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Another door. Something soft was beneath her. She forced her eyes open and looked around. Her room. Sariq, beside her bed.
‘Don’t go.’ She lifted a hand, holding it towards him. ‘Please.’
If he were a man of honour, he would leave her now. For hours they’d pleasured one another, his body answering the call of hers, instincts driving them together, making it impossible to remember anything except the sense of what they each craved from the other. But in a few short hours the sun would crest over the desert dunes and reality would intrude.
She didn’t want this, and nor did he. It was an illusion. A snatch out of time.
Danger lay before him. If he joined her in bed, he’d fall asleep. They’d wake up together, facing a new day as lovers.
His eyes dropped to her belly, rounded with his child, and a paternalistic pride fired in his belly. He owed it to their child not to mess this up. Sleeping with Daisy tonight had been, undeniably, perfect but it was also problematic. He wanted her.
He wanted her in a way that was addictive, that could threaten his legendary self-control if he didn’t take care.
‘It’s late.’ The words were crisp and he saw her flinch in response. He was already ruining this. Just as he’d said in the tower, pain brought pleasure and pleasure brought pain. ‘Go to sleep.’
He left before she could respond.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HE BARELY SLEPT. Just as the sun lifted above the desert, he pushed the sheet from his body and strode, naked except for a pair of boxer shorts, onto the balcony. Frustration gnawed at his gut. Dissatisfaction too.
He shouldn’t have left her without an explanation.
He’d panicked, but she’d deserved better.
Without intending to, he moved along the balcony, towards the doors that led to her apartment. If she was asleep, which she surely would be at this hour, he would leave her. And if she was awake?
He stood on the other side of the glass, looking in at his wife’s room, wondering at the thundering inside his chest. The morning was perfect. Clear and cool, none of the day’s stinging temperature apparent yet.
Daisy slept. She was so peaceful like this, so beautiful. Memories flashed through his mind. New York. Her smile. Her laugh. The fascination he’d felt with her from the beginning.
Her face when he’d propositioned her to become his mistress.
The obvious shock. Despite the normality of such an arrangement, she’d been offended. Her fire when she’d thrown her pregnancy at him, with no idea what that revelation would mean.
And finally, her words on the night they’d married.
‘I’m marrying you because I have to—not because I want to—and I will never forgive you for this. Tonight I’m going to become your wife and I may appear to accept that, I may appear to accept you, but I will always hate you for this. I love our child, and, for him or her, I will try to make our marriage amicable, at least on the surface, but don’t you ever doubt how I really feel.’
She’d begged him to make love to her in the tower, the night before. Their physical connection was real and raw. There was no questioning that. But beyond it? She hated him. She despised him, as she had every reason to.
Did she still though? Even after time had passed and they’d grown...what? Closer? Did he really think that? Did he really want that?
His heart thumped.
Yes.
He wanted it, and yes, they had. He’d shared more of himself with Daisy in the short course of their marriage than he had any other soul in his entire life. He’d felt painfully lonely when they’d met and now?
He didn’t want to examine it because the answer terrified him.
He would never allow himself to love her. No woman, ever, but especially not Daisy. There was far too much risk there. If he ever really let himself care for her, he suspected he’d lose himself completely. When he’d confronted the prisoners in the catacombs the night before, he’d wanted to kill them with his bare hands. The impulse had assailed him from nowhere but it had been strong and desperate. The idea of anyone hurting Daisy had been anathema to him.
He stood up straighter, his breathing forced.
For Daisy, he would give up his kingdom, his crown. Anything she asked of him. Revulsion flooded him, and a heavy sense of guilt. Being Sheikh of Haleth was his purpose in life. He had been born and raised for this, and desire for a woman wasn’t anywhere close to a good enough reason to doubt his duty.
Except it wasn’t just desire, a voice niggled inside him. There was a complexity of considerations here, but none of these could permit him to forget what he owed his country.
