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She strode into the master bedroom and then stopped dead in the middle, because she’d underestimated the effect it would have on her to bring him here. The bedroom was done in calming pastels and soft creams, and Khaled in the middle of that was...anything but soothing. He was far too male. Overwhelming. Too powerful to be anything but in charge, no matter what games they were playing tonight, and Cleo wasn’t sure what that tiny fluttery thing was, down deep inside her, that wanted to call this off. That wanted simply to throw herself at him and see what happened.
But she already knew what would happen.
Cleo knew she couldn’t do that, or this really would be a one-night stand. Their last-night stand, and she accepted, standing there in a stranger’s bedroom with this dangerous creature who was her husband, that even though she’d left him that wasn’t what she wanted. It never had been.
Khaled studied her for a moment, the faintest hint of amusement on his face, and then looked around. At the graceful two-sided fireplace that dominated the far wall and led into the vast bathroom. At the French doors that opened out over a cozy balcony with only the lush garden below.
Not, she noticed, at the bed that waited there in the middle of the room, as if it hardly signified. As if, unlike her, he didn’t have one flaming hot image after another hurtling through his head and making it difficult to stand still. Or breathe.
“I know you think this is all about sex, but you could be in for a surprise,” she blurted out, as much to get herself under control as to focus his attention. “What if what I want is you performing acts of service in the nude, like a very large trained dog?”
He took a long time to look back at her, and when he did, she hardly recognized that light in his eyes. Pure, untempered laughter? But that was impossible. This was Khaled.
Though it warmed her in ways she hadn’t thought possible to see it. Worse, it made that small, unruly thing inside her chest swell.
“By all means, enjoy yourself thoroughly,” he said, and that same current ran beneath his words. It had to be laughter—and it was like a revelation. A bright hot wanting that sneaked into her bones and settled there. Like hope. “Demean me however you choose, if you feel you must. But there are always consequences, Cleo. You know that.”
She frowned. “I thought this was a gift. I thought you were surrendering yourself. You can’t retaliate for something you decided to do.”
“Can’t I?”
And it didn’t matter that he was naked and she was clothed then. He stared at her until she flushed too hot, and then was perilously close to a guilt she refused to let herself feel.
“Don’t pretend that should have some special resonance for me,” she hissed at him. “It doesn’t. I left because I had to leave. It isn’t the same thing.”
“If you say so.” But he didn’t stop looking at her like that, as if he saw everything. As if he knew things about her that Cleo herself didn’t know, and she couldn’t tell, any longer, if she hated that or craved it. Or even if it mattered anymore. “You have all the power, Cleo.”
“If you dare tell me I always did...” She couldn’t finish the sentence, and she was horrified to realize that she was shaking, and that that burning sensation in her eyes was the threat of tears. “You know that’s not true. You went out of your way to make sure it couldn’t be true.”
His dark eyes flashed. “I never said I wasn’t a bastard. I only point out that you were never as helpless as you pretend. You’ve always had control over me, Cleo. You simply never exercised it.”
“Because you never let—”
She cut herself off when he merely raised that aristocratic brow of his.
“On the bed,” she snapped. “Now.”
And that time, he really did laugh. At her, but it was still so beautiful it very nearly hurt. It poured over her like sunlight and Cleo wanted nothing more than to make certain he laughed again. Often. Always—
But that wasn’t why they were here.
She’d had the courage to leave him. She supposed, in a way, he’d given her that. If he’d never been so certain she could play the role of his wife, she never would have found it in her to imagine she could either—much less imagine they ought to have been more than the narrow little relationship he’d wanted. It was that Cleo who’d walked away from him.
She’d had six weeks to figure out that this wasn’t a change of clothes, this version of herself. This was who she was. And whatever happened next, whatever became of her battered little heart, she’d earned the person she’d become.
