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Abruptly she stood up, agitated, and took her glass of wine to go and stand by the open doors of the dining room, which led out to an ornate terraced balcony overlooking the city. She needed air and space. He was too intense and bro
oding. The tension between them, all that was not being acknowledged about their past history, was nearly suffocating. And yet what was there to say? Julia certainly didn’t need to hear Kaden elaborate again on why he’d been so keen to see the back of her …
She heard him move and come to stand beside her. She took a careful sip of wine, trying to be as nonchalant as possible, but already she was trembling with wanting him just to take her in his arms and make her forget everything. One last night and then she would put him out of her mind for good.
“I want you to come to Al-Omar with me for Samia’s wedding.”
Julia’s head whipped round so fast she felt dizzy for a moment. “What?” she squeaked, “You want me to come … as your date?”
He was looking impossibly grim, which made Julia believe that she hadn’t just had an aural hallucination. He nodded. “It’ll be over by Sunday.”
Julia felt bewildered. She hadn’t prepared emotionally for anything beyond this night. “But … why?”
Kaden’s jaw tightened. He wasn’t sure, but he was damn hopeful it would mean the end of his burning need to take this woman every time he looked at her. And that it would make all the old memories recede to a place where they would have no hold over him any more. That it would bring him to a place where he could get on with his life and not be haunted by her and the nebulous feeling of something having gone very wrong twelve years before.
He shrugged. “I thought you might enjoy meeting Samia again.”
Julia looked at Kaden warily. His expression gave nothing away, but there was a starkness to the lines of his face, a hunger. She recognised it because she felt it too. The thought of this—whatever it was between them—lasting for another few days out of time was all at once heady and terrifying.
She’d once longed for him to come after her, to tell her he’d made a mistake. That he did love her. But he hadn’t. Now he wanted to spend more time with her. Perhaps this was as close as she would ever get to closure? This man had haunted her for too long.
She stared down at her wine glass as if the ruby liquid held all the answers. “I don’t know, Kaden …” She looked back up. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea.”
Kaden sneaked a hand out and around the back of her neck. Gently he urged her closer to him, as if he could tell that her words were a pathetic attempt to pretend she didn’t want this.
“This is desire—karma—unfinished business. Call it what you will, but whatever it is it’s powerful. And it’s not over.”
Kaden’s hand was massaging the back of her neck now, and Julia felt like purring and turning her face into his palm. She gritted her jaw. “I have to work tomorrow. I can’t just up and leave the country. I’ll … have to think about it.”
His eyes flashed. Clearly he was unused to anything less than immediate acquiescence. “You can do whatever you want, Julia. You’re beholden to none. But while you’re thinking about it, think about this.”
This was Kaden removing the wine glass from her hand and pulling her into him so tightly that she could feel every hard ridge of muscle and the powerful thrust of his thighs and manhood. Cradling her face in his hands, he swooped—and obliterated every thought in her head with his kiss.
CHAPTER SIX
“WOULD you like some champagne, Dr Somerton?”
Julia looked at the impeccably made-up Burquati air hostess and decided she could so with a little fortitude. She smiled tightly. “Yes, please.”
The woman expertly filled a real crystal flute with champagne, and then passed a glass of what looked like brandy to Kaden, who sat across the aisle of his own private jet.
It was dark outside. It would take roughly six hours to get to B’harani, the capital of Al-Omar. They’d been scheduled to leave that afternoon, but Kaden had been held up with business matters—hence their overnight flight.
Julia’s brain was already slipping helplessly back into the well-worn groove that it had trod all day. Why had she decided to come? A flush went through her body when she remembered back to that morning, as dawn had been breaking. She’d been exhausted. Kaden had been ruthless and remorseless all night. Each orgasm had felt like another brick dismantled in the wall of her defences.
Kaden had hovered over her and asked throatily, “So, will you come to Al-Omar with me?”
Julia had sensed in him a tiny moment of such fleeting vulnerability that she must have imagined it, but it had got to her, stripping away any remaining defences. Stripping away her automatic response to say no and do the right thing, the logical thing. Lying there naked, she’d been at his mercy. To her ongoing shame, she’d just nodded her head weakly, reminding herself that this was finite and soon she would be back to normal, hopefully a little freer of painful memories.
“You don’t need to look like you’re about to walk the plank. You’re going to be a guest at the society wedding of the year.”
Julia clutched the glass tightly in her hand now and looked at Kaden. Since she’d got into his car just a couple of hours ago outside her house he’d been on the phone. And he’d been engrossed in his laptop since boarding the flight. But now he was looking at her.
Unbidden, the words tumbled out. “Why are you doing this? Why are we here?” Why have you come back into my life to tear me open all over again? And, worse, why am I allowing it to happen?
It was as if she had to hear him reiterate the reasons why she was being so stupid. Kaden’s dark eyes held hers for a long moment and then dropped in a leisurely appraisal of her body. Julia was modestly dressed: a plain shirt tucked into high-waisted flared trousers. Her hair was coiled back into a chignon. It should have felt like armour, but it didn’t. Kaden’s laser-like gaze had the power to make her feel naked.
His eyes met hers again. “We are doing this to sate the desire between us. We’re two consenting adults taking pleasure in one another. Nothing more, nothing less.”
