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Why had she let Khaled touch her like that? When she knew everything he’d done that morning had been to manipulate her? He’d said so himself. He was simply gaining her ‘compliance’. Not only had she fallen for it—she’d practically flung herself at him.
She started moving, heading for the bathroom. She had to get back to being in control, safe. She’d start by getting out of this silk dress. It rode up far too easily beneath a man’s fingers...
She unzipped it and shoved it from her shoulders. She snatched up a face cloth and scrubbed at the make-up they’d applied at the store. Dragged the pins from her hair and yanked the style loose.
Then she saw her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Wild eyes, swollen lips, hair tumbling in disarray about her naked shoulders. Whowasthis wanton?
Through the fall of her hair she glimpsed her bed, and conjured an image of Khaled lying there. Naked. Stretched out over her. Deep inside her.
Lily snapped her thighs together. That was never going to happen. She wouldn’t allow it.
She turned her back to the mirror. Not wanting to see that woman any more. Not wanting to be her.
Her hands were shaking as she finished stripping everything off, including her tell-tale damp knickers. Those she shoved straight into the laundry bin, slamming down the lid on the evidence of what she’d been doing.
She’d come apart in Khaled’s arms. So overwhelmed by her body’s reaction she’d bitten his neck. Her eyes squeezed shut against the excoriating embarrassment and the shameless thought that quickly followed.
Could another man deliver her to such abandon?
Lily sank her face into her hands as an ancient feminine instinct whispered back.No, just him. Always and for ever, just him.
In the shower, she cranked the water to scalding hot and scrubbed at her skin, washing away the feel of his hands, the scent of his skin, attempting to expunge every trace of him.
When her skin was pink and her fingertips shrivelled to walnuts she gave up, dried herself and tugged on a bathrobe. The black lace knickers she’d arrived in that first night, now freshly laundered, were tucked away in a drawer. She pulled them on. They might only be simple lacy pants, but they were from her regular life, and right now they felt as substantial as armour.
And what of Nate in all this? Pretending to be Khaled’s girlfriend was all about helping her stepbrother. To help him, would she steel herself to do it?
Yes.
But there’d be no more kissing or touching. And absolutely no repeat of the incident in the car. She’d resist, whatever Khaled did.
There was a knock at the door.
The knot of excitement in her belly wasn’t a good start. But surely it wouldn’t be him.
Out on the veranda stood Eleanor. Behind her was a seamstress and three palace maids, each with a dress rail loaded with boxes and garment bags bearing the department store logo.
‘Khaled said you’d come to lie down for a while. If you’re still tired we can come back later, but all the goodies from the store have arrived.’ Eleanor smiled hopefully. ‘I thought you might like an afternoon of trying things on.’
Some retail therapy? The perfect diversion.
‘Actually...’ Lily reached for the Queen and practically dragged her in. ‘Now is great.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
AFTERCHECKINGINwith his mother, and hearing that Lily had spent the afternoon happily trying on everything that had been delivered from the store, Khaled felt his earlier unease dissipate.
She had looked, Eleanor told him, ‘stunning’, ‘gorgeous’, and ‘perfect’. When she’d added, in rapturous tones, that she’d been the very image of a modern princess, he’d decided it was time to change the subject. Lying to his mother about Lily’s presence in Nabhan was necessary. He’d no desire to completely rub her nose in it.
Keeping away from Lily this evening seemed expedient, too. ‘I won’t be there at dinner,’ he’d told his mother. ‘I have work to do.’
Always. He made sure of it.
For once Eleanor hadn’t tried to dissuade him.
Instead, she’d sent in the big guns.
