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He turned to walk away again and she blurted out before she could stop herself, ‘What do you mean, “we’re done”?’
Arkim stopped and looked at her. He seemed to be weighing something up in his mind and then he said, ‘We’ll be leaving as soon as the storm has passed.’
Then he just turned and walked out, leaving Sylvie gaping. ‘We’ll be leaving...’ She’d done it. She’d provoked him into letting her go. She’d finally made him listen to her—made him listen as she tried to explain who she really was. And now he didn’t want to know. Yet instead of relief or triumph all Sylvie felt was...deflated.
* * *
‘I don’t feel anything for you except physical desire.’ Arkim’s own words mocked him. He couldn’t get the flash of hurt he’d seen in Sylvie’s eyes out of his head. And he tried. He couldn’t deny that it made him feel...guilty. Constricted.
He’d lied. What he felt for her was much more complicated than mere physical desire. It was a tangled mess of emotions, underscored by the most urgent lust he’d ever felt.
He didn’t ever say things to hurt women—he stayed well away from any such possibility by making sure that his liaisons were not remotely emotional. Yet he seemed to have no problem lashing out and tearing strips off Sylvie Devereux at every opportunity.
It should be bringing him some sense of pleasure, or satisfaction. But it wasn’t. Because he had the skin-prickling feeling that there was something he was missing. Something in Sylvie’s responses. He would have expected her to be more petulant. Whiny. More obviously spoilt.
She’d shown defiance, yes, and even though her dash into the desert had been foolhardy she’d shown resilience.
Arkim sat in his book-lined study with its dark, sophisticated furniture and classic original art. He’d always liked this room because it was so far removed from what he remembered of his childhood in LA: his father’s vast modern glass mansion in the hills of Hollywood. Everything there was gaudy and ostentatious, the infinity swimming pool full of naked bodies and people high on drugs.
And now he felt like a total hypocrite. Because when Sylvie had stood in front of him in some parody of what strippers wore—because he’d all but goaded her into it—he’d been as hard and aching as he could ever remember being. The insidious truth that he really was not so far removed from his father whispered over his skin and made him down a gulp of whisky in a bid to burn it away.
He’d brought her here and asked for it—and she’d called his bluff spectacularly. She was turning him upside down and inside out with her bright blue and green gaze that seemed to sear right through him and tear him apart deep inside. Showing up everything he sought to hide.
The fact that she’d seemed intuitively to sense the maelstrom she inspired within him had galvanised him into kissing her into submission. And yet she’d been the one who had stood there proudly and told him she wouldn’t sleep with someone who hated her.
He’d walked away from her just now because she’d shamed him. The irony mocked him.
Arkim couldn’t deny it any more: Sylvie made no excuses for what she did and she had more self-worth than most of the people he encountered, who would look down their noses at her. As he had.
When she’d mentioned going to Paris at seventeen he’d felt a tug of empathy and curiosity that no other woman had ever evoked within him. He’d been seventeen when he’d last seen his father. When he’d told him he wasn’t coming back to LA and when he’d decided that he would do whatever it took to make it on his own.
Arkim stood up and paced his study. It felt claustrophobic, with the shutters closed against the storm which raged outside—not unlike the turmoil he felt within.
The truth was that he wanted to know more about Sylvie—more about why she did what she did. About her in general. And he’d never felt that same compulsion to know about her sister.
He’d told Sylvie that they’d be leaving as soon as the storm was over—a reflexive reaction to the fact that she affected him in a way he hadn’t anticipated. He’d thought it would be easy, that she’d be easy. The truth was that the storm might pass outside, but it would rage inside him until he quenched it.
If he left this place without having her she would haunt him for the rest of his life.
* * *
When Sylvie woke the next morning everything was dark and quiet. She got up and padded to the shutters over her windows, not sure what to expect. Maybe the castle would be completely buried in sand? But when she opened them she squinted as beautiful bright blue skies were revealed. What looked like just a thin layer of sand lay over the terrace—the only clue to the formidable weather of the previous evening.
Her mind skittered away from thinking of what else had happened. She wanted to cringe every time she thought of how she must have made such a complete fool of herself—prancing around in those stupid clothes. Even more cringeworthy was recalling how for a few moments she’d got really into it, and had seriously thought she might be turning Arkim on.
But he’d been disgusted. Yet not disgusted enough not to kiss her. And she’d responded—which said dire things about her own sense of self-worth.
Thank God she’d managed to pull back. To show some small measure of dignity. If she hadn’t, she could well imagine that Arkim might have laid her down on that stone floor and had her there and then—and discovered for himself just how innocent she was. Sylvie balked at that prospect.
The sunlight streaming into the room reminded her of the fact that Arkim had said they’d be leaving. She sank back on the bed. She’d done it. She’d managed to resist him and disgust him so completely that he was prepared to take her home. In spite of the mutual physical lust that sparked between them like crackling fire whenever they got close.
She hated to admit it, but that sense of deflation hadn’t lifted. Had she enjoyed sparring with Arkim so much? Had she wanted him to take her in spite of what he thought of her? In spite of her brave words last night?
Yes, said a small voice, deep inside. Because he’s connected with you on a level that no other man ever has.
Sylvie felt disgusted with herself. Was she so wounded inside after her father’s rejection of her that this was the only way she could feel desire? For a man who rejected her on every level but the physical?
Someone knocked on the door and she reached for her robe, pulling it on. Halima appeared, smiling, with breakfast on a tray. She set it up on a table near the French doors and opened them wide.
