The Prince of Pleasure (11 page)

Khan felt every muscle in his body knot.

"Listen to me," he said. "If you leave now, we can forget this ever happened—"

"Oh, you'll forget, I promise you that." The woman's smile grew wider until it seemed to consume her face; her eyes glittered with a madness Khan knew was rushing to a terrible, inevitable conclusion. "Because I'll have you all to myself."

She smiled. Calmly raised the gun. Pointed the dull black barrel at Laurel's heart.

"Nooo," Khan shouted, and then everything happened at once.

He lunged at the woman.

The gun roared.

Laurel screamed.

And Khan crumpled to the floor, a crimson flower blooming on his chest.

There were moments, people said, when time stood still, when things seemed to happen in slow motion.

Laurel had experienced that years ago, when the police came to tell her and her mother that her father had been killed.

She'd never forgotten the feeling, the sudden cessation of everything that made up her world, as if it had been drained of sound and color and meaning.

The same thing happened now.

She saw the woman in the doorway. Heard her words, and Khan's. Saw the woman pull a gun from her pocket, heard Khan's shout, felt the strength in him as he pushed her out of the line of fire…

The deafening roar of the pistol filled the room.

Khan grunted. In pain. In surprise. He looked down at his chest.

Laurel looked, too, and the world turned grey.

 "Khan?" she whispered.

A spot of crimson bloomed on his chest, a scarlet bud that rapidly turned into a petaled flower.

"Khan?" she said again, her voice rising.

He looked at her. Said her name. And crumpled to the floor.

She screamed in horror and flung herself over him.

"No," she said, "no, no, no…"

Blood frothed on his lips. Frantic, she wiped it away with her hand, and then put her palm over the wound in his chest. She could feel the race of his heart, knew that every beat pumped more blood from his lips and from the gunshot wound.

The woman in the doorway was shrieking incoherently.

The room filled with people. Jamal. The bodyguards. They fell on the woman, knocked her over. One grabbed the gun. Another wrenched her arms behind her back.

She was still screaming as they dragged her away.

Jamal fell to his knees beside Khan, who lay as still as death.

Laurel was wild with fear. 

The man she loved—and yes, oh yes, she loved him, she adored him—was coughing, gasping for breath.

He was struggling to live and she was helpless.

Helpless…

And then she thought,
to hell with that.
She had never been helpless in her life. She was a survivor. Ghetto girl to hotshot attorney. 

No way was she going to let the man she loved die.

He needed air. And she knew CPR.

She'd taken a course years ago, in college, but the procedure was burned into her brain. She clasped his jaw. Tilted his head back. Opened his mouth, cleared it, covered it with hers. 

His blood tasted of him, of salt, of a life rapidly draining away.

CPR didn't help. He was choking, even as she tried to fill his lungs with her breath. His big body shuddered as she raised her head, tears pouring down her face.

"Damn you," she said, "I will not lose you! Do you hear me, Khan? I will not let you die!"

Jamal, who had been trying to stop the blood flow from the chest wound, snarled at her.

"You are not helping him!"

"Then tell me what to do! Please. Tell me. She shot him in the heart!"

"No. If she had, my lord would be dead. The bullet must have entered his lung. That is why he is having such difficulty breathing." His voice broke. "I can feel the air coming out of the wound. And the way he is coughing… He is drowning in his own blood."

Laurel sat back on her heels.

"We need a doctor. An ambulance."

"An ambulance is coming."

"Now! We need it now. By the time it gets here…"

Khan coughed again. The sound was hard and desperate. Laurel leaned forward. He looked at her, his eyes the color of the winter sea, and held out his hand as his lips silently formed her name.

"Yes," she said, "yes, sweetheart." She took his hand. It was icy-cold. She brought it to her lips, kissed his palm, his knuckles. There had to be something she could do…

Her eyes widened.

"Jamal! I saw something a long time ago. A movie."

The head of security looked at her as if she'd lost her sanity, but that would only happen if she let her lover die.

She bent quickly, pressed her lips to Khan's forehead.

"I'll be right back," she whispered. "Don't you dare leave me!"

She flew from the room, through a knot of bodyguards at the bedroom door, through two others on the stairs. She ran past the dining room, where two burly men stood guard over the woman who'd shot Khan, down the endless back hall and into the kitchen where she stopped, heart racing with fear and desperation.

The room was the size of a banquet hall. There were dozens of cupboards and drawers and cabinets. Where in hell was she going to find what she needed?

Where did she keep it at home?"

Near where it would be used. The counter nearest the refrigerator.

A million doors. A million drawers. Was she going to have to open them all? Luck was with her. She found what she needed on her third try, retraced her route to the bedroom, and dropped to her knees next to Jamal

"Plastic wrap?"

"Move your hand," she said, as she tore off a length.

"Woman, what are you thinking? If I move my hand—"

Jamal was strong but Laurel's determination to save her lover was stronger. She pushed his hand aside and pressed the  sheet of plastic against Khan's chest.

It had worked in the movie. Would it work in real life?

Hands trembling, she smoothed the wrap over the bubbling hole, felt the hole seem to suck at it…

The blood flow eased.

So did Khan's labored breathing. He whispered her name. She lifted her head, clasped his hand in hers.

"I'm right here."

"Laurel. A
'lanai'imata
."

"I don't understand."

"A'lanai'imata
, sweetheart."

Whatever he said seemed important to him so she smiled through her tears and kissed him as the wail of sirens filled the night. The sound grew louder, then stopped. Doors slammed, people shouted, feet sounded heavily on the stairs. Two medics burst into the room and went directly to Khan.

"What happened here?"

"This is Prince Khan," Jamal said, as he stood. "He is the king of—"

"Gunshot wound," one medic told the other. "Looks like it got a lung. Ma'am. You have to get out of the way."

 Laurel rose to her feet. 

"Who thought of the plastic wrap?"

She didn't answer.

"The woman," Jamal said, without looking at her.

"Good thinking."

The medics got busy, one talking to Khan, the other checking his vital signs, then starting an IV in a vein in his arm.

Within minutes, they had him lifted onto a gurney. Khan turned his head, his eyes seeking Laurel's. He held out his hand and she grasped it, clung to it as the medics carried him from the bedroom, down the stairs and out the double front doors.

Khan squeezed her hand.

"I won't leave you," she promised.

The circular drive was filled with police cars and emergency vehicles. Khan's hand fell from Laurel's as the medics loaded him into the ambulance. She asked no questions, grabbed the handrail and climbed in, too.

"Ma'am? Are you family?"

"Yes," she said, looking straight at Jamal, eyes snapping as she dared him to challenge her. 

 He held her gaze, then gave a little jerk of the head and stepped back.

"I will meet you at the hospital, Ms. Cruz."

The medic sat on one bench, Laurel across from him on the other, Khan's hand once again in hers through the seemingly endless ride.

"I won't leave you," she told him, over and over, as if it were a mantra that would somehow keep him alive.

Doctors and nurses surrounded him at the hospital's emergency entrance; Laurel still clasped his hand  as they hurried the gurney down a long, brightly-lit corridor, but when they reached a set of double doors and the doors swung open, a   nurse in green scrubs stopped her.

"This is as far as you can go," he said, not unkindly.

Laurel leaned over Khan. His eyes were closed.

"I love you," she whispered. "I'll always love you."

She kissed him. Stood straight.

And the doors closed gently but firmly in her face.

********

Except for Jamal, the waiting room was empty. The place was harshly lit and smelled of disinfectant and despair.

Laurel sat in a chair that had seen better days, hands tightly clasped in her lap.

"They took him to—"

"Surgery," Jamal said. "Yes. I know."

She nodded. "There's nothing we can do now but wait."

They fell silent. After a while, Jamal took out his cell phone, walked into the corridor and began making calls.

She envied him for having something, anything, to do.

More minutes dragged by.

She thought about contacting the Wildes. They were Khan's friends; they'd surely want to know he might—that he might—that he'd been hurt, but her cellphone was back at the house.

She had nothing with her. Almost literally nothing. She was barefoot, wearing only the white cotton nightgown.

It didn't matter.

Nothing mattered, but Khan.

There was a black phone on the wall. She grabbed it, closed her eyes in gratitude when she heard the dial tone… but what good did that do, when she didn't know any of the Wildes' phone numbers?

Wait. She did. She knew Caleb's office number. Quickly, she punched it in. The call went to voice mail—she'd expected that, at this hour—but she was counting on his having an answering service, and she breathed a sigh of relief when it picked up.

"My name is Laurel Cruz," she told the operator. "I need to get an urgent message to Mr. Wilde."

"What is the message, ma'am?"

What, indeed? How did you tell someone that a man who was his friend, a man you loved, might be dying?

In the end, she left just a couple of sentences. She thought she'd worded them cautiously—but maybe not.

Less than twenty minutes later, all three Wildes—Jacob, Caleb, and Travis—hurried into the waiting room, unshaven, unkempt, wild-eyed.

"Laurel? What the hell happened?"

She stood and went toward them.

"Khan was—he was shot.""

"But he's alive?"

She nodded.

"Jesus" Travis ran his hands through his hair. "Who did this?"

"A woman. She'd already turned up at his hotel a few days ago. That was why he—"

"—why he wanted to move out," Caleb said grimly. "He had a stalker."

Laurel nodded. "Somehow, she found out where he'd gone. And—and, I don't know, she must have gotten a job as a maid or a cook or—"

"Easy," Jake said gently. "You're shaking like a leaf."

"It was awful," Laurel whispered. "And it was my fault."

"What? No, honey, that's not true."

"It is. Khan jumped in front of me and—and—"

Her legs buckled. Travis cursed, grabbed her, and eased her into a chair.

"The only person at fault here," he said, "is the lunatic who shot him."

Jake squatted on his haunches and took her hands in his.

"You're ice cold," he said softly.

"I'm all right."

"Yeah," he said, pulling off his denim jacket and draping it around her shoulders, "I can see that." Silence. Then, he cleared his throat.

"How bad is it?"

"I don't know. They took him to surgery. They didn't really say—they didn't say—" She buried her face in her hands and wept.

The Wildes exchanged looks.

"Give us a minute," Caleb said.

They stepped away, huddled, and spoke quietly to each other. Then Jake and Travis went out the door; Caleb went back to Laurel,   pulled a chair next to hers, sat down and reached for her hand.

"Okay," he said briskly, "here's the deal. Jake's gonna scrounge up something warmer than those scrubs. You must be freezing."

She nodded. "Thank you."

"Trav is gonna find out what's happening. What the diagnosis is, what doctors are involved in treating him."

"Thank you," she said again, or would have, but tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her face. Caleb dug in his pocket, took out a spotless white handkerchief and handed it to her. "Thank you," she sobbed.

"Man," he said, with deliberate lightness, "three thank-you's in a row. No woman's ever said anything that nice to me before."

She gave him a wobbly smile.

"I mean it, Caleb. Thank you for everything. For coming here so quickly. For—for knowing how to deal with this because—" Her voice broke. "—because I'm lost,  just lost, I don't know what to do. If only I'd taken that bullet instead of him."

Caleb pulled her into his arms. He held her, rocked her, and she wept until she had no more tears. Gently, he clasped her shoulders and looked into her eyes.

"Khan would never have wanted that to happen."

"I know. He's wonderful. Strong and brave and—"

"And, you've come to mean everything to him."

Laurel looked at him.

"Do you think so?"

He smiled. "I know so. When he asked me to recommend a realtor, he said some things… I'm pretty dense when it comes to that kind of stuff, Laurel, but even I could tell how much you matter to him."

"And he matters to me. I—I can't believe how much, you know? I mean, we've only known each other for such a short time—"

"You'll have lots more time to get to know each other, honey. I'm certain of it." Caleb smiled again. "Trust me. Khan is tough as steel. I'm not just saying that to make you feel better. When we were in college together…"

He told her stories. Khan and the Wildes, skiing unmarked trails in Aspen during a winter break. An avalanche. Khan getting caught in a giant wave of snow and coming through, unscathed.

Or the time at
El Sueño
when Khan, an avid horseman, was riding a half-wild stallion and  a rabbit spooked it.

"The horse took off like a bee-stung bull. Khan hung on for all he was worth until his head slammed into a branch the size of a full-grown tree. He ended up with a lump that looked like a doorknob, but it was the branch that broke, not his head."

Laurel gave a wobbly laugh.

Thank God,
Caleb thought in a rush of relief, and told her more stories. After a while, he had to make them up but he had to do something to keep her from falling apart.