Before she could cry out in disbelief, Amjad’s eyebrows snapped together as a new suspicion ignited his eyes. “But maybe this is his new plan. He realized that not even you could change my stance on marriage, so he sent you to secure me as a lover, then obtain Haidar as a husband, collecting the power we pack, clandestine and official, in both your hands.”
Her jaw dropped. “Tell me that now you’re being extra obnoxious.”
He shrugged. “Yusuf is going all out to turn himself from a minor prince into a major king. He has…other venues planned, but even if those work, I—and Haidar—would be bigger assets to him than any throne as long as you were in control.”
She let out a ragged exhalation. “Are you done? Can I have my say now?”
He gestured for her to go ahead, parked his lean hips against the countertop, crossed his endless legs at the ankles, his eyes telling her she’d have to make this exceptional. And it probably wouldn’t make a difference anyway.
She inhaled. “Father never hinted about approaching you with me as a bargaining chip in another bid for more power…oh, God!” Her knees buckled as the extent of her father’s manipulations hit her.
Amjad closed the distance between them urgently, reached out a supporting hand to her elbow. She raised her eyes, afraid to meet his. But it wasn’t contempt seething there, but what looked like solicitude.
Her throat closed tighter. “I can now see how he’s been manipulating things to push us together. I did seek out any way to be with you, but I now realize that when I succeeded, it was his doing. I am guilty of not questioning it, though. This time, although he didn’t look like he was in danger of a relapse, I didn’t even wonder why he said he was. I just grabbed the chance to be with you again.”
She closed her eyes as all the times her father had looked her in the eye and plotted behind her back spooled through her mind.
She opened her eyes. “But even though I want to strangle him for interfering in my life and peddling me to you this way…I can’t feel really betrayed. I think I understand why he did what he did. He must have sensed our compatibility, was in his own misguided way trying to secure for me the only man he thought would suit me.”
Green-cold ice formed in Amjad’s eyes, almost giving her frostbite. “Sure. And now he has another ‘only man’ for you, and no doubt, a long list of ‘only men’ as backup.”
She shook her head. “You must be wrong about Haidar. I never made it a secret that I didn’t see anyone but you. And even if he gave up on you, he knows neither Haidar nor I would ever think of each other as anything more than best buddies. Unless…” The suspicion suddenly provided a new terrible possibility. “Unless he was only pretending to target Haidar. He might believe all you need to overcome your aversion to commitment is the idea of losing me to your own brother. And if that is his plan, then he’s a total snake and someone I don’t know at all!”
As she talked, the coldness in Amjad’s eyes had been evaporating under a blast of…realization? Of temptation?
He finally shook his head. “You confound the devil on a regular basis, don’t you? Too bad I’m a bit more discerning than the old boy.”
She smiled shakily, the need to smooth back the silky hair his headshake had spilled to his slashed cheekbones becoming a pain in her gut. “I used to think you had discernment sandblasted out of your gorgeous head where I am concerned. But now that I know your paranoia was cultivated by my father’s loving help, I fully excuse you.”
“I so appreciate your sanctioning my well-founded paranoia.”
Her heart fired at his savage mockery. She suddenly realized it could mean she might have never had a chance with him.
She swallowed the emotion rising in her throat. “I believed you recognized me as I recognized you from the start, knew we’d share these…flowing channels of communication and appreciation—if you let us. I thought it was only a matter of time until you did. I would have kept trying forever if I thought you one day would. But if you never will, I need to know, Amjad. If you think I don’t feel exactly as I say I do, if you have the least suspicion still, I won’t come near you until this situation is over. Afterward, you’ll never see or hear from me again. It’s now all up to you.”
His eyes went supernova.
Before her heart could explode in answer, he stalked out of sight toward the door. She gaped as she heard him yank it open. Seconds later, it slammed behind him.
He—he’d gone out in the sandstorm. Without protection!
Six
Amjad might be mad and bad, but he was anything but a fool.
He had to come right back. He would.
He didn’t.
Interminable minutes passed as she waited for him to burst back in, before she rushed to the window a few feet from the door. She could see nothing but the now rust-colored limbo that seemed to have replaced the world outside.
She stood trembling, her mind burning circuits as reason braked the hurtling of fright.
He had to have made a dash for Dahabeyah’s stable. It had to be near. Even so, without the goggles and face coverings, he must have inhaled and been blasted with enough sand that he’d feel sorry for his rash action for days.
He’d known that, yet had risked it to get away from her.
She understood. He must be reeling as much as she was from the revelations. But she had it easy. She’d already come to terms with her father’s manipulations. But Amjad had been secure in thinking her an accomplice in the biddings that had so revolted him and fanned the ready flames of suspicion about people’s motives toward him. She was surprised his contempt hadn’t been more lethal, if her father had made him think he—and she—would substitute Haidar for him.
In retrospect, knowing that the tainting effect of her father’s interference had been in full force all along made what they’d shared mean that much more. For they had connected, had come close. Closer than her wildest dreams. Even with his attempting to keep her—and himself—at bay. He’d slipped so many times into ease with her, into showing the man beneath the cold camouflage. She didn’t just admire and desire him; she could also talk to him, laugh with him, say anything to him and have him understand. He got her. And she got him. But would she really get him?
She was no longer confident she would.
And that might be her fault.
Before he could process her “version of the truth,” deal with how it radically changed his long-held beliefs of her, she’d pushed for him to decide if he would or would never trust her.