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‘Two weeks, Your Highness,’ she said.
Two weeks!
Horror replaced his humiliation as a flush of shame engulfed him.
He’d been helpless, laid out like a child, relying on his brother’s charity for two whole weeks?
‘Raif, you’re finally awake.’
Zane strode into the chamber, the picture of health and vitality, the bastard.
Except he isn’t the bastard—you are.
But why had Zane called him by his Kholadi name? Raif frowned, confusion adding to his growing misery. His tired mind struggled to grasp the implications. The new intimacy between them was almost as disturbing as knowing he’d been at his brother’s mercy for two weeks.
‘How is he?’ Zane addressed the doctor.
She reeled off a string of jargon and he realised he had been operated on because of a burst appendix. That he had nearly died. Then she told his brother he was on the mend.
But he didn’t feel on the mend, he felt broken. And it had nothing to do with the tenderness still lingering in his gut.
How could he have sunk this low? To have risked
his life. To follow a woman. A woman who didn’t want him. Who had run from him and had no respect for his honour or her own. And how could he still want her?
The burning shame in his chest began to change into something more fortifying. He was limp with exhaustion, yes, but that would pass, and when it did he would find Kasia Salah. And he would make her pay for bringing him to this.
After more admonitions for him to remain in bed and focused on his recovery, the doctor left the room, leaving him alone with his brother.
Zane sat in the chair the doctor had vacated and leaned forward. ‘So, Kasim…’ He paused. ‘Sorry, I mean Raif.’ He folded his fingers together, levelling Raif with a stare that brooked no argument. ‘Why didn’t you tell me years ago you prefer to use the name Raif? And why the hell did you ride all the way here in agony?’
CHAPTER NINE
Hey, Kaz,
I hope all’s good with you, and you’re over your hot night with the mystery tribesman. You’ll be glad to know no one has turned up here to claim your hand in marriage, so I hope you’ll consider coming back for a visit again very soon.
Why haven’t you been in touch? Six texts saying precisely nothing in four weeks doesn’t count btw—just in case you were wondering.
All’s good on the home front.
Zane has bought Kaliah her own pony and begun teaching her to ride. Personally, I think five-going-on-fifteen is too young, but I’ve been overruled by both of them, as usual! I include photos of her on her horse for her Auntie Kaz, at her insistence.
William, meanwhile, continues to be an absolute terror. I can’t believe he still isn’t sleeping through the night and he’s nearly two. Neither can Zane, who says he’s going to get tough on his son, then doesn’t…
His Divine Majesty is a complete push-over where his children are concerned, and unfortunately for us both they know it.
We got a surprise visit from Prince Kasim—over a month ago now—who promptly collapsed and had to be nursed back to health. He turned up unannounced and without the usual honour guard of tribesmen. He left us last week.
He had a burst appendix and had to be operated on. When he finally came round he steadfastly refused to talk about why he had come to visit us in the first place and ridden for three days in agony to get here.
I told him he was definitely taking the whole ‘Bad-Boy Sheikh’ thing a bit too far. He did not see the funny side—having apparently had a major sense of humour failure. As it turns out, desert princes make the worst possible patients! Who knew?
The doctor also noticed he had a fresh scar on his arm from what she thought might be a bullet wound—which made me think of your mystery tribesman. But I’m guessing your guy couldn’t possibly be Prince Kasim—or Raif, as Zane now calls him, for no reason I can fathom—because you totally would not have kept the juiciest piece of girl talk in a millennium a secret from your BFF, now, would you?
Give me a call soon and let me know how everything is going.
I miss you.
