‘I left a message for you in Kareshi,’ he said as if picking up on these thoughts. ‘Didn’t you get it? The women? Didn’t they come to find you?’ he added as she slowly shook her head.
And then she remembered the women trying to speak to her before she left. She’d been in too much of a hurry to spare the time for them. ‘They did try to speak to me,’ she admitted.
‘But you didn’t give them chance to explain?’ Sharif guessed. ‘Like you I never walk away from responsibility, Britt. You should know I would always get a message to you somehow.’
And he was actually paying her a compliment leaving Skavanga Mining in her care. It was a compliment she would gladly park in favour of hearing Sharif tell her that he couldn’t envisage life without her—
How far must this self-delusion go before she finally got it into her head that whatever had happened between them in the past was over? Sharif had clearly moved on to the next phase of his life. Why couldn’t she?
‘Welcome on board, Britt.’
She stared at his outstretched hand, wondering if she dared touch it. She was actually afraid of what she might feel. She sought refuge as always in business. ‘Is that it?’ she said briskly, turning to go. ‘I really should put my sisters out of their misery.’
‘They already know what’s going on.’
‘You told them?’
‘Like you, I didn’t want them to worry, so I told them what was happening and sent them home.’
‘You don’t take any chances, do you, Sharif?’ She stared into the dark, unreadable eyes of the man who had briefly been her lover and who was now her boss.
‘Never,’ he confirmed.
A wave of emotion jolted her as she walked to the door. Sharif’s voice stopped her. ‘Don’t leave like this,’ he said.
She turned her face away from him, unwilling to meet his all-seeing stare. The last thing she wanted now was to break down in front of him. Sharif must be given no reason to think she wasn’t tough enough to handle the assignment he had tasked her with.
‘Britt,’ he ground out, his mouth so close to her ear. ‘Please. Listen to me—’
She tried to make a joke of it and almost managed to huff a laugh as she wrangled herself free. ‘I think I’ve listened to you enough, don’t you?’
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ he said. ‘I’m doing this for you—I rushed here for you—to save the company. This isn’t just for the consortium. Yes, of course we’ll benefit from it, but I wanted to save your company for you. Can’t you see that? Why else would I leave my country when there’s trouble brewing?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Everything’s happened so fast, I just don’t know what to think. I only know I don’t understand you.’
‘I think you do. I think you understand me very well.’
She would not succumb to Sharif’s dark charm. She would not weaken now. The urge to soften against him was overpowering, but if she did that she was lost. She might as well pack up her job and agree to be Sharif’s mistress for as long as it amused the Black Sheikh. ‘I need to go home and see my sisters.’
‘You need to stay here with me,’ Sharif argued.
She wanted his arms around her too badly to stay. She still felt isolated and unsure of herself. She, who took pride in standing alone at the head of her troops, felt as if the ground had been pulled away from her feet today.
‘Are you frightened of being alone with me, Britt?’ Cupping her chin, Sharif made her look at him and she stared back. He was a warrior of the desert, a man who had fought to restore freedom to his country, and who could have brushed her aside and taken over Skavanga Mining without involving her.
So why hadn’t he?
‘I asked you a question, Britt? Why won’t you answer me?’
Sharif’s touch on her face was so seductive it would have been the easiest thing in the world to soften in his arms. ‘I’m not frightened of you,’ she said, speaking more to herself.
‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘That’s the last thing I want.’
But if he could know how frightened she was of the way she felt about him, he would surely count it as a victory. And the longer Sharif held her like this, close yet not too close, the more she longed for his warmth and his strength, and the clearer it became that, for the first time in her life, being Britt Skavanga, lone businesswoman, wasn’t enough.