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“It’s a moot point and this discussion is a waste of both our time. Where am I sleeping?”
According to information from his PA, there were two bedrooms, a fully functioning office and a game room upstairs.
“In one of the bedrooms on the upper floor.”
“You’re going to let me pick my own room?” she asked in a voice tinged with false surprise and mockery.
Damn it. He was just doing his job. “Yes, you can pick whichever room you want,” he managed to get out between gritted teeth.
He followed her up the stairs, grabbing both her duffel and his bag before she had a chance to. She walked straight into the bedroom on the left at the end of the hall without even giving the other a glance. He followed her and dropped her duffel on the bed.
“Thank you.” Her voice was soft and so damn alluring.
He didn’t back away when she turned. He couldn’t. He wanted to take in her scent, to feel her warmth even if he was determined not to touch her. “You’re welcome. Our flight is in the afternoon. We’ll be leaving for the airport right after an early lunch.”
“Noted.” She looked up at him, her dark eyes filled with deep thoughts, but she didn’t say anything. Nor did she move away.
“What?”
“I always wondered…”
“What?”
“Was it all part of the act?”
His body jolted with shock. Maybe he should have expected that question, but he hadn’t. He wanted to explain himself, but just like eight years ago—he wasn’t sure what to say. It was the main reason he hadn’t pushed harder for a chance to talk.
He didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about, even if it might have been the smarter thing to do. “No.”
She bit her lip and nodded, backing away from him. “Thank you. I don’t think I want to know which parts.”
It was his turn to nod. He’d regretted few things in his life as much as he had his lack of control with Lina. He had been totally disgusted with himself that final night. He couldn’t believe he’d allowed himself to get lost in her physical presence again. Once more, his libido had put her at risk and he’d been sick with himself.
His self-disgust had made him harsher with her than he had meant to be when revealing the truth of his ignment. He’d had eight years to come up with a multitude of different scenarios for the revelations of that night, not one of them leaving his princess looking so damn wounded and betrayed.
She’d moved over to the window and stood looking out at the darkened desert. He didn’t know what she could see, but doubted it was the view she was focused on anyway. He walked up behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder.
She shivered and he wanted to pull her body into his, but he had more self-control at thirty-five than he had had at twenty-seven and he didn’t do it. “I’m sorry, princess.”
“For?” she asked in a voice husky with emotion she was obviously trying to hide.
“I should never have let things get out of hand between us. I compromised your safety twice with my inattentiveness.”
She laughed, but the sound was hollow. “You’re sorry you didn’t do your job right?” She shook her head as if trying to clear it. “Don’t worry about it. As far as I could tell, you did it perfectly.”
“I’m also sorry I hurt you.” There, he’d said it. And it could go down in the record books because he could count on one hand the number of times he’d apologized in his life and this counted for two of them.
“Is that why you took this job? So you could tell me you were sorry?”
“Yes, partly. I don’t do fieldwork any longer.”
“You’re too busy with your multitude of other business interests.”
“It sounds like you’ve been keeping up with me.”
“You know what they say. It’s important to know your enemies.”
He felt something tighten in his chest. “I’m not your enemy.”
“You aren’t my friend.”
“I was once.”
“So you could keep an eye on me. That’s not friendship, that’s an overdeveloped sense of responsibility where your job is concerned.”
“I liked you, Lina. I respected you.”
The harsh sound that came from her throat was all disbelief.
“I did. I still do. You’ve done a lot with your life, most of it without anyone’s encouragement or help.”
“That’s not true. My aunt and uncle have stood behind me.”
“I’m glad there are people in your family you feel you can trust.”
She said nothing.
He fought a sigh. This apology thing was so not his gig. “I should have told you the truth about who I was once I realized how hard it would be to keep my hands off you.” Try impossible. He forced himself to drop his hand from her shoulder and move back.
She nodded. “Thank you.”
He didn’t know what to say to that so he said nothing.
“Is that what you wanted to tell me when you called that time?”
“Yes. And when I tried to talk to you the night you learned the truth.”
“You had already said a lot.”
“Believe it or not, princess, that was a bad night for both of us.”
Her shoulders tensed.
“If you respected me so much, why did you accuse me of not caring about the people who depend on me?” She turned to face him, for once her expression open for reading. Skepticism and unhappiness marked her features. “You made the same accusation tonight.”
He had and she’d put him firmly in his place. “I made umptions then and now about your lack of concern. Eight years ago, I thought you knew the effect your actions would have and did not care.”
“But I didn’t know. It never occurred to me that my bid for personal freedom might cost someone their job.”
“Because you were overly confident in your ability not to get caught.”
“A wealth of confidence should be something you understand.”
He found himself almost smiling at that. “Yes.”
“You made the same umption this time.”
“And I was wrong.”
“It doesn’t matter, though, does it? You still think I owe my father my life and my happiness.”
“I thought you believed that line of reasoning was useless to argue with me.” But damn it, she was wrong. What he believed was that she had no choice and she would be happier if she made the best of the life she’d been born to.
She seemed to wilt. “It is. I’m tired, Mr. Hawk. Do you mind if I go to bed?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LINA woke up just before sunrise.
She’d slept surprisingly well considering how disheartened she had been when she went to bed. Sebastian had given her an apology with one hand and snapped away any comfort that might bring her with the other. He might like some things about her and even respect her to an extent, but when all was said and done—the man still believed she had no right to an opinion about her own future.
In that way, he was exactly like her father. For a man raised not a part of any country’s nobility, he certainly had a medieval view of what it meant to be born a princess.
Well, no matter what her father and his agent provocateur regarded as truth, she didn’t agree with them and she was not going to be forced into marriage to a man she didn’t know, obviously didn’t love because of the former and had little hope of doing so considering his womanizing reputation.
Actually she’d researched her supposed fiancé pretty thoroughly, almost as intensively as she’d researched Sebastian Hawk over the past eight years, and she thought she and Amir could be friends. They both chose to live modern lives outside the normal sphere of their royal families. He was called the Playboy Prince, but he’d never gotten a woman pregnant and refused to stand by her, or had an affair with a married woman, or even broken an engagement.
He dated. A lot. But he also oversaw his family’s holdings in the U.S. and did an excellent job with them. He didn’t dismiss his responsibilities in favor of play, nor did he ignore the needs of the less fortunate. The Faruq al Zorha businesses in the States donated more than fifteen percent of their profits each year to worthy causes, and not simply politically expedient or popular ones.
Her impression of him was so favorable that she had considered meeting and getting to know him more than once, but in the end she knew it would be useless. She wanted love in her marriage, or she preferred to remain unattached. If she had children, she was determined to give them a different upbringing than she had had. No matter how much her aunt and uncle had loved her, Lina had never been able to completely dismiss her parents’ rejection.
They’d simply given her away. She’d been a thank you to the childless couple for their loyal service to her father, just as if she had been a prize stallion or other possession.
