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He didn’t answer.
Tally’s mouth dried. She swallowed quickly. “You said you trusted me. You said you knew I was a photographer, and you liked my photos. You said they were good.”
“They are.”
“Then what do you mean this is home. Tell me what you mean by that.”
“I mean, this is where you’ll live now. This is your home now, here at Bur Juman, with me.”
“No. You can’t mean it. You can’t.” The words burst from Tally in an impassioned frenzy. “You might say you’re a brutal, vengeful, violent man, but I don’t see it. Your men adore you—”
“Please don’t say my men and adore in the same sentence. It makes me extremely uncomfortable.”
“The point is, you know your men care about you.”
“You’re confusing affection and respect. My men don’t care about me. They fear me. Two significantly different things.”
“And why would they fear you?”
“They know the facts.”
Tair sighed inwardly as he saw Tally’s expression harden. He was familiar with women’s emotional tendencies, understood they valued connection and relationships over logic and accomplishment, but this one, this woman, defied logic altogether.
He’d kidnapped her from the medina. He’d dragged her across the desert. He was holding her against her will and fully intended to keep her here. What about those actions symbolized tenderness or kindness? Where was the empathy? The compassion?
“Do not think you can change me,” he said tersely, irritated to even be having this conversation. He was not a conversational man. Tally should know that by now. She should know him by now. “Do not imagine you can somehow shape me into a better, kinder version of me. It will not happen.”
“I’ve no desire to change you. The only thing I want is to get out of here. Go home.”
“Which I’m not going to allow you to do.”
“So, let me get this straight. You’ve no intention of becoming the least bit likable, and I’ve got to spend forever here, too?”
Tair nearly smiled. Finally she sounded properly horrified. Now this was conversation he liked. “Yes. Exactly. I will not change. I will never be likable. And you will never be returned to your people.”
A small muscle jumped in her jaw, near her ear. Her expression subtly tensed. “You mean, I won’t be returned until I agree to erase all the camera’s memory.”
Tair didn’t reply immediately, too intent on studying her eyes, where the sunlight shone, reflecting glints of green and gray and brown. He loved the color of her eyes. They reminded him of the part of Europe he loved, the old forests and cool woodland glens, the river beds filled with polished pebbles against banks softened by violets and ferns. In her eyes he remembered swimming in sun dappled ponds and hiding inside hollowed tree stumps. He could smell the water, the sticky sap of trees, the softness of moss growing on the far side of trees.
He remembered his mother.
He remembered the boy.
He remembered innocence.
“If I give you all the disks now, let you erase them, destroy them, you will let me go.” Tally’s voice was firm but he heard the whisper of uncertainty. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure. Suddenly she doubted him. Again.
As she should.
His gaze dropped from her eyes, over the satin cream and rose of her fine Western skin to her mouth. Her lips were full, wide, the color a dark-dusty pink which he’d thought initially was makeup, but knew now it was just the color of her skin.
Pink and cream, rose and ivory.
The color of his woman.
His woman. And he knew without a doubt what he’d suspected earlier. He’d never intended to return her, never planned to let her go back.
She was his woman. She was going to be his wife.
They’d been together long enough. It was a longer courtship than he’d had with his first wife.
It was time to make their relationship official. Time to announce that the foreigner would soon be his bride.
“Tair.” Her tone was increasingly urgent. “I’ll do it. Get my camera and memory cards now. Let’s just do it. Destroy them and be done with it.”
“No.”
“No?”
He shrugged, increasingly comfortable. Easy now that he’d made his decision, or more correctly, recognized the decision he’d made when he first spotted Tally in the square. It was kismet, he understood now. Fate. He’d seen her and knew without understanding why, that he had to have her. She was supposed to be his. “You’ll stay here with me.”
