“When I bought my plane tickets, things got a bit tense.” That was as true as the rest, if not quite the full story. But she wasn’t going to tell this man about the accusations she’d fielded. That she was harsh and cold and unrealistic, that she was frigid besides, that she was the problem—because six months later she still didn’t know if any of it was true. And what if Khaled agreed with Brian’s assessment of her? She found she was scowling at him again, but she didn’t care. “But I don’t believe that anyone should have to settle for someone. Or something. Or anything. I think that’s what people tell themselves to make themselves feel better about choices they can’t take back. And I don’t want to settle. I won’t.”
Khaled was definitely smiling then, an indulgent curve to those warrior’s lips, and it made her stomach flip over. Then again. As if she’d been spouting poetry instead of ranting a bit too intensely.
“You are not an ordinary girl,” he said, and Cleo should have found that patronizing. She should have been insulted. Instead she felt molten and consumed, somehow, by that intent gleam in his dark gaze. Or the fact that she thought she’d do anything to keep him looking at her like that. As if he thought she might be marvelous. “In fact, I think you are quite a fascinating woman, aren’t you, Cleo?”
And she wanted him to think so. She wanted that more than she wanted to admit, even to herself. She could have sworn he knew that, too. That it was obvious to him, and reflected in that crook of his hard mouth.
“You’re very kind,” she said.
“You told me before that you have only two weeks left in this trip of yours.” She was stunned that he remembered anything about her and found herself nodding, her eyes fixed on him, burned and breathless at once. “I have a suggestion, Cleo, and I hope you’ll consider it.”
“Of course.” She told herself her voice wasn’t gauzy, insubstantial. That she was simply speaking softly for a change.
“Stay here for your last two weeks,” he urged her.
He leaned forward then and her heart nearly somersaulted from her chest when he reached over and took her hand in his, enveloping her in a wallop of heat. All of that heat and strength and power from his simple touch like a drug inside her, making her heavy and giddy. Dizzy and drunk.
Captured more surely than if he’d locked her up in a cell after all.
His gaze met hers, and she might have been crazy but she could have sworn that all the things she was feeling, all that wildness and fire, he felt, too.
For a moment, there was nothing at all but the two of them.
“Stay with me,” he said softly, and it didn’t occur to her to do anything at all but agree.
* * *
Cleo’s battered blue backpack waited for her in the rooms she’d been told were hers for the rest of her stay, a little touch of reality in the midst of what felt like fantasy on top of fantasy. Because what Khaled had casually referred to as her rooms were in fact part of a luxurious, palatial bedroom suite straight out of those fairy tales her sister sniffed at.
Rich reds decked the high walls, the vast, deep bed was piled deep with pillows in various jewel shades, and the whole of it was shaded by a gloriously sheer canopy that floated above like a dream. Sumptuous rugs were thrown across every inch of the floor in riots of complicated patterns and colors that should have clashed or felt loud and garish, yet didn’t. Intricate lattice-worked shutters in dark woods graced the many windows and led out to a long balcony, stunning works of art hung on the walls, and complex mosaics were inlaid in the high ceilings and arches. All of that and a sitting room, a dressing room and a closet that rivaled the size of most apartments back home, and a gloriously decadent bath that Cleo could have swum laps in, had she wanted.
There was even a smiling, deferential maid named Karima who fluttered around Cleo as if she were some kind of princess, urging her into the bath that first night and then into a dress she’d never seen before when she got out.
“This isn’t mine,” Cleo protested, her fingers rough against the astonishing smoothness of the deep blue material, the prettiest thing she thought she’d ever felt, slippery and fine against her woefully neglected hands. “I can’t...”
“The sultan insists,” Karima replied, as if that ended the conversation.
As if that was the conversation.
If she was staying here, Cleo had decided during her long, luxurious soak, then she would have to make certain that Khaled realized it was her choice to do so, not his command.