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But above all else, the desolation of losing Tahir had made her shut out the world, including tuning out what had happened to him after his departure.
Learning of the true repercussions of the scandal, of what her failure to back Tahir had done to Jukrat’s reputation and to the man who’d captivated both her mind and body, had annihilated her.
‘I tried to reach out.’ She paused, wet her lips. ‘A few months after it happened, I tried to contact you.’
His lips twisted in a macabre imitation of a smile. ‘Should I tell you where I was? Give you the reason you couldn’t reach me?’
She suspected she didn’t need to respond. He would give her no quarter in hammering home what damage her actions had caused. So, lips firmed to stop what felt bracingly close to a moan of despair from rising, she watched him exhale long and slow.
‘My father was deeply ashamed. He believed I’d let my better instincts be overruled by a woman. He’d taught me better than that, you see. Believed I was above falling prey to feminine beguilement. So when my actions brought disgrace to his rule and this kingdom, I was banished here to the desert for a year.’
This time, the noise escaped her throat, a tiny mournful sound that echoed in the horrible silence trailing his words.
Something kicked hard and true inside her.Beguilement.
It was the same thing she’d felt for him, starting with the deep tingling between her shoulders during the environmental symposium. She’d been looking forward to stating her case to so-called world leaders and government officials who overpromised and woefully underdelivered. She’d rehearsed her speech a dozen times and had been confidently ploughing ahead with the debate when she’d felt it.
Felthim.
It’d taken every scrape of composure she’d possessed to finish the debate.
Much as it was doing now.
‘Here?’ She cast a quick glance around her. But she knew the jaw-dropping dreaminess of Zinabir in general, and Tahir’s desert abode in particular, the presence of beautiful women and attendants who waited on him hand and foot, would’ve meant nothing if this wasn’t where he’d wanted to be. If every day, he’d been reminded ofwhyhe was here. Excluded from those he loved because of the shame and scandal she’d helped cause.
All because she’d selfishly wanted a special moment with him. An intimate dinner for two at her home, believing they would be alone. A moment Matt had spectacularly and callously ruined...
Telling him any of it now would sound like feeble excuses.
Too little too late.
His lips thinned. ‘Hmm. It started here, in this tent we’re in right now. This desert was my prison for three hundred and sixty-five days. It’s almost karmic, isn’t it, that you’re here now? Do you believe in divine justice, Lauren?’ he taunted, his voice eerily even.
She wanted to say no. But then she remembered her time with him. Those months between early summer and autumn twelve years ago had been almost transcendental. As much as she wanted to explain it away, the uniqueness of their time together had been too cosmic to reduce to a set of coincidences and pure chemistry.
He’d been the fiercest comet in her sky, blazing a mesmerising trail before he’d disappeared, leaving her looking up for ever, praying for either the sight of him or another sign to tell her he hadn’t been that special. That their time together could be replicated with another man in another place.
But it never had been...
‘Does it matter whether I do or not?’
His swarthy shoulders lifted in a suave, throwaway shrug that said he didn’t care one way or the other. ‘Not particularly. The consequences will be the same.’
Her belly quivered alarmingly. She fought not to let him see how much his response affected her. ‘What do you mean by consequences?’
‘I mean I’m not the same man I was back then, Miss Winchester. I’m not simply going to permit you to waltz back into my life and let you get away with whatever you wish.’
‘You make it sound as if you were a pushover back then. We both know you weren’t.’ Even then, he’d been a formidable powerhouse and it’d had nothing to do with the constant presence of the two towering bodyguards who’d trailed his movements all over campus. His sharp intelligence, his ability to cut through an argument to the heart of a matter and run masterful mental rings around her in the best possible way had kept her in thrall second only to his breathtaking good looks.
‘No.’ His gaze conducted a long, searing scrutiny that froze every cubic inch of air in her lungs and raked over her skin like the tines of a tuning fork, rousing every nerve ending to life. ‘But I did let myself be distracted by...basethings far more than was wise.’
‘I enthralled you with my body. Is that what you’re suggesting?’ She’d meant to scoff. And yet the words came out with a traitorous sliver of excitement. Of long-denied yearning.
Yearning he heard, if the sudden gleam in his eyes was an indication.
Before she could exhale, his fingers were laced in her hair, his other hand capturing her waist. He drew her close. And she didn’t resist.Couldn’t.Because from the moment she’d walked into this palace this afternoon, that slumbering yearning had risen to life.
As much as she wanted to deny it, she’d craved this sensation of his body against hers. Of those eyes searing her face, before latching on her lips, the way they’d done countless times. The way that announced in no uncertain terms that he was about to kiss her.
