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If her father did not have legal control over her, it was just possible Lina and Hawk could have a future.
He sat down near her feet and her eyes fluttered open.
She smiled…a wide-open expression filled with love, he was sure of it. Then her look shuttered and her welcome turned down a couple of notches.
He stifled his sigh of frustration. This was his fault and he was going to fix it. He’d made a mistake eight years ago when he’d walked away and he’d made a mistake four days ago when he came after her with the intent of taking her back to her family.
He planned to rectify both mistakes in an unmistakable way.
“You said I wouldn’t understand why you ran, even though you knew you didn’t have to. I’d really like you to explain it to me now.”
“Why?” she asked, her voice still husky with sleep.
He reached out and brushed his fingers through her long hair. “Because I want to know you better…to understand everything about you.”
She laughed. “Women aren’t that easy to understand, don’t you know that? That would take a lifetime.”
“Maybe. Would that be so bad?”
Her soft brown eyes widened, but then she shook her head. “You’re joking.”
It was his turn to say, “If you say so.” One of her favorite phrases that he’d figured out pretty quickly meant she wasn’t going to argue, but didn’t necessarily agree.
She frowned.
He smoothed the line between her eyebrows with his fingertip. “Tell me why you ran.”
“I was scared.”
“Why? You’re a U.S. citizen.”
“And my father is a king. I was afraid of what he might do to try to force me to his will…I was afraid of what I might do in some final ditch effort to gain his approval.”
“So, you ran in order to shore up your reserves.”
“And to force him to send someone else after me, someone who hopefully wouldn’t have diplomatic immunity.”
Clever. And effective. “Your plan worked.”
“In unexpected ways.”
“Was it really so unexpected? You had to know he wouldn’t use the security company who had lost track of you to begin with.”
She sat up, staying close, letting their bodies touch as she settled into her favorite seat in the corner of the couch. “You’re right. I think I may have even subconsciously expected him to contact you. After all, it had worked before.”
“But you were still disconcerted by my arrival.” Not that she’d shown it overtly, but he’d figured it out eventually.
“I think you will always disconcert me, Sebastian.”
“And you will always drive me to distraction.”
She grinned. “Is this where the kissing starts?”
“Actually it’s where I remind you that we are going out tonight and you need to get dressed.”
“We went out last night.” She chewed on her bottom lip, something she did when she was thinking, or trying to get her courage to the sticking point. “I would rather stay here with you than go anywhere.”
“Where I want to take you is a very special place.”
“It couldn’t be as special as spending time alone with you.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but this is important to me. Please, princess? For me?”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“If you go upstairs to our room, you’ll find that you do. It’s on the bed.”
“There was a delivery while I was napping?” she guessed.
“Yes.”
“You really want to do this?”
“More than anything in my life.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It is, Lina. Very serious.”
“Okay, I’ll go get dressed, but you have to let me dress alone, or we won’t make it out of the house.”
“Already taken care of.” She was right and he’d known it before she said anything, so he’d put his tux in the second bedroom—the one she’d slept in the first night—and planned to dress in there.
Lina had spent three days falling in love all over again, or admitting to herself that the love she’d felt for Sebastian when she was nineteen had never died. She had also spent those days forcing herself not to play mind games, or trick herself. She was determined not to fool herself into believing he cared about her when all he wanted was sex.
Only he hadn’t just wanted a bedtime playmate. He’d asked her more questions like the one on the couch downstairs than she could count. He’d spent hours digging into her psyche and letting her return the favor. Just like eight years ago, only this time he had no cover story to maintain, no reason to pretend to want friendship—a deep friendship—with her.
Even so, each moment of the past three days, she’d been aware that he was actively pursuing a plan that could result in her married to another man. Or at least she’d believed that was his desire. He certainly wasn’t acting like a man who expected the woman he was sharing his body with to move on to someone else.
In fact, he often made comments about the future that implied they would be spending it together.
She’d been adamant about making herself dismiss each and every one. Now she had to wonder if this time, she’d been actively fooling herself into believing that the man she loved wanted to let her go.
Oh, man…that kind of thought just led to heartache and pain. Yet Sebastian was not acting like a man who was going to hurt her. Not even sort of.
She pulled a tissue wrapping from the dress on the bed and gasped. Eight years ago, in one of their many discussions in the coffee shop on State Street, she’d mentioned to Sebastian that when she got married she wanted to wear her aunt’s wedding gown. It was a white beaded, formfitting gown that would have looked in place on a 1940’s starlet.
That dress was lying on their bed. Next to it was a pair of white satin heels in her size and a tiara. Not like something she’d ever worn in Marwan. Her father was a desert king and tiaras weren’t de rigueur over there. But it was the kind of thing Sebastian would buy for his princess.
Tears burned her eyes as she wondered if she had enough courage to take one more chance with the man she was destined to love until the day she died.
In one of those sweeping moments of clarity that usually scared her half to death, she realized she didn’t have the courage not to.
But first…she needed him to answer a question.
She found him in the room next door. He was fiddling with his bow tie, looking more nervous than she’d ever seen him.
He looked up when she walked in. “You don’t like it?” he asked, his voice tight with emotion she had no trouble deciphering.
It was fear.
“I love it. You had to know I would.”
He swallowed. “I hoped.”
“I need you to answer a question.”
“Anything for you, princess.”
“I am your princess, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I figured.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why walk away eight years ago? Why almost walk away this time? Why the proposal? That’s what this is, isn’t it?” she asked, indicating the precious beaded fabric over her arm.
“That’s a lot more than one question.”
She didn’t say anything, just waited.
His hands twisted in his tie and he yanked it off. “I’ll have to use another one.”
“I’ll help you with it…if you answer my questions.”
“Eight years ago, I believed you were under your father’s legal control completely. I knew…or believed…we couldn’t have a future. And frankly, that relieved me as much as it hurt.”
“How come?”
“I told you about my mom.”
“Yes.”
“She wasn’t the only woman in my life to teach me that love, affection even, is a weakness my pride cannot afford.”
“Do you still believe that?”
“No.”
“What happened to make you so sure of it before?”
“I’ve only had two other semi-serious relationships. The first tried to sue me for palimony after I broke it off once I’d discovered she had another man on the side. And the second dumped me for someone higher in the food chain.”
“So, you thought all women were like that?”
“At least the women the men in my family are attracted to. Both my grandfather and my dad had lousy taste.”
“But you don’t.”
His smile was brilliant and beautifully open. It made tears come to her eyes because she realized it was an entirely new expression for him. “No. I have excellent taste.” A flash of pain shone in his eyes. “I only wished I’d realized that eight years ago.”
