She lurched out of his tightening embrace, tottering, trying to pretend it was a natural move, and croaked a distraction, “Did you manage to propose your relief projects without the Ashgoonian prime minister screaming that your monarchy has some nerve, criticizing his ‘democracy’s’ internal affairs?”
It took him a moment to answer. A moment during which he tried to pull her back into his arms. A look of incomprehension stained his overpowering beauty when she evaded him again.
Then he seemed to dismiss her action as nothing to analyze, shrugged his Olympian shoulders. “He did better than that. He gave me unconditional access into Ashgoonian territory for a hundred-mile zone across the borders with Damhoor.”
A surge of pleasure and pride in his extraordinary achievement, something the UN itself hadn’t been able to manage, overtook her, momentarily suppressing her misery. “Oh, Farooq, that’s incredible. You’re going to save so many lives.”
His sensuous lips twisted. “Let’s not count our saved lives before they’re saved, Carmen. In diplomacy I project only worst-case scenarios. But enough of that. I’m not Prince Aal Masood now. I’m the man who has untold pleasures in store for the woman who’s his most magnificent gift for his life’s best birthday.”
His birthday. She’d found out only yesterday, and it had been during her shopping trip for supplies to make the man who had multitudes of everything a handmade gift that she’d collapsed, ended up in hospital and found out that what she’d thought impossible had happened. Farooq’s baby was growing inside her.
He reached for her again. This time when she dodged him, his arms fell to his sides and bewilderment flashed over his sculpted face. Then comprehension dawned in the honeyed depths of his eyes.
He exhaled. “It’s that time of month at last?”
He thought she was having her period? God, how ironic.
She grabbed at the excuse, nodded.
He sighed again. “It has been longer than expected coming, hasn’t it?” He didn’t even know how long it had been. And why should he? He wasn’t counting the moments with her, counting down to the moment their time together came to an end. A wicked gleam suddenly entered his hypnotic eyes. “It’ll never stop stunning me, how delightfully wanton you are at times only to squirm with shyness at others.” She looked away from his teasing. A finger under her chin dragged her aching gaze back to his. “I may be burning to possess you, ya ghalyah, but I’ll take equal pleasure in comforting you. You look so tired, so pale.” He took her arm, pulled her toward the gigantic, circular bed draped in midnight blue silk. “Are you in any pain? I’ll summon my physicians.”
She shook her head, faltered. “I’m just … cramping a bit.”
His smile was all indulgence. “Then I’ll give you a massage. And under my hands, rubbed down with my kingdom’s magical oils, all your aches and discomforts will dissolve.”
The images he provoked speared through her loins, his thoughtfulness through her head and heart. She lurched away. “No.”
The rugged majesty of his face stiffened with confusion. He approached her again, his hands spreading in solicitude that became bafflement, then frustration when she jumped out of reach again.
He finally rasped, “What’s wrong?”
She had to do it now. Before she weakened. Before she succumbed. She blurted it out. “I’m going back home.”
He stared at her, all expression frozen on his face. At last he inhaled.
“Again I ask, what’s wrong?” His voice was measured now, careful, as if he were talking to a frightened mare.
“Nothing’s wrong. I just want to go back to L.A.”
Puzzlement and watchfulness still hovered in his eyes as he persisted. “And the reason is?”
Her gaze wavered, her lungs closed. She hadn’t thought for a second that his response to her declaration would be anything beyond a sigh and a shrug, before he moved on to the next conquest. His unexpected probing cornered her, made her blurt out the first thing that came to her. “I thought I was free to go whenever I wanted.”
Imperiousness, something she knew was innate in him but which he’d never subjected her to, blazed in his eyes. “You’re not. Not without justification for your abrupt demand.”
Floundering, she said, “It’s a decision. And it’s not abrupt. I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time.”
Harshness crept into his eyes, into his voice when he drawled, “Oh, yes? Were your cries for more forty-eight hours ago part of telling me you wanted to cut our time together short?”
She turned away. She’d collapse where she stood if she tried to hold his gaze one more second. He didn’t let her get far, his hands clamping her shoulders, his lips feathering along her neck.
“Enough of this, Carmen.” His groan jolted more longing and misery through her. “Whatever this is. If you’re angry with me for some—”
She jerked out of his hands, rasped, “I’m not.” His jaw muscles worked. “There must be something. You can’t just want to leave. I won’t let you—”
And she cried out, the shrillness of panic creeping into her voice. “I’m not asking you if I can leave, I’m informing you.”
His face became implacable. “You’re going nowhere until you tell me the truth. If you’re in any trouble—”
“I’m not.” God. She’d underestimated his sense of entitlement. She’d forgotten he was more than the man she loved with everything in her. He was a prince of unlimited power. He expected, and always got, his way. He’d probe and press until she broke down, gave him what he asked for. And she couldn’t.
One way out flashed inside her mind. Desperate. Dangerous. She could think of nothing else.
Suppressing tremors of anguish and anxiety, she murmured, “Contrary to what you’re used to in your native Judar where your word is law, this is a free country, your highness. A woman has the same rights as a man here to take her pleasure where she pleases, and change her mind when she pleases.”
He flinched as if she’d slapped him. “And you’ve changed yours? When you can barely stand with wanting me?”
She felt the twitches of loss of control seizing her. God. She’d made her life’s worst mistake coming back here, being so weak she’d needed to see him one last time. She should have just disappeared.
Feeling crazed with desperation, she taunted, “That is what you’d like to think, isn’t it?”
He stared at her, his eyes deadening.
When he finally spoke, he sounded smooth, tranquil. “How about we drop the charade? I have nothing but games everywhere in my life. But in my bedroom I allow only sexual ones. You think the remaining six weeks should carry a more substantial price tag than sharing my bed and privileges? How remiss of me. I should have put an offer you can appreciate on the table. So if you have demands …” He suddenly yanked her to him, bent her over a potent arm, his other hand pressing her hips to his, his erection grinding against her long-molten core, the refined man she’d known receding fast. “Make them. I’ll meet them, whatever they are.”
Her heart crumpled.
Oh God. This had gotten uglier than anything she could have imagined. He thought she was bargaining with the unstoppable desire that had raged between them from the first glance. Though his repugnance was total, he seemed willing to pay anything for more of her.
She tore herself out of his arms. She had to end this. Now.
Only the ugliest lie would do.
Feeling