Harlequin Presents January 2015 Box Set 1 of 2(32)

She took a step toward him.

“Stop,” he bit out, the command coming down like a hammer on a nail.

She obeyed, because she was powerless to do anything else.

“The tent is big enough for the both of us. I’m sorry I made a big deal out of it before.” She tried again, even though she was certain she was making a mistake.

“I cannot stay. I would only do something we would both regret later.”

And before she could ask him what he meant he began to walk away from her, disappearing into the darkness. As though he had been swallowed up whole, consumed by a blackness that would never give him back.

Still, Sophie stood there and watched. She stood there until her eyes hurt from straining to see into the night. Stood there until she started to feel cold.

She didn’t know what it was about this man. She only knew that he was challenging things in her that no one else had ever been able to challenge before.

But what was far more frightening than that was the fact that she wanted him to challenge them. Was the fact that she was more intrigued than afraid?

She shook her head and turned away from the desert, walking back into the tent.

She was only having a moment of temporary insanity. It would pass.

She was in here for this. And anyway, Zayn was promised to another woman. And she would never be the kind of person who ignored something like that. She wasn’t going to tread on another woman’s territory. Her mother hadn’t minded, hadn’t cared that her lover had said vows to someone else, and Sophie had seen the destruction it had brought. Sophie would never be a part of something like that.

Though, even if she were that sort of woman, in the end, Zayn would never choose her. Men like him never chose the woman like her. They married the princess, they stayed with the socialite. That was the end of the discussion.

But it was moot because she wasn’t going there. She wasn’t even tempted.

She ignored the tightening in her stomach that called her a liar, and went to bed.

* * *

The next morning when Zayn returned to the tent, he was stiff and cold. It felt like the night air had worked its way into his joints, leaving behind a chill he couldn’t shake. Even so, sleeping out on the dunes had been preferable to sharing the space with Sophie. Well, perhaps it had not been preferable in the strictest sense of the word. But it had been necessary.

Though now he was in desperate need of some warmth. For all the brutality of the desert heat during the day, the cold was almost as biting. Though not quite as deadly.

He pushed the flap to the tent back, and strode inside. He was greeted by a sharp squeak and a flurry of motion.

Sophie was standing just behind the nearly sheer divider next to the bed hurriedly tugging a tunic over her head. A moment later she scrambled from behind the curtain, her cheeks pink, her face void of makeup, her blond hair fuzzy.

“Don’t you knock?”

He looked around at the canvas walls. “On what?”

“Oh, ha, ha. You could have at least signaled your presence. You could’ve shouted, or made some kind of a bird sound.”

“If we were staying a few extra days we might work out some kind of system, or code. But as we are leaving, I do not think it matters.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears, her expression fierce. “Well, of course you would say that, you weren’t the one who got walked in on while you were changing.”

“I doubt I would have been as concerned as you are.”

“Of course you wouldn’t be, I’m tiny. You’re invulnerable to me.”

It was an odd choice of words, because while he could see her point, he wasn’t entirely certain they were true. “But the fact you are vulnerable to me only matters if you think I would take advantage of you. And I would not.”

She arched a brow. “So you say.”

He gave her a look that he hoped telegraphed disdain. “So you can be confident of.”

“Right, well, a woman has to have a sense of self-preservation. The world is a scary place. Men can kidnap you from alleys.”

“Is that so?”

“I’ve heard stories.”

He felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “Very terrifying. Are you about ready to go?”

She looked around the room. “I think I have everything all packed.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Quite. The bed was very comfortable. Did you?”

With the stiffness in his joints lingering, and the cold still wrapped around his bones, the idea of a good night’s sleep seemed laughable. “Not as such.”

“Where did you sleep?”

“I found a comfortable dune.”

He did not know why he was being honest with her. He should’ve told her that he had found a woman who’d been willing to share her sleeping bag. But then, that would imply that he had betrayed Christine, and he did not want her thinking that. Because she might tell someone. And because he did not want her to think he would do such a thing.