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He swallowed, his Adam’s Apple bobbing along his hair-roughened throat. “I know we said that. But this is no longer casual, is it?”
“Ra’if,” she groaned, shaking her head. “I can’t do this.” Her head was swimming. Heat was flooding her central nervous system. She groaned the next words, “I meant what I said.” She ignored the stabbing pain somewhere near her heart. “I am a mum, first and foremost. I can’t cloud everything by getting serious with you.”
“So what have we been doing then?” He murmured, walking purposefully towards her. “I don’t think I’m alone here. I don’t think I’m the only one who’s fallen in love.”
She stared at him, completely aghast. Not because she wanted to argue with him, but because she needed to agree. She wanted to shout it back at him; to mirror the emotion he was so willingly offering her. That alone terrified her into the utter opposite.
“This was casual. A fling. It’s all I have room for,” she heard her voice – so cold she shivered – slap away his suggestion, even when her heart and soul were pleading with her not to be so foolish.
He nodded, his eyes searching her face. “You’re sure about that?”
She wasn’t. She definitely wasn’t. “Absolutely.” Where did that emphatic, resounding confidence come from? Not her heart, that was for sure.
“Fine.” He shrugged his shoulders. “This is your choice.”
She closed her eyes for a second, pushing away the mental imagery of the future that could have been theirs, if only she were free to grab it.
“It’s not my choice,” she hissed angrily. “You must understand that what I want is not relevant. Every decision I make has to be in Jordan’s best interests.”
“And you think I’m not?” A muscle jerked in his cheek. He waited, his body taut.
“Come on, Ra’if. How long are you in London for? Or do you think Jordie and I should move to Dashan? Can you see him, or me, living … I don’t even know what life is like for you. In a palace? Or wherever it is you’re from?” She sucked in a querulous breath. “None of this is real life. It’s a fantasy. A nice one, but still just a fantasy.”
“I don’t care where I live,” he said seriously. “I have that freedom now, where I thought it would never be mine. I have learned …” He backed away carefully from what he’d been going to say. “Certain events in my life have taught me to value what really matters. That is people. Only people matter.”
“Exactly.” Her heart hurt; her gut was twisting painfully. “And I’m looking after my people.”
He heard the statement and examined it from every angle, trying to make sense of it. “Your people?” He said finally, his words imbued with coolness. The plural was where he came unstuck.
Her heart wrenched. “I …” She had meant that, hadn’t she? A slip of the tongue that said so much.
“You mean him? Brent?”
“He’s Jordan’s father,” she said softly.
“And you still love him.”
“No! I’ve told you…”
“Then why can’t you be honest about how you feel for
me?” He cut her off, moving closer, his expression confident, bordering on arrogance.
She bit down on her lip and steadied her racing heart with a deep breath. “I always have been.” Melinda couldn’t meet his eyes. “I like you. I love sleeping with you. But I want the same thing now as I did when we first … agreed to do this.”
“And what’s that?” His eyes narrowed in a way that his political opponents had, at one time, feared.
“This. Casual. Sex.”
“You actually wish to describe our relationships as ‘casual sex’?”
She nodded, but everything was shimmering a little, like it was a mirage and she was incapable of grabbing it.
He swore in his own language, dragging a hand through his hair. “You’re serious?”
“Yes!” She ground her teeth together, her mind splitting in a thousand pieces. “How can you think this would ever work? You just told me you’re … royalty. Royalty.” The word sounded so strange in her mouth. She couldn’t quite speak it and reconcile it with him. The man she’d become so intimate with. “This could never work. What you’re saying is just not possible.”
“I’m the same man I’ve always been,” he insisted. “My title changes nothing.”
