Bryn looked at Kahlil, gaze level, mouth smiling faintly. “Is there something criminal in wanting to walk?”
“You never liked to walk before.”
“Of course not. I was eighteen. I preferred motorbikes and race cars and anything else that jolted my heart.” Like you, she thought cynically. You jolted my heart a thousand times a day.
Kahlil gave the driver directions to a popular downtown park, the night quiet, the streets nearly deserted. The limousine pulled over to the curb and Kahlil and Bryn got out, to stoically circle the square.
The evening, balmy for late September, smelled sweeter than usual, the peculiar ripe fragrance of turning leaves as summer slipped away, fading into fall.
He didn’t speak. She didn’t try, chewing her lower lip, struggling to come up with an alternative to Kahlil’s proposal, one that might meet his need for vengeance without endangering Ben. But no solutions came to mind, immediately dismissing lawsuits and threats, as well as fleeing with Ben. This time Kahlil wouldn’t let her go. He’d find her, and he’d really want blood then.
They passed the fountain and large bronze statue twice with Bryn still overwhelmed with worry.
Kahlil thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. “There’s no way out,” he said mildly, casting a curious side glance her way. “You’re not going to escape without settling the score.”
A flurry of nerves made her prickle from head to toe. How could he know exactly what she was thinking? “Score. Proposition. You’re trying to humiliate me.”
“Clever girl.” He stopped walking, facing her, his dark features mocking. “You humiliated me before my family and my people. You’re fortunate that your humiliation will be much more…private.”
“What makes you think I’d agree to this plan?”
“You were once quite daring. You hungered for adventure, for travel and the unknown. Is the great unknown no longer appealing?”
No. Not since becoming a mother. She worried constantly about Ben. His safety, his security, his future. And since becoming a mother, she wondered how her own parents could have dragged her through the Middle East as a small child, living out of tents and the camper van, sleeping at desolate spots along the road. They’d led a precarious life and it had cost them all. Dearly.
Pain suffused her, time and grief blurring her parents’ faces. She remembered them better by photograph than be special memories. “I prefer things simple now,” she answered faintly. “My relationships uncomplicated.”
“Like Stan?”
Her eyes flashed warning. “Leave him out of this.”
“How can I? He’s the enemy.”
“Stan is not the enemy. You’re the enemy.”
He laughed, the husky sound carrying in the darkness. “Four days. Four days and you’d be free. You could marry Stan. Have a family. Get on with your life.”
Oh, how like Kahlil, how clever, how manipulative. Trust the devil to suggest temptation.
But the devil knew her, she acknowledged weakly. He knew how she’d reached for him, again and again, undone by the pleasure of their bodies, so inexperienced that she couldn’t be satiated, her untutored desires wanting more.
But that wasn’t the kind of relationship she had with Stan. Her fault, she knew, but despite her gratitude to Stan, she didn’t enjoy it when he touched her. She told herself that her feelings would change after their wedding, but would they? Could they?
Warily she glanced at Kahlil. Moonlight illuminated his profile. If she did go with him, if she did all that he asked, would he really set her free? Could she trust him to honor his word?
“You can’t pick the city,” she said, feeling trapped, the air squeezing out of her lungs. She wouldn’t breathe until she was free of him. “Four days, three nights. I pick the place, the city and the hotel.”
“The city and the hotel? Now you’re sounding paranoid.”
She refused to be baited, too busy examining the proposal from every angle. A couple of nights with him in New York. How bad could it be? She’d do what he asked and then she’d have her divorce. “New York,” she said. “The Ritz-Carlton Hotel.”
“Paris. The Ritz-Carlton.”
“I won’t leave the States.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“No.” She lifted her chin. “As it is you act as judge, jury and executioner. It hardly seems fair.”
He laughed without kindness. “I guess you’d have to work very very hard at pleasing me.”
Seething, she returned to the limousine, realizing she was only wasting time—his, hers and Ben’s. Kahlil might look like a modern man with his expensive clothes and gorgeous face, but his thinking was still feudal.
The limousine drew to a stop before her house and Kahlil’s driver opened the back door. But before she could move, Kahlil clasped her elbow.
“It might not be safe going with me,” he said softly, “but it might also be the smartest thing you’ve ever done. Everything in life is a risk. Even your freedom.”
She didn’t speak. She couldn’t.
Lightly he stroked her bare arm, his touch sending shock waves through her body. “The weekend wouldn’t be without its rewards,” he continued. “You burn for me. You’re on fire now.”
She stared at her arm in mute fascination. She did feel feverish, her skin blazing, her body melting, everything in her coming alive in response to him. He’d always made her feel like this, crazy with need. Right now her nerves throbbed, her pulse racing. He was a drug, sweetly addictive, dangerously destructive, utterly transforming. In his bed, in his arms, she would do anything for him.
Leave her home, change her name, worship at his feet. She lost control when it came to him and that loss of control completely shamed her.
She breathed deeply, dizzy, torn between wildly opposing desires. Run. Stay. Scream. Kiss.
If she went with him, she’d enjoy Kahlil’s revenge. She’d welcome the humiliation as it would be at his hands, in his hands, with his body.
A woman should have more self-respect. She had none.
She could feel the press of his thigh against hers, his hips close, his warmth stealing into her. He promised intense sensual pleasure, a pleasure she’d only ever known with him.
Color banded in high hot waves across her cheekbones. Closing her eyes, she swayed, drawn to him.
He held her in his power again.
Stop it.
Wake up. You can’t do this. Think about Ben. Think about the dangers in the palace. At the very least, think about Amin.
Her eyes opened, her lips parted, and reality returned. “I can’t do it, Kahlil. I won’t. We need to make a clean break of it.” Was that her voice? High? Thin? Panicked?”
“Clean break,” he mocked. “Hardly, darling. You’d remain my wife.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Life’s not fair.”
She averted her face, struggling to hide the tumultuous emotions from him. She was angry, aroused, torn. If she didn’t go away with him, Kahlil would discover Ben. But spending a weekend with Kahlil was like throwing herself in the mouth of a volcano.
It was Ben’s future, or hers.
Ben’s or hers.
Ben won. “No other man would force a woman to submit,” she said bitterly, unable to hide her anger or despair. He’d never planned on releasing her from their marriage vows. He’d given her time but not forgiveness. Space but not freedom. And without a divorce she could permanently lose Ben.
Kahlil didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. They both knew he wasn’t just any man. He was a sheikh, his word in his country was law.
Eyes gritty and hot, she drew a short breath. “God, I hate you.”
“I don’t care. I want what’s mine. And you, wife, are mine.”
He was going to kiss her. She knew it, felt it, just before his head dropped. Alarm shrieked through her, alarm because in his arms she was weak, so weak, it made her sick.
She tried to slip away but Kahlil m
oved even faster. He blocked the door and leveraged her backward, her spine pressed to the leather seat. “You can’t escape me,” he murmured, his voice husky as his palm slid down her throat, spanning the column, forming a collar with his hand. “But then, I don’t think you really want to.” And with that, his head dropped, his mouth covering hers.
His warmth caught her unawares, his skin fragrant, a soft subtle sweet spice she couldn’t place, but a fragrance that had been part of him as long as she’d known him. The very first time they’d touched she’d breathed him in, again and again, heart racing, spectacular colors and visions filling her head. She saw the full white moon above the bleached ivory sands, the grove of orange trees planted within the village walls, the warmth of the night in the darkest hour…