“Don’t you think it’s funny that it never even occurred to that tabloid journalist that you are wooing me?” she asked, rather than answering.
Wooingwas such an old-fashioned term, but it fit. Hehadbeen courting her.
“Lack of imagination and foresight,” Dima said with a shrug in his tone.
She smiled up at him. “You don’t deny that you’ve been courting me.”
“Why would I deny the truth?”
“I don’t know. Why tell me you were just trying to get me out of your system?”
Even in the muted light cast by the torches, she could see the color that burnished his chiseled features. “You did not want to hear the truth.”
“You might be right.”
“But now you claim to know it.”
“Oh, I know all right. Have you looked at those photos?”
“The ones in the tabloid?” he asked, his dark brows furrowed.
“Yes.”
“For a moment.”
“You should have looked longer.”
“Why?”
“They show the truth of the situation, no matter what lascivious lies the reporter claims.”
“They show that I am wholly into you and not interested in other women, regardless of their status,” he said skeptically.
“Yes.”
Clearly startled, he asked, “They do?”
“Why do you think I wanted the originals?”
“To destroy them.”
“Not on your life. They’re going in an album along with all the other snaps I’ve taken since we arrived in the UAE.”
“You’re a strange woman, Jenna.”
“Maybe, but you like me this way.” Those pictures had given her a confidence she had not felt until seeing them, and she was beginning to believe it was a certainty of her place in his life that could never again be taken away.
“I do.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because you are smart and lovely. I can’t keep my hands off you, but I enjoy every moment I spend with you in and out of the bedroom.”
“I meant why do you want to marry me?” Though his list of reasons why he liked her was very nice.
“Who said I did?”
“You, with your wooing.”