“One moment,” he said. He went into her opulent bathroom and refilled the bowl with warm water, bringing it back into her room.
He dipped the cloth in the water, wringing out the excess before returning to her bed.
He pushed her damp hair from her forehead, resting his palm against her skin for a moment before replacing it with the cloth.
She sighed, her eyes meeting his. “Thank you. I felt disgusting.”
“Did you?”
“Sweaty.” She arched slightly. “My shirt is sticking to me.”
He frowned. “Do you need a bath?”
“I wanted one. I was afraid I would pass out.”
He hesitated to ask the next question, because intimacy between them, even the basest intimacy of greeting one another in the corridors, had been cut off since their argument two days earlier. But he had to ask. “Can I stay with you? Can…can I help you?”
“I…yes.”
Angelina watched Taj disappear into the bathroom. She had no idea what had caused his sudden desire to take care of her. Concern for her? For the baby?
Of course he was worried about the baby. It was his heir.
She bit the inside of her cheek. That wasn’t really a fair thought. Taj wasn’t a terrible person, and he’d never acted cold and detached in regards to the baby. It was her he seemed to feel nothing for.
Well, nothing beyond lust and possession. He wanted her, but that wasn’t the same as caring. A man could want riches, but it came from greed. From the need to possess. Not from caring.
She was nothing more than an acquisition to him. Like a new car. A lucrative business deal.
He returned a moment later. He had taken his shirt off, his muscular torso bare and beautiful to her, even in her current state. He bent and scooped her from the bed. She looped her arms around his neck and allowed him to carry her into the bathroom, where he set her gently in front of the newly filled tub.
“Do you need help?” he asked.
“With…with my clothes?” Her heart beat unevenly. “No.”
He turned his back, the muscles shifting, enticing. Somehow, her appreciation of his body transcending her nausea. Almost.
She wobbled slightly as she stepped out of her pajama pants then pulled her top over her head. She got into the tub, the water coming over her breasts, the bubbles helping preserve her modesty. As if she really cared. As if Taj hadn’t already seen it all.
“I’m in,” she said.
He turned, the tension in his body obvious, his jaw tight. He knelt down on the floor beside the tub and she rested her head against the back of the tub. She felt Taj’s hand on her neck, his strong fingers slowly kneading away the ache in her muscles. She hadn’t realized how tense she’d gotten.
But then, heartbreak and constant vomiting could do that to a girl.
He put his other hand on her shoulder, working at the knots there. She released a breath, trying to ignore the other kind of tension that was flooding through her while the muscle tension receded.
This was what she craved from him. This caring. This touch that went beyond a need for sex and satisfaction. A touch that gave.
She wanted to stay with him like this forever. And she also wished he’d never shown her this part of himself. Never shown her this fleeting glimpse of how it could be if he loved her.
If only things could be different.
She closed her eyes, and felt a tear roll down her cheek. “I wish things were different.”
Chapter Ten
I wish things were different.
Her words echoed in him. Mocked him. Tore at his insides. He replayed them over and over as he helped her from the tub, drying her, trying to keep his body disinterested, as he carried her to bed and tucked her back in.
As he walked out into her sitting room and collapsed onto the sofa, his hands were shaking as he forked his fingers through his hair.
She was unhappy. He had known it. Had seen the unease in her from the moment she’d arrived in Rahat and he had not cared. Because he had her. That was all that had mattered to him. That she couldn’t leave him again. That he would be able to keep her.
Keep her? As if she was an exotic pet or a rare collectible? His stomach rebelled at the thought.
She was a woman. The only person he had ever…
It hit him then, like a punch to his jaw.