The Sheikh’s Disobedient Bride(39)
“I’ve no desire to change you. The only thing I want is to get out of here. Go home.”
“Which I’m not going to allow you to do.”
“So, let me get this straight. You’ve no intention of becoming the least bit likable, and I’ve got to spend forever here, too?”
Tair nearly smiled. Finally she sounded properly horrified. Now this was conversation he liked. “Yes. Exactly. I will not change. I will never be likable. And you will never be returned to your people.”
A small muscle jumped in her jaw, near her ear. Her expression subtly tensed. “You mean, I won’t be returned until I agree to erase all the camera’s memory.”
Tair didn’t reply immediately, too intent on studying her eyes, where the sunlight shone, reflecting glints of green and gray and brown. He loved the color of her eyes. They reminded him of the part of Europe he loved, the old forests and cool woodland glens, the river beds filled with polished pebbles against banks softened by violets and ferns. In her eyes he remembered swimming in sun dappled ponds and hiding inside hollowed tree stumps. He could smell the water, the sticky sap of trees, the softness of moss growing on the far side of trees.
He remembered his mother.
He remembered the boy.
He remembered innocence.
“If I give you all the disks now, let you erase them, destroy them, you will let me go.” Tally’s voice was firm but he heard the whisper of uncertainty. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure. Suddenly she doubted him. Again.
As she should.
His gaze dropped from her eyes, over the satin cream and rose of her fine Western skin to her mouth. Her lips were full, wide, the color a dark-dusty pink which he’d thought initially was makeup, but knew now it was just the color of her skin.
Pink and cream, rose and ivory.
The color of his woman.
His woman. And he knew without a doubt what he’d suspected earlier. He’d never intended to return her, never planned to let her go back.
She was his woman. She was going to be his wife.
They’d been together long enough. It was a longer courtship than he’d had with his first wife.
It was time to make their relationship official. Time to announce that the foreigner would soon be his bride.
“Tair.” Her tone was increasingly urgent. “I’ll do it. Get my camera and memory cards now. Let’s just do it. Destroy them and be done with it.”
“No.”
“No?”
He shrugged, increasingly comfortable. Easy now that he’d made his decision, or more correctly, recognized the decision he’d made when he first spotted Tally in the square. It was kismet, he understood now. Fate. He’d seen her and knew without understanding why, that he had to have her. She was supposed to be his. “You’ll stay here with me.”
“I won’t, Tair, and you know me. I’ll run.”
He shrugged again, unruffled. “And I’ll come find you.”
Her head turned and she looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Don’t do this,” she said softly, the warning clear enough in her voice.
“It’s already done. You’re here. We’re together. I shall announce our marriage—”
“Marriage?”
“You shall be my second wife.”
“And your first?”
“Dead.”
Her mouth opened, closed and she put fingertips to her forehead where everything seemed fuzzy. Heatstroke. That’s what it was. She was suffering heatstroke. “I will never marry you.”
“There’s no real ceremony. Nothing you have to do—”
“That’s not the point.”
“—so I say the words, announce it to my people, and it is done. You are my wife.”
“Your wife.”
“It is not such a very big step. Everyone already knows you are mine. We are merely making official what is widely assumed. That you are my woman.”
Tally honestly thought she was going to faint.
If only she could faint. If only she could slide to the floor and not have to listen to another word. But maybe in her dead faint he’d wave his hand over her and do his hocus-pocus wedding ceremony and then she’d really truly be in trouble then.
No, she couldn’t faint. She had to stay calm and find a way out of here. Marry Tair? Be a sheikh’s bride? Never.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEYdidn’t end up having tea, at least, not together. Tally was too upset and Tair wasn’t in the mood to coddle her. It’d be so much more convenient if she knew who he was. If she understood his power. His name. His reputation.