Undiluted power clung to him, like a second skin, and she knew now that it was both his weapon and armor, as much to rule and right Behraat as it was to keep everyone out.
And yet, he’d let her in and she had thrown it all away.
Dismay swirled through her, threatening to break her, and she wondered if she’d already lost him.
When she tugged her gaze to his, something in it made her mouth dry. “It’s just a cramp. I should have walked around more on the flight.”
She pushed the throw away and got off the bed. She stumbled, her legs feeling like noodles but straightened herself.
While he stood there unmoving, his gaze cold, his demeanor utterly unapproachable. As though there was an impenetrable fortress around him and he’d allow nothing to touch it. As though he’d buried himself deep beneath those walls.
“Zafir, I—”
“Is it advisable for you to keep traveling back and forth on such long flights whenever you please?” Those golden eyes fell to her belly, and she saw his mouth flinch before he skewered her again. “Have I given you too much credit in this as well, Lauren?” Taunt and threat, his honeyed voice could cut her skin. “Will you make a monster of me yet by forcing me to imprison you, habeebti?”
She flushed and searched for the right words. Which mistake did she start apologizing for? “I made sure it was all right for me to travel. You know that I would never take an unnecessary risk.”
“You have proved that I do not know you, Lauren. Inarguably. So indulge me.” If his intention was to eviscerate her, he was succeeding. Lauren wanted to curl up and whimper.
“How long is this trip going to be for?”
She’d waited too long to answer because his voice cracked like thunder across the room again.
“Who let you through here without breathing so much as a word to even Arif? I don’t know what shocked me more last time, that you had managed to flee or your cunning knack in making such a convenient alliance.”
Lauren flinched, remembering Rashid’s words. “I’m sorry for running away like that. For taking her help. For…”
“Who helped you return?”
“If you didn’t know that I was here, what were you doing in this suite then?”
In that infinitesimal moment in which he hesitated, in the dark shadows under his eyes, in his reading glasses and papers and that fountain pen of his that sat on the coffee table, Lauren found her answer.
He sat here in the dark, in the suite she had stayed in, night after night.
God, she’d been such a fool, a thousand times she could call herself that and still, it wouldn’t be enough.
“Answer my question, Lauren.”
“Your father. He came to New York. Brought divorce papers with him. Told me he had to get me out of your life. That he wouldn’t let me ruin your great destiny.”
Shock flared in his eyes.
She covered the distance between them. Willed him to look at her, to give her one chance. “He was right, about me at least. I’ve been selfish, foolish, but I won’t let you finish this because he—”
His hands clasped her wrists and he tugged her to look up at him. And that rough, not-so-together movement of his gave Lauren courage. “My father… Lauren, what the hell are you talking about? I forbade him from even mentioning your name to me. I told him that he wasn’t to go near you.
“And yet he…” His golden gaze flared and then went flat again. “You’re here because he threatened you about the baby…” Utter defeat and a helplessness she would have never associated with him filled his face. “You believed him,” his voice was raw, shaky, “that I would take our child away from you. After everything we’ve been through.”
It was the worst she could have believed about him, and yet she had.
And that’s when Lauren realized how well Rashid had played his game. How well he had manipulated Lauren, tested her and then pushed her to the truth. How well he hid so much beneath the mask of an arrogant, insufferable old man.
How easily he had done it all for Zafir…
When Zafir turned away from her, Lauren waylaid him, her heart in her throat. “His threats were empty, his words designed to flay me, showed me what I truly was. I thought he was the most insufferable man I’d ever met.
“But I didn’t believe the things he said about you, Zafir. In the end, it was that simple. Because I knew you.”
* * *
Zafir turned away from Lauren, a crack inching its way through his already battered heart.
His father had flown all the way to New York? Why? He knew, Zafir had warned him, that he had to stay out of his personal affairs. That he wouldn’t be manipulated for Behraat or any other reason.
That his child would not become some pawn of contention between Lauren and him…
Yet he had gone and now Lauren was here, because she…
Bracing himself, he allowed himself to look at her. To let himself believe that she stood there, and was not a figment of his nightly imagination, as it had been the past month. To breathe the air she filled with that wild, lavender scent of hers.
But he would not hope again.
He would not let her cripple him further. He would not become a fool like his father and risk everything. He would not give in to the savage urge to tie her up in this very room and ensure she never left him again.
That way, lay only madness.
But Ya Allah, she tempted him. She’d always tempted him into madness, into selfishness, into hoping for impossible things, into gut-wrenching love that threatened to make him lose his sense of himself.
Into almost letting it all go to hell—everything his father and he had built for Behraat.
Almost.
If he did, he would never forgive himself and he would come to resent her and it would be the utter ruin he’d always wished to avoid.
Not reaching for her now was like trying to avoid the harsh, beautiful, glittering sun while standing in the middle of the desert, however.
He clamped her chin with his fingers, a primal roar threatening to burst out of him. How many times would she test him, torment him? How much lower would she bring him?
“If you believed his threats to be empty, why are you here?”
“I didn’t know then. But now…” She shook her head and when she looked up, a sheen coated her midnight-black eyes. Her mouth trembled. “I…came back for you, for us. I came back because I realized what a coward I’ve been, Zafir. I came back because I love you so much.”
Zafir stiffened, even as her words chipped away at him. He released her and fisted his hands. “You have said that before, habeebti. And I believed you.”
He pushed his hand through his hair, feeling as weak as a leaf. And she was the gust of wind that could forever blow him away.
Her shoulders rigid, her stubborn chin lifted, she nodded. Tears fell onto her cheeks and it was all Zafir could do to not take her in his arms. But he’d reached for everything she’d offered once, believed that he could have this light, this happiness that she brought him along with Behraat.
That he needn’t be alone after all for the rest of his life, with nothing but the desert and Behraat stretched before him, that he was loved.
“I know how much I hurt you.” She took a bracing breath, and wiped away her tears. And he could see her heart in those brilliant eyes of hers, her courage, her honesty and her love for him. He felt ragged then, at the battle within. And for once, he desperately wanted to lose.
“I’m so new to this whole thing,” she was saying then, and each step she took toward him sent his pulse racing, crumbled his will, word by word. “It was myself I didn’t believe in, Zafir, not you. But now I know myself. I believe in myself and that makes what you feel for me so much clearer. Makes this wildfire between us so gut-wrenchingly simple.
“I followed you before I even understood myself, Zafir. Now…now that I can trust myself, I would follow you to the end of the world.”
She pressed her mouth to his, tentative and hot and a punch to his senses. Like a kick to his gut. Like pleasure so intense and shocking that it bordered on pain.
He fell apart then. Again and again as she anchored herself on his shoulders and took his mouth with such primitive, possessive passion. Claimed him. Marked him. Undid him all over again.
But this time, he welcomed the naked, raw, powerlessness that shuddered through him. Let it wash over him, knowing that it would be all right. Gave himself over to her soft nips and strokes.
“I love you, Zafir, so much. Mere words could not encompass it all. Tell me I haven’t lost my chance with you. Please tell me—” she broke then, a catch in her throat, a tremble in those deceptively slender shoulders. And Zafir took over.
In the next breath, he was devouring her, tasting her. It was his will that took over then, his love for this courageous woman that kept feeding the fire.
He picked her up and brought her to the bed. Pushed all that wild, dark hair away from her face and tilted her chin up. Tasted her roughly, deeply, desperately. “You’re my heart, Lauren. You bring such joy, such light to my life, habeebti.” He traced the lush lower lip. “Trusting in this thing between us, allowing myself to love you, it’s the most terrifying thing I have done.
“But I submit to it, I choose this, I choose you like I’ve chosen nothing else, Lauren. I willingly become weak for you.”