15. Chapter 15 Telling the Family
GAbrIEL
Knowing what I now do about Juliana's relationship with her parents, I am not at all surprised she wants to tell her sister and brother about our engagement before bringing her parents into a multi-person video call to tell them.
She arranges the video call beforehand because he is in Switzerland at a medical conference.
When he answers the call, he is clearly in a hotel suite.
Robert Caldwell shares enough family resemblance to his sister to be unmistakably related, but his blue eyes do not have the unique aquamarine hue of my fiancée's.
"Hey, little sis." His brows draw together when he spots me sitting beside his sister, my arm over her shoulders. "Who's that?"
"Bobby," Juliana's smile in the image on the monitor makes something in my chest tighten. "This is my fiancé, Gabriel."
Her brother's eyes widen. "Shit! Tessa said you were dating some guy, but she didn't say it was serious."
Which tells me that despite frequently texting her brother, Juliana has not told him about me. I am a sheikh and a prince. Not some guy.
"Very serious. Your sister has done me the great honor of agreeing to be my wife," I say.
Bobby's look is not warm. "What did you do, seduce her into agreeing to marry you?"
"Bobby!" Juliana's adorable blush is almost worth her brother's crude comment.
"No coercion was involved," I say dryly. "Believe it, or not, most women would be delighted to marry a man in my position."
"Not Juliana. She's not interested in money or status and life in a royal family would be nothing but misery for her."
So, he knows exactly who I am.
"You are wrong," I say with more force than diplomacy.
"Stop it, Bobby." Juliana shakes her head. "Gabriel doesn't expect me to be another Paloma. We're already working out ways to make the social obligations manageable for me."
"You are?" Bobby asks distrustfully.
"We are," I affirm, no give in my tone.
"What about my sister's career? Rehabilitating horses and working with children in equine therapy is important to her. What she does is important."
I appreciate her brother's attitude toward his sister so much, I almost feel badly that he plays a key role in my backup plan for getting Juliana to become my wife.
"I agree. We will be exploring the possibility of expanding my stables to include an equine therapy and rehabilitation program, or establishing it as an extension of the mental health clinic in Ayn al-Hayat.
" Our mental health center is not as large as the one in Nurayn; just as our regional hospital is smaller than the national hospital in the capital.
However, neither lacks the staff or equipment necessary to serve the needs of my people.
Juliana turns so she's looking up at me and not the large screen monitor in my office. "We will? I thought I'd have to talk you into it."
"Not at all. Solace Ridge has many programs worth emulating."
Her sigh is pure contentment and the look in her eyes so warm and addictive, I don't even try to hold back on my urge to kiss her. There is no one to see except her protective older brother and letting him see my claim on Juliana is a primal need.
When I lift my head, my fiancée's eyes are unfocused, her soft lips parted and her cheeks flushed a lovely pink.
"Okay, I concede the chemistry between you two is explosive. I can feel it from here. If I was in the same room, I'd probably get shocked from the electric charge between you."
Juliana giggles and the sound is so precious, I cannot look away from her.
But she breaks our eye contact to look back at the monitor and her brother. "I want you to be happy for me, Bobby."
"I am, little sis, but if he breaks your heart, I'll end him. Or hire someone to do it." He looks directly at me when he says the last.
Knowing what I do about his friendship with a New York Cosa Nostra capo, I don’t take the words as an idle threat or posturing. They don't anger me though.
My little jewel deserves to have people who are this fiercely protective in her life.
"Her heart is safe with me," I vow. "She is mine to protect and care for now, in every way."
Bobby nods. "Just so you know it."
"You need to spend less time in New York, big brother, sometimes you sound like a gangster."
"There are gangsters everywhere and I sound like what I am. A man determined to watch out for his little sisters."
"Are you saying you gave Mark the same warning?" Juliana asks with a laugh.
"Of course I did."
"But Mark is so sweet, you know he'd never hurt Tessa," Juliana says.
Her words give me pause. She does not think I am sweet and she is right about that. I am ruthless, but now that ruthlessness will be as much for her benefit as that of the rest of my family.
"Even sweet men can do stupid things."
"Mark wouldn't. He loves Tessa completely and forever." There's a wistfulness in Juliana's voice I wonder if her brother hears.
The narrow eyed gaze he fixes me with says he does. Tightening my arm around Juliana, I return the look.
I'm not a love-struck calf, but I'm not letting this woman go. Ever.
After agreeing to join the video call with her parents in thirty minutes, Bobby signs off before Juliana calls her sister, this time, using her cell phone's video call feature.
Tessa is yawning when she connects with the video call. "Hey, Jules, what's up? You do realize it isn't even 8 a.m. yet here?"
"Don't pretend you weren't already awake getting breakfast for Charlie," Juliana teases her older sister.
The video feed swings around what is clearly a bedroom before becoming steady again to show Tessa's face.
"First, Mark gets breakfast for Charlie.
It's their daddy-son bonding time. Second, you could have given me a heads up that you were going to have your boyfriend with you when I answered the call. I'm still in my pajamas."
"That'll teach you to try to blackmail me into taking a video call when I'm out shopping," Juliana says without an ounce of remorse.
"Take note, Your Highness, my sister always gets even."
I kiss the top of Juliana's head. "Noted. And you will address me as Gabriel. We aren't European royalty. We only demand formal address with family when we don't like them."
Both Juliana and her sister chortle, which was my intent. Though I was not entirely joking. One of the best ways to establish distance with extended family is to demand a formality of address we usually reserve for everyone else.
"My father is always addressed as Malik or King," I tell them. "But extended family are allowed to add a cousin or uncle to the title, regardless how distant the relation."
His brother uses his first name just as my brothers and I do with each other.
"And when you don't like them?"
"They are instructed to refer to us as Your Highness."
"So, you'll know I'm mad at you if I ever call you that," Juliana says promptly, once again making her sister laugh.
"I told you," Tessa says to me. "She's quiet, but she's no pushover."
"Of that I am fully aware." Only a fool would ignore my jewel's inner strength.
Suddenly Tessa's face is so close to the screen, all I can see is her eyes and nose. "What is that? Are you wearing an engagement ring, Juliana Marie Caldwell?"
Rather than looking the least intimidated by her sister's clear and loud censure, Juliana bursts into another gale of laughter.
"She has done me the great honor of agreeing to be my wife," I repeat the words I said to her brother to the background of my fiancée's laughter.
"Already?!" Tessa demands full volume.
"I guess the clothes worked," Juliana sputters out before breaking into more giggles.
"That your clothing now reveals your gorgeous figure is both a blessing and a curse," I say with complete honesty. "However, it had nothing to do with my proposal. If you will remember…"
I let my voice trail off, letting Juliana recall our state of undress when I asked her to be my wife.
I can tell the moment she does because her laughter dries up and her earlier blush comes back with a vengeance, turning her cheeks almost crimson. "Gabriel!"
Now, Tessa is laughing. "Let me see the ring," she demands after both women have managed to get their mirth under control.
I will have to be on guard when these two are together in person. I have a feeling that they are capable of all sorts of trouble and mayhem.
"It's beautiful," Tessa says approvingly. "Is it a family heirloom?"
"No. I had it designed for Juliana around the stone that matches her eyes." Her wedding ring is designed to complement it.
My own platinum band has a leaf motif on it, but is otherwise without adornment.
"What did you do, get it commissioned as soon as you got back to Zahriya?" Tessa asks with keen interest.
"I had the ring commissioned after seeing Juliana for the first time." Along with the rest of her shabka.
That the first time I saw her was actually the photos in her father's office and that I had the jewelry commissioned before meeting her in person for the first time is not something Juliana or her sister needs to know.
"That's pretty romantic," Tessa says before her expression turns forbidding. "Hurt my sister and I will kill you. They'll never find the body. I didn't go into the family business, but I know how to create both toxic and flesh-eating chemical compounds."
My bark of laughter takes all three of us by surprise. But I like Juliana's siblings. A lot more than I enjoyed the company of her father.
"You have a bloodthirsty family, juwayhira."
"And don't you forget it," Tessa warns me. "What does juwayhira mean?"
"Little jewel," Juliana says, her voice laced with the love she now feels for me.
Tessa's face crumples and her eyes fill with tears. "Oh, that's so sweet."
I am not sure I have ever been described as sweet. Even as a small child by my nursemaid.
"I am far from sweet." It is a warning to both women. "I will not hurt Juliana, but I am no hero in one of her romantic novels."
"You told him you read spicy romance?" Tessa demands.
"He saw my bookshelves."