by Tara Pammi
It looked as if a storm had blown through the luxury suite in just a couple of hours.
“How did you hurt your knee? The rest of you—” his gaze swept over her with a thoroughness that made her insides melt “—looks fine.”
“I slipped on the steps to the roof and slid down a couple of them. The side of the staircase where I banged my knee was rough.” Guilt she didn’t want to admit resonated in her tone. “I’m not used to heels.”
His mouth hardened. “Were you in such a hurry to get away with your lover, then? Did I not offer enough of an...inducement for you to stay?” The taunt came before he left the room.
How could he sound so calm when it was clear he was ragingly furious? So cold, even? Her own emotions felt as if they were walking a tightrope to what, she had no idea. Amalia had never felt this turmoil, this feeling of standing at a fork not knowing which way her life was going.
When Massi had asked her to meet him on the roof, she’d given the slip to Zayn’s security team. An overwhelming sense of guilt had pervaded her all the while.
As if she was really cheating on the man she was supposed to wed. As if speaking to a man who’d been her friend and confidant for so many years was turning her back on Zayn. The guilt had been a shock, driving the realization that she was far too involved in the charade.
Far too involved with Zayn...
So, instead of doing the sensible thing and informing his team, she had let that shock propel her into leaving with Massi. Even knowing that soon Zayn would note her missing and start looking for her.
Suddenly, standing in the middle of the banquet hall and catching Zayn’s glance across the room, Amalia had felt as if she was losing herself, being swept along by a current that was changing her far too fast.
All she’d wanted was a short escape from the complex charade she was playing, a little touch with the reality of her life outside of being Zayn’s fiancée. A desperate need to fight her own feelings.
A quick chat had turned into two hours of stubborn argument with Massi. An argument within herself for the loyalty she felt for Zayn.
It had been irresponsible, juvenile, even reckless, knowing how Zayn was going to react. It was the mixture of rage and fear that she had seen in Zayn’s eyes that had brought something else from years ago to her mind.
Something similar that her mother had done, driving her father insane with worry. How she had forgotten that night, Amalia had no idea.
Any anger she had felt over his savage words had died an instantaneous death as shame filled her over her own behavior. Whatever her disagreement with him, she had no cause to have acted like a reckless wild child.
He had worried about her safety, she had realized belatedly, the white cast of his ferocious features making her guilty all over again.
Now she was sure she had made both men doubt her sanity.
She had alienated Massi, who had always been kind and fair to her, burned her bridges with the man who had helped her at the hardest time of her life. All for a man who had no use for her in his life...
God, she didn’t like that she had lost all the credibility she had built up with him over the last month. Why his opinion mattered so much, she couldn’t even pin that down in the chaos of her thoughts.
“Amalia, you look pale. Did you hit your head, too?”
It was her sense of self that felt bruised and battered, but she couldn’t tell him that. She felt upside down, inside out, weak. “No.”
The intensity of his gaze touched her, the warmth of his body a tantalizing caress. Amalia couldn’t meet his gaze just yet. For some reason all her bluster and confidence seemed to have left her, leaving her shaking.
“That question didn’t even get your standard outraged response. Either I’m losing my touch or something is really wrong with you.”
The dry, sarcastic tone of his words didn’t quite hide the anger beneath. “My head is fine. I just... I don’t like the way you confronted Massi. Not his fault that I didn’t tell the team where I was going.”
“No, I recognize your little rebellion. But that confrontation was bound to happen the minute he decided to show up here and play knight to you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Men have their own ways of communicating, especially over a woman they both want a claim on.”
“That’s ridicu...” Her heart slammed so hard against her rib cage that she was dizzy. “Massi does not want a claim on me any more than you do,” she said, her voice catching in her throat dangerously.
His jaw went rigid, his expression exasperated fury. Amalia had never felt more out of her depth than at the moment. No way to understand what it was that she felt. “Then you’re truly naive in the ways of men.”
Now what the hell did he mean by that? Why couldn’t he just come out and say what he wanted of her?
She stretched her entire leg, and her knee stung again. With a sigh, she looked down and saw blood. For some reason her throat closed up and she felt like a leaf, ready to blow away at a small breeze. Or crunched beneath an arrogant, unfeeling man’s foot.
Hand on her abdomen, she leaned against the wall, tried to make sense of the morass of feelings piling upon her.
It had been so easy, far too natural, to convince Massi that she had fallen in love with Zayn Al-Ghamdi. As the words had poured out of her mouth, conviction had set in. There was no act that she had put on for her friend’s sake, no lie that she had spouted because she didn’t want to betray Zayn.
She hadn’t thought of Aslam or Mirah or anything else.
Only the glitter in Zayn’s eyes when he had provoked her, the charming smile that softened his mouth when they argued, the touch of his hand at the base of her spine that made her want to melt into him...
She had fallen in love with Sheikh Zayn Al-Ghamdi of Khaleej. If her mother’s love for her father had been a mistake, Amalia’s was a blunder of epic proportions.
They had spent two weeks under the same roof, working and talking and arguing and yet, today, the intimacy of their shared suite seemed to scrape her raw.
“There’s a first-aid box in my bathroom,” she said, not meeting his gaze. She wanted to escape his dark glare and examine her newfound feelings in the privacy of her bedroom. “I’ll take care of it. Good night, Zayn.”
“Sit down on that chaise.” He ordered her around as if she were three years old.
Finally, it sparked her temper again. “I’m not a child.”
“Then stop cowering like one. I’ve never hit a woman before, however furious she might make me. No, that’s not true. I’ve never met a woman who made me this furious and worried, and I’ve known a few women in my life.”
The last thing she wanted was to hear about the women in his life.
She pushed off from the wall, intending to reach her room come what may. “I said I’ll take care of—”
In one sweeping movement, Zayn picked her up.
Amalia gasped.
His long fingers pressed into her rib cage, the knuckles grazing the underside of her breast and she lost all the will to fight in one swooping breath. His shoulders were like a wall of steel under her arm, his mouth unyielding and harsh, like the desert land of his ancestors.
Not his, their, ancestors. For the first time in her life, Amalia wanted to own her heritage, to belong to the same world that had made this man.
Of all the men in the world, how had she fallen for this hard, aloof man? A man who had ruthlessly decided that he would naturally take a mistress after he had sons. A man who decided that he could not open himself even to his wife.
Much as she would’ve preferred it otherwise, she had fallen in love with the sheikh, and Amalia knew she couldn’t have just the man, Zayn.
Her fingers tightened around his nape; she hid her face in h
is chest. The scent of him filled her nostrils, the warmth of the man twisting the longing in her chest tighter.
The depth of her need frightened her.
He deposited her with a surprising gentleness that belied the dark scowl on his face, on the chaise longue. “If you value your independence, Amalia, you will not use that tart tongue on me today.”
“Or what, you’ll lock me up and ship me back to Khaleej like a disgrace? Build that jail cell for me next to Aslam’s?”
Hands on his lean hips, he towered over her. Since he’d marched onto the roof, Amalia looked at him properly for the first time. Deep grooves settled on the sides of his mouth, and her heart ached.
All six foot four inches of muscle and aggression and forceful will towered over her, his battle to keep his temper under control clear in his tight mouth. And instead of being angry or afraid, her heart pumped faster, her blood sang.
Passion, she wanted his passion, too...
Just then, he hadn’t sounded in control. She’d never seen him in such a dangerous mood. Was he still worried about her because he counted himself responsible for her? Or was that emotion in his tone more personal?
Before she could get her muddled thoughts under control, he returned with the first-aid box. Her breath knocked into her throat when he knelt at her feet and pulled her leg onto his muscled thigh. His black trousers pulled up, delineating the hard strength of his thighs.
She jerked at the clench of his muscle under her foot, at the sensations pouring through her at that simple contact. Hurriedly, she shuffled her toes away from reaching up toward his groin. “Zayn, I can manage this.”
Thick black hair gleamed, her fingers tingling to run through it. To learn every inch of his hard body, to share an intimacy she’d never wanted before. “For both our sakes, I suggest you put away that headstrong, stubborn independence of yours for the night, Amalia. You will not find me manageable like the other men you—”
“Suggest? You never suggest. You command, order...you... And just because Massi respects my opinion does not mean he’s less of a man than you are, you arrogant ass.”
He looked up then, a ferocious blaze in his golden-brown eyes. But instead of calling her mouth tart, or her attitude offensive, he said, “I am what I have to be, Amalia. I will never be a sensitive or a tender man, neither will I act civilized when the woman I want sneaks away to be in another man’s arms.”
And just like that, he stole away the ground from under her. And the breath from her lungs. And the last of her will from her.
With gentle fingers that belied his explosive mood, he pulled the offending four-inch heel off her foot. “Why do you wear them if you’re not used to them? You’re tall enough for me without heels anyway.”
“Not everything I do or wear is to make myself perfect for you,” she threw at him, fighting the little burst of pleasure in her chest.
When his fingers lifted the hem of her dress higher above her knees, Amalia froze. “What are you doing? Don’t...lift my dress like that.”
The broad line of his shoulders tensed. “Move forward and roll your pantyhose down slowly. The blood’s already crusted and it’s going to sting.”
She reached for the hem of her dress and then looked at Zayn. Her breath came hard and shallow, coated with the scent of him. “Turn around.”
The very devil lurked in his eyes. “I have seen women’s legs and more before.”
“You have not seen mine.” No man had seen hers.
His head cocked, the sinful curve of his mouth a dare. “I have noticed that they go on and on and have had dreams about them. Especially how they would look and feel wrapped around my hips while I—”
Amalia rocked forward, her entire body shuddering with heat. “Please... Zayn.”
Long fingers reached up to her cheek and stroked. “You’re really that shy.” He stated it with the confidence of a man who had known her for years. “I have not met a beautiful woman who did not know her worth or who didn’t take complete advantage of her looks.”
“I was taught the opposite. My mother pleaded with me relentlessly not to make much of my beauty, to make sure I found a man who didn’t think of owning me as much as he loved me... That in her case, it had turned out to be a curse that attracted the wrong kind of man. She...”
He tugged her hand into his. “Amalia, you know that—”
“I know,” she whispered back. “She loved me, Zayn, and she wanted me to be happy. But yes, I realize now that she probably lost all objectivity when it came to men and matters of love. But you see, I started working as soon as possible. I neither had the time nor the energy for a social life, and Massi and my mom ended up being the total of my world.”
A tightness descended on his face, a dark glitter in his eyes. He looked dangerous, almost savage. “I do not want to talk about Massi anymore.” His thumb traced the plump vein on her wrist. “At some point you have to move out of her shadow and begin living, Amalia.”
He stood up and went to the small kitchenette the suite had while she wiggled her hands under her dress and started pulling the sheer material down.
Just as he had predicted, the material clung to her cut when it came to her knees. A small gasp fell from her mouth. Again, Zayn appeared at her knees, put one large hand on her thigh and tugged with the other hand hard.
The material came away with a tearing sound and Amalia felt the prickle of tears. She bent her head while Zayn pulled the tights all the way down. Then with gentle fingers, he cleaned the cut, dabbed antiseptic cream on.
His arrogant head bent over her in concern, a rush of emotions surged through Amalia. The gash had been pretty small in the scheme of things but it had been so long since someone had looked after her with such thoroughness. Not since she had gone to live with her mother.
It was as if that small act of tenderness had unlocked a memory she had completely blocked out.
Her father had always been protective of her, even as he’d encouraged her to be more playful and Aslam, who was the opposite to her in temperament, to employ more caution.
Overnight, Amalia had become the stable one, the parent in the relationship. She’d buried the hurt over how easily her father had abandoned her; the ache she felt to be with Aslam again erected a shell around herself so that she could move forward.
Had she stopped living that day, too?
No, she’d done that later, after seeing her mother grieve day after day, pine over her father year after year. Hardened herself so much that she’d refused to even talk to her father when Aslam nudged her. She’d done nothing that could hurt her like that, taken no chances.
But something inside her roared, If not now, when? When would she live? Was she willing to give up this time with Zayn, knowing that she might never have another such chance?
At that moment Amalia couldn’t care less if he was right for her or not, or that he was exactly the kind of man she’d sworn she’d never fall for...or that when these few months were over, and he had no use for this charade or her, he would simply remove her from his life...or the worst, that he would just go back to his damn Ms. Young and those candidates for his brides...no future with him.
All she wanted was to feel his touch, to feel like the woman she was supposed to be, to live her life away from the shadow of her mother’s own love story.
When he tried to rise, she stopped him with her hands on his shoulders. Pulling in a much-needed breath, she stole her fingers under the collar of his shirt, searching for skin.
The tendons in his neck stuck out.
His skin was like rough silk, so warm that it sent a pulse of heat straight to the core of her. How would it feel if he was naked on top of her against her own bare skin, all that fierce power and passion narrowed down to her. A pulse throbbed between her thighs, bringing fresh heat to her cheeks.
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br /> The line of his shoulders was hard, tense. He said, “I see that seeing Massi has made you emotional and perhaps nostalgic, but if you provoke me tonight, I—”
Amalia leaned forward until her face was bent over his. Fingers trembling, she pushed a lock of hair that fell forward onto his forehead. Traced the strong, proud planes of his face. The sharp hiss of his breath was the only sound. “Among those women Ms. Young sent you that day, did you pick one?”
Warning glittered in his dark eyes. “That’s the last thing I want to talk about right now.”
Her fingers crept under his collar again, roaming and searching, her body articulating her need before her mind could. “No, I want to know.” She tried to speak past the closing of her throat. “Is there a candidate in your mind, one you decided will suit you perfectly once you dispose of me and my...situation.”
“No,” he said, his fingers pushing through his hair in a restless gesture she’d never seen in him. Their fingers tangled and laced, his grip fierce. “Even for the schedule I have, I cannot just dump you and go to the next woman on the list. Right now all I care about is making sure you... Mirah weds Farid. After that...” His mouth twitched as if they were co-conspirators. “Your blackmail scheme bought me a little time. I am sure even my staunchest opponent in the cabinet and conservatives in Sintar would not expect that I marry soon after one engagement is broken.”
Her breath left her in a soft exhale. As long as he hadn’t given a woman a role in his life, he was hers.
And she would make most of this time with the man she loved, this opportunity at hand. She would not waste her life like her mom had done.
Anticipation and excitement twined together inside her, making her voice husky, uneven. “Zayn, will you make love to me?”
CHAPTER NINE
WILL YOU MAKE love to me?
Even as he stood under the cold shower jets, Zayn couldn’t get those words out of his mind, nor get his X-rated thoughts and body to cool off.
