“I’ll give you five minutes—”
“Why so little?”
“Because dinner is on the way and tonight I’m having dinner with you.”
Tally took a very fast bath, not just because she only had five minutes to bathe and change, but because the water had cooled and a chilly bath wasn’t her idea of fun.
Dressed, Tally was just combing her damp hair when Tair’s elderly servant arrived with dinner.
Tally sat down across from Tair in her tent, the lantern tonight replaced with three fat flickering candles. The meal was simple, stew and a couscous and some flat bread, but she was hungry and ate virtually everything.
She looked up to find Tair watching her and his expression with its hard features, and firm proud mouth, softened with a half smile. “It’s good to see you eat,” he said.
“That’s right. You think I’m stringy.”
He had the grace to make a face, laughing at himself. “You didn’t like that.”
“No, I didn’t.”
He laughed softly now. “You are so feisty. Everything is a battle with you.”
“I just have opinions of my own.”
“So I’ve noticed.” But he wasn’t angry. He sounded almost…indulgent.
Their gazes locked, and she felt her face burn and darken, as a rush of heat swept through her cheeks. Impulsively she leaned forward, over the small table with the flickering candles. “Can we try this again?” she asked. “Can we try to start over?”
Tair leaned back, reclining against the pillows behind him. “Why would we want to start over?”
“Get a fresh start. Things haven’t gone well and I thought it’d behoove us both—”
“Behoove?” he interrupted, dark eyes gleaming, and a single black eyebrow rising to mock her. “I haven’t heard that word in years. Didn’t realize it was still part of the English language.”
Tally felt her jaw clench. How quickly he could kill her good moods. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t be used. It’s a wonderful word.”
“Indeed, it is.”
Her hand squeezed the cup of mint tea she’d been holding. Why did she think she enjoyed his company? Why had she even missed him earlier?
“The point,” she said carefully, trying to sidestep her profound—and growing—resentment, “is that we haven’t gotten off on the best footing and I think it’d be good if we tried again. Started over. Formed new first impressions.”
“Why?”
She couldn’t seem to escape the intensity in his expression, his dark eyes fierce, demanding, insistent. And while he wasn’t touching her, she felt the heat again grow between them, matching the heat growing within her.
“I don’t understand you,” she said, swallowing hard, trying to calm her racing heart. She’d never win an argument with Tair by getting emotional. He was reason, and logic. “I don’t understand anything about you.”
“What do you need to understand?”
Helplessly Tally searched his face. “I’ve told you I’m a photographer. I’ve told you I work for no one but myself. You’ve even had the chance to see my photos but it doesn’t seem to matter to you. You refuse to help me and only you can.”
“But I have helped you,” he answered calmly. “I will always help you.”
“How?”she demanded, genuinely perplexed. This was probably a cultural thing, some distance between East and West, but he had to realize she wasn’t one of his women. She’d never be a Berber woman.
“And for that matter,” he continued, not bothering to answer her question but finish making his point, “why would we want to start over, or try to form new impressions, when what we know might be true?”
“But maybe it isn’t the truth. Maybe you have some idea of me that I’m not—”
“I don’t think so.”
Her brow creased. Her head had begun to throb again. Amazing how he could give her a headache in just minutes.
The problem with Tair, she thought, was that he was too confident. Too sure of himself, and comfortable with his power.
It didn’t help that he was so powerfully shaped, either, as if cut from the desert rock and ravines—solid, invincible. He wasn’t just tall, he was broad, strong, big in the way warriors were big. He dwarfed the tent, ate up space with his endless legs and broad shoulders. His wrists and hands were just as immense, his skin a golden-bronze from sun. But it was his hair that gave him the look of the barbarian. His hair was thick, jet-black, and long. His hair ought to be cut or at least tied back from his face but he didn’t bother with it, although his jaw was smoother than it had been. Normally it was shadowed with a day’s growth of beard but he must have shaved again since morning.