5. Chapter 5 The Pink Dress
GAbrIEL
Ready to take the next step in my campaign to win Juliana, I walk into the covered arena at Solace Ridge and scan the area looking for her.
The large space has been divided into separate working areas with cones and ground poles. At the far end, a teenage boy leads a chestnut gelding through an obstacle pattern while an educator walks beside him.
Near the rail, a younger child brushes a patient bay mare under the watch of a therapist and one of the ranch volunteers. Two more volunteers are resetting equipment in an empty section.
Then I see Juliana.
Her ever-present braid is unmistakable. She stands beside a gray pony with a little girl, one hand resting lightly on the animal’s neck while she shows the child how to hold the lead rope.
My future bride, if she but knew it, says something I can’t hear. The girl takes a hesitant step, the pony follows her over the ground pole and her whole face lights up.
The little tableau hits me somewhere very old and very deep. One day, that will be Juliana with our daughter, or our son.
My sex stirs at the thought.
My condition is not helped at all by the way her riding leggings mold her heart-shaped backside, sparking the desire to squeeze that ample flesh. She turns slightly, revealing how the tailored riding jacket clings to her heavy breasts in a way her usual oversized shirts never do.
The colors are the same as the clothes she usually wears. The purpose is the same.
The fit is not.
For a moment, I simply enjoy it. The line of her waist under the jacket, the soft curves, the way the leggings stretch over her thighs.
Then my brain catches up.
She did not know I was coming today. I did not tell her I would be here. Fury mixes with the arousal coursing through my veins like lava.
Who, exactly, did she dress like this for?
I scan the arena, looking for the man I will ruin.
There is no other man in an age range to be the one, not even if Juliana has developed a tendre for another man twenty years her senior. Not among the volunteers leading horses, the parents watching from outside the arena or the ranch employees waiting near the gate.
No obvious culprit. No man hovering too close.
Has he been and gone? Is she still expecting him?
After the girl she’s helping returns to the other children gathered with the therapist, Juliana turns toward the gate and jolts when she sees several people waiting for her.
She crosses the arena, her soft tones carrying to me as she asks the first man, "What do you need help with?"
"It’s about time," an older man wearing a cap with a racing logo gripes. "Back in my day, children knew to wait their turn."
Juliana’s polite smile morphs into an expression I’ve never seen on her face before. Cold disapproval. "I’m sure that can’t be true, because that would imply you learned young to wait your turn patiently and clearly you haven’t."
The man harrumphs and tells her he needs the smaller obstacle paddock to finish preparing a gelding for his adoption assessment, but someone else is already using it.
Juliana pulls her phone from her jacket pocket and checks the ranch schedule. "It’s reserved until two, but the sensory course in paddock three covers the same groundwork pretty thoroughly. I’ll get someone to help you move the bridge and ground poles if you like."
He nods and she texts something on her phone. An older groom approaches them a few seconds later and greets the older man by name.
The cranky old man smiles benevolently at Juliana. "Thank you, young lady."
Over the next ten minutes, the same thing happens over and over again. Not everyone waiting for Juliana is bad-tempered, but they all leave with the information or practical solution they need.
She matches a teenage volunteer with a horse safe for her experience level, checks the fit of a halter another groom is concerned about and explains to a young mother why the pony her two children worked with today needs a break before their next session.
I can tell the exact moment she realizes I am here.
Her shoulders go taut. A faint pink blooms along her cheekbones. She turns her head and a second later her gaze locks with mine. She gives me a cute little wave, grimaces and then turns back to finish answering the young mother’s question.
By the time the woman walks away with her two small children, I’m leaning against the arena fence, waiting. "Good afternoon, juwayhira."
Her professional smile blooms into something genuine. "Hi, Gabriel. I didn’t know you were coming by today."
The reminder she wasn’t expecting me renews my determination to find out who she wore these more provocative clothes for.
"Who are you meeting, dressed like that?" I demand.
Her eyes widen. "What?"
"You are dressed differently today. Who have you done it for?" I enunciate each word precisely.
Her brows draw together. "I don’t understand. This is how I always dress."
"No. Sometimes you wear dresses with no more shape than a paper bag.
Sometimes you wear pants that fit so loosely there is a question of whether or not you even have a bottom.
Other times you wear riding leggings under oversized shirts that could double as a tent if you got caught out overnight on one of your rockhounding ventures. "
"Double as a tent?" she asks faintly.
"Just so. But not today. Today, your jacket clings to your womanly curves in a manner meant to entice. You will tell me who you intended to tempt with this outfit."
"Oh, um…" She bites her bottom lip, glances down and then back up, incredulous. "No one. These are my emergency clothes."
"Emergency," I repeat.
"My mother bought them for me. I’ve worn them exactly twice, both times because I was behind on laundry." Her mouth twists. "The units in the apartment building are on the fritz and I haven’t had time to go to the laundromat."
"You use a communal washing machine?" I ask, nonplussed.
The woman could pay to have her clothing dry cleaned. Why would she go to a laundromat?
Her lips twitch. "And dryer."
"That can hardly be sanitary." Do I know what the laundry situation is at the palace? No.
But this talk of using laundromats is excessive.
"There is nothing unsanitary about it. Using the laundromat is no different than using the laundry room in my building. Except it’s less convenient."
"Why do you not have your own washing machine? And dryer?" I tack on.
There may be dryers in the palace laundry, but all of the homes at Ayn al-Hayat have lines on which clothing and bedding are hung to dry in the desert heat.
"My apartment isn’t plumbed for it."
"This apartment is not suitable to your needs." How does she not realize this?
"Uh…yes, it is. I picked it, Gabriel. We don’t all have to live in a palace to be happy."
"You would be happy living in my palace," I inform her. There, she would not be required to do her own laundry. Though I do not mind the results. "So, these are your emergency clothes?"
"Yes." Her mouth twists. "Like the bottom of my drawer, I don’t know why I didn’t already donate them, emergency clothes."
"Why?" I ask.
"They cling," she mutters.
I smile, the low buzz of arousal back, now that I know she did not dress this way to entice another man. "I noticed."
Her shoulders slump. "Right? They emphasize the fluffy bits. My thighs. My stomach." She waves a hand vaguely at herself, as if listing crimes. "I feel like a sausage."
A laugh escapes me, low and disbelieving. "You are not a sausage, Juliana."
"You know what I mean."
"I do." I want to drag her someplace secluded. An empty stall would do. But now is not the time for the next step in my strategy. That is tonight. "And you are wrong."
She blinks.
"The clothes are fortunate. They show me what I want to see." I let my gaze drop pointedly to the curves in question and back. "I would prefer you did not wear them for any other man, however."
Her jaw drops. "I didn’t wear them for any man."
"I am aware. Now." I allow my gaze to travel over the tailored jacket again. "Regardless, I do not wish to share the view."
"That’s…" She searches for a word. "Ridiculous."
"Is it?" I arch a brow. "Tell me, juwayhira. Are you seeing anyone else while you are seeing me?"
I know she is not. She has been shadowed by one of Hawk’s men since I texted him while reading the dossier his operative compiled. One of the King’s Guard has been watching her since I arrived in Santa Fe almost two weeks ago.
Even now, the guard sits among the parental spectators, pretending to be absorbed in his phone.
Juliana’s brows draw together. "Well, no."
"Good," I say, satisfied. "I want to spend time with no other woman than you either."
"You don’t?" Her tone is laced with disbelief.
"I am not in the habit of lying," I say simply.
Her throat works as she swallows.
"Are you ready to leave?" I ask my little jewel.
It is fifteen minutes past the time for her to leave for the day. In fact, right now she is supposed to be here in her capacity as a volunteer trainer, not working with the children and their therapist. How often does she offer her services in this capacity unpaid?
Juliana sends another text and then smiles at me. "I am now. Where do you want me to meet you?"
"I want you to come with me. Bala'al will see your car is delivered to your apartment complex and parked in its usual spot."
"Oh, I'd like that," Juliana says as I guide her from the arena, tempted beyond reason to slide my hand from the small of her back down to cup her delicious backside.
It only gets worse when she bends over to get into the car.
Her riding leggings mold far too enticingly to her curves and her form-fitting jacket is at least three inches shorter than her normal oversized shirt.
"I have early dinner reservations at…" I name one of Santa Fe’s preeminent restaurants as I pull the seatbelt across her generous breasts, careful to arrange it so it does not press against her neck or crush one of those glorious mounds.
"We have time for a stop at your apartment to change your clothes. "