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“Why do you need to see my notebook?”
Unused to being questioned, he shifted his weight from one leg to the other.
“You do not ask me why. You simply do what I ask.”
Her heart rate doubled as she stood, staring at him. With hands that weren’t quite steady, she passed the notebook to him. But as his fingers wrapped around the worn cover of her Moleskine, she found she didn’t let go. “Please,” she looked at him beseechingly. “It’s private.”
Something in the way she looked at him so earnestly made him pause. “Are you a journalist?”
“A journalist? Lord, no!” She exhaled slowly, trying to calm her buzzing insides. “I am a writer, though. Strictly fiction. I was just putting down some thoughts…” She didn’t want to elaborate. She tried to keep as much distance between herself and her best selling nom de plume. Emma Anderson had always run as far as possible from the lime light.
His eyes bore into hers, brooding and assessing, and she felt that same slick of desire in her abdomen. Heat coursed through her as she stared up at him, noting the way the breeze ruffled his jet black hair. He really was spectacularly attractive, in that very macho kind of way.
Finally, he released his hold on the notebook. “Fine.”
He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Emma standing there, a puddle of sensation with a frantically churning heart. She wanted to scream at him, but there was something so naturally authoritative about him that, frankly, she was scared into silence whenever he was nearby. Oh, she felt like a traitor to her sister. She couldn’t have imagined that, when the opportunity presented itself, she still hadn’t spoken her mind to this big, muscled jerk. Every moment she didn’t confront him, and tell him what she thought of him, was one moment too late.
“Emma!” Becky came bounding into their bedroom later that morning, her pretty face crinkled into a smile. Becky was the sort of person who should be working on a yacht like this. She was pure beach-girl beauty, with a deep tan, sun-bleached hair, eyes like a cat, and an athletic body that, when the Sheikh was not in residence, she displayed in just a bikini, day in, day out. Becky had hired Emma (after about a thousand security and background checks), and from that first day, she’d tried to get the other girl to lighten up, but Emma just couldn’t shake her bookish nature.
“Emma, guess what?”
Emma scanned the rest of the paragraph and then placed her finger in the page, lifting her eyes to Becky. “Mmmm?”
Becky’s whisper was thick with excitement. “Em, His Royal Hotness wants to see you!”
Immediately, that sense of dangerous attraction thudded through her, and she had to remind herself that this man was a total ass. The worst kind of bastard. She’d seen for herself just what he was capable of, and somehow, she was going to make him pay.
“Do you know what for?” She asked, dog-earing her book and laying it aside.
“I haven’t the foggiest, but I’d run right there, if I were you. Oh, he’s so yummy! I wish I could go in your place…”
“So do I,” Emma said under her breath as she pushed up off the bed.
She tried to regain the sense of purpose she’d brought with her to the boat. Her sister’s future and happiness lay in her hands and she just had to find a way to get over her nerves. Sure, he was impossibly gorgeous – her sister had an eye for men who could make you melt with one look – but Emma had always valued integrity and strength of character over more physical concerns.
When she reached his room, the door was slightly open, but nonetheless, she knocked.
“Come.” His voice was unmistakable. He had a regal authority at all times. As if she weren’t nervous enough. Summoning her fury and wearing it as a cloak of confidence, she took two steps into the room. And froze. He was lying on the bed, a newspaper in hand, wearing only a pair of jeans. The same jeans he’d been wearing on deck earlier that day.
She gulped down the flood of desire and forced herself to square her shoulders. “You wanted me, sir?”
He did want her, he realized with consternation. She was nothing like the women he usually went for, but there was a strange magnetism between them. He was half tempted to act on it. He probably would have, except there was an inherently dangerous quality to this woman. Something about her particular type of bewitching appeal that made him think she would be trouble. Besides, she really was not his type. He regarded her speculatively, thinking again, what a travesty it was the she chose to hide her body in a suit that was at least one size too big for her.
“Emma, for God’s sake, come in. You have a habit of looking like I’m going to eat you alive and frankly, it’s getting on my nerves.”
And because his words sparked more of that strange fire inside of her, she gritted her teeth. “Sir, I was in the middle of something. Was there a particular reason you summoned me?”
And just like that, rational thought fled from his brain.
He stood and walked, with a panther-like grace, to shut the door. He moved, so that he was standing directly in front of her, so close that they were almost touching.
He could feel the way her breath was labored. The way it made her breasts rise and fall in a steady rhythm. And the last modicum of common sense he possessed evaporated. She had the largest eyes he’d ever seen in real life. Huge and round, with thick black lashes. If he’d been presented with a photograph of them, he would have said they’d been computer generated.
Unable to restrain himself, he lifted his hand to her face. Her skin was warm and soft, he noticed, as he ran his finger over her cheek. Her eyes flew open, and he saw for the first time that they were a shade of blue almost akin to turquoise.
“You are unusually confrontational. And I find it strangely attractive.” He murmured quietly, his accent thicker than usual, as he struggled with what he wanted, and what was right.
She was incapable of moving, even though every inch of her body was screaming at her how very, very wrong this was. Cass loved the Sheikh. He’d left her heartbroken. Emma couldn’t – wouldn’t – let herself feel attracted to him. But the truth was, of every man she’d ever met, none had inspired a fraction of the aching need she felt for Rafiq.
