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He found her on her terrace, seated on a trellised chair with refreshments set out. Refreshments she hadn’t touched.
Was it his imagination or did her back stiffen as he approached? He couldn’t quite tell in the lamplight. Cool eyes drifted his way and a small smile played at her lips.
He wanted to sweep her into his arms, kiss those lips until they clung to his. Until she was mad with the same turbulent emotions coursing through him. But he needed a level head. Too much hinged on this new, intensely unnerving turn of events.
‘Ah, there you are. I brought these in here so we don’t lose track of the game. I hope you don’t mind.’
Tahir frowned. There was a chilled civility in her tone he’d never heard before. He’d heard her fired up about solutions to a humanitarian crisis, heard her passionate, disconsolate, and defiant. But never these snooty cut-glass upper-class tones her brother and his cronies favoured.
Giving his head a silent shake, he strode closer, the subject throbbing wildly inside him driving his every breath. ‘We need to talk.’
She waved a graceful hand at the hourglass. ‘Of course. It’s still your allotted time. Fire away.’
Since there was no delicate way to approach this, and because, hell, he didn’t want to, he stated bluntly, ‘I didn’t use protection the last time. Is there a possibility that I’ve made you pregnant?’
Lauren felt the blood drain from her face. Of all the ways she’d imagined their next conversation going after what she’d overheard, this was the last thing she’d expected.
The hand next to her untouched glass of sweet tea trembled wildly and she was absurdly glad she hadn’t picked it up to take a sip. Because she was sure she’d have shattered—
‘Lauren?’ he pressed. His face might have been a mask of rigid control, but electric tension vibrated from him. And his eyes...if they’d been burnished gold before, they were the colour of flaming sand now. Alive and all-consuming.
It isn’t for you. It’s for the situation he finds himself in. Another scandal...
The reminder was bracing enough to restore a modicum of calm. ‘And what if I’m pregnant? Are you going to strike a bargain with me too the way your mother did with your father and with you?’ She flinched the moment the words left her lips. Then she cursed herself for her soft heart.
For a single moment, he looked incandescent. Then his ashen features neutralised. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘No!’
At her forceful answer a touch of tension eased in his tight shoulders. But the majority of it remained. ‘Tell me what you want.’
An hour ago, she would’ve cried with joy to hear those words. ‘And you’ll grant it? Why don’t I believe that?’
His hands slid into his pockets. ‘You won’t know until you state it.’
‘Fine. It’s easy enough. I want to finish this game and return home.’
A tic throbbed at his temple. Then, ‘No.’
Don’t panic.‘No? Just like that? You know you can’t hold me prisoner, right?’
He sauntered away and leaned against the terrace wall as if he had all the time in the world. ‘I won’t need to. Before we’re done talking, you’ll be agreeable to what I have in mind.’
‘You sound very sure of yourself.’
‘I’ve had practice,’ he said without an ounce of self-doubt.
‘This isn’t some sort of business transaction.’ The words seared her throat, her every emotion turning her insides raw.
He inclined his head. ‘No, it’s very personal. But it’s a transaction nonetheless.’
‘A transaction you think you’ll win.’
‘We’ll both win.’
She tilted her head, dying to unsettle him as much as his calm assuredness was unsettling her. ‘And how do you work that out?’
‘Because I will make you my queen.’
