LITMIR.BIZ

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He’s not trying to seduce you.

      No, of course he wasn’t. And anyway, she was not seduceable. Not in the least. Men had tried, and men had failed. It wasn’t as though she intended to never have a relationship as long as she lived, it was just there had never been an appropriate time.

      She’d watched her mother become a slave to sex, to desire, which she had always called love, but Sophie had doubted that very much.

      It was weakness, and she would not be that weak. Would not be that sad and desperate. She’d gone out and made her own life, on her own terms.

      Zayn was hot, there was no denying that. He was, in fact, the hottest guy she had ever seen in person. So there was that. And she was ready to admit it. It had been difficult to sort through her feelings for him when she had been half-afraid of him, but she wasn’t really afraid of him now. And now that the fog of terror had cleared a bit, she could say objectively that, yes, he was very handsome.

      But handsomeness didn’t have anything to do with anything. She was here to do a job, not get distracted by a pretty face. Though she wouldn’t exactly characterize his face as pretty. His cheekbones were enviable, to be certain, and he had amazing eyelashes. If he were a woman he wouldn’t need to wear mascara. But that didn’t make him pretty. No, he was far too rugged for that. The dark stubble that covered his jaw by midday helped with that. As did the intensity in his dark eyes.

      Magnetic. That was a better word for him.

      And hot, hot still worked.

      She mentally castigated herself while she put her pajamas on, while she tried to ignore just how sensual the fabric felt against her skin. Fabric was not sensual. None of this was.

      Annoying was what it was. Well, not the fabric, the fabric was quite nice. But the feelings that he evoked in her were certainly annoying.

      He was still stringing her along, too. She didn’t feel like she was any closer to getting the scandal than she had been on day one. He was interesting, and yes, she could use the material he was providing her for her career, but it wasn’t why she was here. It didn’t help Isabelle in any way. And neither did thinking about how pretty he was. Or wasn’t.

      She finished dressing and went to the opening of the tent, pushing the flap back and poking her head outside. It was dark now, the golden light of the sun long since disappearing behind the dunes. Everything was golden brown during the day, fading into a strange yellowish white in the sky, a color she had never seen anywhere else. And now, in the dark, it was similarly monochromatic. Inky blues and slate grays covering the landscape.

      She could see he was standing with his back to the tent, an imposing figure, a living shadow in the night.

      “I’m ready.”

      He turned to face her. “I find I am not.”

      “Oh, well, so then...I guess I just can get in bed now?”

      He waved a hand. “Do what you like. I will not be returning for the evening.”

      “Where are you going?” She shouldn’t care, she didn’t care. In fact, she should be nothing but relieved that he was leaving. Somehow, though, relief wasn’t what she felt. She was just confused. Confused and concerned.

      “I am going for a walk, and perhaps I will find somewhere to sleep for the night.”

      “Well, you can sleep in here,” she said, the words dying on her lips when she caught sight of the feral glint in his eye. There was something dangerous there, something she couldn’t easily identify. But it called her, tugged at something deep inside of her, made her want to move forward, to close the distance between them rather than turn away. Which was not what she should be feeling. She should want to run, she should want to turn away from whatever that meant. But she didn’t.

      She took a step toward him.

      “Stop,” he bit out, the command coming down like a hammer on a nail.

      She obeyed, because she was powerless to do anything else.

      “The tent is big enough for the both of us. I’m sorry I made a big deal out of it before.” She tried again, even though she was certain she was making a mistake.

      “I cannot stay. I would only do something we would both regret later.”

      And before she could ask him what he meant he began to walk away from her, disappearing into the darkness. As though he had been swallowed up whole, consumed by a blackness that would never give him back.

      Still, Sophie stood there and watched. She stood there until her eyes hurt from straining to see into the night. Stood there until she started to feel cold.

      She didn’t know what it was about this man. She only knew that he was challenging things in her that no one else had ever been able to challenge before.

      But what was far more frightening than that was the fact that she wanted him to challenge them. Was the fact that she was more intrigued than afraid?

      She shook her head and turned away from the desert, walking back into the tent.

      She was only having a moment of temporary insanity. It would pass.

      She was in here for this. And anyway, Zayn was promised to another woman. And she would never be the kind of person who ignored something like that. She wasn’t going to tread on another woman’s territory. Her mother hadn’t minded, hadn’t cared that her lover had said vows to someone else, and Sophie had seen the destruction it had brought. Sophie would never be a part of something like that.

      Though, even if she were that sort of woman, in the end, Zayn would never choose her. Men like him never chose the woman like her. They married the princess, they stayed with the socialite. That was the end of the discussion.

      But it was moot because she wasn’t going there. She wasn’t even tempted.

      She ignored the tightening in her stomach that called her a liar, and went to bed.

      * * *

      The next morning when Zayn returned to the tent, he was stiff and cold. It felt like the night air had worked its way into his joints, leaving behind a chill he couldn’t shake. Even so, sleeping out on the dunes had been preferable to sharing the space with Sophie. Well, perhaps it had not been preferable in the strictest sense of the word. But it had been necessary.

      Though now he was in desperate need of some warmth. For all the brutality of the desert heat during the day, the cold was almost as biting. Though not quite as deadly.

      He pushed the flap to the tent back, and strode inside. He was greeted by a sharp squeak and a flurry of motion.

      Sophie was standing just behind the nearly sheer divider next to the bed hurriedly tugging a tunic over her head. A moment later she scrambled from behind the curtain, her cheeks pink, her face void of makeup, her blond hair fuzzy.

      “Don’t you knock?”

      He looked around at the canvas walls. “On what?”

      “Oh, ha, ha. You could have at least signaled your presence. You could’ve shouted, or made some kind of a bird sound.”

      “If we were staying a few extra days we might work out some kind of system, or code. But as we are leaving, I do not think it matters.”

      She tucked her hair behind her ears, her expression fierce. “Well, of course you would say that, you weren’t the one who got walked in on while you were changing.”

      “I doubt I would have been as concerned as you are.”

      “Of course you wouldn’t be, I’m tiny. You’re invulnerable to me.”

      It was an odd choice of words, because while he could see her point, he wasn’t entirely certain they were true. “But the fact you are vulnerable to me only matters if you think I would take advantage of you. And I would not.”

      She

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