“I …”
“Damn it, Olivia.” His face had dark slashes of colour across his cheeks. “You should go now.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Go?” She was awash with feelings. Pleasure, desire, fascination, wonder. Hurt, anger, confusion.
He pulled his boxers on without taking his eyes from her face. “How is this possible, habibi?”
“I …” Foolish tears pricked her eyes but she wouldn’t look away from him.
He saw her pain but his temper did not soften. “You would not, then, be on birth control?”
“God, no,” she murmured, lifting a hand to her lips.
“And you think I will believe this was an accident?”
Olivia drew her eyes together, her confusion obvious. “What? What was an accident? Not that. Believe me, that was very intentional.”
His eyes widened, and she stood up. But she was sore. Muscles that had never been tested were aching, and she winced, but wouldn’t let him know that she wasn’t strong. She would never let him see her hurt.
“I didn’t set out to deceive you, Zamir. I wanted that. I wanted you. But we were too far in. I thought … I was worried you would stop.”
“I would have stopped,” he growled. “I should have stopped. I do not understand why you would give me your virginity when you know I want only this.” He gestured to the bed. “You and I spoke often of meaningless sex. Your virginity is not meaningless.”
“I …” She shook her head, searching for the words that wouldn’t come.
“Stop saying that!” He ground out. “If you are going to speak, at least finish the sentence.”
Olivia felt her limbs begin to shake. Shock was setting in. What they’d done, and his reaction, were leaving her with the strangest sense of unreality. “I wanted you.”
He knit his brows together, and a muscle in his jaw twitched with emotion. “And did you think I would want you if I knew?”
She closed her eyes. Her worst fears were being confirmed. “I wasn’t sure,” she said, deciding honesty was going to serve her best. “I didn’t want to risk that you wouldn’t.”
“And so you denied me the opportunity to decide?”
“You make it sound like I set out to deceive you. I only had a split second to decide.” She closed the distance between them and put her hands on his chest. “Why are you being like this?”
His glared down at her, unable to disentangle the array of emotions in his gut. “I have learned to watch for predatory women. Women who might wish to marry a man such as me. To trap me into marriage by falling pregnant. I exercise care and control, and have, until now, never put myself into a position where that might be possible.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Hang on just a second. You didn’t ask me if I was on the pill. You didn’t use protection.” Her mouth felt awkward. She was embarrassed. “How exactly did you avoid that possible complication?”
Her assessment was accurate. He had been careless. But it was easier to blame her than himself. “I simply assumed you had the requisite experience to have such matters under control.”
Her temper, barely under control, flared. “Because I look like I do?” She demanded fiercely.
“You are very well aware that I believed you to have been involved with several men.”
“Yes.” She ground her teeth together. “That seems to be the consensus.” Even her sisters believed her free-spirited approach to life translated into the bedroom.
He felt her silent outrage and he understood it. But sympathy was impossible. “Olivia, you must see my viewpoint. I cannot hand-hold you through your sexuality. I presumed I was going to sleep with someone who saw it as I do – a physical transaction that ends with satisfaction.”
Olivia’s spine tingled. “What happened to, ‘you feel what’s happening between us’?”
He let out a strangled sound. “I meant sex! I meant the agonising foreplay that has been this last week. Every look, every touch, was a prelude to this. Of course, you perhaps did not realise it, because you had no point of reference.”
“I realised,” she corrected softly. She noticed, for the first time, that she was still naked. Did she care? She couldn’t have said. “I felt it.” She turned around and scanned the room for her clothes. They were spread in different directions. With as much dignity as she could manage, she picked them all up. “I just didn’t know you’d turn into such a monumental jackass afterwards.” She snapped her underwear on, and then her shirt. She didn’t bother with the bra. Suddenly, she was as anxious as she’d ever been in her whole life to get away from him. Her shirt was dark black, and she knew the outline of her breasts was visible beneath it but she would risk the embarrassment.
She just needed to go.
Her pants were creased from where they’d been scrunched against the floor. She pulled them on, uncaring.
“Olivia, wait,” he commanded, when she moved towards the door.
“Olivia, you must go now. Olivia, wait,” she mimicked, her expression pinched. “Make up your damned mind.”
He stared at her as though she was babbling in Swahili. He had never been spoken to with such disrespect.
“Forget about it,” she muttered. “I’ll make it up for you.” She stormed through the apartment, sweeping her handbag up as she passed. At first, she thought the lift might not appear. But it did. Almost immediately. She stepped into it gratefully, but didn’t exhale until the doors clicked shut.
The corridor on the floor below was mercilessly deserted. She walked through it quickly, and slipped into her room.
Only then, with her back to the door, did she let the tears that had been stinging her eyes fall.
The time on the clock showed it to be somewhere just before four o’clock in the morning. Olivia moved gingerly through the small hotel room, towards the bathroom. She showered, sponging her whole body as if that could remove the pain of what they’d shared.
It didn’t.
When she collapsed into her own bed shortly afterwards, she could still feel him on her skin. She could smell him. She could sense him.
She groaned and turned into her pillow.
Her phone began to ring, but for the first time since coming to work for Sheikh Zamir Fayez, she ignored it.
She wished she could ignore him so easily.
The following morning, having barely slept, Olivia was at a crossroads. She could quit. Not the agency, but at least this job. Johnny wouldn’t like it, but he valued her too much to fire her. It would be a mark against her, but not the end. Yes, she could quit. She could walk away from Zamir, and pretend none of this ever happened.
Or, she could stick it out.
She could carry on with her duties, and show him that she was stronger than he’d ever imagined.
Olivia barely needed to give it a moment’s thought.
Quitting had never been her style.
She dressed with care. It was imperative that she look as she always did, but Olivia hated to think that Zamir might assume she had wasted time trying to look attractive for him.
In the end, she settled on a pair of dark pants, and a top that had swirls of grey and black through the fabric. She pulled a black vest over the top. Her hair she assembled into her go-to style, then added only enough makeup to remove the vestiges of a sleepless night from her face.
She looked, Olivia decided, completely normal.
When Marook came to collect her, as he had every day since she began working for the Sheikh, she had almost convinced herself that she felt normal, too.
She rode down the elevator, steeling herself for her first sighting of Zamir.
But no amount of preparation could have been sufficient.
He didn’t look the same.
He looked better.
He was wearing a pair of jeans, low slung and faded, and a white button down shirt that drew attention to his flawless tan. A tan she now knew to be all over his body. His hair had just been washed, and it was still damp and c
urled around his nape. Despite the subterranean garage environment, she slipped her glasses on and averted her gaze.
Her heart, the heart she had lectured sternly to be strong and unaffected, began to rabbit disobediently in her chest.
“Are you ready, Miss Henderson?” He was addressing her with cool civility and it chilled the blood in her veins.
“Yes, sir,” she responded in kind, forcing her legs to carry her towards the car. He didn’t sit in the front passenger seat as he always had. Instead, he waited for her beside the car.
When she was close enough, he opened the door for her.
She didn’t meet his eyes, nor did she acknowledge the gesture. She settled herself in the seat and busied herself with buckling the seatbelt. She did anything she could to avoid having to interact with him.
On the drive to the clinic, she pulled her phone from her bag and emailed her sisters. She was prevented from relaying any of the important changes that were happening in her life, but she emailed them with snippets of what was happening in Vegas, and she read their replies with a sweet sense of normality. They were out there, and they loved her. Just the way she was.
Her head was bent, and she was oblivious to the way Zamir stared at her in his mirror. She didn’t realise that he barely took his eyes from her face, the entire time they drove. How he wished she would take her sunglasses off so that he could see her properly.
When they pulled up outside the clinic, he knew he could wait no longer. He stepped out of the car and moved to her door. Olivia had just undone her seatbelt and she startled to look up and see him waiting.
“We must speak.”
She pressed her lips together. Though Marook and the driver were out of the car, and probably couldn’t hear them, she still felt embarrassment tingle through her.
“I don’t want to talk,” she said stubbornly, waiting for him to move so that she could step out of the car.
“I command you.”
She laughed, for it was so absurdly ridiculous. “I am not your subject, your highness, and this is not Dashan.”
He tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Fine. I beg you then.” The words were husky in his mouth, as though they pained him to say. “We must speak.”
Her expression softened. She lifted her glasses on to her head then, so that he could see the sincerity in her gaze. “I don’t think any good will come from that.” She swung her legs around. “Excuse me.”
He stepped back automatically, so that she could move down from the car.
“Tonight,” he said, his word a caress against her cheek.
“No.” She locked her gaze to his, hoping he would understand her sincerity. “No more night time visits.”
“It is part of your job to do as I say.”
“Then I will quit,” she said seriously. “I chose not to walk away, because I hate the idea of failing at anything.” He studied the defiant tilt of her chin with a grudging respect. “But if you don’t respect my boundaries, I will walk away from you and this job. I will do it in a heartbeat.”
Something inside of him, an ancient pain, was being doused with fresh fuel. He didn’t want her to leave. He didn’t want her to walk away. “I do not want you to quit. I only want to speak to you.”
“To what end?” She pushed.
“I was surprised last night.”
“Yes, you were. And you spoke with raw honesty. Don’t aim to undo that. It is better for me that I know how you truly feel. Not just about me, but women in general.” Her eyes were sparking with emotion. “You have an appointment.” She nodded towards the building. “And I have an email to finish.” She flashed a completely false smile at him and stalked away, her back straight.
He watched her until she rounded a corner, and then he made a soft noise of frustration. If she thought he would leave it like that, she was mistaken. But this was not the time.
Zamir went through the clinic’s protocol of signing in and being escorted to Ra’if’s ward.
But again, as with previous visits, when he saw his brother, only part of his mind was on Ra’if’s condition.
“You look better,” he said distractedly, as he settled himself into the plastic and fabric chair to one side of the bed.
Ra’if grimaced. “Great.”
Zamir couldn’t help but laugh. “You are still a long way from your best, but these are fading.” He reached out and tapped the skin lesions, a tell-tale sign of heroin abuse that would probably leave scars for a lifetime.
“Yes,” Ra’if agreed. “I must be cured then.”
“Ra’if,” he lifted his ankle over one knee. “You must be patient.”
“I am the patient,” Ra’if corrected in frustration.
“The doctor is pleased with your progress.”
“That fool would be pleased with anything. He’s the one on drugs.”
The grumble brought a smile to Zamir’s face.
“Tell me of the outside world. What is happening?”
Immediately, Zamir thought of Olivia. Her face flashed into his mind as though she were the sun and the moon. “Vegas,” he shrugged with disapproval. “Loud. Busy. Brash. Not my scene.”
“No,” Ra’if pulled a face. “But I would love it.”
Zamir didn’t say what he was thinking; that he wouldn’t let Ra’if loose in Vegas for all the money of their kingdom.
“Father sends his wishes,” Zamir said as an afterthought.
“Does he? That’s surprising.”
Zamir nodded. The enmity between his father and brother was undeniable.
“He cares for you. He hates that you are here.”
“Yes, I’m the never ending disappointment.”
Zamir breathed out through his nose, so that his nostrils flared. “You are throwing yourself the pity party.”
“The pity party?” Ra’if rolled his eyes. “A pity party. And yes. I am.”
Zamir shook his head. “You must be positive.”
“Come on, Zami. Don’t lecture me. My life is shit enough without that.”
Zamir couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, okay.”
“You’re the perfect one. You’re the one who never stuffs up. What the hell would you know about what I’m going through?”
Zamir settled back in the chair. “Actually, considerably more than you might think.” He shunned the idea of confiding in Ra’if. Instead, he reached for the Monopoly board. “Shall we?”
* * *
That night, when Olivia’s phone rang, she ignored it again. She couldn’t go to his room and pretend that it hadn’t happened. She couldn’t go and drink tea with him and chatter about nothing in particular, and everything that mattered to her, as if he hadn’t broken her heart.
And he had broken her heart. She saw that now.
He had made her fall in love with him, and then he’d thrown it back in her face.
She flipped over in bed and stared at the mirrored wall of her wardrobe.
Was she crazy to stay?
Not to call Johnny and beg for a replacement to be sent?
Probably.
But a macabre determination to see it through haunted her decision-making.
And so she switched her phone off and shut her eyes, and waited to see what the morning would bring.
CHAPTER SIX
There had to be some mistake. Surely the orders she’d just received couldn’t be right. Her eyes lifted and scanned the email once more.
His royal highness has asked that a suitable venue be selected for dinner of a personal nature. His guest values her privacy and the venue should reflect that. Spare no expense in securing the most impressive location in the city. Do not use his highness’s title when making the reservation.
Her brain hurt.
She sat down on the end of her bed. Another week had passed since they’d slept together, and Zamir appeared to have given up on her. He no longer called overnight, and beyond accompanying him on the visits to the clinic, he asked for nothing else of her.
Her spare time was becoming overwhelming.
She was miserable, and she had far too much freedom to analyse it, and feel it.
But this?
It was too much.
It was cruel, and she wouldn’t have said Zamir was cruel.
She stared at the email with a growing sense of despair.
He was moving on. And why shouldn’t he?
He’d made it obvious he wanted to be distracted from the circumstances he found himself in. Did she really believe he wouldn’t seek comfort in another woman’s arms?
It was easy enough for Olivia to organise the date. She didn’t need to drop Zamir’s name. Her name carried enough sway. Every venue in Vegas knew she worked for Johnny, and that she represented top-tier A-Listers. If Olivia Henderson called, restaurants tripped all over themselves to meet her needs.
She chose a restaurant that was a personal favourite of hers. It was at the top of one of the premiere hotels, and it rotated gently, providing views of the glittering lights and the desert hills in the distance. The food was exceptional, and the ambience excellent. There were private tables that catered for more romantic liaisons. It had been hugely popular with previous clients.
Olivia couldn’t think about the fact she was organising a date for the man she loved. It was a matter of sanity and survival. If she imagined Zamir sitting in that stunning restaurant with another woman, she knew she’d combust.
She spoke to the maître ‘de and organised the best bottle of champagne, and a selection of amuse bouche to be presented upon arrival, and she pretended she was talking about someone other than Zamir.
But when everything was organised, she began to slowly pull her clothes out of the wardrobe. She folded them neatly into her suitcase, and then zipped it up. If the security agents in the hallway thought anything of her departure, they didn’t show it.
Olivia rode the elevator with a growing sense of despondency.
The foyer of the prestigious hotel was busy.
She weaved through the guests with complete numbness. Taxis were queued in the driveway; she placed her bag into the boot of the first one, and settled back against the upholstery. Her voice shook as she gave her home address. Only once the bright lights and frenetic pace of the strip was behind her did Olivia pull her phone from her pocket.
The Sheikh's Convenient Mistress: What he needed from her went well beyond the call of duty... (The Henderson Sister Series Book 2) Page 6
