“I wear a traditional abaya and hijab and I’m proud of it.”
“Of course. I don’t mean that. I mean how you hold yourself, as if you have a ramrod stuck up your—”
“You can stop right there!”
He tilted his head to one side. He didn’t appear in the least bit fazed. “Ela,” he said more gently. “I don’t mean to insult you, really I don’t. I think you’re…” He opened his mouth a few times as if about to say something, before sighing as if he couldn’t think of the correct word. “A force to be reckoned with. But, sometimes, you can move mountains more effectively with a little charm, a little softness, a little…understanding.”
“Understanding,” she repeated. He didn’t appear to hear the intense, white-hot anger which edged the word.
“Exactly. You need to understand people around you, rather than try to annihilate them.”
“And you, Xander, need to stop telling me what to do. It’s because of people like you—people who want to command me, people who want to control me, men who wish to bend me to their will, that I have to be what I have become.” She hadn’t realized her voice had trailed off into barely concealed distress until she saw it reflected in his face. She’d revealed too much. Again.
“I’m sorry, Ela. I truly am. I suspect that it’s not you I should suggest be more understanding, but me.”
His words reached out to her and connected with her like a life-line, the kind that had never been extended to her before. As the silence between them lengthened, that connection strengthened, too.
He gave a quick shake to his head. “I have no idea what you’ve been through.” He took her trembling hand between his. “But, I promise you this, and”—he smiled ruefully—“no one has asked me to say this. If you wish to educate me, if you wish to tell me anything, anything at all, I’m here for you.”
“Why? You obviously don’t like me.”
His brow furrowed. “That’s not true.”
“That’s how it appears. You even find the idea of flirting with me distasteful.”
“I didn’t say that. I merely said it was a bad idea. But, believe me, Ela, if we were two ordinary people, I’d flirt with you so hard, that you wouldn’t have any option but to fall in love with me.”
He took her hand and kissed it. He’d released it before she could remonstrate. But, as she felt its devastating effect travel throughout her body, she thought that maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t have remonstrated at all.
“But we’re not,” he continued. “So all we can do is to stop antagonizing each other. I’m not so bad, you know. And I know, for sure now, that you are far more complicated than I first thought.” His gaze tracked around her face and he traced her cheek lightly with his finger. “Maybe both of us have created masks behind which we can hide. But you know, I suspect you’re as beautiful without your mask as you are with it.”
She couldn’t seem to prevent herself from swaying under the sensory explosion created by his touch to her cheek and to her hand. Her gaze dipped to his lips which opened and, for one long moment, she thought he was about to kiss her. For some reason the thought didn’t make her move away. She lifted her eyes to his once more and found his gaze, too, had lowered to her lips. Instinctively she licked them. And then, as if an electric shock had zapped through him he dropped his hands and stepped away. He gave her a quick smile. “I apologize. I got carried away. For a moment I forgot…”
She nodded, not wanting him to finish, not wanting him to utter the words which were also on her lips. For a moment they’d both forgotten that they hated each other.
Suddenly the sound of a helicopter approaching filled the air with its low thrum. It rapidly brought her back to her senses.
“I have to leave,” she said. “I must go,” she added, as if she were trying to persuade herself. She backed away and then took half a dozen steps before stopping abruptly. She had to tell him, because he was right. She turned and he was still standing in the same position, watching her. “You’re right. We should both drop the masks when we are with each other, because I don’t think they’re necessary any longer. I think—no, I know—I can trust you.”
He nodded. “You can. And I feel I can trust you. We’re both new monarchs after all.”
“And we’re both products of our strange childhoods.”
“Damaged orphans thrust into positions of great power. A strange combination.”
She smiled and nodded. “And maybe, it’s a combination that can only be understood by someone in the same position.”
“Indeed.”
She nodded, turned and briskly walked away. They were still wary of each other, she knew that, and maybe they’d always be so, but their relationship had shifted from one of combative offense, to one in which they could work together. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it would be better.
And it had been better.Much better than she’d imagined. Over the weeks which had passed since they’d returned to their respective countries, Elaheh had been in daily contact with Xander. And, instead of sparking off each other, they’d worked together to progress their plans. And, more than that, at the end of each video call, they were beginning to share information—personal information.
Elaheh’s mind was full of the conversation she’d had with Xander as she switched off the computer screen and allowed her eyes to adjust to the reduced lighting of her bedroom. She sat for a few moments in the dark and remembered how Xander’s eyes lit up when he smiled. His lips, she realized now, only ever quirked a little at the corners. The brief movement was gone before you knew it. But the expression in his eyes remained, not only in his eyes, but in the feeling it stirred within her. She frowned as she tried to understand what exactly that feeling was. Warming, was the word she settled on. The heat in his eyes warmed her to her soul… and everywhere else.
She drew in a deep, steadying breath, rose from her chair and wrapped her light robe more closely around her. She walked to the french windows which opened onto a wide balcony a story higher than the lush garden below her window. Her room was at the same level as the tops of the trees and the flowers of the trailing plants whose perfume filled the air. The scent of the flowers, the heat of the night air and the expression in Xander’s eyes filled her mind and her body, sending pinpricks of goosebumps over her skin and making her breath somehow hard to catch. Her reaction to him had annoyed her at first. It still did, except now it not only annoyed her but she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
She leaned over the balcony’s railing and allowed her mind to drift like she never allowed it to do during the day. Xander made her aware of every inch of her body. Her skin tingled as his gaze swept over her, as if he tickled her with a feather, stimulating her skin and sending flutters of sensation through her body to her nerve endings. She flexed her hands as she felt the tingles in her fingers.