CHAPTER SEVEN
Irene awoke to the sound of men talking. For a moment, she simply lay in bed, shaking off the shreds of dreams that she could not quite remember. Then she realized that the voices were real and not part of her dreams, and she sat up. Quietly, she put on her clothes and ventured to the living room.
Raheem was there, conversing with two men dressed in black. Their voices were low and serious, and when they saw her, they straightened up respectfully. Raheem came to stand next to Irene.
“Good morning,” he said, and she was both relieved and disappointed when he did not kiss her as he had done all week.
“Good morning,” she said, aware that her voice was dull. “What’s going on?”
“These men are part of a task force that was created to deal with international theft. In a short while, I will go with them.”
“You’re going to where my brother is,” she said dully. “You’re going to go find him.”
He hesitated for a moment, and then he nodded. “I am. Irene, right now, you have a choice.”
Irene looked at him. It felt as if she were wrapped in cotton, and his words were coming from far away.
“A choice?”
“Yes. I have a man here who will take you back to the city. He has instructions to take you to a hotel, one of the ones my family owns. All of your things are waiting for you, as is a ticket.”
She blinked. She knew that he had said that she would be allowed to leave Khanour as she pleased when the week was up, but she hadn’t really believed it.
“The ticket will take you to New York City,” he said, “and along with it is a money order that will help you get settled wherever you go next. It is the least I can offer you for the help that you provided, however reluctantly.”
“You mentioned a choice…”
“Yes.” Raheem took a moment to compose himself, and when he spoke, there was a tremor there.
“You can also stay at the hotel. I will be coming there after the raid. After the raid, we can talk about what happens next, what really lies between the two of us. If you are there, I will know you want some kind of future with me. If you go… well, that’s its own answer.”
She looked up at him, still feeling suffocated by cotton. Her thoughts swirled with images and worries about her brother, but there was more there than that. There was also the ghost of Raheem’s hands running along her body, the way he took care of her, touched her, spoke to her. The images spun around her until she thought she would faint. When Raheem reached out to touch her hair, she trembled, but she didn’t pull back.
Raheem looked down as if he was scared, and that was strange and ridiculous. What did a man like him have to be afraid of?
“I hope that you are waiting for me when I get back to the city,” he said solemnly. “But if you are not…”
He hesitated, and then he leaned forward. She had no idea what she would do if he wanted to kiss her, but he only came in close enough to whisper in her ear.
“I love you. Please wait.”
She froze, unable to understand the words that she had heard. One of the men called for Raheem and he looked up. He looked like he wanted to say something else to her, but then he shook his head. He had said everything there was to say.
Raheem and the other men from the task force left, and another man came in, this one dressed in a pilot’s uniform.
“Miss, whenever you a ready, we can return to the city.”
“:Of course,” she said faintly. “I will be ready in just a moment.”
The rest of the day passed in a blur. She was taken first by plane and then by car to the heart of metropolitan Khanour. Irene couldn’t stop herself from peering out the window at the world that had been ticking along while she was first in prison and then the desert. It felt as if everything had changed somehow, or perhaps it was her that had changed.
In the luxurious suite, Irene couldn’t stop herself from pacing. The ticket Raheem had promised her lay in a leather folder on the desk. Twice she reached to touch it, and twice she pulled away. She knew that she should take it, get on the plane, go and create a life in the United States. In less than a day of travel, Khanour could become one more strange chapter in the history of her life. Peter… perhaps there were things she could do for him in the United States, politicians to appeal to or people to rally.
Finally, Irene picked up the tickets. It felt exotic to have the right to go where she wished, when she wished.
She made her decision and tucked the ticket into her bag.
***^
Two days later, Raheem woke up from a two-hour catnap to find that the operation was well and truly over. The thieves had been better connected than they had thought, taking over a cave system close to the desert. The fighting had been unexpectedly fierce, and close to the end, his arm had been grazed by a bullet wound. It wasn’t enough to stop him, but it did slow him down.
“Your Highness, we have found the American that you told us to watch out for.”
Raheem tensed.
“Unharmed?”
“Yes, sir.”
Raheem heaved himself to his feet, walking to the tent where they said that Peter Bellingham was being kept. He thought that he had braced himself, but when he saw Peter’s face, he still felt a pang.
They were not identical, but there was no question that they were twins. He had her fair coloring, her blue eyes, her sharp cheekbones and blond hair. Right now, he looked both exhausted and wary. When Raheem looked closer, he could see older injuries on his arms and legs, things that had happened long before the attack today.
Raheem took a seat across from the man, and Peter watched him without saying a word. Raheem briefly wondered what he was going to do if the Bellingham brother was also a fan of the silent treatment.
“You are a man who has been under a great deal of discussion lately, Mr. Bellingham,” he said at last. “Let’s talk about that…”
Six hours later, Raheem was in a car being driven back to the city. His men could handle the rest of the cleanup. Peter had been dealt with. Now he was free to think of Irene.
He was grimly aware that he might never see her again. If she had decided that she did not want to be with him, that was probably for the best, but there was a part of him that roared against it. If she had gone to New York, he wanted nothing more than to go find her and bring her back. He wanted to confront her and make her aware that a connection like the one they had was not found so quickly, and should not be thrown away too hastily.
He stuffed those thoughts away. If Irene had left, he would respect her decision. He had to.
When Raheem got back to the city, he stopped at his penthouse for a short while to shower and shave. Dressed in civilian clothes again, he took his own car to the hotel where he had directed his driver to take her.
When he asked after her, however, the man at the desk told him that she had checked out. Raheem felt as if the ground had opened up to swallow him whole. There was nothing for him to do but stand and stare, but finally, he started moving. He walked out into the softening light of dusk and wondered what came next.
“Raheem!”
At first, he thought that she was a product of his fevered brain, a last strange hallucination before he had to let go of her entirely. Then Raheem realized that it was Irene, and he turned.
There was something different about her when she was a free woman. She was dressed in a black linen dress that made her skin glow, and when she looked at him, she was calm.
He walked up to her, but before he could give in to his instinct to embrace her, he stopped.
“Your brother, he is free,” he said.
She stared at him, her blue eyes open wide.
“What?”
“I found him, and he is unhurt. At least, he is unhurt by my men. The bandits were not kind to him. However, we spoke, and we came to an agreement. After time in a convalescent home, he will enter the museum recovery corps. He will have a job and a code of conduct. If he gambles, he will be out.”
Irene stared at Raheem, her hands over her mouth. She couldn’t believe what he was saying, but she knew that he was a man who simply did not lie.
“You saved my brother?” she asked, her voice rising.
He nodded, and for the first time, she could see the exhaustion in his eyes. He must have come straight from the desert.
“I did,” he said. “I spoke with him, and he was as much a victim as you were, in most ways. It was not right to imprison him, no more than it was right to imprison you. But you, you could have heard this in a phone call later on. Are you not meant to be on your way to New York?”
Irene shook her head.
“It was the wisest thing to do,” she said softly. “I knew that it was. Khanour has some very bad memories for me now…”
“But here you are.”
She looked up at him, a little shy despite everything they had done together. There was so much she did not know about him, but she thought that the important parts, those were well-known to her now.
“Here I am,” she said. “I realized that some of the best memories of my life were here too. Raheem, I am sorry that I could not say it to you three days ago. I knew it then, but I couldn’t… not with everything between us.”
“And now that things are different?”
“I love you,” she said, throwing herself into his arms. “I love you. I love you. I don’t want to be without you…”
Somehow, she found herself in his arms, and it was as if there was where she had wanted to be her entire life. Somehow, life, with its unexpected twists and turns had led her to this man, and now that she was by his side, she would never leave him again.
“You will stay?” he whispered. “You’ll stay here with me?”
“I will,” Irene said, her eyes welling up with tears. “God, I’m sorry, I feel as if I’ve been crying since I met you…”
Deliberately, he leaned down and kissed her tears away, making her smile and cling to him even harder.
“This is forever?” she asked quietly. “You and I… we will have this forever?”
He pulled back to look at her, and she couldn’t imagine a man who could make her feel more. This man was her husband, the one who would be the father of her children, who could make her heart beat faster with a simple look or word.
“Yes,” Raheem said, and when he said the word, it had all the force of an imperial command. “This between us will last forever, and it will be written down a thousand times so it will never be forgotten.”
She thought of the mural in the desert, of her time at the oasis, of her brother and all the fear and pain that she had gone through. Then with a joyful laugh, Irene threw herself into Raheem’s arms, because her thoughts were full of them together.
THE END
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