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But the brooding, dangerous Sheikh who could have them all executed with one of those tiny flicks of his finger made her pulse pound.
Anya made a mental note to seek out psychiatric help the moment she returned to American soil.
“We’re prepared to take you to the embassy tonight,” the ambassador said at the end of the meal. “You must be anxious to leave the palace behind.”
His smile was slick and aimed directly at Tarek.
Tarek looked faintly bored, as if these discussions were beneath him. “Dr. Turner is, of course, welcome to do as she pleases.”
Anya thought that what would have pleased Dr. Turner the most would have been to remain full and happy again, without the unmistakable tension that filled the room. Especially because she doubted very much that any of the diplomats particularly cared about her feelings in this. She was a figure. A cause.
She was tired of being something other than a woman.
“I thought I made this clear before dinner,” she said, as if she was concerned that the ambassador had gotten the wrong end of the stick when she knew very well he hadn’t. “I’m not beingheldhere. Not anymore.”
Though it took everything she had in her not to look at Tarek when she said that, to see if that was actually true.
“I know it suits you to think of me as your pet barbarian,” Tarek said to the ambassador, in a voice of silk and peril. “But I am nothing so interesting as a monster, I am afraid. Some things are regrettable mistakes, nothing more.”
“Then there should be no trouble removing Dr. Turner from your custody,” Ambassador Pomeroy replied with a toothy smile. “The American people would breathe a little easier, knowing she was safe at last.”
“That is entirely up to Dr. Turner,” Tarek replied. “As I have said.”
Anya thought of her mobile, still on her bed back in her suite. She thought of the life that waited for her, in that phone and back in the States. Of the time she’d spent in Houston. Of her father.
Mostly she thought of Tarek, the heat in his dark gaze, and the question he had yet to ask her.
Because she knew he hadn’t forgotten. Neither had she.
She picked up the linen napkin in her lap and dabbed gently at the corner of her mouth. “I would love to put the American people at ease. And I appreciate your assistance, Ambassador.” She smiled, as punctuation. Or performance, maybe. It was hard to tell with so much molten heat making her ache. “But I spent eight months locked beneath this palace. I’m going to spend at least one night sleeping like a princess before I go. It’s literally the very least this palace can do for me.”
There were protestations. Some dire mutterings from the ambassador and far louder commentary from his aides. Still, eventually, they left her to the fate she was almost certain she already regretted choosing.
Yet Anya didn’t open up her mouth and change that fate, even though she knew she could. And almost certainly should.
When the palace staff retreated after the Americans had left, she found herself once again alone in a room with this obviously ruthless man who really should not have fascinated her the way he did.
Especially when he took a long, simmering sort of look at her, setting fire to the quiet between them.
“I take it your rooms are to your liking, then,” Tarek said, almost idly. “And though I am glad of it, surely you must be in a great hurry to resume your life. To see your family, your friends. To pick up where you left off eight months ago.”
Anya felt that knot in her chest tighten a painful inch or two. “The funny thing about spending so long locked away is how little some things seem to matter, in the end. My friends are scattered all over the globe. I miss them, but we’re used to not seeing each other. And my life had become nomadic. I haven’t trulylivedin a place since I left my last hospital job in Houston.”
He was watching her almost too closely. “And your family?”
“It’s only my father and his wife.” She could feel herself getting tighter, everywhere, and was horrified at the idea she might collapse into panic here. With him. “We aren’t close.”
Anya didn’t want to talk to him about accommodations or her lonely little life. Not now they were alone. Not now he seemed looser as he sat there. Lazier, almost, though she did not for one second mistake that leashed power in him for anything else. She could feel it as if it was a third presence in the room.
She could feel it inside her, turning her to flame.
Anya frowned at him. “Is that the question you wanted to ask me?”
He laughed at that, as if it was funny, when she felt so sure that it was crucial that he ask her his question. That it wasfate.
But he was laughing. And Anya took the opportunity to ask herself what she was doing here. Why wasn’t she on her way to the American embassy right now? And if she really wanted to sleep in that glorious bed—which she truly did, after a prison cot—why wasn’t she up in that suite right now, continuing to pamper herself?
Why was she sitting here next to Tarek, imprisoning herself by choice, as if he was cupping her between his palms?
