“Did you have a nice time?” Yasmine asked when they got

  into bed.

  “I like your father, and your mom will eventually come

  around.” She lay flat on her back, trying not to move her arm

  too much since she’d removed the immobilizer. “I’m happy

  they postponed her party until I was able to go. That should

  mean something.”

  “My mother may never come around, as you say, but I

  can’t go back.” Yasmine smoothed lotion over Levi’s scar with

  gentle fingers.

  “But will you have any regrets?” That scared her more

  than anything.

  “No,” Yasmine said firmly. “I want you to—” The phone

  rang before Yasmine could finish, and she moved to answer it.

  “Yes?” She listened and finally said, “Please send him.”

  “Send who?” Levi asked, sitting up naked.

  “Darling, please find your sleep pants and a robe. Nabil is

  on his way.”

  Yasmine closed the door to the bedroom and joined Levi

  on the sofa in the suite’s sitting room. Meeting him in her

  pajamas hadn’t been in her plans. Nabil, as always, appeared

  wide awake.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’ve already updated His

  Majesty, and he wanted you informed.” Nabil accepted a cup

  of mint tea from the attendant who’d escorted him in.

  “Do we need to reschedule the press conference

  tomorrow?”

  “No, but the Vatican has been informed of the intelligence

  we were able to get from their man Lawrence Royce. He

  finally broke when we promised not to have him executed.”

  “Their man? What are you talking about?” Levi asked.

  “Royce and the men he brought with him were MI6 agents,

  and the other dead man was a priest. None of them had

  permission to carry out any operation on our soil. There will

  be no extradition now that the British have disavowed Royce

  and the others. We are still investigating who shot the other

  two men.” Nabil crossed his legs and reached for one of the

  oranges the hotel left in the rooms every day. “You two seem

  to have found so much more than a treasure in the desert.”

  “Explain, please,” Yasmine said, placing her hand on

  Levi’s forearm.

  “Levi, you mentioned a man named Baggio Brutos,” Nabil

  said, and she nodded. “He does indeed work for the Church, or

  more precisely, for Cardinal Richard Chadwick. For years he’s

  been tasked by Chadwick to find things and destroy or collect

  them for his own pleasure. Brutos, though, isn’t the only man

  on Chadwick’s payroll. Royce was also working for him, and

  his assignment was to kill everyone he deemed necessary to

  keep the secrets you were trying to bring to light.”

  “Why?” None of this made sense. The Church had been

  Machiavellian in its long history, but those days were long

  gone.

  “Chadwick had ambition but also knew his family’s

  history. Somewhere in that history was another holy man who

  poisoned a pope in order to take his place. Whatever you were

  after, so was he, but only because of what’s in those archives.”

  Levi looked at the mounds of scrolls and books.

  Somewhere in there was evidence that a pope’s poisoner was

  related to a cardinal today. It wasn’t a secret anyone but

  Chadwick would really care about, but then, the Church didn’t

  like proof of scandal. Whispers were one thing, facts were

  another, but in this case the scandal involved a serving

  cardinal. A man willing to kill to get what he wanted. “Did

  Royce mention Pope Clement V?”

  “We’re still questioning Royce, but he had documents that

  detailed Chadwick’s plan to kill the current pope and persuade

  the other cardinals to give him the white miter, just as his

  ancestor did. We’ve sent the information to the proper

  authorities in Rome, so Chadwick and some man named

  Ransley Hastings have been taken in by the authorities.

  Tomorrow we want to talk about the find, but we’d like to

  omit anything about Royce and the other dead men.”

  “Did the Church talk you into that?” Levi asked.

  “We’re not keeping the information to ourselves forever,

  but we still don’t know all the people working with Chadwick.

  He’s not that close to the pope and doesn’t have cause to get

  close to him often. If this plan is in play, there has to be

  someone else who’s ready to kill one of the world’s most

  prominent religious leaders. The politics of the Vatican are

  well known, but it’s not often outsiders get to play a part in

  their game.” Nabil smiled and placed his cup down. “This is

  why our great king is strict when it comes to fanatics. People

  like that only serve to inflame, not help.”

  “We’ll be happy to follow Ahmed’s lead tomorrow,” Levi

  said. “All I want is access to the material.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. You have someone I trust

  implicitly working for you.”

  Nabil excused himself, and Yasmine closed and locked the

  door. Once they were alone, she dropped her robe on a chair

  and stripped off her nightgown. “That’s enough for one night,

  don’t you think?”

  “I do, but not for everything.”

  ✥ ✥ ✥

  “Welcome,” King Driss VI said as he took Levi’s hand.

  “And you.” He offered Yasmine his hand, and she bowed

  before taking it like Levi had. “Yasmine, our friend Nabil tells

  me what an asset you are to us.” He then turned to Zara. “And

  you, I hope, will follow your sister in service.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” Yasmine said. Her ears felt

  hot. She’d never been this nervous.

  “Ahmed has shown me what you discovered and says

  there’s possibly more out there. I find that amazing. I’ve

  always thought the Sahara was a treasure all its own, but I

  never imagined that it held something like this.” Driss

  motioned to the table behind him. Ahmed had brought a small

  number of the things they’d found for His Majesty’s private

  viewing.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Levi said. She picked up a coin and

  handed it to the king. For a brief moment he seemed like a

  small boy. “Please, sire, keep this as a token of our thanks for

  letting us search.” Levi picked up two more coins and pressed

  those into his hand. “For your children. The rest of this should

  go to your national museum.”

  “May I call you Levi?”

  “Please, Your Majesty.” Levi bowed her head again and

  smiled.

  “What you have done is a good thing. We shall learn much

  of our shared history with this find. I’m looking forward to

  your full report.”

  “Thank you, sire.”

  “Levi, are we ready?” She nodded, and they walked out to

  a grand room where a larger sampling of what they’d found

  was laid out. “Welcome, everyone,” Driss said as he brought

  the crowd of journalists to attention.

  Yasmine knew Ahmed and others had sold this on the scale

  of finding a royal tomb in Egypt. “This is incredible,” she

  whispered to Levi.

  They answered questions, and Levi spoke passionately

  about the long road they had traveled to find everything and

  the lengths Farah and André had taken to hide it. There were

  plenty of questions from the reporters, proving Yasmine’s

  point that the Templars even now garnered a lot of attention. A

  woman from one of the major news sources asked the most

  questions, and from the look of her, Yasmine thought she

  wanted a private interview with Levi that had nothing to do

  with treasure. The woman wasn’t blatant, but jealousy was as

  new an experience as finding love with Levi.

  “Thank you for your answers,” the king said, bringing

  things to a close.

  “Yes, thank you, Dr. Montbard,” Ahmed said in his

  capacity with the government. “We look forward to going

  through all this material before it goes into the museum. Our

  beloved monarch is allowing the find to leave the country until

  the research is done. I will accompany Dr. Montbard and Dr.

  Hassani to the United States as soon as we are all ready to

  travel, and I will bring the treasure back with me when I

  return.”

  Once they were back in the first room with King Driss,

  Levi took his hand when he offered it and simply held it.

  “Thank you so much. You have my word that you will be

  happy with the story this will tell.”

  “I’m sure I will be, and we will compensate you for your

  work. You have worked hard to find all this, and I can’t

  imagine having to let it go if it was my discovery.” He smiled

  at Yasmine and took another coin off the table. “To bring you

  luck, but I think you have more than enough.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Yasmine said, lowering her head.

  He nodded and waved them off. “Good luck.”

  They’d been dismissed.

  Their car drove through the gates of the palace, but the

  driver took a right and headed to another palace entrance.

  They stopped at a long galley walkway that seemed to head

  into the palace and Levi said, “Ahmed told me that there is a

  room in here that was built to be the sitting room for the

  number one wife. She would go there, wait for her love, and

  enjoy this garden, but her private space was more special since

  it was full of orchids.”

  “Are we supposed to be here?” Yasmine squeezed Levi’s

  hand but followed her anyway.

  A couple of staff pointed them in the right direction and

  they reached the room. It was tiled in royal blue, and the wood

  beams were masterpieces. Levi had always loved this type of

  architecture, but this was the most gorgeous example of it

  she’d ever seen.

  “There are really very few pictures of this palace out in the

  world, but this room was reserved for romantic moments

  between the sovereigns. It was built years ago, so I imagine

  these walls have heard plenty of ways to tell someone you love

  them.”

  Levi led Yasmine to a window overlooking the garden. The

  arched openings that flanked the wider arch were beautifully

  crafted, but Yasmine couldn’t take her eyes off Levi.

  “So many ways and so many promises whispered here

  between lovers is what makes this space so special.”

  “I think you’re right. I’m sure not every romance was

  perfect between the people who called this home, but I’d hope

  they were.” Yasmine smiled at Levi, her heart nearly bursting

  with how happy she was.

  Levi dropped to a knee and took Yasmine’s hand. “History

  and finding it have been my obsession for as long as I can

  remember, but I can’t say that anymore. Now I spend a lot of

  time thinking of what would be romantic to a woman who also

  loves history.”

  “You do?” Yasmine was having trouble hearing Levi

  because the blood was rushing in her ears. For most of her life

  she’d avoided being trapped in something she didn’t want, but

  now she desperately needed Levi to say the words and make

  lifelong promises.

  “Yes, but sometimes the best way to honor history is to

  build it with the woman I love. I want there to be a room filled

  with that history when we’re done.”

  “There’s one of those in our house back in New Orleans,”

  Yasmine said, blinking rapidly.

  “Yes, there is, but I want you to know how much I’m going

  to cherish that history and you. You’re my love, and I want

  you to be my wife.” Levi opened a box with a beautiful ring in

  it. “This was the most romantic place I could think of, and I

  wanted to add my own words of love to this place. I love you,

  Yasmine Hassani, and I want to spend my life with you. Will

  you marry me?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I love you so much.” All her fears of

  marriage, of being tied to someone, the dread of giving up

  what she loved for the rest of her life vanished in an instant.

  Levi was who she wanted, and she was gaining so much more

  than she’d ever have to give up. It filled her with a sense of

  belonging and wonder she never knew existed. “This is so

  beautiful,” she said as the ring slipped onto her finger. “How

  did you arrange this?”

  “Ahmed did the talking for me. I don’t care what he said or

  how he got King Driss to agree, but I wanted it to be special. I

  hope this was okay.”

  “I said yes while you were bleeding in the desert. You

  could have asked in the shower this morning and my answer

  would’ve still been the same.” Yasmine smiled against Levi’s

  lips before she gave in to the kiss. “I believe the American

  saying is you knocked it out of the park.”

  “Thank you, honey.” Levi spent a few minutes kissing her.

  “Are you ready? I doubt they’ll let us spend the night.”

  Yasmine put her arms around Levi’s waist and pressed the

  side of her head to Levi’s chest. “Thank you for making this so

  special, and to answer your question, I am ready. I’m ready for

  everything.”

  EPILOGUE

  New Orleans, six months later

  The research room was open, and Levi put the last journal

  back on the shelf. Yasmine was still sleeping upstairs. Ahmed

  was living across the street where Yasmine and Zara had first

  stayed. Their work was almost done, and the complete story of

  Clement V and the man he had in common with the king of

  France was all in the journals.

  How André had gathered so much information about the

  political inner workings of the Church was amazing, but it all

  rang true. The scrolls that contained that information had to

  have been started by André’s father, but she’d finished them.

  Clement sounded like a weak man easily manipulated, and the

  king had taken advantage by placing a confidant with the

  pope. The simple village priest sounded so wise, but what he

  really wanted was to rise out of poverty to the Vatican.

  That priest had poisoned Clement once the Templar

  treasure couldn’t be found, no matter how much the king and

  Church searched. He was rewarded by being burned at the

  stake like the last Templar grand master. The king’s only

  mercy was letting the priest’s two sons and their mother go.

  They were exiled from France, and the older son, a Chadwick,

  tried to establish the Catholic Church in England.

  He was the first of many Chadwicks who rose through the

  ranks of the church but never reached the promised land. That

  was something Cardinal Richard Chadwick was willing to

  gamble on in this generation by duplicating what his long-ago

  relative had done. Killing the pope to attain the power he

  craved wasn’t a new idea, but it had almost worked.

  The British authorities had found all the evidence they

  needed to prove what Chadwick had set in motion. All that

  scheming had ended in him being defrocked. The pope himself

  had issued a loss of clerical state, which was as good as a pink

  slip. Whatever god Chadwick believed in wouldn’t save him

  or Ransley from spending the rest of their days in prison.

  While Chadwick was the planner and boss, Ransley had

  provided the money in exchange for recognition and a title.

  Levi had to laugh at what Chadwick had in common with

  that long-ago ancestor. His girlfriend and three children would

  hopefully let the family tradition of killing religious leaders go

  as they went on without the Cardinal.

  The paintings of Farah and André were still on the wall,

  and she stared at them often. “It all comes full circle, doesn’t

  it?” She raised her coffee cup in their direction. “You didn’t

  make it easy, but you helped me find what you shared.”

  She smiled as two arms circled her neck. Yasmine kissed

  her neck and bit her earlobe. “I don’t like waking up alone.”

  “You looked so peaceful I didn’t want to disturb you.” She

  pulled Yasmine into her lap. “I did keep you up late last night.”

  “I danced more than you did.” Yasmine reached into Levi’s

  robe and pinched her nipple. Their time together had brought

  out the type of playmate Levi had only dreamed of. In just a

  couple of months they would stand before their family and

  friends and exchange vows, but that would change very little.

  She was already committed to Yasmine for life.

  “You did, and you also came more than I did.” That

  beautiful blush heated Yasmine’s face, but she kissed her