‘All right,’ she said, putting aside the complications of her relationship with Paolo in the disturbing warmth generated by Khaled’s touch. ‘Yes, I have a fiancé. And if I’m going to marry anyone, I’d prefer it to be him.’
He laughed, sudden and loud and as if he was truly enjoying himself. Yet there was unmistakably a hard edge she heard there too.
‘Tell me, then,’ he asked, ‘do you think Paolo will rush to your rescue? Do you think he would marry you himself, just to save you from me? Is your lover that much of a hero?’
‘Of course he would marry me,’ she maintained, stiffening further in his arms, certain that, for all his recent and inexplicable in ability to commit, he would never let her suffer the indignity of a forced marriage to anyone, let alone someone like Sheikh Khaled. ‘And he will, just as soon as I get out of this place.’
She kicked her chin up defiantly. So it wasn’t exactly the truth—Khaled didn’t need to know that, and Paolo had said that they would work out their differences on her return. But if it brought Khaled to his senses, so much the better.
He paused and frowned, and something indefinable intruded into his dark eyes. ‘You love him that much you would believe that?’ he asked, his dark, clouded eyes searching hers.
The sudden tender note in his voice took her by surprise. Did he really care how much she felt for Paolo? ‘I…Of course—’
He didn’t wait for her to finish stumbling over her sentence. He let her go, lifting his hands from her and stalking away, raking one hand through his hair.
‘He won’t marry you,’ he said softly.
She wasn’t sure she’d heard right. ‘Pardon?’
‘He won’t marry you.’ This time louder so there was no mistaking his words.
‘You can’t know that,’ she accused, her voice amazingly steady while all the time her mind screamed, How do you know? How could he sound so sure, so certain? There was no way he could know something like that.
His eyes told her he did.
Warning bells sounded in her head. ‘What’s this all about?’ she asked, trying to connect the dots between Khaled’s crazy intention to marry her and Paolo’s deep-seated resentment. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but somehow there was a connection. There had to be. ‘Why me? Why did you pick on me to be your bride?’
He shrugged. ‘I saw a picture of you. I heard about your reputation. Everything I learned about you fascinated me. I had to meet you. And when I met you, in the salon, I knew you were the one for me.’
She surveyed him coolly. ‘That’s too unbelievable for words.’
‘Why? Don’t you believe in love at first sight? It happened to my father. Why shouldn’t the same thing happen to me?’
‘Because unlike your mother, I already have a boyfriend. I’m not looking for a husband.’
‘Paolo won’t marry you because he can’t.’
Something inside her snapped. She’d had enough. She threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. She didn’t want any more of his mind games. She didn’t need them. Now that he’d let her go she had better things to do with her time—like pack her suitcase and get out of there.
‘I don’t have to listen to this. I don’t know what you think you know and I don’t really care. I’m leaving.’
She turned for the door and his words came after her as sharp as a dagger. ‘Didn’t you hear me? It’s not possible for him to marry you.’
‘I’m not listening,’ she said, shaking her head as she reached for the workshop door to slam behind her. ‘I don’t care.’
She gave the door one hell of a swing, thinking her energies could have been much better directed at connecting her fist with one particularly arrogant sheikh’s jaw, but there was no resounding slam, no satisfying conclusion. She turned, growling in frustration, only to see him right behind her, blocking the space the door should have filled.
‘Don’t you want to know why?’
She put her hands over her ears as she headed for her bedroom. ‘No. I don’t want to hear what you think you know. Don’t you understand? I just want to get out of here. I just want to get away from you!’
‘Then you should care,’ he said, nonchalantly tracing her steps. ‘Because it’s obvious that, for someone apparently in love with you, he hasn’t been totally honest.’
That got her attention! She swivelled around where she stood, buried in the walk-in wardrobe, her suitcase in hand, already in flight. Just her luck that when she finally got to enjoy a dressing room large enough to swing a suitcase, she would have been more than happy to hit a few walls, or one particular sheikh, just for effect.