He stood. “I have much to talk about.”
“You can talk, but that doesn’t mean I’ll listen,” she replied with a forced coolness in her tone.
Her heart fluttered with nervous tension as he stepped off the dais and approached where she stood. His eyes seemed to glitter like those of an animal, and he moved with an athletic grace.
“You had your say last night. Now it’s my turn.” He stopped when he stood mere inches from her, his breath warm on her face, his body heat radiating outward as if to banish her coolness.
“You’ve had your say for the past week,” she replied, trying not to dwell on how handsome he looked, how much she wanted to reach out and touch him, throw her arms around him. “You had your say by avoiding me, refusing to share with me, expecting me to attend to your every need while giving me nothing in return.”
“Ah, but I seem to remember giving you something,” he replied, his voice as deep, as smooth as a caress.
Frustration rose inside her. “I’m not talking about sex, Omar.” She took a step back from him, needing some distance. “A month ago perhaps I would have been satisfied with whatever you were willing to give to me. My self-esteem was low, and in my mind I was existing in Fiona’s shadow. I just wanted something for my own.”
“And you don’t want that anymore?” he asked.
“Of course I still want that,” she replied. “But I’m no longer the woman I was a month ago. I know I’m worth more than what you’ve given me this past week.”
She raised her chin. “And I’m not willing to settle anymore. I did a bad thing and I’ve apologized and tried to make it up to you, but you refuse to find any forgiveness in your heart.”
Emotion pressed thick and hot against her chest. “I deserve more, Omar. I deserve to be loved.”
“And now you will listen to me,” he said.
Once again he moved toward her, breaching the distance she’d placed between them. “I have finally realized the root of my anger with you.” His gaze bore into hers. “It isn’t necessarily that you lied, but that you felt the need to lie.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
His nostrils thinned slightly and his eyes narrowed. Power radiated from him, a power and arrogance that was daunting. “My anger comes from the fact that you thought I was so shallow, so superficial, that I would want only the woman I’d met briefly six years before at a dance. My anger comes from the fact that you really believed that despite the letters we exchanged, in spite of the time we spent together, I would choose Fiona over you.”
He reached out a hand and stroked a strand of her hair, his eyes less fierce than before. “When I traveled to Texas, I had every intention of marrying Elizabeth Fiona Carson because I believed she was the woman who had written those beautiful letters to me. Then we spent time together, and I fell in love with you. How could you think me so superficial as to negate everything we shared because of a name?”
Cara was confused and found it difficult to think with him lightly caressing her hair. Again she stepped back from him, trying to assess everything he had just said. Had he really said he’d fallen in love with her?
“Omar, I didn’t underestimate you. Don’t you see? I underestimated myself,” she said.
She gasped as he pulled her into his arms. “Then, we must see that you don’t make that same mistake in the future,” he said.
“I’m going back home, Omar.” She struggled half-heartedly to get out of his embrace, but he held tight.
“You are home,” he replied.
The sweet timbre of his voice cascaded warmth through her, a warmth she’d been bereft of for the past week. She steeled herself against it, refusing to succumb to his macho charms.
“No, Omar. Home is where dreams are spun and lives are shared. Home is where love resides. Real love, not sexual love.” To her intense displeasure, tears trickled from her eyes. She reached up to wipe them away, but he got there first and wiped them away with his thumbs.
“Then, you are truly home right now, Cara,” he said softly.
She looked at him and was surprised to see a depth of vulnerability in his eyes.
“When I realized you were gone, I also realized all that I was about to lose,” he said, and pulled her even closer against him.
“I’ve given much thought this morning to the concept of love,” he continued. “You were right. I was taught that love made a man weak, that the romantic kind of love women yearned for was fine for regular men, but taboo for a sheik.”
Again she tried to wriggle out of his embrace, but he held fast to her. The vulnerability in his eyes transformed to a shine of desperation.
“Cara, please listen to me. As I waited for my guards to return you to me, I thought of my life without your laughter, my life without your dreams. I thought of my life without you, and there was nothing in my heart but pain. I realized that it didn’t matter what my father tried to teach me. I love you, Cara. I love you with all my heart, all my soul. Please, don’t leave me.”
He’d never looked less like a sheik and more like a man than he did at that moment. His dark eyes shone with an intensity that momentarily stole her breath, as the impact of his words created a dizzying joy inside her.
“I don’t want to leave you,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. The words were barely out of her mouth before he crushed his lips to hers, kissing her in a white-hot fever that spoke not just of passion, but of love.
“Stay and build dreams with me,” he said when they broke the kiss. “Stay and share my life with me. Share a future of love, and build a family with me.”
Her heart was joyous as she felt his love flowing from every pore in his body, filling her up with happiness. “No more love slave?” she asked.
He smiled, that wonderfully teasing smile that had captured her heart on the first day they had met. “Maybe just on our anniversaries,” he said. “We’ll take turns. You’ll be my love slave and I’ll be yours.”
She smiled up at him. “I think you already owe me a turn.”
He gripped her to him, and she laid her head against his broad chest. She could hear his heartbeat, pounding the language of love.
“I am a sheik, Cara. I am wealthy and powerful and greatly esteemed by the people of my country. But I feel as if without you I would have nothing, I would be nobody.”
“Omar.” She placed a hand on his cheek. “With or without me you would be a wonderful man, but it’s nice that you think I’m a necessity.”
“My love, you are,” he said fiercely. “Now and always.” With those words of promise, he captured her lips once again, this time in a gentle, giving kiss that made her very happy that she was not Fiona Carson, but Elizabeth Cara Al Abdar, beloved wife of Sheik Omar Al Abdar.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Carla Cassidy for her contribution to the LONE STAR COUNTRY CLUB series.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7204-4
PROMISED TO A SHEIK
Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Books S.A.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
>
Visit Silhouette at www.eHarlequin.com
Promised to a Sheik Page 18