by Sophia Lynn
“I’ve got it from here,” she tried to say, but then he insisted on escorting her to the door.
“I had a great time,” she lied, turning around to face him when they were on the porch. The porch was sheltered from the street by a trio of lowering trees, their branches dipping toward the ground. They might have been in a private grotto all on their own, and the setting made Danielle determined to allow him no closer.
“Why, what a good thing,” he said with a chuckle. “Perhaps we can do this again tomorrow night, assuming we are both free to do as we would like to do.”
She opened her mouth, a dozen excuses on the tip of her tongue to explain why that simply wouldn’t be possible, and then he leaned over her, his mouth clamping down over hers.
For a moment, Danielle was simply frozen, eyes wide in the darkness and blood turned to ice. This man was kissing her. His mouth was on hers, he was a flesh-and-blood man who had backed her against the door, and his tongue was pressing between her lips. There were no words for the panic-fury-fear that ran through her, but fortunately, her body was smarter than her mind was.
She narrowed her eyes, and when he pressed his tongue between her teeth, she brought them together with a satisfying clack. Seif reacted immediately, making a sound like a kicked dog, and he lurched back as if he had been stabbed.
“What the hell…!” he exclaimed, and she stared at him wildly.
“I didn’t like that,” she said, her voice shaking like a leaf. “I didn’t want to do that, but I will do worse if you touch me again. Now get out of here.”
For a moment, in the shade of the trees, he only looked at her. A terror welled up in her throat, and at the back of her mind, a voice whispered what if it wasn’t enough? What if he didn’t care if she liked it or not? What if he decided that he was owed for the dinner, for his time?
Then he nodded jerkily, turning and retreating down the stairs, and a gush of relief washed over Danielle like a flood. Her hands were shaking, her knees felt too weak to hold her, and she couldn’t tell if she wanted to laugh or cry.
Fortunately, there was a stone bench next to the door. She knew that she should go inside, hide, get into some comfortable clothes and put some locked doors between herself and the world, but she sat down on the cold stone for a moment, letting the fear wash out of her system.
*
It took Faris about an hour to suspect that he shouldn’t have gone out with the other men, and about an hour after that to be sure. Dinner was fine. The restaurant was good, but the conversation swiftly turned to women. He was disgusted to note that the sheikhs who were married participated just as avidly as the ones who weren’t, and he wondered if this was what life would always be like for these men, constantly chasing the next twenty-year-old woman with a figure they considered worthy.
By the time he had decided to leave, they were at an elegant club for drinks, and as he walked through the rooms, full of gorgeous women who were definitely on the lookout for some rich company, he felt a wave of loneliness wash over him.
This was the Paris he knew, he realized. It was the playground of the rich and famous, and he couldn’t deny that he had had some good times when he was there before. It felt suddenly cheap and hollow, though, and he found himself wondering what Paris looked like to Danielle.
She’s probably out swooning over a city pigeon, he thought, and that was as likely as anything else. He had never met someone who could find as much beauty in the world as Danielle, and suddenly, he wondered if she could show that beauty to him.
When he looked up, he realized that there was a statuesque blonde watching him from across the room. Her red dress looked like a splash of blood against the marble walls, and when she walked up to him, there was a feline slink to her stride.
“And what are you looking for tonight?” she purred, and though he could tell she was a stunningly beautiful woman, something about her left him cold.
“Beauty and joy,” he said, slightly shocked at the words that had come out of his mouth. It was true. What he had been looking for all along was beauty and joy, and it was stunningly simple.
“Oh, that I can help you with,” said the blonde woman with a laugh, and she reached out to touch his arm.
She cried out in surprise when Faris grasped her hand in his, and he could have laughed. He wasn’t hurting her, but his speed had always been a thing that startled others.
“No,” he said gently. “I don’t think you can help me with that.”
He saw the hurt in her eyes, and behind it, he could see the fear and the doubt as well. She was a woman who lived by her allure, and he could recognize that fear of not being good enough.
“In the next room, there is a man wearing a copper Armani suit and a tie pin shaped like a sword,” he said. “He’s a relatively kind man, and he has a taste for blondes. I’m sorry, that’s the best I can do for you.”
When he released her hand, she gazed at him with her eyes narrowed. It made her look a little older, but it gave her face a bit of character, which he found he liked far better than the vapid smile. She studied him for a moment, and then she smiled wryly.
“Thanks for the tip,” she said at last. “I hope you find your beauty and joy, then.”
She tossed off a quick salute before sauntering toward the next room, and Faris decided then and there that he was going to try.
On the ride back to the townhouse that he shared with a woman who captivated him like no other, Faris wondered what she had done with her evening. Something in him ached at the idea of her exploring Paris on her own. It was a city that she had thought of as for lovers. Perhaps, if he was very lucky, she would show him the city that she had imagined, and perhaps he could see it through her eyes…
The first sign Faris got that something was wrong was the man staggering down the steps. It took him a moment to recognize the sheikh of Kamul, and his eyes narrowed. Their emirates were close, but there was a long history of enmity between the two. They were on friendly terms now, but hundreds of years of traditional battle could not be overlooked in a few generations.
“Seif,” he said warily, getting out of the car and dismissing the driver. “What brings you to call so late?”
For a moment, he could see a darkness in Seif’s eyes, disgust and distaste and superiority all at once, and then it was all covered with a smile that Faris could only call triumphant.
“Not calling, but taking my leave,” he said, and the smile on his face made Faris want to punch him. He restrained himself instead, watching the other man with a warning glance.
“Taking your leave of what?” he asked bluntly. Seif might be the sort who wanted to play word games, but Faris had far better things to do.
“Your lovely, warm, and welcoming translator,” Seif replied. “It was a good choice to get an American. They are so very available, are they not?”
Faris didn’t hesitate. He acted on instinct, and it was not until later that he realized how very mad it all was. With a single graceful motion, he drove his fist toward Seif’s face. It didn’t matter that they were grown men, the leaders of their emirates. It did not matter that there were almost certain to be consequences for his rash act. The most important thing for Faris right then was that Seif stop talking.
The blow connected firmly to Seif’s jaw, satisfying in a primal way, but then Seif rocked back and spun toward Faris with a fury. Seif was just as big as Faris, but he was slower. Faris blocked the blow, but it told him that Seif was no easy opponent.
After the first engagement, the two fell back, hands still up, watching for any opening.
“What are we doing?” Seif asked, his voice almost absurdly reasonable for the situation. “We are men of power, and we should not be brawling on the streets like common thugs…”
“I am escorting you off my property, and I am making sure that you do not return or think yourself welcome,” Faris retorted, and to his surprise, Seif dropped his fists.
“Oh, well, if that is all, I will
simply be taking my leave.” He shrugged. “There’s nothing else here I want, after all.”
Faris nearly lunged for him then, but Seif started walking briskly down the sidewalk, his back deliberately turned to the raging Faris. Faris knew it for what it was. If word got out that he had attacked a man, another sheikh, while the man’s back was turned… it was not a situation that would reflect well on him.
Faris gritted his teeth as he watched Seif walk away.
Soon, he thought grimly, you will be facing me, and then walking away won’t be an option.
When Seif was out of sight, sense started to return to Faris. The first blush of anger had hit him so hard it had left him reeling, but now that he was recovering, he thought of Danielle. He could imagine how easily she might have fallen for someone like Seif, and he tamped down the mad jealousy that went with it. She owed him nothing. He had made that very clear after their first encounter, and now he had to live with it.
Feeling despondent, he went to the front door, hand on the keys and thinking vaguely about getting some kind of rest, when a movement caught his eye. He turned, and with shock, he realized it was Danielle.
She huddled in the back corner of the porch, shaking almost uncontrollably, and when he turned to her, she flinched.
My God, when I see that man again, he’s dead…
“Danielle?”
The sound of her name seemed to revive her. At the very least, she straightened up, coming forward to meet him. He could tell that she was still shaken, but the look of determination and will on her face told him she would not be bowed or broken.
“It’s me,” she said softly. “I just thought you were… well, that doesn’t matter.”
Faris couldn’t stop himself from growling deep in his throat.
“Seif is never going to set foot on this street again, and if he even looks at me, I shall kill him,” he said fiercely. “What did he do to you?”
The laugh that escaped Danielle’s mouth was high and wavering, more like the cry of a lonely seabird than a sound a woman would make.
“He… he showed me a very nice time that I wasn’t interested in,” she said. “Took me to dinner and then a carriage ride, and oh, I hated it… We got back here, and I guess he thought he had put in enough romance to buy…”
Her voice trailed off as she thought of what might have happened next, and he could see her start to shake again. He acted instinctively. With a curse, he gathered her to him. When Danielle stiffened, he thought he had made a terrible mistake and that she was going to push him away. Instead, after another moment, she melted into his chest.
“I’m so sorry,” she tried to say. “This is ridiculous. He didn’t do anything terrible. I mean, people get worse riding public transportation…”
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said, and one-handed, he unlocked the door and shut them safely inside.
Inside him warred two very different urges. The first wanted to set her down and go roaring after Seif again, his reputation be damned. The second wanted nothing more than to keep this delicate woman safe, to make sure she remembered that there was someone who would protect her.
“I’m all right,” she said, peering up at him. “I swear, I’ll be fine…”
In her eyes, however, he could read the truth. There was a need there for him, a plea that he would have to be made of stone to ignore. He hesitated, because he was a man who had never cared much for others in his life, but then the words seemed to find themselves.
“Will you let me look after you?” he said softly, and he held his breath until she made a soft sound and gave the tiniest of nods.
Chapter Twelve
Danielle had no idea what she might have done if Faris hadn’t appeared on the porch. She figured that eventually she would have pulled herself together and gone inside, but at that moment, shaking and with her nerves stretched to breaking, that was not a thing she could guarantee.
When he appeared, it was as if he were the answer to a prayer that she had been whispering all her life. It was easy to melt into his arms, easy to let him bring her inside. Danielle felt herself calming down, and she figured that soon enough, he would let her go so she could retreat to her room to try to forget this terrible evening.
Then he had looked down at her with those amazing blue eyes, and when he spoke, he had made something in her melt.
“Will you let me look after you?” he said, and something inside her that had been frozen over all her life cried out yes. For a moment, she thought she wouldn’t be able to say yes, or even to nod. A lifetime of independence might have kept her from it, but then she realized how warm he was, how much her body leaned in toward his.
She nodded, and then within a heartbeat, he was scooping her up in his arms. She yelped a little, throwing her arms around his neck, and he laughed softly.
“You have a wonderful laugh,” Danielle said, her voice shy, and to her wonder, it was as if he his laugh turned into the purr of an enormous cat.
“You are kind to say so,” he said. “We’re going to make a quick stop, and then I will take you to your room.”
The quick stop turned out to be the kitchen, where he set her down just long enough to take a few things from the refrigerator. Before she could see what he was doing, he scooped her up again and carried her with all due ceremony to her bedroom.
“I can walk, you know,” she murmured, looping her arms around him tightly.
“But do you like this?”
“Very much so.”
“Then that is all that is necessary.”
What a strange thought it was, that something lovely could happen for no other reason than because she wanted it. She mused on the thought as he carried her to the room, only mewling a little when he deposited her in one of the large comfortable wing chairs next to the empty fireplace. She watched with curiosity as he pulled a small table up and took his place at the other chair.
“What are you doing?’ she asked, and he smiled at her.
“You are looking a little peaked,” he informed her, pulling out a jar of something dark and chunky. “My grandmother always said that food was important after you had a shock.”
She started to say that she wasn’t hungry, but then her stomach rumbled, and she made a face.
“He took me to the oddest place,” she said. “All small plates and smoke and random things being cooked with lasers.”
“Oh, Ivavo’s,” said Faris dismissively. “Party tricks, not real food at all. Here, let’s see what you think of a plowman’s lunch.”
As she watched, he constructed a sandwich for her with two thick slices of bread, a slice of pale cheese, and what looked like a thick dark jam.
“That’s Branston pickle,” he told her, handing her the sandwich. “It’s a bit of a carryover from my childhood. It’s sweet and salty, more like a chutney than anything else.”
She took a cautious bite and smiled at the bite of the pickle and the smoothness of the cheese. It was simple fare, easy enough to imagine someone eating after a long day when they were too tired to do anything else, but the mixture of flavors was delicious in its own right. She quietly devoured her sandwich as he more leisurely made his own.
She wondered if she was simply too tired and worn out to be panicked, because just then, she had no self-consciousness about watching him at all. It seemed to be the most natural thing in the world to watch him make his food and then eat it. There was something strangely sensual about the entire thing, and before she quite knew what she was saying, she was speaking again.
“What an odd thing for you to eat,” she mused, and he glanced at her curiously. “I mean, this feels really British to me. Not something that you could pick up off the streets in Dubai…”
He laughed a little ruefully.
“No, not at all. I likely wouldn’t have any idea about this at all except for my grandmother. She was a young girl during the Blitz in London, and she still remembers when rationing let up and she could have chees
e again. This was one of her favorites, and my grandfather always made sure that she had jars of Branston pickle at the palace in Aswar.”
“Your grandmother was British, then?” she asked in surprise. “I suppose that explains the blue eyes…”
He smiled a little.
“It is startling that it took you this long to comment. Most people say something right away.”
“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a lot of people make comments about my height,” she suggested. “A lot of people walk up to me and say ‘oh wow, you’re so short.’ I mean, thanks, not like I didn’t know that at all. Not like I have been this height for literally every day of my life.”
“I can imagine where that would get tiring,” he mused.
“Yes, some people even call me a child or an elf…”
To his credit, Faris winced a little at that.
“Are you still holding that against me?” he protested. “That was so long ago…”
“And yet you never apologized. You were your charming self, and then on the plane you offered to bribe me so that you could keep on saying things like that, but I never heard an apology one way or another.”
It was amazing what food could do for one’s mood, she mused. She was already feeling better, and then she realized it likely had more to do with Faris than the sandwich he made her.
Faris looked chagrined at her words, shaking his head.
“I have been remiss, I see. Well, what would you like by way of an apology?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that simply hearing him say the words I’m sorry would be a good start, and then something else occurred to her instead. She bit her lip for a moment, and then rather than wait and possibly lose even more of her nerve, she simply let the words fall where they wished.
“You could give me a kiss,” she said, and even if her words were on the shy side, she could feel the interest flame up in his extraordinarily blue eyes.
“Oh yes?” he asked. She thought of a cat that had been roused to the fact that there were little mice lurking about, unwise mice who had a terrible fascination with cats.