His answering smile was warm and sexy and a little surprised, and Rita had to tamp down the series of events that it set off in her body.
We might be husband and wife,she had to remind herself,but we both agreed that real intimacy, emotional or otherwise, would only complicate things.
She had not had to remind herself of the fact in a while—not since the Prince had settled her in before leaving the palace for wherever he resided the first night they arrived.
In fact, she had not seen him in person since then.
They had spoken on the phone and exchanged multiple messages in the preceding week—about her needs, and the construction of the new garages and discussions of how she might be incorporated into the exhibition at this late stage—but she had not seen him.
And it only took a few minutes for the wild thoughts to begin, her inner critic noted tartly.You need to get more serious about keeping things professional.
“Hello to you,” he said, a faint trace of breathlessness to his words. “You’ve been enjoying the baths, I see.”
Appreciating the opportunity the small talk provided to settle her system, Rita nodded. “They’re wonderful. I can’t believe I never thought to do something like that back home.”
“They were my mother’s pride and joy. She designed them herself. It’s been years since I’ve used them, though. I should.”
“You absolutely should! It’s a shame to think they’d gone unused. It’s the first thing I’m going to add when I return home. I bought my property because there was enough room for my garages and it was close to the city, but the house wasn’t much when I got it. Nobody else wanted it because it’s a heritage building and couldn’t be torn down, only renovated. It took me a while to get to it since the garage had to come first, but as soon as I could, I refurbished it back to its mid-century brilliance. I haven’t touched the old pool yet, though. It doesn’t even have any water in it—” She stopped herself when she realized she was rambling on and gracelessly shifted subjects. “Your mother was a designer?” Rita asked, the question slipping out before she could think to stop it. Asking personal questions wasn’t any more of a good idea when they were trying to keep things collegial between them than thinking inappropriate thoughts.
But rather than withdraw further, her question seemed to relax his guard.
“She was,” he said with a faint smile. “Interior, as well as an architect. She was rather brilliant, not unlike yourself,” he added with a nod to Rita. “This palace was her doing, in fact.”
Heat came to her cheeks at his words, the experience of being praised by someone whose opinion mattered unfamiliar after so many years.
In fact, she couldn’t recall it since the day her father had announced the acceptance of her match when she was seventeen. Had it really been ten years?
“It’s stunning,” Rita said honestly. It really was. In the week she had been here, Rita had truly come to feel as if Jag’s mother’s palace was a home away from home, with its somehow warm and comfortable elegance and class.
“I shared many happy memories with her here,” he added, unprovoked.
As if the volunteered information were permission to prod more, another question popped out. “What happened to her?” Rita asked, once again unable to keep her curiosity to herself, but this time it was not rewarded.
Rather, when he next spoke there was a thread of distance in his voice that hadn’t been there before, as if her question had brought him to his senses and he’d closed entirely up, which was probably for the best. At least one of them didn’t seem to be having trouble recalling the terms of their arrangement. “That’s a sad story for another time,” he said. “But I appreciate the reminder about the baths. A long soak in the large hot pool would no doubt do wonders for my shoulders.”
Rita’s mind’s eye snagged on the image of Jag’s long, muscular body stretched out in the largest of the otherworldly baths. Chest strangely tight and breathless, she nodded, focusing on bringing her system back under control rather than pushing further.
She wasn’t supposed to push. She was supposed to smile and retain professional distance.
Making another attempt at it, she said, “You’re here in time for dinner. Will you be joining?” She kept her voice light and airy for all that she looked him in the eye, trying, if not entirely succeeding, at keeping things bland.
But it was a challenge, because in the week that she had been living in the palace, this was the first time she had seen Jag since he had dropped her off.
The corners of his mouth lifted ever so slightly and he swallowed before nodding. “I canceled my call with Sheik Ahmed. He will attend the exhibition or he will not. I found I didn’t care enough either way to miss Rafida’s cooking in order to convince him.”
“Is that so?” Rita asked, her breath oddly shallow and chesty.
It couldn’t be just Rafida’s cooking that had lured him back to the palace, though.
Rafida had confided to Rita that before Rita arrived in Hayat, the Prince had rarely set foot in the home of his childhood.
“I had a craving I could not resist,” he said, and Rita would have sworn he was not talking about food, had he not been the one between them most firmly committed to the terms of their agreement. “I assume we’re dining in the blue room?” Jag asked, shaking her from her thoughts as he took a step back from her as if he only just now realized he stood too close, though she supposed that she, too, only now realized how near they had come to each other.
He had taken his suit jacket off as he spoke, having opted for Western attire for whatever business the day’s agenda had included for him, and this time it was Rita’s turn to swallow, nodding her response to save herself from having to clear her throat.
The blue room was one of her favorites in the palace.
A small formal dining room, it wasn’t simply blue; that was merely the shorthand for it. In actuality, it was a gorgeously decorated room, graced with teal-trimmed wainscoting that was delicately overlaid with a faint gold leaf lattice pattern that seemed to shimmer and glow in both natural and artificial light, and floor-to-ceiling panel windows. Above the wainscoting, a stunning lagoon scene was painted across the walls, with cranes and weepy foliage all in lovely muted water tones.