by Olivia Gates
And you’re not doing me any favors worrying.
Out loud she said, “Work is too much sometimes.”
“If my side of it is weighing you down…”
She did wish, for so many reasons, she’d never promised to be Jalal’s advisor. But she had given her word. She would abide by it. “No, really. Just don’t worry, okay?”
“If you’re sure.” He sounded very unsure himself.
Quit the big-brother probing, already, she almost screamed.
He made it worse. “I heard you’ve seen a lot of Haidar.”
And I want to see a lot more of him, all of him. But I’m not telling you that, or where I am now, or what I’m trying to do.
“You didn’t mention our arrangement,” he probed.
“No.” Even if she wasn’t bound to secrecy by her word to Jalal, it had never occurred to her when she was with Haidar. Nothing else existed when he was around.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t tell him I’m in Azmahar.”
That was strange. “But he must know you’re here.”
“He doesn’t. My appearance at your door evidently wasn’t as dramatic as his. I’m not as dramatic in general here as he is. Wearing an Aal Shalaan face comes in very handy in avoiding unwanted attention in Azmahar.”
So Jalal was being covert. She could see the merit in that, for the info-gathering stage. But why wouldn’t he want Haidar to know of his presence? Did he fear his brother would try to sabotage him? Would Haidar go that far in his rivalry?
“I didn’t tell you everything about our last confrontation.” When Haidar told Jalal he renounced their very blood tie. “I accused him of being our mother’s accomplice in her conspiracy to take Zohayd apart.”
Shock screeched through her, made her choke, “B-but Haidar was the one who discovered where she hid the jewels, brought the conspiracy to an end.”
“I know. But…there were unexplained activities between him and our mother, extensive amounts of money he’d given her. I asked him about it, and he told me what I could do with my suspicions. I ended up accusing him of only pretending to help us when she was exposed so that he’d appear innocent, that she agreed to play along, since she’d do anything to protect him. I said he manipulated me emotionally until he had me begging with him for her exile instead of imprisonment, and that they were both only biding their time until they came up with another plot to put him on the throne.”
She staggered to the nearest flat surface, the ledge of the pier, plopped down on it.
This was…unthinkable. Could it possibly…
No. She wasn’t doing this again. She wasn’t thinking the worst of Haidar again. Not without giving him every benefit of the doubt first, giving him the chance to explain his side.
But what mattered here was one thing. “You believe this?”
“No.” One single word laden with a world full of regret and pain. “But I’m not the collected man you know when it comes to Haidar, not even exactly sane. I was livid, thinking what our mother could have caused, for him. It was impossible, with him being so reticent, to separate my rage with her from him. He was indirectly responsible for everything she’d done, and I wanted to punch him with my accusations until he lashed back, opened up, told me everything, shared with me fully again, if just this once. He didn’t. He just walked away.”
As he had from her. Seemed he was an expert at that.
But again, what had seemed to be such a callous action had only been an outraged reaction. Haidar had walked away from the twin who, when a real test was forced on him, had behaved as if Haidar had always been his worst enemy. As she had.
It felt weird to change her perspective, see her admired friend as the offender. Seemed Haidar did manage to force out the passionate side in others—their best and worst.
Suddenly, she felt a presence behind her.
Her heart almost fired from her ribs.
“Sorry, gotta go. Talk later,” was all she said to Jalal, barely heard his surprised agreement before she ended the call.
She took a shuddering breath before she rose, swung around.
If it was Haleem, she might shove him into the sea.
It wasn’t. It was Haidar.
He came.
He was walking toward her from the end of the terrace that extended into a stone passage that traversed the sandy beach. It transformed into a wooden pier that forged into the bay, widened at its end into the circular platform where she was standing.
In seconds he was stepping onto the platform she’d ringed with candles blazing in crimson quartz holders. He glowed like the desert god that he was as he passed between the brass torches she’d lit, their incandescent flames undulating in the calm breeze, accentuating his every feature and line. In all black with the only relief a shirt the color of his eyes, he took her breath away, sent her heart into hyperdrive. Her every nerve quivered at beholding his magnificence, at entering his orbit. Her every sense ignited with no-longer-suppressed responses and emotions.
He transferred his expressionless gaze from her to the candles, to the buffet table at the end of the platform, and finally to the table for two she’d arranged in its center.
He looked back at her. “I see you’ve invaded and occupied my home.”
She shivered as his voice, impassive like his expression, flowed down her nervous pathways like warm molasses.
She’d expected him to comment on her setup. Seemed where he was concerned, the only given was to expect the unexpected.
She licked her dry, tingling lips. “Just your pier.”
He came to a stop four steps away, went so still he looked like a statue of a titan, the only animate things about him his satin mane sifting around his leonine head, his clothes rustling around his steel-fleshed frame.
Then he shoved his hands into his pockets, the epitome of tranquillity. “I thought we agreed we were better off staying off each other’s properties and out of each other’s lives.”
She held back from closing the gap between them with all she had. “We did. Just not at the same time. Or for the same reasons.”
“The sequence or cause of coming to this vital decision isn’t important. As long as we both reached it.”
“Problem is, once you did, I unreached it.”
His gaze lengthened, the gentle rumble of the sea lapping the shore deepening his silence. Then without moving, or changing his expression or tone, he said, “I’m not playing this game, Roxanne.”
“It’s not a game. I never played games with you.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“I actually could and should have known you better.” She took a step closer. “The problem is, we fell into bed too soon. Once we did, it was impossible for us to have one nonhormonally overwrought thought or reaction where the other was concerned.”
One dense, slanting eyebrow rose. “You’re saying you chose to believe the worst about me because passion made you unable to think straight?”
“Why so skeptical? You admitted to about the same. As a friend pointed out, we suffered from a communication disorder. My verbal-but-not-about-my-issues kind was as bad as your nonverbal one.”
He brooded down at her, clearly unconvinced.
She tried a new angle. “You thought it a possibility I’d think of Jalal while I was with you. I thought you thought of Jalal while you were with me. We’re guilty of the same stupidity, each in our own uniquely stupid way. So how about we call it even?”
That imperious eyebrow rose again. “You really like to say that, don’t you?”
Her heart shook at the first ray of change in his expression. “And when I last said that, you said we’re not, not by an eight-year-long shot. I believe that now.”
He went totally still again. The steel of his eyes seemed to catc
h the torch fire, singeing her.
“What do you want, Roxanne?”
She shook with the sheer, leashed intensity in that question.
He needed her to spell it out. She was only too happy to.
“I want you. I only ever wanted you.”
And he moved, away, restored the distance she’d managed to obliterate. “So all you needed to change your mind was me deciding to stop pursuing you? And you realizing I meant it?”
“If you’re saying I’m coming after you because you pose a challenge now, et’tummen…rest easy. That doesn’t even figure into this.”
His eyes narrowed to silver lasers. It had once aroused him to near savagery when she’d spoken Arabic to him.
“So what does? My little speech before I walked out?”
Her nod was difficult as her rate of melting quickened, her body readying itself for the onslaught of his passion. “That little speech was sure eye-opening. And heart-wrenching. I spent eight years never once thinking you had a side of the story.”
“Are you saying if you faced me then, screamed bloody betrayal, and I’d told you said side, none of this would have happened?”
“No,” she had to admit. “I trusted you and what we had too little. And if you, the man who never opened up to me during the year of our involvement, suddenly had, I would have thought you were placating me to carry on your bet.”
“So it’s because you believe the bet is no longer on, and only because I no longer talk to Jalal, that you believe me now.”
“No, again. I believe you because we’ve grown up and out of our inability to talk to each other. We’ve been communicating for real during those verbal duels. And you let me see your vulnerability and emotions for the first time. It made me realize I dehumanized you, even when I was claiming to love you. Then I demonized you when I thought you’d never loved me.”
Silence stretched until she thought he wouldn’t talk again.
Suddenly he moved. “I accept your peace offering. Let’s eat.”
Her mouth fell open as he passed her.
Once at the table, in perfect grace and control, he took the chair she’d meant for him, his back to the sea. She’d wanted the lights from the house and grounds to join the pier’s in illuminating him. He propped one forearm on the table and sat relaxed, majestic, sweeping the buffet table where serving plates simmered on gentle flames that danced in the balmy sea breeze.
He panned his gaze back to her with ultimate serenity as she stopped across the table. “You will serve me, won’t you?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, her lips struggling not to spread in delight. “Don’t push your luck.”
His lips twitched, too. His eyes remained unfathomable.
Turning around, she headed to the buffet table, her heart dancing a jig inside her. He was letting her back in.
As she adorned their plates with an assortment of appetizers, he called out, “Do hurry. The aromas are too mouthwatering.”
Her steps back to him were measured, to rein in the urge to plop the plates down, charge him, straddle and devour him.
She came behind him, leaned to place his plate before him, let her breasts brush his back, her hair fall over his shoulder. “All delicious things come to he who doesn’t rush the chef.”
He tilted his head, turning his face partially toward her, his eyes downcast. She felt she might fall over him with the dizziness his scent and heat induced. Which might not be a bad thing…
He reached for his napkin, flapped it open. “Don’t tell me you cooked all this.”
She straightened like a malfunctioning robot, her body buzzing, her legs rubbery after the contact that had backfired, having no effect on him, but managing to flare her arousal.
“Why so shocked? I can handle myself in a kitchen.” She struggled not to fall in a heap in her chair. “But you’re right. I didn’t. I did a lot of the work, but I was mainly following the directions of the one who designed the meal. Cherie is an incredible artist, in cooking and in many other forms of art.”
He only nodded, started to eat with gusto.
After he polished off the appetizers and the two courses of the meal, and she watched him eat while trying to draw him into conversation, he looked up. “Your friend should consider a catering business. I’d be a regular customer.”
She grinned, delighted that she’d pleased him, that he appreciated Cherie and her efforts. Even if he didn’t include her directly in his praise. “She’ll be thrilled you think so. She almost fainted when she saw your kitchen. When she set foot here, really. She still can’t believe that she cooked for a prince. That I even know you.”
His eyes darkened. “She knows how well you…know me?”
“She knows how well I…knew you. And didn’t know you at all. She also knows how much I want to know you, in every way, now.”
Another of those silences that engulfed that wide-open night, magnified every ripple of water, every whistle of wind, every beat of her heart, lengthened.
Suddenly he pushed his chair back, stood up. “That was a lovely meal, Roxanne. My most sincere compliments to the chef. I accept your…amends. Best of luck finding the same success in your endeavors to put Azmahar back on track.”
She gaped at him as he turned around and strode away.
That was it? He was walking away again? This time on good terms instead of terrible ones?
But she couldn’t let him walk away again. She wouldn’t.
She scrambled up. “But I haven’t really made…amends yet.”
He stopped. After another endless moment, he looked over his shoulder. “No, you haven’t, have you?”
Then with one last look of supreme indifference, he turned and strode away like a lion would from the prey he’d just feasted on.
It took only heartbeats for delight and determination to overcome agitation and hesitation. It was as clear as the starlit sky he wanted her to run after him some more.
She had no problem with that. She couldn’t wait to do it. She would run after him, and she would catch him, if it took the rest of her life.
Nine
Haidar didn’t slow down, didn’t look back.
The only way to catch up with him would be to sprint. She didn’t. He wanted to keep the distance between them.
She let him keep it. All the way to his bedroom.
He strode through the open double doors, disappeared inside.
A smile trembled on her lips as she stopped across the threshold. Why not let him wonder for a bit?
But it was she who couldn’t last. She was dying to have him.
She entered the antechamber, swerved into the room…and gaped.
Haidar was reclining at the dark emerald damask couch by the balcony doors, legs stretched out on it, his jacket discarded, his shirt partially undone. And he was reading a book.
He didn’t raise his head from his apparent engrossment as she approached him. He let her come within touching distance before he slowly, and without moving a thing, swept his gaze up to her.
“Anything I can do for you?”
His low, dark rumble spread through her, dried her mouth, melted everything else.
In response, she let her shawl slip. “Everything, actually. And not just for me. To me. With me.”
His gaze singed down her face, following the autumn leaves–colored silk as it slithered to the ground. On the way, he took note of the sensuality and delicacy of her spaghetti-strap dress. On his way up, his gaze lingered on the breasts now swollen and snug against the top. By the time he came back to her eyes, she was shivering with need, as if he’d caressed her within an inch of sanity.
Instead of reaching for her, he closed his book, relaxed back on the couch, still holding her prisoner to his fathomless scrutiny. So
she reached for him.
Bracing a knee on the couch, arousal thundering through her, her hands trembled as they roamed the incredible breadth of his chest. He held her eyes as she moaned at the acuteness of sensations that touching him jolted through her. The intimidating bulge in his pants got impossibly bigger. But the moment she started pulling his shirt out, fumbling with its buttons, her forearms were clamped in inescapable sinew-and-bone manacles.
“You’ve made those kinds of…amends before.” His eyes crackled with what felt like the advance bolts of a devastating storm. He pushed her arms away as he sat up and was off the couch in one of those miraculously effortless moves. “I’m not interested in an encore along the same lines.”
She collapsed on the couch, looked up at him as he stood before her, perfect down to his last pore.
He would make a perfect king. Probably the only kind that could save Azmahar now.
He was her perfect man. The only one she’d ever want. Or love. Whatever happened, wherever this led, or didn’t lead, she belonged to him, heart and soul.
Now if he’d only hurry and claim her body, too.
She rose on precarious legs. “Not that I was offering anything along the same lines, but what kind of amends do you have in mind?”
Another stormy silence as his probing invaded her recesses.
Then, distinct, slow, annihilating, he drawled, “Surrender. Full, unconditional. And irretrievable.”
She almost came right there and then.
This man was out to take revenge on her.
Her whole body throbbed like one inflamed nerve. Her core spasmed with the near release he’d driven her to with the force of his intention.
In answer, she pushed her dress straps off her shoulder, reached back to undo its zipper, let the silk sigh to her feet like the shed petals of an alien, emerald flower.
Facing him in only her strapless bra, thong and stilettos, she said a breathless “Done.”
His eyes flared with a fierceness that almost knocked her off her feet. His gaze ravaged a path of almost frightening hunger over her, sending her heart flailing with trepidation, almost had her howling with anticipation. He still made no move.