ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance (20 page)

Even though her heart was broken she had begun to turn a profit. The postcards and prints were selling like crazy thanks to the bucolic scenery in Rainbow Springs, and a few other businesses wanted to start selling her postcards. Business was looking good and in a few weeks she would have her grand re-opening. “I haven’t heard from him since the night before I left.”

“What! You didn’t call or leave a note that you were leaving?”

“There was no need Soph. I’d served my purpose and if I wasn’t sure if that was true, his radio silence confirmed it.” She didn’t tell Sophie it took ten days of silence before she realized it, and that’s when her heart officially broke. Now she spent her time taking photos inside the studio and out and getting over her ill-advised love for Kade Steele.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Sophie pointed to the angry green eyed man standing behind her.

She turned to Kade. “What are you doing here?”

His green eyes were dark with anger. “I was driving by and imagine my surprise at finding a giant photo of me—shirtless—in the window for all to see. Didn’t waste much time at all, did you?”

Was he for real? “Well Kade since you got what you wanted and you seemed to have forgotten about the photos I needed. I had to use what I had.” She refused to back down. She might love him but she would not take crap from him.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” His fingers raked through his hair. “But you could have gotten your photos you know, if you hadn’t left.”

“Why would I stay? You didn’t need me anymore Kade.”

“I wish that was true Ava. I do need you, so much and I didn’t realize it until you weren’t there.” He took her hands in his. “It’s not just the sex although that was out of this world, but I miss your smile Ava and your taste and that sexy little laugh of yours, even when its at my expense.” Then his expression sobered. “I rushed home to tell you all about the Henderson deal and you were gone. I was devastated. How could you leave me like that, Ava?”

She hugged herself around the middle. “You wouldn’t understand Kade. It doesn’t matter.”

His features darkened. “Well which is it, I wouldn’t understand or it doesn’t matter.”

“Both.”

“Can you just give me a straight answer! Why did you leave?”

She shrunk away at his volume but her anger was good and brewing at his tone. Who was he to be angry with her? “It’s because I fell in love with you jackass!” She began to pace, “How dare you come in here and yell at me after you, Kade Steele, got everything you wanted! What did I get? I’ll tell you. I got a dozen photos, a broken heart and a baby!”

He stared for a long moment, his thoughts indecipherable through the mask he wore. Then he walked away.

Ava collapsed back into her desk chair and cried.

Kade couldn’t believe it, not any of it. Ava had proclaimed her love for him in one breath and told him he was going to be a father in the next. It was too much information all at once and he’d responded poorly. Hell he hadn’t responded at all. Kade Steele had walked away.

He walked away two weeks ago and he hadn’t tried to call her once. To be fair neither had she but then again he was the one who had walked away. But a visit from Sophie had confirmed everything. Ava had fallen in love with him and left because she didn’t think he could love her back. She found out she was pregnant after she’d left and spent weeks crying for him and the family she would never have.

He was gutted by the time Sophie had finished telling him off. But she was still hopeful and that made him hopeful. Before leaving she left an invite for the grand re-opening of the photo studio and that’s where he stood right now.

“Coming in or are you going to stay out here all night?”

He sighed, the weight of what he had to do, weighed heavily on him. This would be the first time he set eyes on her since walking away. “I guess I’m coming in.” When he walked in there was a party going on. Several of the calendar bachelors were seated at a long table, posing for photos with the women of Rainbow Springs. Ava was selling postcards and prints on the other side of the room. He made his way to her. “Ava. Can we talk?”

“There’s nothing to talk about Kade. I’m keeping the baby but I don’t expect anything from you. Be involved as little or as much as you want.” Her attention went back to a few tourists buying prints.

“I don’t think so, Ava.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her around the tall counter, a gasp escaped at the small bump at her middle, showing clearly in the fitted dress she wore. His hand went to her stomach, awe on his face. “We should talk.”

“There’s nothing left to say, Kade.”

“Fine you listen and I’ll talk.” He pulled her behind him away from the crowd and into one of the small studios. He turned and pulled her hands to his heart. “Ava I’m so sorry for walking out last week, for laughing about what you said to Bruce. It touched me, so damn much. I just couldn’t believe that a woman as smart and beautiful and kind as you could actually love me.” He smiled and kissed her forehead, “I didn’t even think I was capable of loving anyone until Bruce told me my fake fiancé was in love with me.”

Her eyes widened. “He did? And he still signed the contract anyway?”

Kade nodded with a smile. “Said he was impressed with my business skill but more impressed I was able to get a woman like you to fall for me.” He reached for the brown paper covered package against the wall. “I have something for you Ava.” He unwrapped the photo while he spoke. “You see I was convinced we were both playing at being in love that I was too blind to see we had both fallen. I admit I was skeptical when Bruce said you loved me even though I was pretty sure I loved you.” He grabbed her shoulders and twirled her to face the photo. “But when I looked at this photo of us, I knew we were both fooling ourselves. I love you so much Ava and I want us to be a family, me and you and our baby.”

Ava looked at the photo and tears sprang instantly at the look of love she saw shining, in both their eyes. She couldn’t believe it. This man, this big lovable man who took care of everyone was hers. “I love you too Kade and I want to be yours and I want you to be mine. Forever.”

Kade looked down at the love shining in her eyes and he was sure she could see the same reflected back in his. He knew he would do anything in the world to keep that beautiful smile on her face, to have her always look at him like he was some kind of hero. “I’ll be yours for forever and beyond Ava. As long as you let me love you, I will.”

“Good because I already tried to stop loving you and I couldn’t. So I think you’re stuck with me.” She grabbed his shirt and pulled him down for a kiss.

“Baby there’s no person I’d rather be stuck to in all the world.” He planted a soft kiss on her lips. “Ava you beautiful creature, will you marry me?”

She nodded, her smile so wide her face hurt. “Really? Kade I’d marry you tomorrow if I could.”

“Sweetheart I’m a billionaire, you want to get married tomorrow then we’ll get married tomorrow.”

Her eyes widened and she wrapped her arms around his waist. “Sophie, I’m getting married tomorrow!”

“It’s about damn time.”

THE END

Some days, I would just look at myself in the mirror, and I would sigh. I'd always had this feeling like I, and myself as a whole, were just all around too vanilla to be of any interest to anyone or anything, and that I would never be one of those lucky people who figure out what it is that makes them happy in life. It just seemed beyond what I was capable of, like my indecision and my inability to be what other people wanted me to be would be my ultimate pitfall in life, and like there was no redemption for me because of that.

To put it simply, I'd always been something of a curvier girl, and this had led to a lot of internal debating with myself as to my worthiness. We live in a time, obviously, where people at least attempt to be more accepting of people despite, and even because of their differences, and in some ways that should have been encouraging to me. But it still didn't do a whole hell of a lot for my confidence for some reason, and honestly, that sort of “universal acceptance” stuff could feel patronizing to me in my insecurity. Like, it was more of a consolation than a comfort. A nice enough sentiment, sure, and probably the way that all people should try to live. But when you really step back and cut out the crap, you can't honestly believe that people won't judge you by your appearance. That's just a fantasy, pure and simple, and if you live your life under the impression that things are really like that, you're basically trying to undermine millennia upon millennia of fundamental human nature.

Being talked down to, and told to accept traits that I didn't like, was the last thing that I felt that I needed, and I knew that all the rationalizing in the world wouldn't do me a lick of good. The question was, then, whether my curves were really the problem, or if the problem with my life was a lack of self-confidence, whether independent of my physical issues or otherwise.

On self-inspection, it really did seem like my sensitivities with regard to my appearance were something of an exaggeration- I was actually a rather attractive girl, once I could look around the own obstacles I had set up for myself. I had a roundish, beautiful face, with piercing blue eyes, and eyelashes that fluttered back at me from the opposite side of the mirror. Long chestnut hair flowed down from the top of my head to around my shoulders, framing my button nose and small, delicate lips like a photograph, the combined effect looking not altogether unpleasant, not by any means. Moving down, my breasts were large, round, and firm, a perk, I supposed, of being curvaceous, my dark cleavage deeply cut and tantalizing- the effect, I was sure, the same on a man as it currently was on myself. My curves, I decided firmly, and made myself believe without question, were in all the right places, and as my eyes danced down along them, they seemed to follow a certain tantalizing rhythm, zigging and zagging at just the right moments, and nearly making my head spin as I at last landed down at my waist, and I had to take a moment's rest before continuing.

Finally, I turned around to face the wall, with my butt toward the mirror, and craned my neck around to inspect my booty's reflection as well. It took a bit of standing on tiptoes with the mirror at its current angle for me to be able to see derriere in it, but at last I managed to see exactly what I wanted to, and the fact was confirmed for me, on no uncertain terms- I had a nice ass...

Guys, or at least pop culture would have one to believe, were all about big and juicy cabooses these days, and by all accounts I seemed to possess such assets in abundance. Physically, at least, there seemed to be no good reason why I couldn't seem to land a boyfriend, judging by my meeting of nearly all criteria by which the opposite sex are said to peruse for a mate.

This, then, seemed to indicate that the problem lay on a much deeper level than the surface alone, which I'd half come to suspect and fear in my analysis... It wasn't guys being shallow or guys unable to develop an interest in me- it was, quite simply, I concluded, that my own standards were too high. That I'd read too many damn romance novels to settle for any sort of real life relationships, expecting something miraculous in my life that I was sure to never truly experience, and that no woman ever did, really, or at least not in this lifetime.

The talented and insanely productive (not to mention wealthy) Arthur Benton could be said to be highly responsible for my disillusionment with the dating scene, and had, over the years, largely shaped my delusional impression of what the ideal man should be like. With no relationship experience of my own to my credit, I'd become very bookish over time, devouring the sorts of romance novels one might be wont to scoff at on the bookshelves, the dime paperbacks with smutty-looking covers of shirtless men ravishing the bodies of beautiful women in their tattered dresses, with titles so cheesy that they're impossible not to roll your eyes at them when you see them. And I knew full well, even as I was reading them, that what they were describing as far as true relationships was complete and utter nonsense. And I suspect that all women do as well, when they read those sorts of things. But that didn't stop me from taking those fantastic impressions Benton made to heart, internalizing the romantic, over-the-top gestures carried out by his characters as a sort of ideal for what I should be expecting in a partner myself.

Irrationally enough, I'd simply become enamored with so many of his shirtless examples of masculine perfection, manly men who, in all likelihood, did note even exist in the fashion in which they were presented in the written word, and who, if they did exist at all outside the realm of fantasy, would surely not be interested in such a woman as myself. Hell, did I really think that any of the shirtless macho men adorning the cover of his novels would even bat an eye if I walked past them completely stark naked, much less harbor any sort of romantic attraction to me in the least?

And that, I believe, was how Arthur Benton had become a billionaire... By presenting such an amazing and fantastical portrait of the ideal man that emotionally vulnerable women such as myself would become enamored with his depictions, and in fact develop addictions to such tantalizing fantasies, thereby buying into more and more and more of his works, unable to get enough, to satisfy our cravings and make up for the senses of emptiness we must all surely possess within our dull, humdrum lives.