She looked down at her increased figure and back up at him. “Losing baby weight wouldn’t hurt my feelings.”
“You don’t need to lose any weight.”
She looked up at him and realized that his eyes were focused on her breasts. She fought a surge of heat that bloomed at her midsection and spread outward. She should be offended. Instead, she was intrigued.
She couldn’t remember having a man look at her breasts before. The men she interacted with were like her. Focused and driven, with tunnel vision when they were working on solving equations. Yes, there were obviously students and professors at the university who had relationships. Plenty of them. But while they were at school, they were at school.
And she chose to extend that kind of drive, focus and exclusion to the rest of her life. She’d never wanted a relationship and so had never really cared whether or not men looked at her breasts.
It was… interesting. And she really, really should be angry.
She cleared her throat but he didn’t adjust the trajectory of his gaze. “Well, that’s beside the point. The point is that in the space of a few days my life has changed completely.”
Now he looked at her face. “Your life started changing nearly a year ago. And again when Aden was born. This is just an extension of that.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “I know.”
It was true. Her life had been taken over when she’d gotten pregnant with Aden. The pregnancy had changed how she felt, how she looked, what she liked. Her body had been foreign to her, a stranger. Naively, she’d held on to the belief that after giving birth everything would be the same again.
She’d been so stupid.
“I’ll never know how it would have been if they were still here,” she said, her tone soft. “Would it have been easier to give him up?”
He shrugged. “Likely. You were confident that they would do a good job raising him.”
She nodded. “I was.”
“And are you confident that I would?”
“Not in the least,” she said, not seeing the point in lying.
He didn’t miss a beat. “Then I’m certain had Rashid and Tamara lived, you would have been fine.”
She wasn’t sure, though. Wasn’t sure if she ever really could have dealt with this the way she imagined she could.
“Probably.”
“It does no good to castigate yourself for things that will never happen.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Naturally,” he said.
“You’re so arrogant.”
He shrugged. “As are you in the right setting. You have complete confidence in your abilities as a scientist, in your thought process and problem solving skills, I imagine.”
“Of course I do.”
“Then I fail to see why I should have anything less than complete confidence in my own domain.”
“It’s because it seems nothing falls outside of your domain,” she said drily.
“I already told you I’m sure you could outtalk me on string theory.”
“Then I’ll stay in my science corner where I reign supreme.” The words gave her some comfort. It really might not be so bad being married to him. She could spend time with Aden and spend time in that gorgeous study he’d had put together for her.
“You are welcome to your corner.”
“Ah, generous,” she said, looking down at her food and thinking that now she might chance a bite. And then she remembered how he’d looked at her breasts. Why had he been looking at her breasts?
She took a bite of rice and chewed while she pondered this new mystery of the universe. She could feel his eyes on her again and heat crept over her skin.
“I am not master of every domain, habibti,” he said, his voice quiet. “You need only to look at the headlines to realize that.”
“That’s just public perception. It’s not necessarily reality.”
“There was an event, shortly after Rashid died, and a diplomat from a neighboring country wanted to speak to me about an upcoming rugby match between our two countries.”
“And?”
“And I told him, quite succinctly, that I didn’t care about sport at the moment, all things considered. He was unhappy, said he would not be encouraging his people to patronize Attar when they were to go on holiday. My response was to tell him to go to hell.”
“Oh.”
“That made for very salacious news, I can tell you. The next time we had an event at the palace, my advisor told me to be nice. Like I was a child.” He laughed, the sound carrying no humor. “No, I am not the master of every domain.”
“Well,” she said, “I’m not either. And, strangely, I even work at proving myself wrong a lot of the time. It’s what a good scientist does. Searches objectively for truth, regardless of their own personal beliefs. I guess a good leader has to be nice to everyone regardless of their own personal mood.”
“I’m not sure I know how to be nice.”
She looked at him, at his coal-dark eyes. “You aren’t that bad, Sayid.”
“Tell me, Chloe, what were you going to do before all of this?”
She was surprised by the question, even more surprised by the genuine curiosity behind it. “I was also due to start student teaching in the fall. And I’m gearing up to write my doctoral dissertation on how matter and energy behave on the molecular scale.” Unlike having her figure stared at, in this, she had some confidence, total understanding. “After that, I had hoped to get a position at a research lab, and then a university as soon as I could manage it.”
“You seem to enjoy doing paperwork.” He said the word as though it was a scourge.
“I love it. But then, I think being a scientist is committing yourself to studying for the rest of your life. And I love that. I always want to learn and grow. I want to find out how it all works.”
“Being a scientist takes a lot of curiosity,” he said, his eyes dropping to her lips. And just like that, the air between them thickened, tightened. Her breasts felt heavy, her entire body languid and restless at the same time, which was simply an impossibility, and yet beneath his dark gaze, it was. “Do you consider yourself curious, Chloe?”
She cleared her throat. “I suppose so.” Their eyes met and held, and she felt something tighten inside of her, her breath catching. “Are you… curious, Sayid?”
She’d known, before she’d spoken, that the words would be layered with double entendre, and yet she’d still spoken them. But the minute she did, she knew it was a mistake. Knew she’d crossed into a zone that was way, way out of her league.
Heat flickered in his dark gaze and she could feel inside of her, burning her. “About certain things,” he said, his voice low. Husky.
She stood up quickly, her chair tilting slightly and knocking into the chair next to it, the sound loud in the cavernous room. “Sorry, sorry.” She tried to straighten them, her cheeks burning, her heart pounding. “I have to go.”
Sayid was faster than she was, his movements smoother. He crossed to her side of the table and caught her arm, drawing her to him, his expression dark. “Why are you running from me?”
“I’m not,” she said, her voice a choked whisper. “I’m full.”
“You