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She looked at his unyielding face. At his brilliant dark eyes and sun-kissed golden skin. At his smoothly shaven face—the same freshly groomed appearance he’d revealed for the first time at her exhibition—when she’d grown used to his whiskered good looks. Both suited him. He had sharp cut, aristocratic cheekbones, an aquiline nose and a strong chin.
Her eyes widened and a rush of denial swept through her. His plaits were gone; his raven hair trimmed to a far more respectable length. She’d been so distracted by trying not to allow him to see the pregnancy kit she’d barely held his gaze let alone noticed his transformation. “What’s with the new hairstyle?”
That she’d once thought of him as a desert rat was so far and away from the man who looked back at her now it almost broke her heart all over again. She’d fallen in love with that man and her chest ached unbearably knowing he might be forever lost to her.
He arched a brow. “I’m not the same man you once knew.” He touched his head. “I might still resist wearing the ghutra, but I’ve left behind many other traits, including alcohol.” His dark eyes held hers. “I haven’t touched a drink since the night you left me.”
She crossed her arms, as though the hurt she kept trapped inside would stay there. “The same night you and Ranna had sex?” She hated how her voice wobbled. How Hamid’s eyes narrowed and a muscle ticked into life on one side of his jaw as though he was the innocent one in all of this.
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Her body tensed. “Yes, I do. I saw it with my own eyes.”
His lips thinned. “Did you?”
It took everything she had not to look away. “I saw enough.”
He sent her a bitter smile. “Then you don’t know the full story. I had no idea Ranna was waiting for me in the courtyard. She kissed me while I was inebriated and caught off guard. But I pushed her away and we most certainly didn’t have sex. I don’t harbor any feelings for her.None.I made that very clear to her. There’s only one woman I want. And that is you, Holly.”
Relief threatened to swallow her whole and then leave her a blubbering, howling mess. She swallowed hard. “So you didn’t kiss her back? You didn’t have s-sex with her?”
“Do you really need to ask me that? I was determined to win you over and do the right thing by you. Yes, I stupidly succumbed to drink, but I didn’t come anywhere near succumbing to sex. Ranna’s kiss did nothing for me.”
“Even you overheard me telling Dhamar I was leaving and you’d be a confirmed bachelor for a long time yet.” The laugh that burst from her lips wasn’t joyful, it was sad and rueful. “I don’t know who I was trying to convince more—him or me,” she admitted.
Hamid blinked his ridiculously long-lashed eyes. “So youdidn’twant to leave me?”
“What does it matter now? You believe I might be pregnant to some other man. Guess we both have trust issues. And without trust, we have nothing.”
“It’s not too late to fix this, Holly,” he said quietly.
“Isn’t it?”
He dragged a hand over his shell-shocked face and she twisted away from him, empty inside, as the car slowed and turned into a wide, sweeping driveway. Hamid might be a good man at his core but was that enough? Was any man—sheikh or otherwise—worth all this inner pain and doubt?
Despite her angst, her jaw dropped as she peered at the majestic hotel that came into view. The hotel was a steel and glass building in the shape of a sail spread out in the breeze. It gleamed under the sun, but she could only imagine it ablaze with lights. The car slowed to a stop and a doorman stepped forward and opened her door.
“Come,” Hamid said to her, his voice clipped and no-nonsense. Like what they’d discussed had been nothing more important than the weather. If it wasn’t for his set shoulders and jaw, she’d think she had imagined his shock.
She followed him into a huge reception area where a triple-domed roof and skylights highlighted the huge gold chandeliers beneath. A cream floor with diamond-shaped, gold-patterned mosaic tiles added to the class of the hotel. Next to a dark cherry, solid wood reception desk sat a bank of elevators, while further along a sweeping staircase beckoned.
She looked up at him. “This doesn’t look like your style.”
He frowned. “I don’t always choose to stay in a tent in a desert when I go away.”
He continued past the reception desk and she blinked up at him. “Surely even a sheikh needs to check-in.”
He keyed in a code at the elevator and a green button lit up. He pressed it and the doors swept open. “Not when that same sheikh owns the building and keeps a personal penthouse suite available at all times.”
“But of course,” she muttered as she followed him inside the elevator and it whisked them quietly and efficiently to the top floor.
Inside the penthouse suite she couldn’t help but gape. From the amazing floor-to-ceiling tinted glass with views that went on forever, to the luxurious white carpet underfoot and the huge balcony outside with its spa and outdoor seating.
She refused to look at the master bedroom, she wasn’t that strong and invincible—she missed the physical and emotional intimacy she’d had with Hamid—and instead chose to sit on one of the red sofas that faced a gas fireplace and mirrored television that took up half the wall.
Hamid nodded at her bag. “I’d like you to do that test now…then we’ll talk.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
