She’d wondered if Tahir could ever love her and now she had her answer. Now she knew exactly what to do. It was time to go home.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TAHIR strode down the frescoed corridor, eager to reach his destination.
The day had been difficult. The cleaning-up work after the earthquake continued, and organising emergency housing and supplies for the dispossessed was a massive undertaking.
Then there was the matter of his marriage.
He’d reckoned without the obstinacy of the Council of Elders, who stuck blindly to the old ways. They wanted him married, all right, but to a woman of their choosing. It was only today he’d learned exactly how far they’d take their opposition.
Strange how they were willing to accept him, a prodigal returned, as their monarch, but quibbled over his choice of wife.
He set his jaw, remembering his recent interview with Akmal. The vizier was determined to force his hand and manoeuvre him into marrying a princess.
Tahir slipped a hand into his trouser pocket, grasping it on the weighty package there. His lips curved in a smile of anticipation.
With this gift he planned to get everything he wanted from Annalisa.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ Tahir strode past the suitcase lying open on the bed, half full of her clothes. He followed the sound of movement into the nearby dressing room and slammed to a stop.
Annalisa stood there, wearing nothing but lace panties and bra. On the floor at her feet lay of pool of crimson silk embroidered with pearls. He recognised it instantly: a dress he’d ordered for Annalisa to go with the pearl and ruby diadem he’d present her with when they married. He’d asked his mother to give her the dress, knowing his fiancée, with her quaint scruples, would balk at accepting it from him.
Annalisa’s face was chalky, her expression mutinous as she stared back at him. No mistaking the anger sparking in her gaze, nor the hurt tightening her mouth.
What had happened to the warm, accommodating woman he’d left in bed just hours ago?
‘I’m leaving. That’s what it means.’
She drew a deep breath, and despite his confusion he couldn’t help appreciating the way her breasts lifted in their lace cups.
‘And stop looking at me like that!’ Her eyes flashed. ‘I’m not a plaything for your enjoyment.’ She stooped and retrieved the dress, holding it in front of her.
‘You’re not going anywhere.’ The notion was unthinkable. He strode nearer and his blood ran cold as she backed away.
She shook her head and her unbound hair swirled around her bare shoulders, reminding him of the way she’d lain in his arms through the night. The way she’d made him feel: pleasured, triumphant, whole. Curiously at peace.
‘I’m leaving and you can’t stop me.’ Her chin lifted in the sign of quiet resolution he knew so well.
‘Annalisa?’ A curious sensation began deep in his gut. A roiling, unsettled feeling he remembered from another time, another life.
Anxiety. Fear.
The notion of her walking out of his life made a yawning void open up before him. Worse than the agony he’d endured at his father’s hands. Worse even than the blank grey nothingness that had haunted him before he came here.
Pain transfixed him, froze his heart as he read her bitterness and anger.
She couldn’t go. He wouldn’t allow it.
‘Of course you’ll stay.’ He tried to sound reasonable, but the words emerged brusquely.
‘No! What have I got to stay for?’ She lifted her chin still higher in unconscious arrogance and Tahir’s certainty crumbled.
‘To be with me.’
Or had she decided he was too flawed? That he wasn’t worth the risk? A man with a past like his had no right expecting a woman like Annalisa to want him. But he did. He had from the first.
She blinked, and he thought he saw her eyes glaze with tears. He started forward, but again she retreated.
‘That’s enough, you think?’
Her words pierced him to the core. He’d finally realised what he wanted from Annalisa, only to have her reject him out of hand.
He should accept her decision. An honourable man would. But Tahir had no pretensions to honour. Not if that meant letting her go.
His eyes blazed fire as he closed the gap between them, looming over her, all male aggression and power.
A tiny part of her revelled in the fact that he wanted her so badly, even though it was only for sex. As his mistress on the side. Even now she responded to him physically, wanted him so badly.
‘Don’t touch me!’
But it was too late. His hands curled round her shoulders, hauling her close so he engulfed her senses, his body hard against hers, the scent of his skin sabotaging her resolve.