by Ella Brooke
Had she? Annabel remembered Adil asking that during the hectic week she was getting ready to move. She had thought it a little strange at the time, because he had offered no explanation, but she had dismissed it quickly as she dove back into the preparations.
"It is," Marissa said, her voice slightly wobbly, and then with a soft cry, she threw her arms around Adil's waist, burying her face in his belly."
"Thank you, thank you, I love it!" she said, and Annabel could see the shock in Adil's face as well as he stared down at the little girl's exuberance. After a moment, though, he softened and hugged her gently in return.
"I am glad you like it," he said, and Annabel could sense a real warmth there, something caring that she wasn't sure he had experienced before. "Now, how do you feel about exploring this room for a bit? It's small, and you can spend all the time in it you like before you venture into the rest of the house. The bathroom is right across the hallway, and if you need your mother and I, you can just shout for us. We won't be far."
Marissa glanced at Annabel, who nodded her head. She was relieved that her daughter had found a safe space to start with.
"All right, I'm going to explore," she said, and she walked straight towards the books.
Annabel waited until they were back in the living room before she turned to Adil.
"Thank you," she said fervently. "Thank you so much. I was wondering if she would have a real bedroom here, and I was prepared to make a space for her... but having something waiting for her, something that was made just for her is so much better."
Impulsively, she hugged him, and he laughed a little, hugging her in return. It was strange in a way. She could feel the heat that always ran between them, but now it was tempered with something that was a great deal more tender.
"I had wondered," he said. "When I was young, my parents traveled a great deal, and I went with them. I was always a little more of a handful when I was staying in a guest room of some sort. I used to travel with my favorite chest of toys, and that helped, but I was always happiest in a room that could be my own."
"Kids like the familiar. They want to know about changes well in advance of them happening, and it always goes a lot better if their parents can make sure that they have something to hang on to... but of course you must know this," she said, realizing that she had been lecturing a little.
"Not at all," Adil said cheerfully. "I am glad that one of us has some experience. But let me show you at least some of the hacienda to you."
She realized why he said 'some' of the hacienda. The place was enormous and sprawling, a relic of the Spanish occupation of some five hundred years ago, Adil explained. The place had been burned down more than once, and his family had taken it over almost a century ago. They had rebuilt it, giving it every modern convenience while retaining the elegant structure, and the result was a much beloved manor house.
"My mother used to call it the Ruby," Adil said with a shrug. "I am never sure why, but it does gleam."
"It does," Annabel said. "I can barely believe that Marissa and I will be living here."
"It is a good choice for many reasons," Adil said. "There is a popular resort town on the other side of the oasis. It is very exclusive, and there is an excellent hospital there if necessary. Though there is security that prevents anyone from the resort from coming here, we will have access to anything we want from beyond. The household staff and the cook come from the resort town."
Annabel finally had the opportunity to broach a subject that had been on her mind for a while.
"Are you going to be staying here with us?" she asked. "I mean, I know you are going to be here to... um... to be with me, but I wasn't sure if you were going to be with us the rest of the time."
She saw a number of emotions flicker across his face, none of them easy to read, and then he simply looked at her.
"Do you want me to?" he asked.
Annabel swallowed hard. She didn't want to leave herself vulnerable to this man who already held so many cards in his hand. She didn't want to be a bother to him when he had already been so generous, and she certainly didn't want to be seen as a clingy and dependent nag. However, he had asked her a question, and she wanted to be honest more than anything else.
"I hope you will," she said, dropping her eyes. "That is... I feel as if I would enjoy it more if you were here, and that Marissa would as well."
She jumped a little when she felt his finger touch the point of her chin, making her look up.
"Then I will stay as much as I can," he said, and there was a slight smile on his lips. "I have business that will call me back to Sakhi, but we are going into a slow season for me. Less demands on my time, less things that cannot be handled with a phone call or a video call. I want to be here with you and with Marissa.
"After all," he continued, "the more chances we give our project, the better, yes?"
He referred to the reason why they were here in the most oblique of ways, but it made Annabel's head jerk back and her hands clench into fists. She could feel her nerves rattle, and she had never been more grateful than she was in that moment to hear Marissa call for her.
"Coming, pumpkin," she called back, and she hurried away.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a dark frown cross Adil's face, but it was too late to do anything about that.
She thought ahead to the night, and she pushed it out of her mind. However, Annabel knew that that was only going to work for a short time, and with every moment that passed, that time was getting shorter...
***
Marissa had enjoyed the dinner of delicious tapas that the cook had left for them, nibbling a little bit of everything and sorting what she loved from what made her made a face. After dinner, they had done a little more exploring, both inside the hacienda and out.
Then in the way of small children everywhere, she had gone from happy and chattering one moment to nearly asleep on her feet the next. Exercising her parental judgment, Annabel had decided that it would not harm anything if Marissa skipped her bath and brushing her teeth one night, and shepherded her daughter to bed. She was aware of Adil's eyes on her back as she got her daughter ready, and then she felt a warm pang as Marissa asked for a goodnight kiss from him as well.
When they turned on the small star-shaped nightlight in Marissa's bedroom and shut the door, Annabel could feel her heart beating like a jackrabbit's in her chest. She knew that if she spoke, it would be with a waver in her tone, but she had to do it anyway.
You knew that there was a price to pay for all of this, she told herself, but he interrupted her thoughts.
"You look frazzled yourself," he said, his face serious and unreadable. "Why don't you take a shower and get ready for bed? I am going to go for a walk just to get used to the property again."
"But it's dark," she protested, and he smiled a little.
"I have been taking visits to Ruby since I was a little boy. I am used to it. Go. Relax a little. It looks like you need it."
"Which... which bedroom is mine? Where would you like me to sleep?" she asked.
Earlier, Adil had shown Marissa where he slept. The master bedroom was enormous and beautiful, decorated in warm wood and emerald silk, and equipped with an utterly enormous bed at the center of it. There were also a number of other bedrooms in the hacienda as well.
Adil paused, and Annabel knew that there were layers and layers to that question, so many things that it would be impossible to answer them concisely.
"Why, in my bedroom of course," he said, and there was a thread of steel there. She swallowed hard, unsure of how to respond to that, but then he was walking away from her, his back straight.
***
I am a fool, Adil thought, stepping out in the warm night air. It was still comfortable enough from the day, but as night fell and the sand started giving up its heat, the temperatures would drop dramatically. He walked into the hacienda's courtyard, walking the paths he hadn't walked since he was a young man. He had come here a f
ew times since his parents' deaths, but not often.
When he and Annabel talked of children, when they talked about food, hell, when they talked about most things, it was fine. Adil could feel a warmth from her that he had not felt from most people in his life, and he could bask in the presence of a warm, intelligent and willing woman.
Apparently, sex was not something they could speak about.
Whenever the specter of their bed came up, her extraordinary blue eyes went wide, and she looked ever so slightly like a rabbit that was a truck's path.
Adil growled, and he just barely stopped himself from punching a marble pillar.
She knew what our bargain was when she made it, he thought viciously. She has come all this way, she has taken my money, and she has agreed. She cannot back out now.
Could he take her when she was disgusted with him, however? Could he work himself over her when she was trembling, her eyes wide with distaste, or worse yet, when she was turned away from him and imagining someone else?
He cursed himself for a fool as his body tensed at the thought of her. That was the real problem. It seemed that no matter what, he desired her. The deal might have been a motivating factor, and he needed an heir, but at the bottom of this was a need that could not be quenched elsewhere. She was what he wanted, and nothing and no one else could do.
He walked until the purple night sky had dimmed entirely to black and the first stars were lit like torches in the sky. At the end of it, he was slightly sore, and he had no more answers than he had when he began. Adil wanted what he wanted, and he had no idea how to wipe that look of distress from Annabel's eyes.
The house was silent when he entered and locked it behind him. When he paused to listen, he could hear no sound from anywhere. He guessed that Marissa was deep asleep, and as long as he had been gone, perhaps Annabel was too.
Perhaps it is for the best, he thought, walking to his room and tugging his tie loose. Perhaps what we need is time, even if I think this desire between us will kill us both.
Adil was startled when he he opened the door and found the lights dimmed. He could smell sandalwood in the air, and when he glanced at the bed, a fog of heat fell over his vision.
Resting on the bed was Annabel, dressed only in a cafe au lait colored negligee, her head crowned with braids and an intent expression on her face.
Chapter Ten
When Adil had turned away from her, Annabel had felt as if her heart had dropped straight to the floor. She almost called after him to stop him, but just then, she wasn't sure that she deserved to. Instead, she had walked to one of the bathrooms close by. The hacienda had several, and she wasn't quite sure she was brave enough to use the one that was attached to Adil's room.
She had intended to take just a quick shower, but the moment Annabel stepped under the brisk hot spray, she felt a deep languor settle in her body. The hot water calmed her and allowed her to think clearly for the first time in what felt like ages.
I am not a coward.
The words came from nowhere, and she was so startled she dropped the loofah that she had found.
She wasn't, was she? All her life, she had been alone, and she had faced it all down. She had come to New York on her own, she had gotten pregnant and had her daughter on her own, she had raised Marissa and taken care of her and done what she had to do.
Adil does not scare me, and she realized he didn't. She was afraid of looking foolish. She was afraid of doing badly. However, at the end of it, she could not be afraid of a man who sat and drew birds with her daughter.
I wouldn't have agreed to this with a man who was terrible, and he is not.
Even as she thought the words, the fear inside her pulled back. It was still there. She did not know what was coming next, at all. However, the fear was revealed to be far smaller than she thought it was.
She had made a bargain, but it was more than that. When the fear pulled back, there was curiosity beneath it, and under all of that, the power that pulled her to Adil in a way that felt like gravity. She fell towards him like a thrown stone fell towards the earth, and now that she acknowledged it, she could feel it even more strongly.
When she got out of the shower, she listened intently. She could not hear him moving around the house, and that meant that Annabel likely still had some time. The bathroom she was in felt feminine, with soft touches in sage and violet, and when she opened one of the cabinet doors, she was rewarded with a variety of lotions and skin care products. She selected a lotion that smelled strongly of sandalwood, and she slathered it all over her skin. It was wonderfully creamy, and it left her already soft skin even softer.
For a moment, Annabel wondered what to do with her hair, but after drying it, all she could think of was to braid it up again and pile it on top of her head. She had heard from more than one disapproving man that it was old-fashioned, and that was the last thing that she wanted to convey tonight.
Her bags had been left in a bedroom next to Adil's, and now Annabel went digging inside it. She had packed just the essentials from the clothes that Adil had provided. He had told her that there would be more to come when she and Marissa got to Sakhi, but it wasn't really clothing that she needed just now.
She had bought the negligee on one of her last days in New York. It was a spendy purchase, one that cost far more than she would ever have wanted to spend in her life, but it had felt like an urge she couldn't release. There was a tangle of emotions there, desire and the urge to show off and the powerful need to please and over it all that insistent desire.
She must have been as red as a tomato when she went into the lingerie store to make her purchase, and when she had been confronted with all the choices in red, black, emerald and gold, she had nearly bolted right out. Then Annabel had found this negligee, and it stopped her.
It was made of pure slippery silk, and the color made her smile. It made her think of coffee and milk, mixed together on a cold morning to provide a nourishing treat. When she had tried it on, it fit just right, making her skin look like ivory. It clung in all the right places, showing off her round breasts and her lush hips, and she had bought it without a question.
Come on, you bought it just for this purpose, just for this night, she told herself. Don't chicken out now.
Easier said than done, but she took a deep breath and put it on. Somehow, wearing that piece of lingerie, she felt more naked than if she had just been bare. Before she could think better of her plan, she made her way to Adil's bedroom, closing the door after her.
She wondered for a moment how he should find her, and then with a warm flutter deep in her belly, she realized that there was just one choice.
The silk cover on the bed was deliciously cool against her skin, and she couldn't resist stretching out on it. The motion only reminded her how short the negligee was, however, and she felt it ride up over her hips.
She was just tugging it down again when the door opened and Adil appeared.
He was in the motion of tugging his tie loose, but then as his eyes fell on her and he froze. In the dim light of the room, his eyes were utterly black, and Annabel frantically searched his face for any kind of reaction.
In that moment, all of her confidence collapsed, and she scrambled up into a sitting position.
"Is... is this dumb?" she asked, her voice absurdly squeaky. "I'm sorry, this is ridiculous, isn't it, I can... I can go change..."
In a flash, Adil closed the door behind him, locking it with a click.
"Stop."
His voice was deep and there was a thickness to it she had only heard once or twice. He pulled his tie off the rest of the way as he stalked towards the bed, and she realized that his eyes were raking over her body with obvious need.
"Don't move, and stop telling me you're sorry," he growled. "Not when you've given me something so lovely."
"You... you mean me?"
"Yes," he said with a dark chuckle, "I do mean you."
Annabel found herself blushing to the roots o
f her hair. He thought she was lovely. Her first instinct was to push it away. Of course he couldn't be serious. Of course he couldn't really think that she was lovely. He had been with starlets and models, and she was just a mother from the US, as plain as could be.
She yelped a little when he tapped her nose with a finger. It didn't hurt, but it did startle her into looking at him.
"I think that you are thinking too much," he murmured, a slight smile on his face. "I think that you need to stop that."
"I can't help it at all," she said, a little flailing. "I just keep thinking about... about what we are doing, and I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, if I'm making a fool of myself or if I am irritating you..."
"Well, the first thing I can tell you is that you are not making a fool of yourself at all, and that I am not irritated."
She might have protested, but then he leaned in and kissed her. The moment his lips touched hers, she could feel a rush of hot sensation flow through her. It wasn't the burning conflagration it could be just yet, but she knew that it would rise up into it in less time than not.
When he pulled away, her eyes fluttered open, and Annabel saw a slumberous look of pleasure on Adil's face.
"Well, then," he purred. "That seems to work very well."
"Work? Works for what?"
"For calming you. For pleasing you. Both of those are things that I certainly want to do. Perhaps I can find others."
She bit her lip. She couldn't help but wonder if he was being kind to her, if he was forgoing his need and her duty simply to calm a woman who had no reason for being upset. A part of her wanted to simply dive into what they were meant to be doing (as a matter of fact, a part of her longed to do so), but another part of her, she realized, was frankly terrified.
While Annabel was deliberating, Adil matter-of-factually started to strip. She was startled when he didn't stop with his tie, but instead stripped off his shirt and started to undo his trousers. She stopped herself from yelping again, but she couldn't take her eyes away from his body and from the bronze skin that was being revealed.
