He was back home in Jhurat, in his empty, echoing palace, made five times its size and ten times as barren by her absence. He was staring out through another window without her, and he told himself what he felt was relief.
That this confusing interlude with her was over. That he could move on with his life according to his original plan.
That he could give himself over to his country as he’d always planned.
“I believe she left you a message, Your Excellency.” Nasser coughed. “I’ll send you a picture.”
When the photo arrived on his mobile, Khaled stared, his pulse kicking in. Hard, as if he were running flat out into a desert storm.
It was a picture of a completely unremarkable hotel bed, with Cleo’s mobile phone sitting in the center of the pristine, untouched bedspread. Next to it, she’d left an open package of what it took him long moments to comprehend were birth control pills.
Her message to him, which better resembled a raised middle finger in the classic American style.
Which was when Khaled understood that this wasn’t over.
That he had no intention of letting her go.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“HELLO, CLEO.”
Khaled’s voice was smooth and dark and deceptively casual. It exploded over Cleo in that split second before she saw him, ripping her open like a red-hot brand against her flesh.
He stepped out from the shadows and back into her life with that same leashed intensity and hair-raising, ruthlessly controlled power of his that had haunted her day and night since she’d walked out on him six weeks ago.
Cleo’s heart punched through her chest as she came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the uneven sidewalk on Saint Ann Street. Her stomach slammed to her feet and stayed there, making her feel empty and needy and something frighteningly close to lost.
“It’s a nice night for a walk, isn’t it?” he asked, in that same mild way that made every single hair on her body prickle into uneasy awareness.
New Orleans’s infamous French Quarter was mysterious in the sultry evening, as dark and seductive as the air was dangerous and close, from the cracks in the treacherous sidewalks to the beckoning music pouring out from every building on the tourist-packed streets, and Cleo wanted only to blend in. To disappear, the way she did every night, walking like a ghost in and out of the gritty exuberance all around her.
And now, staring at the man who had reared up before her with a certain terrifying inevitability, his gray eyes a dark storm and a certain satisfaction stamped all over his fiercely beautiful face, she wanted to run.
Again.
You always run, a small voice inside her observed, making her frown. Besides, she had the sneaking suspicion that this time, he’d chase her down before she made it to the end of the block.
“Have you taken to lurking about in alleyways?” she asked instead, and it was a struggle to adopt that cool, unbothered tone. It was a battle to simply stand there beneath the streetlamps while the French Quarter ebbed and swirled around her, as caught in Khaled’s grip again as if he held her in his fists—particularly when some rebellious part of her wished he would do just that. “That seems somewhat beneath your great, sultanic dignity, doesn’t it? You may have to brush up on your stalker skills. Find an approach that better suits your position.” She bowed her head slightly and wasn’t too sarcastic as she added, “Your Excellency.”
Khaled only watched her, that gaze of his so intent it seemed to burn into her, through her. The corner of his mouth kicked up slightly, his only response, and Cleo was appalled—if not surprised—when she felt her own body tip over into that same familiar reaction she recognized from before, instant and treacherous.
Damn it. She felt nervous and silly—and her body still longed for him, powerfully—when she should have felt scared. Intimidated. Angry.
Anything but attracted. Anything but hungry.
“What do you want?” she asked quietly, because she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a stronger response. No matter what her traitorous body happened to be doing at the sight of him.
“Guess,” he invited her. Less quietly.
Cleo didn’t want to guess. She wanted to turn around and run all the way back to the lovely old mansion in the Garden District that Jessie’s friend had agreed to let Cleo stay in, far enough away from Jessie’s own condo on Canal Street that, they’d imagined, they’d have an extra roadblock in place should Khaled come looking for her.