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The black-and-white tiles swam in front of her eyes. She slid into the chair in a boneless heap, tucked her head down between her knees and forced herself to breathe.
The fine hairs on her neck prickled, the air coated with an exotic scent that her traitorous body craved all too easily. Standing over her, his presence was a dark shadow stealing every bit of warmth from her.
His long fingers landed on her nape and her skin zinged. “Lauren?”
The concern edging into those words tugged at her, but she resisted its dangerous quality. Because it was reluctant at best. “Don’t pretend you care.”
Shock flared in his gaze. At least, that’s what her foolish mind told her. But when she looked back at him, it was gone. Before she could move, he trapped her behind the table, his arms on either side of her head. “Did you know already?”
“Know what?” Her answer croaked out of her, every cell in her pulsing with awareness at his proximity.
Her gaze fell on the thin scar that stretched from the corner of his mouth to his ear, on the left side. The memory of tracing the scar with her tongue, the taste of his skin, the powerful shudder that had gone through him, it all came back to her in a heated rush.
“Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” he said, his tone dark and gravelly.
More than impatience colored his tone. She pulled her gaze upward, her stomach doing a funny flip. His nostrils flared. The same memory danced in his eyes, making the irises a darkly burnished gold.
With a curse that reverberated around them, he clamped his jaw, until the memory and the gold fire was purged from those eyes.
The ruthlessness of his will was a slap.
She was tired, hungry, and her composure was hanging by a very fine thread. All she wanted to do was crawl into her bed and never look at the world again.
“What did I know, Zafir?”
“Did you know who I was? Is that why you slapped me and had your friend record the whole thing?”
Her sluggish brain took several seconds to react. When it did, it destroyed the barrage of unwanted memories and their effect on her. “What the hell does that mean?”
He bent down toward her, swallowing her personal space. Until their noses were almost touching and his breath fanned over her heated skin. “Your journalist friend David had a tiny camcorder and shot the whole...incident.”
“So? Which part of the word journalist confuses you?” she said, confusion swirling within her. “He was running that thing all day...”
“Did he know what you were about to do? Did you plan it?”
His voice was no more than a raspy whisper yet each word dripped with menace.
Shredded everything she’d ever felt for him. “Is that how much you know me?”
* * *
Zafir ruthlessly tuned out the hurt resonating in Lauren’s words.
The feel of her soft, warm flesh under his fingers was already disturbing his equilibrium.
His muscles tightened, his blood became sluggish and the spiraling desire to kiss her mouth was a relentless hum in his veins.
He closed his eyes, and let the pictures of Behraat from six weeks ago swim in front of his eyes...the people who had died in the riots, the destruction Tariq had wrought on it. The mindless carnage instantly took the edge off his physical hunger.
A sense of balance returned to him, a cruel but efficient tether to control his body. He swept his gaze over her, letting the harsh reality of his life creep into his words. “Do we really know each other, Lauren? Except for what we like in—”
Pink seeped into her cheeks, her fiery gaze shooting daggers at him. “Stop it, Zafir.”
“We knew each other for two months. I brought Huma to the ER. She told you I was...rich and you pursued me for a donation. You recklessly challenged me and I...rose to it. Against my better instincts, I started an affair. The fact that I hadn’t been with a woman in a few months could have been one factor.”
He continued like the ruthless bastard he was, refusing to let her pale face, the way she retreated from him, the way she shrank into the wall as though she couldn’t bear to be touched by even his shadow, thwart him. “And we continued to sleep with each other because it suited us both.”
He tucked away a distracting lock of hair from her cheek and she flinched. “So no, I don’t know what you’re capable of.
“What I do know is that you were always, what is the word, chummy with the press. That reporter friend David, that lawyer, Alicia and you...”
She ran long, trembling fingers over her forehead. “To set up an abuse shelter in Queens. I have nothing to gain by exposing your true colors to the world.”
Frustration made his words harder. “I need that video, Lauren. The current political climate of Behraat is volatile. Even something as simple as a lover’s tiff can be interpreted in so many different ways. My...predecessor abused his power, toyed with women as if they were his personal playthings. Your act questions my credibility, paints me in the same mold as him.”
She shot her hand out, her slender fingers spread out, defiance shining out of her gleaming gaze as she ticked off her fingers. “Abuse of power? Check. Toys with women as though they were personal playthings? Check. It seems you’re the perfect man for the job, Zafir.”
His skin crawled to think she would cast him in the same mold as Tariq. “I’ve never treated you with anything other than respect.”
“Respect?” The words boomeranged in the sterile room, mocking him. “If you respected me, you wouldn’t be treating me like a criminal, questioning my actions, you wouldn’t have walked out in the middle of the night and disappeared.
“The only thing missing was a bunch of cash on the nightstand and a recommendation to your friends.”
“Enough. How dare you speak as if you sold yourself to me?”
“Because that’s what you’re implying, Zafir,” Lauren shouted back at him. With an increasing sense of emptiness, she fell against the wall.
He trapped her against it, his hot gaze burning, his body a seething cauldron of aggression and sensual intent. There was no control now, only a sense of possession. She had truly angered him and still, Lauren didn’t feel fear. Not when he stood close like that.
Silly, stupid Lauren.
“Is that why you did it? Because you’re angry with me, you thought to teach me a lesson?”
“You know nothing about me. And I’m realizing how little I know you.”
“You have no idea what you have done, Lauren. Are you ready to face the consequences? To take responsibility when another riot begins?”
She’d already learned enough about the atrocities suffered by the people of Behraat. And the sooner this nightmare was over, the sooner she would be able to leave.
She clutched on to the thought like a mantra. “Even though it isn’t something I should have to explain, I will. Your claim that David and I planned...this whole thing is ridiculous. He doesn’t even know about our affair.”
“Then why did he run, Lauren? Why not wait to find out what happened to you?”
“Maybe because against your claims to the contrary, you seem to be walking exactly the same path as the old sheikh. You had your men seize me for a mere slap, Zafir. Can you blame him? What would he do with that video anyway? Put it on YouTube?”
His gaze hardened and she realized it was exactly the thing he wanted to avoid. He pulled her cell phone out of his pocket and slid it into her hand. “Call him. Ask him to meet you in the front lobby and bring his camcorder.”
“Why?”
He glared at her. “So that we can delete that video.”
“I told you. Even if David recorded it, it would be by accident. He would never do anything to hurt me. I know him.”
A vein stretched taut at his temple, something hot and indecent uncoiling in his eyes. “Is that as well as you knew me or even better?”
There were so many things wrong with that question that she couldn’t sift through the nuances for a minute. “What...does that mean?”
“You fell into my bed three days after we met. You traveled halfway round the world to see a man who walked out on you. I will not put much stock in your judgment right now.”
A soft whimper fell from her mouth and Lauren hated herself just as much as she hated him.
Her judgment? He was using their weakness, their utter lack of control when it came to each other against her?
“You’re manipulative too, great.” She whispered the words softly, slowly, as though she needed to believe them herself.
A headache was beginning to blur her vision. “David isn’t even aware of our...liaison,” she said, intent on making him understand. “When he told me he was traveling to Behraat, I persuaded him to let me join him, made him wait until my visa was through. He didn’t even know why I was coming.”
“Why?”
“Why what, Zafir?”
“Why did you come to Behraat?”
Because I’m a silly, sentimental fool. Because, even after all these years, I still didn’t learn.
He was right. Her usual common sense had taken a hike from the minute she had woken that morning six weeks ago and found him gone. But she’d acted the fool enough.
“I thought you were dead, Zafir.” The hollow ache she had battled for six weeks resonated around them. “I came to see the Behraat that you told me so much about. I came to Behraat to mourn you.”
He flinched and took a step back. Shock radiated from him.
“I saw the news coverage of the riots. When I didn’t hear anything from you, when they reported the number of civilian casualties, I thought you had died fighting for your country and its people,” she paused to breathe, to pull air past the lump that seemed to have wedged in her throat like a rock. She rubbed her fingers over her eyes, feeling incredibly tired. “But I’m such a fool, aren’t I? If you had cared, you could have picked up the phone, no wait, you could have barked a command like you did before, and one of your thugs could have informed me that you were alive. That you were through with me.”
He didn’t blink, didn’t move, just stared at her. Had he thought it meant nothing to her? Had she meant nothing to him?
“I never promised you anything, Lauren.”
She nodded and the movement cost her everything she had. “As you pointed out so clearly a few minutes ago, it was an affair at best, an exchange of sex.” She laughed through the tears edging into her eyes, through the haze of something clouding her eyes. All of a sudden, she felt woozy, as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room to breathe. “I’ve realized that the man I came to mourn doesn’t exist.
“Or if he did, he’s truly dead.”
Her words hit Zafir like a fist to his gut, rendering everything inside him still. The man he’d been with her, he had been neither the orphan nor the ruler.
He’d been just Zafir, free to pursue whatever he wanted.
But not anymore. Never again.
She licked her lips and swallowed visibly, her skin losing the little color she had. “Now, unless your plan is to torture me, in which case I demand a lawyer, please order one of your thugs to bring me some water. My throat feels like it’s on fire.”
Her gaze unfocused, she swayed on her feet and slid down the wall in a tangle of limbs.
Zafir caught her before she hit the floor, his heart pounding.
Propping her up, he tugged her close, pushed the silky strands of her hair away from her forehead. She was burning up and dehydrated.
It could happen to anyone visiting such a hot clime for the first time, but her fainting was a direct result of his actions. Because she had been locked up the whole morning without water. On his command.
With her body slumped against his, he pulled his phone out and called Arif.
He traced the stubborn angle of her jaw with his finger, mesmerized by the contrast of his rough, brown hand over her delicate soft skin. That was it.
She had mesmerized him the moment he had set eyes upon her. Stunning features, alabaster skin and a sensuous mouth that could make a man forget he wasn’t allowed something as frivolous as a blazing hot affair.
And even if he had somehow resisted her beauty, her biting tongue and no-nonsense attitude had won him over.
He had never met a woman like her before.
But she’d been a distraction, a respite, all that he could ever have. So he had walked away when it was time for him to return to Behraat.
But, why hadn’t he, as she’d so recklessly demanded, told her he was through with her? A simple phone call would have done it...why hadn’t he been able to let go?
As the door opened behind him, he lifted her in his arms and laid her on the stretcher brought in by his personal medical staff. He shook his head as Arif opened his mouth. They waited in silence as the two paramedics checked her vitals.
He couldn’t let her go, not until he found the video footage. But he refused to lock her up.
“Put her in the extra suite in my wing. Plant someone from my personal guard outside her suite and ask Dr. Farrah to give her a thorough checkup.”
All three men froze around him. His command went against one of the traditional customs of Behraat. No unmarried woman strayed near the edges, even by mistake, of a man’s quarters.
Arif said, “We can send her to the women’s clinic in the city and still have a guard there.”
“No.”
Letting Lauren wake up in some unknown clinic amid strangers when this was all his fault, that was inexcusable, even for him.
He wanted her close, somewhere she could be watched without causing a fuss and curiosity, which she undoubtedly would anywhere else.
And he was no normal man like he had told her. He was not the favored orphan anymore either. He was the sheikh, and he was damned well going to use, or abuse—he didn’t care which—his power in this.
“Do as I command, Arif.”
Stealing one last look at her, he turned and headed toward the elevator, Lauren’s words echoing in his ears.
“The man I mourned doesn’t exist. Or if he did, he’s truly dead.”
How close she’d come to the truth. That carefree, reckless, indulgent man he’d been in New York, he truly didn’t exist.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_96f0d629-9b62-50c2-b3e0-d86963c47775)
