“For the sake of your daughter, yes, I do.”
Asad inclined his head. In agreement? Perhaps, but the man wasn’t giving anything away with his expression.
“What do you think of my home?” he asked, dismissing the topic of his unfaithful wife in a way that shocked Iris.
The Asad she had known at university would never have been so pragmatic about such a betrayal.
Forcing her own mind to make the ruthless mental adjustment of topics, she said rather faintly, “It’s fantastic.”
“You like your room?” he asked, the stern lines of his face relaxing somewhat.
She tried to keep the hesitation she was feeling from her tone. “Yes.”
“But?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Didn’t you?” Asad’s tone was borderline cutting.
“It’s just that, well … it’s kind of big for just me, isn’t it? I mean, it’s gorgeous, but I could set my lab up in the room and still have plenty of room to spare.” She felt guilty about that fact, though she wasn’t sure why.
Not to mention, it was right next to Asad’s room. That in itself was enough to cause immeasurable anxiety and probably sleeplessness on her part.
One of his now rare but gorgeous smiles transformed Asad’s features. “That will not be necessary. You and your coworker have already been assigned quarters for your tests.”
“Thank you.” What else could she say?
“I will do all that I can to make your stay here a pleasant one.” The words were right, but the look that accompanied them sent an atavistic shiver down Iris’s spine.
She turned to take in the charming courtyard created by the surrounding tents. Jasmine and herbs in pots decorated with bright mosaics made the space seem anything but desert austere. Despite the heat, other women cooked over open campfires, their curious gazes sliding between their sheikh’s guest and the watch they kept over children playing in the communal area.
“I had read that the tents are grouped by family ties. Is that true here among the Sha’b Al’najid?” Iris asked.
“It is,” Asad answered while his grandmother conferred with the woman cooking what Iris assumed was to be their dinner. “The dwellings around us are those of the family closest to my grandfather’s predecessor. Had my grandparents had more children, it would be their tents that occupied these spots around the sheikh’s home.”
It must have been a great disappointment to the elder couple to have only had one child, but Iris kept her lips clamped over the much too personal thought.
“Come.” Asad took Iris’s hand and placed it on his arm. “I will show you the rest of our city of tents.”
“Do you have the time, really?” she asked, trying to tug her hand away to no avail.
His other hand held it implacably in place and his dark gaze told her he wasn’t about to let go. “I have made time. The law of hospitality is very important among the Bedouin. Not to show you proper consideration as a guest in my home would be unacceptable.”
“There’s that word again.”
A tiny lift at the corner of Asad’s lips could have been a smile of amusement, but he was such a serious man now. She could not be sure.
“The way of life among my people is thousands of years old. Some things are considered absolute.”
“Like hospitality,” she guessed.
“Yes.”
“But your home is not as traditional as it appears.”
“No.”
“You are not afraid of change.”
“I am not, though I do not seek it for its own sake.”
“You want to keep the Bedouin way of life viable coming into the next generations.”
“You understand me well.” His hand tightened on hers. “You always did.”
“No.” If she’d really understood him six years ago, she never would have deceived herself into believing what they had was permanent.
“Perhaps you understood me better than I did myself.”
“Oh, no. We are not going there.” She tried to yank her hand away again.
But he held on. “Be at peace, aziz. We will shelve the discussion of our past friendship for now.”
If only he was simply talking about friendship. She’d become friends with Russell since he started his internship, but Iris was under no illusions. When he returned to university, if they never spoke again, she would not be devastated.
Not like after she’d lost Asad.
When she’d believed they were far more than friends who had sex. “No. Don’t. You don’t mean that word. Don’t ever use it with me again. I don’t care if you see it as a casual endearment, I do not … I didn’t back then and it hurt more than you’ll ever understand to learn it meant less than nothing to you.”
“What?” He’d stopped with her, his tone filled with genuine incomprehension. “What has you so agitated?”
He really didn’t know and that said it all, didn’t it?
“Aziz. You will not call me that. Do you understand me? If you do it again, I will leave … I promise you.” She knew she didn’t sound superbly rational, or even altogether coherent, but she wasn’t backing down on this.
Shock and disbelief crossed his face before the sheikh mask fell again. “You would compromise your career over a single word?”
“Yes.” And she meant it. She’d tolerate a lot, but not that.
Not ever again. That single word embodied every aspect of pain that had shredded her heart six years ago. It meant beloved, but he didn’t mean it that way. He’d never once told her he loved her, but every time he called her aziz, she’d believed that was his way of doing so.
She’d been so incredibly wrong, but darn it—the word had only one translation that she knew of. Only Asad used the word as flippantly empty as a rapper calling his female flavor of the week “baby.”
Iris and Asad stood in the middle of a walkway between tents, others walking by them, but no one stopped to converse with their sheikh. It was as if they could sense the monumental emotional explosion pressing against the surface of normality she’d been striving for since seeing him at the bottom of the stairs the night before.
“You do not wish me to call you aziz, but surely—”
“No. Promise me, or I’m going to pack my things up right now.”
“Your company would not be pleased.”
“They’ll probably fire me.”
“And yet, you would leave Kadar anyway.” The confusion in his tone hurt as much as his casual use of the word a moment before.
“Yes.” She didn’t care if he understood; she only wanted his compliance. “Are we in agreement?”
After several seconds of charged silence he said, “I will not use the endearment unless you give me leave to do so.”
“It will never happen.” That was one thing she was sure of.
“We shall see.”
“Asad—”
“No. We have had enough emotional turmoil this day. I will show you my desert home and you will