If there was one thing she hated, it was being laughed at.
Xander regretted allowinghimself to give in to his impulse to laugh at her. She had looked like a young girl absorbed in the technicalities of the report and it had been that which had touched him. But when she’d caught his gaze and her expression had instantly changed back to the fierce mask of before, she’d been correct—he’d lied to defend himself.
It was ridiculous, all this parrying and thrusting all the time, like some kind of jousting match. As well as being exhausting it was fruitless and pointless, exactly as Roshan had said. They needed to put it behind them and get on with things. Despite that, Xander suspected that the kings and Shakira had put them together in order to resolve their personal differences, as well as political.
And Xander knew deep down that Elaheh was right. He had had the type of education which depended more on verbal parrying, than integrity and honesty. Roshan’s words ran through his head. Despite the fact his elder brother was married and living on the island nation of Jazira now, and very happily so, he kept a watchful eye on Xander. And, despite Xander’s initial irritation, he was thankful for Roshan’s continuing, steadying and watchful support. Xander hadn’t realized how much he didn’t know about being king. But it had been Roshan’s final advice which he’d found hardest to consider. Roshan had suggested Xander imagine, for two days, that Elaheh was the most desirable woman in the world and that he should charm her accordingly.
He glared at the laptop. He’d been checking through the documentation trying to figure out a way in which he didn’t need her as much as she needed him. But there was no way. He snapped it shut and jumped up. They all needed this project to get underway and Roshan was right, Xander was being too obstinate. But it was her, Elaheh. She rubbed him up the wrong way. He’d go see her and charm her. He could do it.
Elaheh looked around sharplyat the knock on her door. She didn’t move immediately. Her staff knew that she always spent this hour in contemplation. It had been how she’d spent most of her youth. What had begun as an escape, she now appreciated as a time to get her thoughts together and re-charge. Whoever was knocking would go away, she thought and closed her eyes once more.
But it came again. She ground her teeth. It must be someone new. She’d sort him out. She opened the door, ready to give the person a mouthful but was stunned to see Xander holding a bottle of champagne and two champagne flutes and even more shockingly, a smile on those usually stern lips.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, letting the door swing open in her surprise.
He waggled the bottle and glasses. “If you let me in, I’ll tell you.” A gust of wind caught the door and it appeared she’d opened it further. “May I?”
She was so stunned that when he stepped forward, she stepped back and allowed him to enter. Various scenarios ran through her mind. Maybe something had happened. There could be no other reason why he’d appeared.
She looked into the corridor at her security guard who sat not far away. She opened her hands in question but the man shrugged. He obviously had no clue either. She closed the door. Whatever Xander had to say, it was obviously important and so was best heard without an audience.
He looked around as he walked across to the sideboard where he set down the glasses. “This is a nice suite of rooms. I’ve never been here before.” He turned to her with a grin which set her pulse racing.
“What do you want? What’s happened?”
He cocked his head to one side, his smile slipping into an even more seriously sexy quirk of the lips. “Why should anything need to have happened in order for us to share a bottle of champagne?”
She folded her arms and pursed her lips. “Maybe the world has to end first?”
His sexy grin slipped a little and he looked momentarily unsure. She felt a flare of confidence and walked up to him. She reached out to grab the bottle but he was too quick for her and his hand shot out and took hold of hers. She jumped as if an electric shock had run through her. And, just as if the shock melded their fists together, his tightened around hers as the unsureness fell away, replaced by a very male satisfied smile.
“Can’t wait, hey?”
Even more insolently, he ran his thumb across the back of her hand. But for some reason her body didn’t respond to her thoughts but to an instinct she hadn’t known she possessed. And that instinct was focused on a sensation which travelled like a row of dominoes knocking each other over, as they raised the hairs on her arm and shot to other parts of her body. She felt torn, broken, unable to remember the last time a person had touched her so innocently, and yet so intimately. A gasp caught in her throat as she felt tears rise from a fount which she’d thought was dry.
He frowned but his grip held. “What is it, Ela?”
Her confusion of feelings was compounded by him using a nickname for her, a name she’d only ever been called by her mother. The memory of her mother burst into her head, clearing it, and she tore her hand from his grip.
She held her hand up as if it were burning. She tried to speak but nothing emerged. She licked her lips. “Don’t call me that.” Her voice sounded hoarse to her ears. She half-stepped, half-staggered away from Xander. She shook her head, trying to rid it of the memories which had risen, trying to re-find the woman she’d made herself into. “Don’t call me that,” she repeated, stronger now. She stepped forward once more, grabbed the bottle and walked across the room. She opened the door to her bathroom and poured the champagne into the basin.
When she returned she found Xander hadn’t moved. But when she caught his eye, he did. “And pouring away a decent bottle of Moet is your way of telling me you don’t drink champagne?”
She nodded. “It seemed easiest.”
He raised an incredulous eyebrow. “It would have been far easier, not to say less wasteful, to say, ‘I don’t drink champagne, Xander’.”
She shrugged. “It’s the same message. I’ve never drunk alcohol and I never intend to.”
“Fair enough. So, tell me, what do you do to celebrate?”
“Celebrate?” She shook her head, suddenly aware that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d celebrated anything, not for her personally, anyway. There had been no birthday parties for her and her younger sister after her mother had been forced to leave. “And what exactly are we celebrating?”
“The fact that, despite a bumpy beginning to our friendship—”
“Friendship?” she interrupted.
“Friendship,” he repeated firmly. “Despite that, we’ve managed to get through a whole day without killing each other. Surely that’s something to celebrate?”