The Prince of Pleasure (12 page)

And he thought how lucky his pal was, to have a woman whose love for him shone so brightly in her eyes.

Jake returned with a big plastic bag.

"For you," he said, handing it to Laurel.

She peered in, saw blue scrubs, a white cotton lab coat, yellow slipper sox and green paper scuffs.

"The latest in hospital chic," he said with a quick smile. "Go ahead. Put this stuff on. You need to get warm. Besides, don't you want to look as if you just walked out of Vogue when Khan sees you?"

Not 'if'. When. When Khan saw her…

"There's a bathroom just outside, in the hall."

Laurel got to her feet. 

"If the doctor comes, if somebody shows up with news—"

"We'll get you, I promise."

The bathroom was small and as cold as the Arctic. She stripped off the nightgown, put on the clothes Jake had given her, looked at herself in the mirror above the sink, and almost laughed.

It was one hell of an outfit.

She'd have to save it and model it for Khan when she had him home again.

If she had him home again.

And where was 'home,' anyway? She was living with him in a house he'd rented and no matter what she felt or what Caleb said, she wasn't a true part of his life.

How could she be?

He had responsibilities. Obligations. Duties. He ruled a kingdom that had, until very recently, been isolated from the world, a place where tradition was everything…

"Laurel?"

She jumped at the knock at the door, fumbled with the lock, flung the door open, and found Travis waiting for her. 

A tall man in scrubs stood a few feet away, deep in conversation with Jake and Caleb. Travis put his arm around her and drew her toward the little group.

"Honey, this is one of the doctors on the team treating Khan. His name is Ben Steinberg. As it turns out, he's an old friend. Ben, this is Laurel Cruz. She's –" Travis's expression softened. 'She's a very important part of Khan's life."

The doctor nodded.

"Ms. Cruz."

"Doctor." Laurel swallowed hard. "How is—how is Khan?"

The doctor motioned toward a small sofa flanked by a couple of chairs.

"Why don't we sit down?"

Laurel nodded. Somehow, she made it to the sofa. Jamal entered the room, and she motioned that he should join them.

Steinberg cleared his throat.

"The prince took a bullet to the lung."

Laurel had known that but hearing it was different. She made a little sound.

 Caleb took her hand.

The bullet had gone deep. There had been significant bleeding, and that had threatened asphyxiation or drowning.

"But neither happened," he said quickly. "Thanks to the plastic wrap. I heard that was your idea."

 "I saw it in a really bad movie."

"Well, let's hear it for really bad movies," the doctor said, smiling. "You may have saved the prince's life."

Saved his life.
Saved his life…

"We have him on a ventilator, but it's only a precaution. Once we're sure he's up to breathing on his own—"

"You mean, he's going to live?"

"Yes. He's going to be tired for a while, a little short of breath, but those things will go away. Given time and rest, he's going to be just fine."

Laurel laughed. "He's going to live," she said.

And then she wept, but her tears were ones of   joy.

At dawn, Khan was moved from Recovery into a private room.

Jamal had demanded a suite. The admissions clerk, backed by the director, insisted there were no such things as suites in the hospital. Jamal scoffed at that and the argument escalated until the Wildes stepped in and negotiated a compromise.

"If you need us for any reason," Travis said when Laurel finally convinced them they could leave, "just call. You have that cell phone Jake gave you. All our numbers are in it."

She nodded. "Thank you."

"Clothes for you, real clothes, stuff like that, should be here any minute," Caleb said. "Can't promise you'll love 'em—my P.A. is a little older than you are, but—"

"A little?" Jake rolled his eyes. "She's one hundred, if she's a day, and she's a battleax." He smiled. "But she has a good heart."

"Whatever she brings will be fine. I can't thank you enough."

"Hey," Travis said lightly, "'what are friends for?"

She went to all three men, gave each a kiss on the cheek and a quick hug.

"He's gonna be fine," Caleb said gruffly. "I'm sure of it."

"I just wish he'd—he'd wake up."

"He will," Travis said, and grinned. "And he'll be the worst possible patient. You just wait and see."

Laurel rode to the lobby with them, hugged them again as they left. She detoured to the reception desk and, as luck would have it, there was a package waiting for her from Neiman-Marcus.

She went into the nearest ladies' room, opened the package, found underwear, a cotton T-shirt, a light cardigan, jeans and sneakers inside, all in the right sizes and even in colors she'd have selected herself.

It was a relief to take off the hospital scrubs and replace them with real clothes; somehow, it distanced the promise of today from the horror of last night.

The room the hospital had finally assigned Khan was at the end of a short corridor. The compromise the Wildes had negotiated left the rooms to either side empty, with the assurance that they would remain that way unless there was urgent medical need for them.

"But my master is a king," Jamal had said, over and over.

Such imperious determination! Such a stubborn, uncompromising attitude!

 Laurel was sure Khan would have disapproved but it offered disturbing insight into what her lover had told her about how slowly some things changed.

Still, she didn't give a damn about that.

She cared only for now, and what was happening to Khan,  who lay in the hospital bed, still unconscious from  the anesthesia that had been used during surgery, still breathing through the ventilator.

Tubes and needles pierced his flesh.

He was a king, walking a line between the past and the present, but except for the night they'd met, she saw him only as a man.

A man she knew she loved.

Jamal loved him, too, in his own way. She understood that, just as she also understood that he didn't want her there.

He looked at her with disapproval etched into his face, spoke to her with the sound of it in his voice. She could almost feel his dislike, and every instinct warned that it was only a matter of time before he showed it.

She was right.

In mid-afternoon, he walked over to her—she was sitting in a chair next to Khan's bed—and cleared his throat.

"Ms. Cruz?"

Laurel looked up.

"Yes?"

"It is kind of you to stay."

The key was to be as polite as he was.

"It is good of you to say so," she said pleasantly, "but I'm not trying to be kind. I'm here because I want to be."

His already thin smile narrowed.

"I am sure you are exhausted and in need of rest."

Meaning, as far as he was concerned, she had no place here. She was an outsider, and, as such, she was unwelcome.

"I'm sure you are, too," she said, still pleasantly.

"But I must be here. The king is my responsibility."

"I must be here, too. It's what I want, and what I think the prince would want."

"He is my king. I know him well."

"You know him as a king. I know him as a man."

"You know him in the same way other women have known him."

The gloves were off. Laurel bit back her anger.

"I am not 'other women,' Jamal. I am me. I suggest you remember that."

Jamal stared at her. Then he inclined his head. It was a small victory but a victory none the less…

Except, there was truth to it.

Khan would have had other lovers. Many of them. What woman wouldn't want to lie in his arms?

But what they'd found together was different. He'd said as much, and each time they'd made love, her heart had told her the same thing.

Was that what made Jamal so hostile? Did he sense there was more to this affair than sex? Because she knew, without question, that there was.

Maybe she could win him over. Ask him about Altara, about his people—except, she wasn't in the mood for small talk. Something more immediate, then.

"Jamal?"

He had gone back to the door, where he'd insisted on standing, motionless, for the past hours.

"Yes?"

"Before the ambulance came, the prince said something to me. He said…" She thought back to those terrifying moments, when it had seemed that Khan might die, and repeated the words as best she could. "He said,
a'lanai'imata
."

Jamal said nothing.

"The words are Altaran, aren't they?"

"Yes."

"Then, perhaps I'm saying them wrong."

"You are saying them correctly."

"What do they mean? They seemed important."

"It is—how do you say it? It is a phrase. A way of offering thanks. It means—it means, 'I am grateful for your help.'"

Laurel blinked. "That's it?"

"That is it. My master has always been unfailingly polite, even at the worst possible times."

She nodded. Polite, for sure—but the last thing she wanted was Khan's gratitude. She knew it was foolish but she'd put so much more meaning in the whispered words than an expression of thanks…

'Is that all, Ms. Cruz?"

Laurel moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "Yes, thank you. That's all."

"I am going to speak with my men. If you need me, I shall be down the hall."

She smiled, assured him she would remember that, but they both knew that the only thing she needed was Khan.

********

 Khan's private duty nurse asked if it was okay to take her lunch break. Laurel said that was fine.

Actually, she was grateful for the chance to be alone with Khan for the first time since he'd been shot.

She had been holding his hand. Now, she brought it to her lips and kissed it.

"I'm here, sweetheart," she said softly. .

Of course, he didn't answer.

His lashes lay dark against his stubbled cheeks; his breathing was still not his but that of a machine. He looked pale and exhausted.

Could he hear her? She hoped so. She wanted him to know that she  wouldn't leave him, that he wasn't alone…

That she loved him.

She'd never thought much about saying those words to a man.

Her life was busy and full; she had a career she adored and there hadn't seemed room in it for anything else, but Khan had changed everything.

That he hadn't yet said he loved her didn't matter.

Her heart told her that he did—and really, even if he never said the words, that wouldn't change what she felt.

Last night had reinforced, with brutal reality, the terrible lessons of her childhood.

Happiness can be torn from your grasp at any moment. The trick was to make the most of it while you could.

"Ms. Cruz?"

Laurel looked up. Jamal was back.

"Ms. Cruz, you must leave the room."

"We've been all through this. I'm staying."

"The Altaran ambassador has flown in. He is coming to see my master."

"Do you call the prince that to his face? Do you address him as 'my master'?"

"I address him as what he is," Jamal said coldly. "The king of our people. I am his sworn protection against those who would harm him. You are an outsider."

Laurel forced herself not to  respond. She didn't Jamal and he didn't like her, but she knew he was suffering.

"All right. I'll go for coffee—but I won't be gone long."

"You will be gone long enough so that the man from the embassy does not see you," Jamal said. "Do you understand?"

 "Be careful how you speak to me," she said softly. "I am not the kind of woman you are accustomed to dealing with."

Jamal's black eyes seemed to harden.

"No," he said, "you most assuredly are not."

She stared at the man who represented a way of life that was beyond her comprehension. Clearly, Jamal was the old Altara; Khan was the new.

She had to remember that.

Besides, all she wanted was Khan's recovery.

Nothing else mattered.

*********

She bought a cup of tepid coffee from a vending machine and sat sipping it in a small alcove near the elevators.

A tall, thin man in a black suit, carrying a black leather briefcase, emerged from one of the cars. Two smaller men scurried along in his wake.

They went into Khan's room.

Ten minutes later, they came out of it. The little procession retraced its route to the elevator, the tall man sailing along in front of the others.

Laurel stood up, dumped the remaining coffee into the trash, and went back to Khan.

Jamal greeted her with a scowl.

"Surprised to see me?" she said pleasantly.

He turned on his heel and walked out. She took the chair beside the bed, clasped her lover's hand in hers…

And felt his fingers twitch.

Her heartbeat quickened.

"Khan? Sweetheart, can you hear me?"

He grimaced; she could see movement under his eyelids. She waited, hardly breathing, for something more to happen. Nothing did and, after a while, she dozed off, still holding Khan's hand.

********

Something woke her. A footstep. A noise. A sound…

The sound of a man, struggling in terror.

Laurel sat bolt upright, blinked the sleep from her eyes—and saw her lover, making desperate grabs for the ventilator tube that snaked down his throat.

"No," she said quickly.

His eyes swept to hers. He tried to speak but the tube wouldn't permit it.

"You're on a ventilator," she said. "They wanted to be sure you could breathe on your own."

Khan made a slicing motion across the tube.

"Yes. I understand. I'll get the nurse and she'll take it out. Just don't rip at it. Do you promise?"

His eyes flashed a warning. She knew that look. It meant he wasn’t in the mood to be docile… as if he ever had been!

She felt her lips curve in a smile.

His eyes narrowed.

He was angry, and wasn't that wonderful? She laughed. She hadn't meant to, but joy absolutely filled her heart.

 Khan's eyes became slits of dark green. She leaned down, kissed his forehead, then ran out the door to the nursing station, arriving there slightly breathless. Khan's private duty nurse looked up from the notes she'd been entering in his chart.

"Is there a problem, Ms. Cruz?"

"The prince is awake. And he wants that tube out of his throat."

It took a few minutes to find a doctor, another minute until she approved taking Khan off the ventilator. 

He winced as the tube was withdrawn. Laurel stood at the foot of the bed, gripping her hands together so tightly that her knuckles whitened.

"Well?" the doctor said. "Prince Khan? How do you feel?"

Khan coughed, took a shuddering breath. The doctor watched him closely.

"Sir? Are you all right?"

There was what seemed an endless silence before Khan spoke. When he did, his voice was rusty. .

"I am fine, considering that you subjected me to medieval torture.""

The doctor smiled. Laurel laughed but her laughter quickly turned to sobs. Khan's gaze went to her, and softened.

"My
shalal
," he said gently, "I promise you, I truly am fine."

He held out his arms, lines, needles and all, and she flew into them. He stroked her hair, her back, whispered words in his own language that she knew were soft and sweet even though she couldn't understand them.

She listened to the steady beat of his heart, inhaled his scent, soaked his ugly hospital gown with her tears, and  the answer to the question she'd asked herself hours and hours ago rang like a bell in her head and in her  heart.

This—Khan's arms, Khan's embrace, Khan himself—this was home.