She shook her head. “Isn’t this your country?”
“Yes. But the public reaction to the attempted theft would have been intense. The only way to ensure the news wouldn’t leak was by making you my wife. My people will now love and value you as they do me.”
“So you really think you did me a favour?”
He looked at her crestfallen face and mentally shook his head. Carefully, he responded, “I think I guaranteed your safety, yes.”
She nodded, her heart squeezing in the hope that his motives hadn’t been so purely selfish after all. “Pyjamas?” She prompted throatily.
He reached past her, for a drawer, and pulled a white cotton nightgown out.
“See? How did you know that?”
He laughed. “You’re so suspicious, aren’t you?”
“Do you blame me?”
He shook his head. “No. As for the pyjamas, they are in the same drawer in my wardrobe. It was a lucky guess.”
“Oh.”
“Put your arms up,” he said quietly, holding the neck hole above her head.
Wordlessly, Olivia did as he said, and he slid the simple material down over her body.
“I would have thought you’d choose some kind of satin negligee or something,” she murmured.
He shook his head. “I wanted you to be comfortable for the desert nights.”
Her stomach felt like she’d taken a dive on the rollercoaster. “I thought I wouldn’t need pyjamas.”
He shrugged. “When you do, I want you to be comfortable.”
Olivia frowned. Her gilded cage was seeming rather feathered with comforts. She reached down to pick up her towel and walked back to the bathroom, hooking it over the towel rack.
“Someone will do that for you, you know,” Tamir smiled at her, when she returned to the bedroom.
Olivia didn’t even want to start that conversation with him. She couldn’t imagine ever being comfortable leaving things lying around just because servants were able to pick them up.
“Do you need to dry your hair?”
She lifted a hand to her still-damp mop of blonde and shook her head. “It’s not too wet. Just damp, really.” She smothered a yawn. “I’m too tired tonight.”
He frowned. It was late, and she needed to sleep. He had married her, meaning she was now his responsibility. He had to take better care of her. He reached over and lifted the quilt, so she could slip into the crisp white sheet.
“Thank you,” she murmured tiredly, placing her head on the pillow.
She would never have thought that she’d be able to sleep next to Tamir. He was too damned sexy to really make unconsciousness appealing. There were many things she’d prefer to be doing. Yet, within seconds of her head hitting the pillow, her eyes had drifted shut, and she was so asleep that she wasn’t even in a dream world.
It happened so quickly. Tamir had just lifted his paper to return to the story he’d been attempting to read all evening, when Olivia’s breathing became rhythmic and regular.
Asleep, she was even more beautiful than awake, for she was completely relaxed and contented. He stared down at her, with her fair skin and shining blonde hair, and he made a small sound of annoyance.
He’d been acting on instinct all day, but now that she was asleep, he was alone with his thoughts. And one sentence kept banging accusingly around his brain.
What the hell had he just done?
CHAPTER SEVEN