“I am paying a lot of money to make it my business.”
“No. You are paying me to facilitate your life; not to reveal the finer details of mine.”
“Are you so ashamed of this man that you will not discuss him?”
Her eyes sparked with a heated emotion; and Zamir was charged with an answering emotion.
“Nothing about my personal life has anything to do with you.”
“I asked because you will not be seeing him for the time I am here. I wondered how he might cope.”
She stood up and began to place the teacups back on the tray, her mouth set in a resolute slash.
“Leave it.” His words were softly spoken but firm as cement. “That is not your job.”
“Nor is making you tea or sitting with you and being interrogated about my personal life,” she remarked waspishly.
And Zamir found himself having to hide a smile despite his frustrations. “You surprise me.”
“Yeah? Really? You haven’t met many women who tell you to butt out?”
“No,” he agreed with a soft laugh. And it was a dangerous sound, because it sent something off in her gut. A vibration of desire that she recognised and would have, in an alternate universe, have loved to indulge. He stood and curled his hands around the tray. “I told you to leave this.”
Olivia ignored the pounding of her heart; the flushing of her pulse and the burning in her abdomen. She released the tray and took a step backwards. “I trust you’ve been entertained sufficiently for this evening?”
He considered asking her to stay.
He considered telling her to stay.
But he did not.
She was right.
The sombre thoughts of Ra’if were no longer forefront in his mind. She had done what he’d needed. He placed the tray back down and fixed her with a stare that was far from an ending. “You may go, for now.”