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Unsure how she got there, she felt the wall of the elevator at her back. Sayed’s body was so close his outer robes brushed her. Her breath came out on a shocked gasp.
He brushed her lower lip with his fingertip. “Your mouth is luscious.”
“This is a bad idea.”
“Is it?” he asked, his head dipping toward hers.
“Yes.” Was this how it had begun with her mother and father? “I’m not part of amenities.”
No wonder Hena had spent so much effort warning Liyah against the seductions of men.
“I know.” His tone rang with sincerity.
“I don’t do elevator sex romps,” she clarified, just in case he didn’t get it.
Something flared in his dark gaze and Sayed stepped back, shaking his head. “I apologize, Miss Amari. I do not know what came over me.”
“I’m sure you’re used to women falling all over you,” she offered by way of an explanation.
He frowned. “Is that meant to be a sop to my ego or a slam against it?”
“Neither?”
He shook his head again, as if trying to clear it.
She wondered if it worked. She would be grateful for a technique that brought back her own usual way of thinking, unobscured by this unwelcome and unfamiliar desire.
She did not know what else he might have said or how she would have responded because the telephone inside the elevator car rang. She opened the panel the handset resided behind and answered it.
“Amari here.”
“Is the sheikh with you?” an unfamiliar voice demanded, and she wondered if Christos Giatrakos, the new CEO himself, had been called to deal with the highly unusual situation.
A shiver of apprehension skittered down her spine, until she realized that the tones had that quality that implied a certain age.
“Yes, the emir is here,” she forced out, realizing in kind of a shocked daze that she might well be speaking to her father for the first time.
“Put him on.”
“Yes, sir.”
She reached toward Sayed with the phone, the cord not quite long enough. “Mr. Chatsfield would like to speak with you.”
Sayed came closer and took the handset, careful not to touch her in the process.
She retreated to the other side of the elevator where she was forced to witness the one-sided conversation. Very little was actually said beyond the fact there was no problem and they would be arriving at the lobby level in a moment.
Even with her tendency to shut down, Liyah would have felt the need to explain herself, not so the emir of Zeena Sahra. If she had not witnessed his moment of shocked self-realization, she wouldn’t believe he was discomfited in the least by their situation.
True to his word, the elevator doors were opening on the lobby level seconds later. Both the emir’s personal bodyguard and Liyah’s father were waiting on their arrival.
The conspicuous absence of anyone else to witness their exit from the elevator said more than words would have what everyone thought had been happening in the stopped elevator.
Offended by assumptions about her character so far from reality, Liyah walked out with her head high, her expression giving nothing of her inner turmoil away.
Making no effort to set her boss’s mind at rest in regard to Liyah’s behavior, the emir barely acknowledged Gene Chatsfield before waving his bodyguard onto the elevator with an imperious “Come, Yusuf.”
“In my office,” her father said in frigid tones as the elevator doors swished to a close.
