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It was all black inside, flooded with light. “This is...”
“It’s extraordinary,” he said. “I am aware. I have been working on it for many years. A place for me to set up operations as I worked to amass a team to take out the corrupt leadership of my nation, and free my brother.”
“How did you... How did you do that? You’re one man. You’re not an army.”
“That is correct. I am only one man. But I am Sheikh Cairo, and the protection of my country is my sworn duty. My loyalty to my brother is unparalleled. Do you know what the function of the second son is in a traditional royal family?”
“You were to join the military. To become the commander.”
“Yes. Did we have that conversation once?”
She shook her head slowly. “We didn’t. I asked Riyaz once, when he went walking with me out at the fountain.”
“Did my brother walk with you?”
She looked at him. “Yes.”
He had not known that. The sensation that assaulted his chest was a shock to him. Why should he feel... Anything over the fact that his brother had taken walks with the woman that had been promised to be his wife? It was good and right that Riyaz should do so.
It was only that he had assumed the two of them did not have a connection then. He had thought... He had thought the connection was his. And his alone.
It mattered not. She was not his. Not then. Not now.
Part of him wanted to take her back to Paris then. She would not be within his reach, but she would not be within reach of Riyaz either.
The deep desire to do just that shook him down to his core.
He would not. He would not falter, not now. He couldn’t trust himself. Could not trust himself especially when it came to her.
He could see she did not want this, but...to give in to her needs would be to deny Riyaz.
And it would be to indulge himself.
That weighted the scale. It meant he had to persevere in this. To give Riyaz what he wanted.
To deny Ariel in this was also to deny himself. And if he’d learned one thing from his failure fifteen years ago...
It was that he had to deny himself at all costs.
“Aisha,” he called out.
A small woman wearing traditional robes appeared. “Please show Ariel to her room. Have a bath drawn for her. She and I are to dine together tonight. Where we will speak of future plans.”
“I did not agree to have dinner with you,” she said.
Something like a flame ignited in his gut.
“I think you still do not understand the situation in which you find yourself, Ariel Hart.
“You do not have a choice here. You are in this territory between countries. Traditionally, it is no man’s land. But now? It is my land. And in it you will do as I say. In it, I am lord and master. You will go, you will bathe. You will perfume your skin, you will put on jewels and that gown that is befitting of a royal woman in this country, and we will speak of the future.”
A challenge glittered in her eyes, and he knew that whether he wanted to or not, he was going to have to see where the challenge led. For he could not ensure that she would do as he asked unless he put her in the bathtub himself and scrubbed his hands over her skin.
The idea sent a jolt of unexpected lust through him.
Lust was something he felt on his own timetable. He had spent a great many years exorcising demons in bed. He had found that anonymous sex did a lot to banish unpleasant memories. But there were times when he indulged and times when he did not. He had spent years availing himself to every perversion known to man. The sheer variety of it all had turned him rather jaded. And it was best to be jaded, he found. For that allowed him dominion over his sexual desire. So having it rise up now with little warning or control was... It was unacceptable.
He gritted his teeth and tamped it down. His boyhood desire for Ariel had been that of an untried lad. He had not known what it was like to sink into a woman’s body, and so she had consumed his thoughts. He knew now. From every angle and every position. There was no mystery left. And yet, Ariel felt like a mystery.
