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Butthis…
“Why me?” he demanded.
By the very virtue of her sharing these plans with him, not in so many words, but even those that she said—she showed her absolute trust in him. These were words and thoughts that could have them both put to death for treason.
She was alone in this, Shai could see. Only he was privy to her plans.
Thus, her next words did not surprise him.
“Because I trust you above any other. I know you would never betray me. I know you are a man of your word.”
“You would trust a slave?” he pressed.
She held his stare fully.
“I trust theman.”
When she took two more steps to close the distance between them, only a hair’s breadth separating their bodies, his eyes widened slightly with surprise.
“Iwantthe man,” she stated clearly, unapologetically. Shocking him so hard, you could have knocked him over with a feather.
She held his gaze unflinchingly, though she had to crane her neck way back given the difference in their heights.
“If you could find it in your…masculine inclinations…to want me in return, we could both benefit from the begetting of my heir.”
Her eyes took on the shrewd, calculating glint he both admired and disliked about her. Especially when she used that look on him, which was extremely rare.
“You told me there was no one else,” she reminded him. “You do not pine for someone?”
“No.”
“You always hold yourself so rigid, so…caged,” she emphasized as she peered up at him beneath her lashes, ever strategizing.
“You must wish for freedom. For release.”
He said nothing, simply staring down at her, his hands involuntarily fisting at his sides.
Did she think he needed persuasion? Did she try to broker a trade with him? It was demeaning to both herself and him.
“I have will enough to control my urges,” he replied. “My mind is more powerful than any cage.”
She stumbled then, in her persuasive assault. She worried her lower lip with her teeth, her eyes lowering to his chest.
“I know I am asking a lot,” she said after a long silence, still not looking at him.
Gone was the bravado from just moments before, when she claimed she “wanted the man.”
She seemed small and alone, the top of her bowed head barely reaching his sternum.
“I am asking you to betray your Pharoah, to aid me in betraying my marriage vows.”
He couldn’t give a hippo’s pile of steaming dung about the Pharoah and her marriage vows.
“I am asking you to perpetrate the greatest deception with me…”
He could care less about that too.
Finally, she looked into his eyes again, raising her head.
