The Desert Lord's Baby (Throne of Judar 1)

Shoved back into the pit of resignation, her hand shook as she raised it from her chest to her eyes, pressing the stinging away. “I already told you why I think this a huge mistake. But you’ve made up your mind about me and whatever I say, no matter if it’s the truth, won’t change it for you.” She shot him what she hoped was a look of unconcern. “Why bother wasting more breath?”

His cynical pout was proof of her deductions. He still prodded, “Waste some more, just for me. Tell me your version of the ‘truth.’”

“What do you care about my ‘version’ when you already know everything about me since the day I was born, Farooq? You’re probably in possession of details I don’t even remember or know.”

“And how am I supposed to possess that omniscient knowledge of your life?”

“C’mon, Farooq. Your intelligence machine must provide you with a phonebook-thick dossier on everyone who comes within a hundred feet of you.”

“That’s true. But I don’t have one on you.”

He didn’t? But he must have…oh. Oh. A sarcastic huff escaped her. “That’s right. My life would fill two pages. Double spaced.”

He clicked his tongue. “That’s not a version of the truth, that’s an outright lie, Carmen. The things I found out about you from talking to you, from taking you, would fill a book. I was wrong about the content of the book, but whatever the truth is, it’d still fill a book. But neither book would contain the most basic data about you, what you never divulged. And for some reason, it didn’t matter and I didn’t have you investigated.” She knew the reason, all right. Because she hadn’t mattered. “Then I did, but you’d erased your existence so well, I came up with only your professional portfolio, address—and a photo.” His palm pressed over his heart, like hers had done minutes ago. Was that where the photo was? “Of you and Mennah.”

Her eyes remained prisoner to the telling gesture, her own heart battering itself against her ribs, even when she wasn’t sure what it told her.

It was his claim that he knew nothing about her that slowed her heartbeats. Could it be?

She had used methods learned in the circles where people erased their pasts or reinvented themselves for safety and second chances, first to cover up parts of her past to escape the heartache, then to remain hidden with Mennah forever. But she hadn’t thought her cover-up tactics would be so effective that he wouldn’t find out everything about her if he put his mind to it.

But then he probably hadn’t; had only tried to find her, not find out about her. Trailing someone wasn’t the same as researching them. Yes. That had to be it.

She sighed. “Well, what you came up with was enough. You found me, found out what I ran to hide. Anyway, I never tried to hide who I am from you, so you do know everything that counts.”

“Really?” He mimicked her recent irony. “Beyond knowing what you can do, in your job, in bed…” The way he said that, in such menace-coated sensuality, made her snicker. He raised one eyebrow. “So glad you find me funny. Even when I’m not trying to be.”

Her earlier outburst rippled to the surface, her facial muscles hurting under its renewed onslaught. “It is hilarious, hearing you refer to me as some sort of femme fatale.”

“They don’t come any more fatal, Carmen.”

She looked around, looked back at him, pointed to herself in open mockery. “You’re talking about me? Boy, now that’s a parallel universe version of the truth. A Bizzaro world one. Whom have you been talking to? Someone I turned down and he decided to paint me as a black widow? To justify his failure as he propagates tales of his lucky escape? One thing’s for sure. You didn’t get this from my ex. Apart from him, you’re the only man who was in a position to comment on my so-called sexual powers, and you both certainly…”

Her voice trailed off. What was it with those attacks of truthfulness? Had she misplaced her discretion during the months she’d barely talked to another adult?

It was futile to kick herself over it now, anyway. She’d already said too much. The whole truth and nothing but.

Now his eyes were glinting with things that sent goose bumps cascading through her like a storm through a wheat field.

Before she could theorize what those things were, impassiveness blanked his gaze, neutralized his voice. “You’re telling me I’m one of only two men in your life?”

His ego relished that, did it? So what? She was only expanding it from planetary to stellar proportions. Nothing mere mortals could tell the difference between.

“I am telling you that,” she ground out. “And you know what, you’re not only the second, you’re the last.”

He sat forward, coming closer like a tide that would overwhelm her if she didn’t back away. “Of course I’m the last.”

She didn’t. “You are, because even if I wasn’t off men after you and my ex, I’d never expose Mennah to a strange man.”

He stilled, intensifying the menace in the calmness of his next words. “You’re likening me to your ex-husband?”

She didn’t care. “And it’s blasphemy to liken your highness to anyone? Well, considering he’s a mommy’s—and daddy’s—boy with loads of unearned wealth and power, the similarities are plenty. If this arouses your royal fury, it sure isn’t worse than practically calling me a liar, a fraud and an all-round whore.”

Farooq was lost for words for the first time. Ever.

Not because he found none to answer her insults with. What struck him mute was Carmen’s allegation that he was the only man, besides the husband she’d married too early, she’d been intimate with. In effect, her only lover. The claim had flowed from her with the impetus of a statement of fact, had lodged into him with the force of an ax in the gut. Of the truth.

Could he believe it? She’d been Tareq’s mole, but not his plaything? She hadn’t been anybody else’s? Her abandon in his arms had been just for him, as his had been just for her? Discounting the ex-husband she spoke of now without continuing emotional attachment, with disdain even, he’d been, no matter the reason, her first, and as she vowed, her last passionate involvement?

Everything in him insisted that was the truth. That she’d told him many truths today.

But she’d done so only up to a point. He could feel her hiding things. Major things. Her deal with Tareq, no doubt. And fool that he was, he didn’t want to corner her into a confession.