For Better for Worse

Her hands tightened on her belt for a moment. He’d asked her to be his Queen. Even now she felt the same mix of terror and awe at the very thought. But it hadn’t taken much to persuade him of her unsuitability in the end.

She steeled herself before walking out through the door, telling herself that she was infinitely stronger now. Able to resist Zafir. He had no idea of what she’d faced since she’d seen him last…

As soon as she walked outside though, the back door of Zafir’s sleek car opened and he emerged, uncoiling to his full impressive height. Kat’s bravado felt very shaky all of a sudden.

He stood back and indicated with a hand for her to get in. Incensed that he might think it could be this easy, she walked over to him, mindful of her limp, even though disguising it after a long evening on her feet put pressure on her leg.

‘I’m not getting into a car with you, Zafir. You’ve had a wasted evening. Please leave.’

She turned to walk away and she heard him say,

‘Either we talk here on the sidewalk, with lots of ears about us, or you let me take you home and we talk there.’

Kat gritted her jaw and looked longingly down the street that would take her to her apartment, just a couple of blocks away. But if she walked away she could well imagine Zafir’s very noticeable car moving at a snail’s pace beside her. And his security team. Drawing lots of attention. As he was doing now, just by standing there, drawing lingering glances. Whispers.

A group of giggling girls finally made Kat turn around. ‘Fine,’ she bit out. ‘But once I’ve listened to what you have to say you’ll leave.’

Zafir’s eyes gleamed in a way that made all the hard and cold parts of Kat feel dangerously soft and warm.

‘By all means. If you want me to leave then, I’ll leave.’

His tone once again told Kat that that was about as likely as a snowstorm in the middle of the brutally hot Jandor desert, and that only made her even more determined to resist him, hating that his visit was bringing up memories long buried. Memories of his beautiful and exotic country and how out of her depth she’d felt—both there and in their relationship. Zafir had been like the sun—brilliant, all-consuming and mesmerising, but fatal if one got too close. And she had let herself get too close. Close enough to be burnt alive once she’d discovered that the love she’d felt had been unrequited.

She’d been prepared to marry him, buoyed up by his proposal, only to discover too late that for him it had never been a romantic proposal. It had been purely because he’d deemed her ‘perfect’. Her humiliation was still vivid.

She stalked past him now and got into the car, burningly aware of his gaze on her and wondering what on earth he must make of her—a shadow of her former self. The fact that she didn’t seem to be repelling him irritated her intensely.

Zafir shut the door once her legs were in the car and came round and got in the other side, immediately dwarfing the expansive confines of the luxurious car. For a moment Kat felt herself sinking back into the seat, relishing the decadent luxury, but as soon as she realised what she was doing she stiffened against it. This wasn’t her life any more. Never would be again.

‘Kat?’

She looked at Zafir, who had a familiar expression of impatience on his face. She realised she hadn’t heard what he’d said.

‘Directions? For my driver?’

She swallowed, suddenly bombarded with a memory of being in the back of a very similar car with Zafir, when he’d asked his driver to put up the privacy window and drive around until he gave further instructions. Then he’d pulled Kat over to straddle his lap, pulled up her dress and—

She slammed the lid shut on that memory and leaned forward to tell the driver where to go before she lost her composure completely.

She refused to look at Zafir again, and within a couple of minutes they were pulling up outside her very modest apartment block. Kat managed to scramble inelegantly out of the car before Zafir could help her. She didn’t want him to touch her—not even fleetingly. The thin threads holding her composure together might snap completely.

Her apartment was just inside the main doors of the apartment block, on the ground floor, and Kat could feel Zafir behind her. Tall, commanding. Totally incongruous.

As if to underline it she heard him say a little incredulously, ‘No concierge?’

Kat would have bitten back a smile if she’d felt like smiling. ‘No.’

She opened her door and went into her studio apartment. What had become a place of refuge for the past year was now anything but as she put her keys down and turned around to face her biggest threat.

Zafir closed the door behind him and Kat folded her arms. ‘Well, Zafir? What is it you have to say?’

He was looking around the small space with unmistakable curiosity, and finally that dark grey gaze came to land on her. To her horror, he started to shrug off his overcoat, revealing a bespoke suit that clung lovingly to his powerful body.

When he spoke he sounded grim. ‘I have plenty to say, Kat, so why don’t you make us both a coffee? Because I’m not going anywhere any time soon.’

Kat stared mutinously at Zafir for a moment, and for those few seconds he was transfixed by her stunningly unusual eyes—amber from a distance, but actually green and gold from up close, surrounded by long dark lashes. They were almond-shaped, and Zafir’s blood rushed south as he recalled how she’d look at him after making love, the expression in her gaze one of wonderment that had never failed to catch him like a punch to his gut.

Lies.