“There is no apology I can make that will suffice,” Tariq said then, lifting his head to catch her gaze, startling her with his seeming sincerity. “I was thoughtless. Callous.”
For a moment Jessa stared back at him, while something seemed to ease inside of her. Almost as if it was enough, somehow, that he had heard her. That he offered no excuses for what he had done. And perhaps it might have been enough, if that had been the end of what his abandonment had cost her. But it had only been the beginning. It had been the easy part, in retrospect.
“Congratulations,” she said sarcastically, thinking of everything she’d suffered. The impossible decision she’d made. The daily pain of living with that decision ever since, no matter how much she might know that it was the right one. “You have managed to avoid apologizing with such elegance, I nearly thanked you for it.”
“It is obvious that I owe you a great debt,” he said then. If she hadn’t been staring straight at him, she might have missed the flash of temper that came and went in his eyes. And she couldn’t shake the strange notion that he meant to say something else entirely.
“There is no debt,” she told him, stiffening. If he owed her something, that meant he might stay in the area, and she couldn’t have that! He had to go, back to his own world, where he belonged. Far away from hers.
“I cannot make up for the loss of your prospects,” Tariq continued as if she hadn’t spoken. His voice was both formal and seductive. An odd mix, yet something inside her melted. “And perhaps there is nothing you wish for that I can provide.”
“I’ve just told you I don’t want anything,” she said, more forcefully. “Not from you.”
“Not even dinner?” He didn’t quite smile. He inclined his head toward her. “It is getting late. And I have wronged you. I think perhaps there is more to it, and the very least I can do is listen to you.”
She didn’t trust him for a second, much less his sudden gallantry and concern. She knew exactly how manipulative he could be. He’d lied to her for months and she’d bought it, hook, line, and sinker! And she had not forgotten that he’d said they had unfinished business between them. She should refuse him outright, demand he leave her alone.
But she didn’t do it.
She was still buzzing from the unexpected rush she’d gotten when she’d told him exactly what he’d done to her. When she’d laid it out, piece by piece, and he’d had no defense. She had no intention of sharing the rest of it with him, but she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that she liked being the one in charge. Perhaps she wasn’t quite ready to dismiss him. Not quite yet. Was it that she felt powerful, or was it that melting within?
It was by far the most terrifying moment of the day.
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” she told him stiffly, appalled at what she had nearly done. Was she mad? “I already have plans.”
“Of course.” Something passed through his eyes and made her catch her breath. “I understand. Another time, perhaps.”
“Perhaps.” She was noncommittal. Surely there could be no other time? Surely he would simply vanish back into the ether as he had before?
“Until then,” he murmured, and then he turned and let himself back out of the office door. Jessa had the sense of his body moving like liquid into the night, and then she was alone.
He was gone as abruptly as he had come.
Jessa let out a breath, and sagged where she stood, finding herself on her knees in the center of the industrial blue carpet. She pressed her hands against her face, then let them drop.
The room was again just a room. Just an office. Without Tariq crowding into it, it was not even small.
Jessa stayed where she was until her breathing returned to normal. She had to think. She was not foolish enough to believe that he was gone for good, that he might have hunted her down in York for a simple conversation most regular people would have on the telephone, or via the Internet, or not at all. The crazy part of her that still yearned for him swelled in the knowledge that he would, inevitably, return, and she felt something like a sob catch in her throat. She had come to terms with having loved and lost Tariq years ago. She had had no other option. But she had never expected that he would swing back into her life like this. She had never dreamed she would see him again, unless it was on the television.
She excused herself for being so uncharacteristically overwhelmed. He was an overwhelming man, to say the least! Jessa climbed to her feet and smoothed her hands over her skirt, straightening her ill-fitting suit jacket with a quick tug. If only she could set her world to rights as easily. It was one thing to mourn the man she had loved so much she’d let him change the course of her whole life while she was on her own these past years. It was something else again when he was in front of her. But she couldn’t allow any of that to distract her from the main point.
Because all that mattered now was Jeremy.
The child she had fiercely and devotedly cared for while she’d carried him inside of her for nine long months. The baby she had kissed and adored when he’d finally decided to greet the world after so many hard, lonely hours of painful labor, his face red and his tiny fists waving furiously in front of him.
The son she had loved so desperately that she’d given him up for adoption when he had been four months old despite how agonizing that decision had been—and how hard it continued to be—for her. The son she still loved enough to fight with everything she had to maintain his privacy, his happiness, no matter the cost.
No matter what she might have to do.
CHAPTER THREE
JESSA was not surprised to find Tariq at her front door the following morning. If anything, she was surprised he had waited the whole of the night before reappearing. It might have lured her into a false sense of security had she not known better.
Perhaps she did still know him after all.
She opened the door to his peremptory knock because she knew that simply ignoring him would not only fail to deter him, it might also rouse her neighbors’ interest and Jessa didn’t want that. She didn’t want someone noticing that the King of Nur was lounging about outside her otherwise unremarkable terraced house on a quiet Fulford side street just outside York’s medieval walls. What good could come of drawing attention to the fact they knew each other? She needed to get him to go back to his own country, his own world, as quickly as possible.
She cracked the door as little as she could, and stood in the wedge, as if she was capable of keeping him out with her body if he wanted to come in.
Their eyes caught and held. Time seemed to halt in its tracks. Jessa felt her heart quicken its pace to thud heavily against her ribs, and her breath caught in her throat.
She was aware on some level that the morning was gray and wet, but the weather faded from her notice, because he was all she could see. And he was distressingly, inarguably real. Not the figment of her imagination she had half convinced herself he had been, conjured from the depths of her memory to torture herself with the night before. Not a dream, not even a nightmare.
“Good morning, Jessa,” he said, as casually as if he spent all of his Saturday mornings fetched up on her doorstep, looking impossibly handsome and as inaccessible as ever.
He was no hallucination. He was flesh, blood, and all male, packed into one deceptively lean and powerful body. Today he wore black jeans and a tight black jersey that hugged the muscular planes of his chest and announced that whatever else the King of Nur might do while enjoying his luxurious lifestyle, he kept himself in top physical condition. His jade eyes burned into hers, nearly black in the morning gloom.
“I didn’t