LITMIR.BIZ

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mend was Tahra’s memory. Either the concussion had been worse than the doctors had realized up front, or they’d been too optimistic in their prognosis. Regardless of the reason, eighteen months of her life had been erased, including any memory of the man who had spent every night at her bedside. Who had treated her as gently as if she were made of crystal. Who had gazed at her with the kind of love most women yearned for...although he’d never spoken a word about it. Who’d made no attempt even to kiss her.

      Carly had left the day before, at Tahra’s insistence. “I’m fine,” she’d asserted. “You have a job and a fiancé who both need you more than I do now.” Inside Tahra had been afraid of the gaping unknowns in her life, but she hadn’t revealed that to her sister.

      “You’re in good hands,” Carly had whispered as she kissed Tahra goodbye. “Let him look after you until you’re completely recovered.” She’d hesitated, then added enigmatically, “Be kind to him.”

      Him could only refer to Marek Zale, the man who had solicitously helped her out of the wheelchair the nurse had wheeled her out in as she was being discharged, and then into the waiting limousine, before going around to the other side to sit beside her in the back.

      “Where are we going?” she asked.

      “Your apartment first, to pack whatever you need for an extended stay in the royal palace.”

      “What? Why would I—”

      “The nurse’s aide who tried to kill you has talked,” Marek replied. “She was bribed to switch the IV bags, which tells us you are in danger. Imminent danger. So the king has decreed you are to be housed in the palace for the time being.” He took a deep breath. “Safer for you, and the US ambassador has agreed. You are on short-term disability leave from your job until such time as your memory returns.”

      She voiced her secret fear. “But what if it never returns?”

      Marek took her left hand and held it in his much larger one, squeezing gently, and the gesture was more reassuring than Tahra could have imagined. “Let us not think that way, mariskya. Let us remain positive.”

      Mariskya. For some reason the word was vaguely familiar, but its meaning was tantalizingly just out of reach. And yet it seemed right for him to call her that, as if he’d used it before. Many times. There was a glass barricade between the driver and them, ensuring privacy, so Tahra had no hesitation asking Marek, “What does that mean, mariskya?”

      He smiled faintly. “There is no direct translation. It is a Zakharian endearment along the lines of ‘my dearest one,’ although it is much more comprehensive.”

      “You can’t expect me to be content with that.” Her brow wrinkled, and she asked hesitantly, “Should I know what it means? Did you tell me before?”

      His answer was slow in coming. “Yes. The first time I called you mariskya you asked me. But I would not tell you because you would not have understood. Not then. Only later, after I... That is, after we...”

      He seemed to be heading down a path he found difficult to speak about, and Tahra made an educated guess. “After we became lovers?” Her words hung in the air between them, and though he didn’t respond immediately, Tahra knew somehow she’d guessed wrong—that was not what he’d been trying to say.

      After a long silence, Marek finally said in a low voice, “We have never been lovers.”

Chapter 4

      “Why not?” Tahra’s question seemed to take her by surprise as much as Marek, because warm color rose in her cheeks and she gave a little embarrassed laugh. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. Please forget I asked.” She tried to pull her hand away from his, but he held tight.

      “But I want to answer that question.” His thumb brushed the engagement ring on her finger. “I have said this to you before...when I asked you to marry me.”

      Her eyes sought his, and she said softly, almost shyly, “Please tell me again.”

      “It was harder than you know leaving you at the door to your apartment,” he confessed in a low voice. “Holding you...kissing you...” He shook his head. “Letting you go every night took every ounce of determination I have.”

      “Why did you?”

      He smiled faintly. “Because you are the first woman I have ever envisioned as my wife. And in Zakhar a man does not... That is, we are taught...”

      To his amazement, Tahra’s cheeks whitened and she jerked her hand away from his. “In other words, you have a double standard where women are concerned.” Her voice was cool, but he heard a thread of anger running through it. “I thought that went out of fashion fifty years ago.”

      “That was not what I meant.”

      “Isn’t it?” She gave a scornful snort. “Virgin brides are the exception nowadays, Marek, not the rule. Are you a virgin?”

      He couldn’t believe she was asking him, but his answer was automatic and immediate. “Of course not. I am thirty-three and I am a ma—”

      She cut him off. “Man. You’re a man, and therefore it’s expected that a thirty-three-year-old man wouldn’t be a virgin.”

      He tried to possess himself of her hand again, but she refused to let him. At a loss to understand what was happening, he asked, “Why are we arguing about this?”

      “So what you’re saying is that if you knew I wasn’t a virgin, we would have been lovers long ago...but you wouldn’t have asked me to be your wife.” She tugged furiously on his engagement ring, which wasn’t easy with the cast on her right wrist. When it was finally free, she grabbed his hand and slapped the ring in it, then forcefully closed his fingers around it. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t hold you to an engagement entered into under false pretenses.”

      “Tahra!”

      “I can’t believe you told me this before, and I agreed to marry you,” she said under her breath. “I don’t believe it.”

      “I did not tell you that part.” He opened his fingers and stared at the ring it contained...the second time Tahra had returned it to him. The second time she’d turned him down. “That is not why—” He broke off when he realized what he’d almost said.

      She wasn’t listening to him, and Marek could only thank God. “How could I?” she was saying to herself. “How could I possibly... Especially since...”

      Then he focused on what she’d said earlier, and a savage pain slashed through his heart. “...if you knew I wasn’t a virgin, we would have been lovers long ago...but you wouldn’t have asked me to be your wife.”

      Was Tahra telling him she wasn’t a virgin? Could it be possible his sweet, shy Tahra hadn’t waited for him? Had...slept with other men?

      Just as swiftly her scornful question leaped to mind. “Are you a virgin?”

      A two-word litany began repeating in his brain—double standard, double standard, double standard—and shock sent icy shards everywhere. Tahra was right. He had slept with other women. Women he’d desired but hadn’t loved. He had not waited for Tahra. Why had he automatically expected she would have waited for him?

      This new thought struggled with the Zakharian concepts with which he’d been raised, a culture clash of momentous proportions. Out of the maelstrom, only one thought emerged—he loved Tahra. That hadn’t changed. Could never change. No matter what, she was still his darling to cherish. To protect. And that meant maintaining the fiction they were still engaged so long as she needed his protection.

      “No,” he told her firmly, capturing her left hand and sliding the engagement ring back on her finger. “Do not.” His voice was as implacable as his words when she opened her mouth to protest. “Do not fight me on this, mariskya. Your accusation

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