LITMIR.BIZ

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a shock.”

      She walked over and put her hands on the back of a chair, gripping it so tightly that her knuckles whitened. He watched her, torn between going to her and holding her and staying where he was. In the end, he decided to stay. She would not welcome him at the moment.

      She swiped the tissue over her nose again and stuffed it in her pocket. “So what did you come here to tell me to do now?”

      Rashid’s brows drew down. Why had he come? Because you can’t stay away. Because she has a brightness to her that draws you like a moth. Because you want to feel that brightness wrapped around you again.

      “I didn’t come to tell you to do anything.”

      She waved a hand as if she were sweeping aside a bothersome fly. “Well, isn’t that a relief? What can I help you with, then?”

      For once in his life, he was left with nothing to say. He dug down into the recesses of his brain. “My brother is going to build a skyscraper for me. I understand you have architecture experience. Perhaps you could consult?”

      She blinked at him. Several times. “I...well, I did train as an architect, but I worked on historical preservation. Old buildings. Skyscrapers aren’t quite my thing. Not to mention I left the profession to start Dixie Doin’s with Kelly.”

      “Why did you do that?” He truly wanted to know. She’d gone to school for one thing and ended up doing another.

      She shrugged. “I enjoyed architecture, but it wasn’t as fun as party planning. I like organizing things, making people happy. Preserving old buildings takes time, but making people happy with food and fun is instant gratification.”

      “Which explains why you spend so much time in the kitchen. I enjoyed the lotus-shaped napkins, by the way.”

      She smiled at him, a genuine smile for once, and his heart did that little hitch thing again. “I’m glad. I’ll show them ferns next. Then maybe some swans.”

      “No swans at the state dinner, I beg you.”

      She laughed. “Fine, no swans.” But then her smile faded and she slumped against the back of the chair. “Will I get to attend these functions, or am I to be kept shut away like that cousin you can’t trust not to drink too much and dance on the tables?”

      The way she said things amused him. “Do you drink too much or dance on tables?”

      “Not since college.” He must have looked surprised because she laughed again. “I’m kidding. I danced on the tables without drinking. Because it was fun sometimes to let loose.”

      He tried to imagine her on top of a table, dancing and having fun. “Do you let loose often?”

      She hesitated a moment. “Too often where you’re concerned.”

      The words hung in the air between them. He could feel his body hardening, and she hadn’t said anything provocative. Or done anything provocative. But he knew how she tasted, how she felt, and he wanted to unwrap her and taste and feel her again.

      And again.

      “We’ve only been together twice,” he pointed out.

      “And if you hadn’t avoided me for so long, I imagine it would have been far more often than that. Though I suppose it’s a very good thing you did.”

      Okay, he was seriously hard now. Ready to walk over there and take her in his arms. “You say the most unexpected things.”

      “I’m too honest for my own good sometimes. I’ve always been this way, but I like it because it beats keeping things inside.”

      “But you do keep some things inside.” He was thinking of her sister and the way she defended the other woman’s weaknesses even when they affected her life. He wondered why she did that, but he supposed he didn’t really have to ask. When he’d been a kid, he’d done everything he could to keep Kadir insulated from their father’s wrath. It hadn’t always worked, but he’d tried.

      She bowed her head. “I suppose I do. But everyone needs a few secrets, right?”

      Who was he to contradict her? He had secrets of his own. “I don’t know if needs is the right word. But yes, I know what you mean.”

      Her blue eyes gleamed. “I’m still angry with you. But if you walked over here and took me in your arms, you could make me forget it all for a few hours.”

      He was poised to do just that when she continued.

      “But I’m asking you not to.” She shook her head. “I need time to process this, Rashid. I need time to figure out how to fit my life into this box you’ve handed me. I can’t do that if you confuse me with sex.”

       CHAPTER TEN

      SHERIDAN’S HEART POUNDED as she gazed at the handsome sheikh standing across the room. Just a word from her and he would cross the distance separating them and make her feel as if she were the most important, wonderful thing in his life for a few hours.

      But she couldn’t let it happen again. Not after the way she’d felt this afternoon when they’d made love so urgently against a wall. After, when she’d felt shattered by the emotions he stirred inside her, when she’d needed tenderness and closeness, he’d pushed her away. Every effort she made to be close to him, he rebuffed. So why did she keep doing it?

      And now she had to marry him. She didn’t know how she was going to survive if she had to keep navigating a sexual minefield with him. They’d done everything backward. Baby, sex and now marriage, and she couldn’t keep going down the same path without knowing who he was. Really knowing.

      “The sex doesn’t mean anything to you,” she said. He did not contradict her, and her belly squeezed a little tighter. “And it doesn’t mean anything to me either, but it could start to mean more than it should just because I feel so out of place here.”

      That was what truly frightened her. She was a stranger in a strange land, wholly dependent on this man, bound to him by ties greater than any devised by law. She had to keep her feelings grounded in reality. To do that, she couldn’t fall into bed with him every time he came near her.

      He shoved his hands into his pockets—God, he was delicious in faded jeans—and adopted a casual pose that belied the tension in the set of his shoulders. He was a man poised on the edge of action. Always. That he would attempt to hide that from her was encouraging.

      Because they both knew who had the true power. That he would allow her to have her own both stunned and warmed her. It was progress.

      “I am not trying to place you in a box. You seem not to realize how very privileged your life is about to become.”

      “A gilded box is still a box.”

      He rubbed a temple and came around to sink down on the cushions of a settee. “I do in fact know this.” He leaned back and gazed up at the domed ceiling above them. “I hated living in this palace as a child. It was hell in many ways.”

      She came around the chair and perched on the edge of it, her heart in her throat and a dull pain stinging her eyes.

      He shrugged. “My father was a harsh man, habibti. He did not believe in sparing the rod, so to speak.”

      She swallowed. Was he actually sharing things with her? Or was this an anomaly? “I heard that you only recently returned to Kyr. Is that why?”

      His eyes glittered. “The palace is full of information, it would seem.”

      “The person I heard it from seemed rather terrified to impart it. As if you would be angry. As if you are a tyrant who punishes people for slights.”

      He looked rather stunned at that revelation. “I am a king, and I must be harsh at times. But I am not a tyrant. The only people who feel

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