It didn’t excuse the fact he’d been an idiot to go home with her. He should’ve resisted the temptation. After all, he’d managed to avoid desert sunsets, date palms and spice markets with remarkable ease.
He pushed the memories away—memories of home. They might haunt his sleeping hours, but he refused to dwell on them when he was awake.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. He still couldn’t believe he’d relaxed his guard so much.
It was just...
He grabbed a cloth and vigorously wiped down the bar. She’d made him feel like he could be someone different—that he was someone different. When she spotlighted him with those pretty blue eyes of hers, she made him feel worthy. And, God forgive him, but he’d been too weak not to revel in it.
The man at the far end of the bar tapped his empty beer glass. Majed got him another. He bent down to check the stock in the fridge. But, rather than rows of wine bottles and mixers, all he could see was fragments from the night he’d spent with Sarah. They replayed through his mind on an endless loop—the curvaceous length of her leg, the way her body had arched to meet his, the taste of her. They drew him so tight, his muscles started to ache. That night had been spectacular—unforgettable.
But the morning after...
He straightened in time to see her laugh at something one of her friends said. Her stupid lie—it hadn’t even been a big lie—had reminded him of the mistakes that lay in his past. His hands clenched. Mistakes he had no intention of repeating.
And it had reminded him of all that he owed his family. He forced his hands to unclench. Where on earth did he think a romance with an Australian woman could go? He grabbed a tray of dirty glasses and stacked them in readiness for the dishwasher. If he wanted to redeem himself in the eyes of his family he’d have to submit to a traditional marriage—a marriage made for political purposes that would cement democracy in his beloved Keddah Jaleel and ensure peace for future generations.
Love for his homeland welled inside him. He missed the desert night sky. He missed walking beneath the date palms on the banks of the Bay’al River. He missed the bustle of the undercover markets, the air heavy with the scent of clove and nutmeg. He missed...
His throat started to ache. When he returned—if he returned, if his father ever countenanced it—Ahmed wouldn’t be there to greet him, and he didn’t know how he could bear to live there without his brother. He didn’t know how he could meet his father’s bitter disappointment every single day, or how to assuage his mother’s heartbreak. He missed his homeland but he didn’t know how he could ever return.
And yet for one night Sarah had made him forget all of that. He hungered now for the respite she represented—the respite she would probably still offer to him freely if he asked for it—but he had no right to such respite. And the thought of making love to a woman who was in love with another man was anathema to him. Pride forbade it.
He lifted his chin and didn’t pretend not to see her as she made her way towards the bar...and him. ‘Good evening.’ The words growled out of him and she stopped a pace short of the bar. He could’ve bitten his tongue off for sounding so damned forbidding. He tried to inject a note of friendliness as he flipped a coaster onto the bar in front of the nearest stool and said, ‘Your usual?’
She eyed him warily as she slid onto the stool. ‘Just a lemonade, please.’
It might be a work night but that had never stopped her drinking before. Not that she ever got rollicking drunk. She’d once told him she drank in an effort to anaesthetise herself to the mind-numbing mundanity of her life. It had made all the sore places inside him ache.
Fellow feeling—that was what he and Sarah had shared from the first.
And attraction. At least on his part. It had been instant. And insistent. And it had had nothing to do with his covert—and not so covert—scheme to rid her of Superior Sebastian.
He set her lemonade in front of her. ‘Has Sebastian been giving you any trouble?’ Was she seeing him again?
She paused in the act of reaching for her drink. ‘Good God, no. Not since...’
Not since Majed had thrown him out of her apartment?
‘And good riddance to him.’ She drank deeply and then shot him a mischievous, if half-hearted, grin. ‘Sebastian who?’
He wished he could believe her. She deserved better than the likes of the Sebastians of this world. He took in her pallor, the dark circles under her eyes, and wondered how long it would take her to get over him. ‘You’re better off without him.’ Sebastian had never been worthy of her, had never appreciated her the way she ought to be appreciated.
‘I know.’
He could almost believe her...
‘Look, Majed, I didn’t come here to talk about Sebastian. I—’
She broke off to bite her lip. Something in Majed’s gut coiled at the way her gaze slid away, at the way she compulsively jiggled her straw in her drink. ‘What have you come here to talk about?’
She glanced around the room. It was a quiet night but there were still a dozen people in the bar. ‘It’s not the time or place. I was hoping to talk to you once you’d closed. Or...some other time when you’re free.’
He didn’t want to be alone with her. He folded his arms. His right foot started to tap. ‘Can’t you just tell me now?’
She stopped jiggling her straw to fix him with a glare. ‘No. You deserve more respect than that. And so do I.’
Her gaze slid away. Again. She had a lock of hair that always fell forward onto her face. She’d push it back behind her ear, but it would always work its way free again. Majed held his breath and waited... He didn’t release it until it had fallen forward to brush across her cheek. That silly, defiant, joyful lock of hair could always make him smile.
Stop it!
He continued to gaze at her. She didn’t look like other women. At least, not to him. Which made no sense at all because, of course, she looked like a woman. And while she wasn’t stunningly beautiful, she drew his gaze again and again. He found her...lovely.
Her hair was neither gold nor brown, her skin was neither fair nor olive, and it had taken him a while before he’d realised her eyes were a clear brilliant blue, but once he had he couldn’t forget them. Her features were regular, though some might claim her mouth was too wide, but nothing about Sarah immediately stood out. Not physically. Except... She exuded warmth, as if she housed her own internal sun, and everything about her made his fingers ache to reach out and touch her. He had to fight the urge now, and the effort made his muscles burn.
But... There was something in the set of her shoulders.
It hit him then, why she was here, and his hands slammed to his hips. Her eyes caught the movement...followed it... The pink of her tongue snaked out to moisten her full bottom lip and he went hot all over. He cleared his throat. ‘You’ve lost another job.’
His rasped accusation had her gaze spearing back to his but the heat continued to circle in his blood. Her cheeks went pink but, whether at the accuracy of his accusation or the fact he’d caught her staring, he didn’t know.
‘Well, yes.’ One shoulder lifted. ‘But that’s not what I came to talk about either.’
No?
She stared down her nose at him. ‘Mike told you to keep an eye on me,