Zavian rose and poured himself another drink. He indicated the gin. “Would you like another glass?”
“No!” She found her voice. “No,” she repeated.
“Then what would you like?” He leaned back against the sideboard with a rare grin as he took a sip of his glass.
“What would I like? I’d like you to repeat what you’ve just said.”
He drained his drink and set it on the counter.
“I’m not a diplomat, Gabrielle. I leave that to my staff. And I’m no smooth-talking womanizer. I leave that to Roshan. I’m simply a man who knows what he wants, and I want you. But I needed to clear it with the kings before I proceeded.”
Gabrielle could hardly breathe. The air seemed to be sucked from the room. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”
He frowned. “I want to make you my wife, Gabrielle. Don’t you understand?”
She shook her head in disbelief and, slipping past him, went to the French windows and gulped in the air, half expecting to see the stars had slipped, that the water had stopped flowing, that there was no perfume in the air. But it was all exactly the same.
She felt his hand on her arm. It was still sure, as if he’d done all he had to do to secure their future together. Well, he hadn’t. Not by a long chalk.
“Don’t you understand?” he repeated. “We will marry.”
She flung off his arm and swung around. “We most certainly will not.”
His brow lowered, but the certainty didn’t disappear. “Why do you say that? You know we belong together. All that business of you running off with my father’s money was only to make me not want you. Well, Gabrielle, you didn’t succeed. Our future is together.”
She swallowed down her anger. She needed to make him see. “You talk of business, of future, of success, of need. What you’re talking of is a business merger.”
He shrugged. “If you’d like to think of it that way—”
“I donotlike to think of it that way!” she interrupted.
“Then what way do you like to think of it?” he asked smoothly, as if none of her anger or emotion had penetrated him. It made her even madder.
“I don’t like to think of it in any way whatsoever!”
He reached out and took hold of her hand gently. She could have pulled it away if she’d wanted to, but it seemed her mental struggle didn’t extend to her hand, which remained enveloped in his. He looked up and checked her stunned expression and then drew her to him with a slight tug. She bumped against him.
“You can’t deny what we have,” he said in a low voice that sent dangerous thrummings through her body.
She shook her head and met his gaze steadily now. “I don’t deny it. But I know it’s not enough. You’re no ordinary man, Zavian.”
“And you’re no ordinary woman.”
She tugged her hand, but he refused to release it. “But don’t you see?” she asked. “I am. Just that.” This time he allowed her hand to go. “I’m an ordinary woman with ordinary needs and hopes.”
He frowned. For the first time, the certainty was gone from his eyes. “And what are your ordinary desires?”
“To marry a man who won’t come to hate me as my foreignness causes rifts in his country, or worse, war.”
“That won’t happen.”
“I don’t know on what you base this assertion because we have history, and wars all around us caused by less, which proves you’re wrong.”
“I will make it work.”
“You alone cannot make it work.” She held up her other hand to stop him from speaking, and he kissed her palm, almost making her forget what she had to say. But it was too important. “This is not about you, not about me, or an ‘us’, it’s about your country and your people. That, Zavian, is what’s important here.”
“I don’t deny its importance, but—”