Heir to a Desert Legacy

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“Are you questioning my competence?” he asked.

“Not in the least, Sheikh.”

“Be sure you do not. You are dismissed.”

Malik nodded and turned away from him, walking out the door. Panic, momentary but intense, shivered over Sayid’s skin. He would have to face a people who distrusted him tomorrow, would have to find words to speak to them. Words of comfort. Diplomacy.

It simply wasn’t what Sayid had been trained for. And trained was precisely the word that should be used. From the time he’d gone into Kalid’s care, he’d been conditioned to see life in a certain way.

And at sixteen, it had been cemented. He had been broken, remade. A man who could, physically, endure all.

But he was no diplomat, no compassionate ruler.

All of the civility, the grace and manners, had been bred into Rashid. Sayid had gotten none of it. Sayid was a weapon, a living, breathing weapon. It was all he knew. It was all he’d ever done.

Control was necessary. A drop in control could lead to unspeakable horror. A girl forced into marriage, her child torn from her body against her will. Soldiers captured and killed. Tortured.

His weakness had caused those unspeakable horrors. Cracks in his armor leading others to ruin.

Leading, ruling, would require him to deal with people. Not simply enemies and soldiers. It would require the kind of openness, caring that would create a breach he couldn’t afford. One he could already feel deep within his soul. A soul he had not been aware of until recently.

“I don’t appreciate you… scheduling my evening without talking to me.”

Later than expected, Chloe walked in, her curves encased in a simple black dress. There was nothing particularly sexy about the dress. Nothing modern or interesting in the cut. But the way it flowed over her curves, molded to her breasts, made it spectacular.

She looked very much like a woman who had only just given birth, her figure plumped, exaggerated, and yet he found he liked the look.

“I would apologize, but I’m not at all sorry. Have a seat.” Breathing felt easier than it had a moment ago. He could only attribute it to Malik’s exit.

She walked in slowly, blue eyes narrowed, glittering. “If you wanted to have dinner with me, all you had to do was tell me earlier.”

“I don’t want to have dinner with you, I need to discuss something with you,” he said. “I thought it might be convenient to do it over dinner.”

She blinked. “Oh. Well.” She sat in a chair farther down the table and across from his.

“Come closer.”

She scooted one chair over.

“Across from me,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and stood, making her way down the table and taking the seat opposite him. “What exactly do we need to discuss?”

“We need to make sure there is paperwork that backs up our story. I would like to put you on payroll.”

“I don’t want money from you.”

“Because you already got money?” He didn’t bother to soften the words.

“I… that’s…”

“Don’t pretend you don’t need it, you do. You admitted it was part of the reason you agreed to carry Aden in the first place.”

“Yes. But I wanted to come here to care for him. I need to. I’m not going to accept money for…”

“While you are here, you can obviously have no other form of employment. In my mind that means you should be paid for your services.”

She recoiled slightly, blue eyes wide. He didn’t understand the woman. She had never once claimed she felt like she was Aden’s mother, and it stood to reason, as she was not. Yet she seemed unable to part with him, and now unable to accept compensation for caring for him.

“I am going to set up an account in your name and I will deposit money into it as I see fit, no matter whether you agree to this or not.” He needed her to take the money. Needed to put her in a neat, easily understood position, not simply for appearances, but for himself.

“Are you always like this?”

“Always. It is one of my more effective personality traits.”

“It’s one of your more impossible personality traits. Actually, I’ve only glimpsed this one personality trait in you. Do you have any more?”

“Not that I’m aware of. I get the job done, Chloe, that’s who I am. I make sure everything works. That my people, my family, are safe and provided for. It’s why you are here, for Aden’s well-being.”

“Fine. Set up an account.”

“You aren’t planning on taking anything out of it, are you?”

“I despise men like you,” she said, her voice a low hiss. “You think you can just… control me. Take absolute…. You just think that you can buy someone. That you can own a woman simply because you have power and status and bigger muscles. It’s not impressive. I see you exactly for what you are.” She stood up, her frame trembling. He had no idea what had set her off, but he had a feeling it went deeper than a simple dinner invitation and a demand she take his money.

“A man making an attempt at protecting his family legacy?”

“A man who needs to… demonstrate his testosterone by posturing like an… animal,” she spat.

Anger spiked through him, unreasonable, completely unusual. He should simply let her words slide off. But for some reason, they stuck into him like barbs, tore at his pride. Perhaps it was because he knew how wrong she was. That to be an animal, he would have to act with gut emotion. Intuition borne of feeling. And he possessed neither. The realization made him frighteningly, acutely aware of the void in him. The pit that seemed as though it could never be filled.

He felt poised on the brink of it. As if the tendrils of darkness reaching up for him might wrap themselves around him. Might drag him down into the abyss.

He stood, pushing his chair backward. “An animal? Is that what you think I am?”

“You’ve dragged me back to your lair.”

“I brought you here,” he growled, circling the long table slowly, his fingertips brushing the top of each chair he passed, “at your request.”

All of the emotion, the intensity from the past few weeks, threatened to overwhelm Chloe. She was past the point of reason now. She was nothing more than a burning ball of kinetic energy, the forward motion unstoppable. She’d held it in for too long, let it build as she sat in her apartment, numbed by shock.

But the shock was gone now, and the trajectory of her emotions set. “Because I couldn’t just let you take him!”

“I was hardly going to tear him from your arms.” But he would have. They both knew it.

“But you were going to take him. As soon as possible.”

“It’s what needed to be done. It has nothing to do with you. None of this has anything to do with you,” he said, his voice hard, simmering with barely contained anger. “You were the vessel. Nothing more.”

She’d only ever felt the desire to hurt one other human being physically. Had only ever had to fight the urge to stop herself from attacking one other man. She’d never followed through on the feral, savage desire to hurt her father because she’d seen exactly what he could do with his fists. Had seen that he wouldn’t hesitate to hit a woman. Not just once, but until she could no longer get back up.

But she didn’t care about the consequences now. She wanted to hit Sayid, with everything in her. Inflict pain on him for hurting her with his words. For telling the truth.

For saying that Aden was nothing more than her nephew, even though she’d carried him in her body. Given birth to him. In the big picture, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t hers and she had no claim on him. But spoken from that arrogant mouth, with such harshness, it was more than she could stand. The truth of it so raw and evident, so unwanted.

She stepped toward him without thinking, just as he rounded to her side of the table, her fist pulled back. He caught her arm, stopping her, tugging her up against him.

“You think you could hurt me?” he asked, his hand fitted securely around her arm without causing her any pain. His strength was so great, he didn’t seem to be exuding any force. It only made her angrier. And now that the dam had burst on her control, she couldn’t stop it all from pouring out.

“I might have been able to break your nose. It doesn’t matter how much muscle you have, that’s still a susceptible spot.”

“If you think a broken nose would hurt me… you have a limited understanding of what I am capable of. Of what I have endured.”

He lowered his head, dark eyes boring into hers. Heat bloomed in her stomach, her muscles quivering. He smelled like sandalwood, and clean skin, and there was no reason for her to notice something like that. No reason at all.

It wasn’t the smell she usually associated with men. Her father was alcohol, sweat and tobacco. Occasionally, blood.

And as an adult, the only time she’d gotten close enough to a man to smell him was if they were sharing a microscope. And then he usually smelled like chemicals.

“If I release you, will you promise to put your claws back in?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Only if you watch what you say.”

“Then we’re at an impasse because I don’t have to watch what I say.”

“You’re right,” she said. “You do suck at diplomacy.”

“I never claimed otherwise,” he said, his tone rough.

“I don’t have to like what you say. And I don’t. Not at all.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he said, his voice low. “But I am telling you the truth. I’m not going to wrap the situation up as something else and try to make it more palatable. It is an ugly situation. Nothing about it is simple.” He released his hold on her and stepped back. “But we will survive it. As will Aden. If we do it right, he will thrive. This is about him. Not about us.”

Her heart was thundering in her temples, her head spinning. She put her hand over the place where his fingers had been. Her skin was hot, not to the touch, but beneath the flesh. Inside of her. She’d never felt anything like it before. Didn’t understand how it was possible.

“On that we can agree,” she said, aware, painfully, that she sounded breathless. That she was breathless.

“Then perhaps we can put a halt on the dramatics?”

“When you put a halt to your douche-baggery.”

Dark brows locked together. “What is this word?”

“It means you’re being a jerk. But more than a jerk even,” she said. “Worse.”

“No one talks to me like this,” he said, his tone firm, not imperious. He was simply stating a fact, and she wasn’t all that surprised by it. She didn’t know why she felt empowered to speak to him like that. Maybe it wasn’t empowerment so much as a need to push him away. Anger was safer than the pull she felt toward him. Much safer.

“No one who has any idea of how to act in polite company talks to people the way you do,” she said.

“I spend a lot of time outside of polite company.”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Clearly.”

“Our discussion is through.”

“What about dinner?”

“Suddenly, I am thinking I might take it in my room. Or an enemy prison. Either is preferable.”