by Leslie North
Zaman leapt back into the conversation then, his attention focused on Holly. Malik felt himself split neatly in two. One half of him wanted to stay with his family, though they were driving him crazy, just to see them all getting to know each other. The other half wished he’d booked them a hotel room and escaped for the evening. Maybe forever.
His family was being kind and welcoming, that was all. But he foolishly wanted Holly all to himself. He wanted her eyes on his. Her absence for the past few weeks had been like missing an organ.
He had to get a hold on himself.
As the conversation flowed, Malik stood up and went to get a drink. Holly had mentioned tea, but he wanted something stronger. He poured himself a finger of whisky and sipped it slowly until he heard the word oasis.
Holly said something Malik couldn’t quite hear, and he moved closer.
“Ah,” said Baqir. “I didn’t realize that was on the table for your firm.”
“It’s more of a thought exercise.” Holly sat up straighter on the sofa. “Something for all of you to discuss, really. I thought the location of the property itself, and its relatively untouched nature, might—”
Blood surged into Malik’s head, making his face hot. “Didn’t we say no work talk? Just family.”
His brothers looked up at him. Apparently, his light tone hadn’t been enough to keep things casual. “What is the family business if not making improvements to our properties?” Zaman spread his arms across the back of the sofa he sat on, raising his eyebrows at Malik. “Doesn’t that fall under the umbrella of…family?”
Malik shot his brother a look. “We’ve had such a nice evening,” he tried again. “No need to turn it to controversial issues.”
“It’s hardly a controversy,” said Baqir. “Unless you’re having a controversy of your own.”
Amina smiled, a tight expression that Malik knew well. “And you forgot to bring Holly a drink.”
Holly cleared her throat. “I just thought that in the case of the oasis—”
“Holly.” Malik knew, he knew, that interrupting her made him look like a bit of an ass. But the thundering in his mind could only be calmed by ending this conversation, right now. First the mention of mile-high buildings, and now the oasis. There was no way he could discuss this with her while they had an audience. “Come look at our drink selection. I can make you something.”
Her brows knit together, but she stood slowly and followed him over to the drink station.
“I think you mentioned tea before…”
“I did. I can order it in.”
Holly frowned. “Did I say something wrong?”
The words jumbled in his throat, all crashing into one another like runaway train cars. “It would be best if you stayed away from my brothers.”
Holly’s mouth dropped open, and she snapped it shut again. “Stay away from your brothers? Why?”
“It’s not up to you to discuss our personal business,” he snapped.
“I wasn’t discussing personal business. Zaman mentioned the oasis, and I—”
“The oasis is not up for discussion,” he said. How could he make this any clearer?
Holly’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I don’t like how you’re talking to me,” she said, her voice low but sharp. “I haven’t done anything wrong, and frankly, you can’t order me around like this.”
It was a blow to his heart, and Malik had to stop himself from putting a hand to his chest. Her words were a bucket of ice water dumped over his head. It had been years since anyone outside his family had spoken to him that way.
Worse, she was right.
Holly’s chin quivered, and all the frustration went out of him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have tried to give you orders.”
She straightened and met his eyes. “Thank you.” She glanced back at where Malik’s siblings were engaged in an animated conversation. Holly bit her lip.
“Is there something else? You’ve been quiet today.” It was true. He’d taken her to some of his favorite places in the city, but the silence on the way home told him something was off. It could be as simple as jet lag, of course. It could be.
“I do have some things on my mind,” Holly admitted, chewing at the inside of her cheeks. “Things I want to discuss with you.” She closed her eyes in a long blink and then put her frank gaze back in its usual place. “But I think I’d rather wait until after you’ve made a decision on the development proposals.”
Heat spread through his chest like an emergency flare. This was exactly why he hadn’t wanted to mix business with romance. It made things unnecessarily complicated. And he could absolutely understand what Holly was hinting at. She didn’t want to sleep together again until the business portion of their relationship was over and done with.
“Of course.” He took her hand in his, rubbing his fingers gently over her knuckles. “And there’s no need to worry about that. The proposal from Berber Inc. is the last one we’ll be accepting.” He made the decision on the fly and instantly felt lighter. “After we go through all of them, we’ll make a prompt decision.”
“That sounds good.” She gave him a crisp nod. “I’m glad.”
“Leave off anything related to the oasis, however.”
Holly blinked. “Is there another reason why I couldn’t present my ideas, at least? I’m not understanding…” She shook her head. “Obviously, nothing is set in stone.”
“The oasis is a family property.” He thought he’d been clear when he told her before, but apparently not. That was all this misunderstanding was. “My mother gave it to me with the condition that it would go to my future wife. She was adamant, and it was spelled out in her will. It is set in stone. Nothing will be done with it until I’ve married.” Malik smiled at her. “I should have given you those details earlier. That’s my fault entirely.”
“No, it’s…” Holly gave him a thin smile. “I should have realized. Things are always more complex under the surface, aren’t they?”
“This in particular,” he agreed. “It adds to the pressure on me to find the right woman to take Qadir’s traditions into the future.” His chest felt as heavy as a rock and light as air at the same time. His mother would have appreciated many things about Holly. He wished the two of them could meet.
“Right.” Holly’s tone was wooden, and she raised a hand to her mouth to cover a yawn that didn’t quite seem real. Then she put a smile back on her face. “Can I take a rain check on the tea? I’m more worn out from the flight than I thought.”
“Oh—of course. I’ll give the others your goodbyes.”
Holly opened her mouth one more time, then closed it again. She pressed her fingertips to her lips and then those same fingertips to his cheek. Were those tears he saw at the corners of her eyes? They were there one instant, gone the next.
But before he could ask, she turned on her heel and left.
10
Her throat was tight enough to choke off all the available oxygen, her eyes hot with tears, and Holly was desperate for a door to close behind her.
She walked quickly through the halls of the palace, nodding automatically at the people who passed by. Most of them were uniformed staff. Every nod took a bit more out of her, but she wouldn’t give in to the urge to stare at her feet and hunch her shoulders. Her father hadn’t raised her to be the kind of person who bent under a struggle, even if it broke her heart.
Holly couldn’t figure out why her heart was breaking into such tiny pieces. All of it was understandable. Malik’s mother’s will wasn’t something she could argue against. And it made sense that the considerations he’d need to make when it came to selecting a wife took her out of the running. How would a woman like Holly carry on Qadir’s traditions? She’d done plenty of research as part of putting together the development proposal, but Malik would need a wife who had those traditions running in her blood.
Holly didn’t have that, and she couldn’t fake it.
Her child, y
es. Her child would be part of Qadir’s history, because she—he?—was Malik’s child. That didn’t make her qualified to take over an important part of Malik’s mother’s legacy.
She swallowed a hard lump in her throat. It must be the pregnancy hormones making her so emotionally devastated by Malik’s rejection.
Holly reached the door of her suite in the guest wing of the palace and pushed it open with a gasp that turned into a sob. She stumbled into the room and, with infinite care, closed the door behind her.
The moment it clicked shut, she leaned back against it and covered her mouth with her hands.
Her instinct was to shut down these emotions, to push them to the back of her mind and put on a brave face. But one tear fell, then another. Holly had never been the type to wail and make a scene. Even behind closed doors, it felt strange to break down like this.
It was only that Malik’s words had hit home. Part of her had been afraid that it would come to this once she told him about the baby. Holly hadn’t been prepared for the news to arrive early. Now, it seemed painfully obvious that they couldn’t end up together. Not if he wanted to protect his family’s legacy—especially the oasis. It was no small thing for him. Holly knew by the expression on his face when he talked about it. Pride and pain and love were always written there. Who was she to interfere?
She also wasn’t the type to assume that other people would step in and save her from her circumstances. Holly never thought of herself as needing much more than her own two hands and her mind. She was independent.
So why did it scare her so much to contemplate her options now?
Holly dropped her hands and laughed at herself out loud. Because motherhood was terrifying. Being responsible for another human on that level was something she hadn’t expected for years to come, if it ever happened at all.
And despite the gnawing fear at the center of her, despite the terrible risk she was taking…it was happening anyway.
Holly took a deep breath. She wasn’t worried about herself, not at the heart of it. The idea of being a single mother didn’t thrill her, but she could do it. Whether she could do it while still being named a partner at Berber Inc., she wasn’t sure. There were no guarantees for single mothers. There were no guarantees for working mothers. She’d felt confident that her proposals and the presentation would launch her into a partner position, but now? Maybe Clifton wouldn’t think she was a good fit as a single mother. And maybe he’d be right. He might want her to spend more hours than she had to give at the office and traveling for opportunities like this one in Qadir. Of course she’d never talked to her coworkers with children about it. But she would land on her feet, no matter what.
She worried more for her future child. What would happen to that child if something happened to her? Holly’s mother had been a yawning absence most of her life. She didn’t want that for her own baby.
She strode to the window and yanked open the curtains. From here, the capital city spread out beneath her in a sea of yellow windows and twinkling headlights. Beyond the ancient city walls waited the dark expanse of the desert. Somewhere out there was the oasis. She’d thought it was such a gorgeous, perfect place when she first saw it, but now it felt more like a wall that would force her away from Malik sooner rather than later.
In fact, it probably already had. It had been there all along, but Holly hadn’t recognized it for what it was.
She blew out a breath through rounded lips and steadied herself.
It was true—in this moment, it did appear that she was totally screwed. But what was she going to do, cry dramatically about it while she looked at her reflection in the window? No. Absolutely not.
A knock sounded on the door.
Holly lifted her chin and wiped at her eyes, smiling automatically at that reflection in the window. She snapped her fingers at the woman who smiled back at her. It was time to get herself together. She’d had her moment. Now, onward. No more crying.
She pulled open the door expecting Clifton, perhaps, and found Malik instead. He stood with his hands in his pockets, concern shining in his eyes, and the tough wall she’d built around her bruised heart fell into a heap of rocks.
“Are you all right?” His smooth, low voice made her throat burn all over again. And, because it was the last thing in the world she wanted, tears leapt into her eyes and tripped onto her cheeks.
“Malik,” she said, her voice strangled and not at all cool and level. “I—”
He came into the room and shut the door behind him. “Holly, what is it?” He put his hands on her shoulders, looking down into her eyes. “I knew something was wrong when you left the sitting room. A better man would have followed you out.”
She breathed in hard through her nose, doing her best to keep the crying contained. Years of habit helped her out. Holly’s arms tensed. She should push him away, get some space from the man who was going to break her heart. Who, in fact, already had broken her heart. Her own foolish heart.
“I don’t—” The words stuck in the back of her throat. How was she going to explain this to him? I’m pregnant and it’s yours seemed like the simplest option, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t force the words from her tongue. “I don’t need anything. I’m all right.”
Malik laughed. He laughed, a sympathetic chuckle that had a warm heat flooding her chest. “You’re crying.”
“I’m not crying,” she insisted.
“You don’t have to tell me what you’re crying about.” Malik wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. Holly brought up her own wrists between them, intending to make a little space around her heart, but found herself curling her fingers into the front of his shirt. “I wish you would, but you don’t have to.”
God, she wanted him. She wanted all of him. The firm chest underneath her knuckles. The smooth skin that smelled of sunshine and cologne. Those dark eyes that flashed with emotion. And his arms around her like a fortress…
There were no words for the moment. Only a pure, piercing want.
Holly tilted her face toward his.
“It’s all right,” he murmured.
She kissed him.
Their lips met in a tender, slow-motion collision, the kind she’d seen in the movies and always had to turn away from. There had been many times in her life when Holly had pretended not to want this—this slow fusion of lips and tongues—but she did. She did. Now more than ever. Even if it couldn’t last.
She shoved that thought out of her mind. Who cared about the moment after this one? Not her. She only wanted to live in this second with Malik and steal another second, then another.
His tongue demanded entrance to her mouth, and she let him in, tasting him as if it might be the last time they kissed. It wouldn’t be, of course—not with him standing right here in her room, right here in front of her. But every motion was charged with her own wild need for him. It was so different from the way she normally approached the world—as a single, independent woman who needed only herself. The feeling in her chest was a whirlwind, and that whirlwind demanded him.
Holly thought she could convince herself that she didn’t.
She had been wrong.
She let herself sink into her wrongness, making a little noise in the back of her throat. Malik responded with his mouth and his hands and his body, pressing her to him one more time, then cupping her face with his hands. His eyes glittered darkly.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he said. “Every moment.” He shook his head, and she could see the effort he was making reflected in his face. “If you want to wait…”
“Wait?” She put her hands to his cheeks and drew him closer. “Malik, don’t make me wait.” Her voice hitched. “Please, don’t make me wait.”
They came together again in a flurry of discarded clothes, and then he lifted her in his arms and carried her in the bed. Her mind tried a final time, sounding a weak warning—don’t do this, it’ll only make it harder in the end—but Holly was too far gone.
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br /> Malik spread her out on the bed and kissed along the line of her collarbone, working the lingering laps of his tongue down to her nipples. She arched off the bed toward his mouth, and he caught her ribs in his palms, running his hands down her sides. How did he know to touch her this way? How did he understand her on such a deep, instinctual level?
Holly spread her legs for him, asking without words, and Malik lowered his head between her legs and kissed along her thighs until they were trembling with anticipation. When he pulled his head away and brought his fingers to the slickness left by his mouth and her juices, it almost pushed her over the edge. She hovered there, aching, until he bent his head again and focused on her clit, swirling his tongue around it in a way that made the rest of the world fade to black.
She came hard into his mouth, the tension releasing from her muscles even as they worked to help her ride out her orgasm. When it was over, she found Malik at her neck, kissing up to her earlobe and then back to her mouth. She threw her arms around his neck. He was the life preserver in the storm, and she never wanted to let go.
“More,” she said into his ear. “More. More of you.”
Malik thrust in hard, the motion possessive, and Holly rocked her hips up to meet his.
“You have no idea,” he growled. “How much I’ve needed this. How much I’ve needed you.”
But she did have an idea. She knew exactly how much he’d needed her, because her need for him matched. She could tell by the electricity arcing between them as their bodies moved together. He worked himself in and out, the rhythm deeper than she’d ever known it could be.
Another release overtook her, and Holly bit into Malik’s shoulder. She’d never done it before, but it seemed right in the moment, and oh, it was.
He pulsed inside of her, harder than ever, and let out a noise that was somewhere between animal and man. His mouth crashed into hers and she relished it, relished knowing that her lips would feel the imprint of this kiss for the rest of the night and all the next day. Nothing else mattered except the feel of his body against hers, his lips taking hers. She had the distinct sensation of being devoured by him—all her worries falling in the face of such intensity.