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“Have you?” he asked mildly.
“Of course,” she said briskly. “One of the first things you told me when you walked into my office was that you needed to get married. Naturally, you must do your duty to your country.”
She held her head high as she skirted around him. She headed across the courtyard and up the wide steps toward his private quarters. Tariq followed, watching the sway of her hips in the soft linen and admiring the ramrod straightness of her spine. He followed her inside the palace and all the way into the vast bedroom suite, where he leaned against the bed and watched her look wildly around, as if searching for something.
“Never fear,” she said in the same false tone, turning to face him. “I have no intention of making this awkward for either of us. I will simply pack a few things and be out of your way in no time.”
She looked as if she might change her mind and bolt for the door.
“You are so determined to leave me,” he drawled, amused. “It is almost a shame that I have no intention of letting you do so.”
She froze in place, her face expressionless while her eyes burned hot.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
“What do you think I mean?” he asked.
For a moment she only stared at him.
“I will not be in your harem!” she muttered, scandalized. “How could you suggest such a thing?”
“I am not planning to collect a harem.” His mouth crooked up in one corner. “Assuming, of course, you behave.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, though it was more like a sob.
“You do.” He moved closer to her, so he could reach out and hold her by her slender shoulders. “You have simply decided it cannot happen. I do not know why.”
Her mouth worked, and she flushed a deep, hot red.
“You must have a queen who is worthy of you,” she said after a moment. “One who is your equal in every way.”
“I must have you,” he replied simply, leaning forward to kiss her. Her lips clung to his for a long, sweet moment, and then she pulled back to frown at him.
“No,” she said firmly.
“No?”
“I won’t marry you,” she gritted out, and moved out of his grip. She rubbed at her arms for a moment, her head bent.
Tariq ordered himself to be patient. “Why not?” he asked, in a far easier tone than the possessiveness that clawed at him demanded.
She looked at him. Her lips pressed together, and her hands balled into fists at her side.
“I love you,” she blurted out, and then sighed slightly, as if it hurt to say aloud, even as sweet triumph washed through Tariq—making him want to roar out his victory, shout it from the rooftops. When she looked at him again, her eyes were overly bright, but her chin was high. “I cannot marry a man who does not love me,” she said. Bravely and definitively. “Not even you.”
Tariq closed the distance between them, his expression unreadable. But this was not about sex, explosive as it had always been between them. This was about something bigger.
That must be why she wanted to collapse into sobs.
“Don’t!” Jessa whispered, though she did not move—did not make any attempt to avoid him. “This is hard enough, Tariq! Please do not—”
He silenced her with his mouth upon hers, his hand fisting in the mess of her curls. He kissed her until she melted against him, soft and pliant against his hardness despite everything, until her arms crept around his neck and she kissed him back with a matching ferocity. He kissed her until she couldn’t tell who moaned, who sighed, while the fire of their connection raged between them, incinerating them both in a delicious blaze.
“I love you,” he told her in a low voice when he tore his mouth away from hers, his gaze dark and green and so serious it made Jessa gasp.
She searched his face, not daring to believe she had heard him right. She even shook her head, as if to refute it.
Tariq smiled.
“I have never loved another woman,” he said. “I never will. How can you doubt it? I longed for you for five long years. I hunted you to the ends of the earth.”
“York is not the ends of the earth,” she said, absurdly. He traced a line down her jaw, still smiling.
“That depends where you start.” He sighed. “Jessa. What are you so afraid of? Did I not tell you what would happen if I brought you here?”
She remembered he had been angry, but she also remembered what he had said—that he would keep any woman he brought to his palace. But she could not seem to get her head around it. She could not seem to believe.
“That was a long time ago,” Jessa whispered.
