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Tariq shrugged with apparent ease, but his eyes were hot.
“In any case, you misunderstand me,” he said. He smiled slightly. “I am not in the habit of proposing marriage to exlovers who harbor such disdain for me, I assure you.”
It took a moment for his words to fully sink in. Humiliation followed quickly, thick and hot. It was a dizzying reminder of how she had felt when his mobile phone had come up disconnected, his London flat vacated, one after the other, with her none the wiser. Mortification clawed at her throat and cramped her stomach. Had she really imagined that he had appeared out of nowhere because he wished to marry her? She was unbearably foolish, again, as if the past five years had never happened.
But they had happened, she reminded herself. And she had been through far worse than a few moments of embarrassment. It was the memory of what she’d survived, and the hard choices she’d made, that had her pushing the humiliation aside and meeting his gaze. There were more important things in the world than Tariq bin Khaled Al-Nur, and her own mortification. Her cheeks might still be red, but her head was high.
“Then what is it you want?” she asked coolly. “I have no interest in playing games with you.”
“I have already told you what I want,” he said smoothly, but there was still that hard edge beneath. “Must I repeat myself? I do not recall you being so slow on the uptake, Jessa.”
Once again, the way he said her name nearly made her shiver. She shook it off and tried to make sense of what he was saying but then, abruptly, gave up. Why was she allowing this to happen? He had waltzed in after all this time, and cornered her behind her desk? Who did he think he was?
With a burst of irritation, at herself and at him, Jessa propelled herself around the side of her desk and headed for the door of the office. She didn’t have to stand there and let him talk to her this way. She didn’t have to listen to him. He was the one who had had all the choices years ago, because she hadn’t known any better and hadn’t wanted to know any better, but she wasn’t that besotted girl any longer. That girl had died years ago, thanks to him. He had no idea what she’d been through, and she didn’t owe him anything, including explanations.
“Where do you imagine you can go?” he asked, in an idle, detached tone, as if he could not possibly have cared less. She knew better than to believe that, somehow. “That you believe I cannot follow?”
“I have some ideas about where you can go,” Jessa began without turning back toward him, temper searing through her as she stalked toward the door.
But then he touched her, and she had not heard him move. No warning, no time to prepare—
He touched her, and her brain shorted out.
His long fingers wrapped around her arm just above the elbow. Even through the material of her suit jacket, Jessa could feel the heat emanating from him—fire and strength and his hard palm against her arm, like a brand. Like history repeating itself. Like a white-hot electricity that blazed through her and rendered her little more than ash and need.
He closed the distance between them, pulling her up hard against the unyielding expanse of his chest. She gasped, even as his other hand came around to her opposite hip, anchoring her against him, her back to his front, their two bodies coming together like missing puzzle pieces.
She could feel him everywhere. The sweet burn where his powerful body connected with hers, and even where he did not touch her at all. Her toes curled in her shoes. Her lungs ached. Deep in her belly she felt an intoxicating pulse, while between her legs she felt herself grow damp and ready. For him. All for him, as always.
How could her body betray her like this? How could it be so quick to forget?
“Take your hands off me,” she demanded, her voice hoarse with an emotion she refused to name. At once, he stepped back, released her, and all that fire was gone. She told herself she did not feel a hollowness, did not feel bereft. She turned slowly to face him, as if she could not still feel the length of his chest pressed against her.
She thought of Jeremy. Of what she must hide.
Of what Tariq would do if he knew.
“Is this what you think of me?” she asked, her voice low, her temper a hot drumbeat inside her chest. She raised her chin. The hoarseness was gone as if it had never been. “You think you can simply turn up after all this time, after vanishing into thin air and leaving me with nothing but your lies, and I’ll leap back into your arms?”
“Once again, you seem to be confused,” Tariq said, his voice hushed, his gaze intent. Almost demanding. But there was something else there that made a shiver of silent warning slide along her spine. “I am not the one who ran away. I am the one who has reappeared, despite all the time that has passed.”
