His eyebrow quirked. “Are you that afraid of me, Emily? Worried about what kissing me will do to you?”
Heat flared beneath her skin. “With all due respect, Your Highness, you really need to get over yourself. It’s not professional, is all I mean. I’m your partner, not your lover.”
“So no mixing business and pleasure, I take it?” He sounded amused, and it irritated her. Was there really nothing she could say that bothered this man? That got to him the way he was getting to her?
Maybe she should have been more blunt with him much sooner. But she’d always tried to be cool and professional and detached. She hadn’t wanted camaraderie with him. She’d wanted nothing but her job and her paycheck and the satisfaction of performing her duties better than anyone he’d ever employed before.
She’d wanted to be indispensable to him—and she’d wanted to be the one he trusted with his business life. She hadn’t wanted to kiss him or touch him or, heaven forbid, lie naked in a bed with him.
To do that would be like picking up a treasure map, pointing right to the place that said “Here Be Dragons,” and saying, “This is where I want to go.”
No, not going there. Not ever.
“Precisely.” She tried to sound like her usual cool self, but there was a hint of hot color in her voice. She could hear it vibrating. She didn’t like it.
He shoved his hands into his pockets. It was such a casual move, and yet he looked no less intense—or delicious—than a moment ago.
Stop.
“All right, we’ll do it your way. For now. No touching unless necessary for public consumption. Which, by the way, includes my staff and anyone in the palace in Kyr. I expect this to work, Emily.”
The tightness in her chest seemed to ease a bit now that she knew he wasn’t going to try and tug her into his arms again. “I know that. And I will do my best.”
“You better do more than that.” He moved toward her with an easy grace that made her think of leopards slinking across the savannah. He stopped before her, hands still in pockets, intense gray eyes roving over her face. “Because if you don’t, Miss Bryant, everything is going to change. And then you will be out of a job for real.”
* * *
When dawn came, Emily didn’t know what to do with herself. She started to get up and get dressed as usual, prepared to go to Kadir’s suite and wake him as always—but then she remembered that he’d fired her. That she was no longer his employee.
Temporarily, of course. But as much as she wanted to adhere to her usual routines because they gave her comfort, she had to play a different role in his life right now. She’d spent the last several years learning to be sensible and efficient and now she was at loose ends. It was strange.
So, instead, she lay in bed and tried to go back to sleep. It didn’t work, in spite of the way she’d tossed and turned last night. She hadn’t slept because she’d been remembering Kadir standing in her room, looking so lost and alone and handsome, and asking her to marry him. And then he’d taken her in his arms and tried to kiss her.
Her heart did a little skip-and-slip thing every time she thought of that moment when she’d closed her eyes and felt him dipping down to press his mouth against hers.
But she’d panicked and pushed him away and now she couldn’t stop wondering what she’d missed. If she’d made a mistake.