told Alea that we’re taking over, and she’s running.”
“You have a way with words, Lan,” Coop said, then he turned to Dane. “So what are we going to do? Stop the plane?”
Lan didn’t think that was a good idea. Alea was going somewhere private. They wanted to be really damn private with her. “I think we should get on that plane.”
“I’m ahead of you,” Dane said. “I’ve already revised the flight plan to include the three of us. I met the woman who’s going to be serving on the plane and I talked to her. She’s willing to help us out. We’ll sneak on and be in the air before Alea can do a damn thing about it. Pack up, boys. We’re headed for Australia. We’re going to spend some time all alone with our girl.”
It could go crazy well. It could be the apocalypse. Either way, he was ready.
Lan smiled. “I’m in.”