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She turned pale. “I’m... I’m so sorry.”
“I’m only telling you so you’ll understand how much I respect what you’re doing.” Slowly, he reached out a hand and tucked a long tendril of her hair back from her face. “I admire you, Beth. So much.”
He felt her shiver. Her eyes were wide and luminous in the moonlight.
He realized his hand was still tangled in her long hair. It felt soft, so soft. He wanted to move his fingers against her cheek. He wanted to stroke her full, swollen bottom lip with his thumbs. He wanted to kiss her deeply, and reach his hands beneath her fur coat to stroke every luscious curve of her body in the blue dress.
The SUV stopped. They’d arrived at the Eiffel Tower, overlooking the shadows and early spring greenery of the Champ de Mars. A moment later, the back door opened. His uniformed driver waited.
Omar got out of the SUV, then reached back for Beth. Just touching her hand made it difficult not to kiss her. For a moment, after the driver departed, the two of them stood on the dark, deserted sidewalk, their hands remaining entwined beneath the moonlight.
“Why have you never married before now?” she whispered.
The question made pain slice through his throat. He pushed the vicious memories away. “Because I did not wish to.”
“That’s no answer.”
“Isn’t it?” He thought of his mistresses in the past. Cool blondes with cold natures, quickly seduced, quickly forgotten.
Nothing like this. Nothing like her. A woman like Beth, so open, so direct, so obviously kind, would be a partner for life.
“You asked me why I did this, Beth,” he said in a low voice. “Why did you?”
Her cheeks went pink, and she bit her full, red lower lip. She looked away. “I told you. For the money. And to see Paris.”
Yes, she’d said that before. But, for some reason, this time her words bothered him.
What had he expected? That she’d suddenly confess that, busy and weighed down with the responsibility of her obligations, she’d secretly hungered for a real human connection—more than a temporary lover, a permanent partner? That she’d say she’d been disappointed too many times by romance, and had never completely gotten over a devastating tragedy of the past?
That she’d say, for the sake of her country, she’d decided to cast her fate to the winds and settle for whatever the universe offered her?
No. Beth Farraday was a scientist. She didn’t believe in fate. Not the way that Omar did. But growing up as he had, as the leader of his nation, he’d seen too many coincidences, split-second turns of fortune that, like a flip of a coin, could have gone either way, not to believe in fate.
Like the fate that had made him king, when his older brother had died too young.
Like the fate that had caused Omar, fifteen years before, to choose a bride who already secretly loved another man, who’d taken her own life rather than be forced to become Omar’s queen.
No. That last wasn’t fate. It had been Omar’s fault alone, for selfishly, blindly, putting his desires above all.
Beth’s eyes cut through him. “What is it?”
He’d intended to interrogate her. Instead, he had the sudden discomfiting thought that she saw right through his outward mask to the pain beneath. He dropped her hand. “Come. I’ve made special arrangements for our visit.”
As they walked beneath the base of the Eiffel Tower, she tilted her head back, her eyes dazzled by the lights illuminating the monument as well as the Paris night.
“I’ve never seen anything more beautiful,” she whispered.
Omar looked at her joyful expression, at the way her hazel eyes danced. “I have.”
It was such a small thing, bringing her here, and yet she seemed almost intoxicated by happiness. For a smile like that, he thought, he would have taken her to a thousand E
iffel Towers.
Strange that Beth Farraday wasn’t impressed by the thought of becoming a queen, a billionaire’s wife, the envy of half the world. But she was overjoyed by the thought of seeing a tourist attraction visited by millions of people every year.
“It’s just too bad it’s closed,” she sighed.
“Not for us,” he said.
