She wrinkled her nose. “You’re telling me this because you honestly thought I would… Ugh.”
He looked down at the woman kneeling before Chloe. She was putting the finishing touches on the flower, and as soon as she had completed the task, he spoke to her in Arabic. “You are dismissed.”
She nodded once and gathered her things, walking quickly from the deck without looking at either Chloe or him.
“What did you say to her?” Chloe asked.
“I told her she could go.”
“She didn’t look at us.”
“Giving us our due respect.”
“I don’t require that people treat me like… like that.”
He shrugged. “I don’t require it. But I gladly accept it. It’s a sign that no one is out to oppose me. There are reasons that deference is appreciated. Especially given how well received I was initially.”
“Hmm,” she said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts, her eyes trained on the vines that curled around her foot and back behind her ankle.
“You disapprove?”
“Does it matter?”
“No. But I am curious.”
“Fine. It’s just another way that patriarchal men reinforce their dominance. I grant you, it’s not the most despicable way, but it’s a way.”
“There are plenty of queens in the world, habibti. Queens who are intent on crushing their subordinates beneath a spiky heel. Don’t think it is unique to men.”
“Well, you’re not making a great case for it in terms of behavior.” She stood, swooping down to collect Aden. He noticed that she was more confident now with the baby than when he’d first met her. “Coming out here playing the part of territorial wolf. Trying your best to claim exclusive rights on a, uh… a caribou carcass you don’t even want.”
“Did you just compare yourself to a caribou carcass?”
“Unfortunate parallel aside,” she said, “the point remains valid.”
“I never said I didn’t want you,” he said. The words torn from him, the admission unwelcome. And they hung between them, thickening the tension that had building ever since the first moment he’d seen her.
He took a step toward her, her scent, sweet, feminine, filled with honeysuckle, grabbed his throat and threatened to choke him with his lust.
She was very wrong if she thought he didn’t know what he wanted. He knew. And it involved her naked and crying out his name, with pleasure rather than the complete frustration he usually heard coming from her.
“But I… you. You did. I’m sure you did. There was all kinds of talk about other lovers and… and I’m sure the implication was…”
“That I’m not committing myself to a sixteen-year exclusive relationship with you. Which means it’s best if nothing ever happens between the two of us.”
“Oh. But… but it could. You’re saying it could in terms of… because you’re… are you attracted to me?”
The way she asked the question, the utter lack of guile and calculation in the words, was astonishing to him. It was as if she’d missed the tension. No, she hadn’t, he was sure of that, but it was as if she’d imagined she’d been the only one to feel the electricity arching between them.
Everything in him wanted to wrap his arm around her waist and pull her to him, to show her, exactly, how he felt. To press his lips to the hollow of her throat, lick the indent at her collarbone. Continue down to the valley between her breasts.
But she was holding the baby like a very convenient, living shield.
“Am I attracted to you?” he asked, taking another step toward her, desire flooding through him, hot, reckless. “When I arrived here and saw Alik, and I thought there was a chance he might make a play for you, I had fantasies of tying a rock around his neck and throwing him into the sea.”
Chloe looked at Sayid, into the dark, intense eyes that were so sharply focused on her that she felt as if she’d been put beneath a microscope and cut open, so that every piece of her, every secret hidden from the naked eye, was on perfect display, out in the open for him and for anyone else to look at.
His voice was low, shaking with intensity. She wrapped her arms more tightly around Aden, her heart thundering heavily, her hands shaking. And for the first time she identified the tightening in her stomach, the racing of her pulse, with ease.
She was attracted to him. She desired him.
That had never happened to her before and it was making her feel a little dizzy.
“Then I came out here,” he continued, moving to the side, circling her, slowly, like a predator who had spotted prey. “And my fantasies changed. I would have you,” he said, his voice almost a growl. “Bent over in front of me. Saying my name as I brought you to pleasure, over and over again.”
The pictures his words painted were so vivid, so shocking, the reaction they created so visceral, that she had to look away from him. Her face was burning, her breathing short, fast.
She knew how he would be, she didn’t need experience to understand. He wanted to dominate her. To use her body against her. To create a kind of sexual euphoria that would put her under his spell.
No, she didn’t think he would use violence against her. But Sayid had other power. And she knew he would use that.
And she had seen all that a woman would endure for the man who owned her body.
She wouldn’t allow him to do that to her. Ever.
She moved away from him, trying to get her breathing under control. “As charming as that little bit of verbal pornography was, I’m going to have to say no.”
“You aren’t attracted to me?” he asked.
She could never lie all that convincingly, but who needed a lie when a well-placed insult would do? “I’m not impressed by your neanderthal behavior,” she spat. “I’m not into the dominant male thing.”
“Really?”
“Really. I agreed to this for Aden, but I didn’t agree to this,” she said, waving her hand in the space between them, “so if you’re having a bout of pent-up sexual frustration, I suggest you go and find a willing woman to work it off with.”
“That’s what you want?” he asked, his voice taking on a deadly edge now.
“Yes,” she lied, “it’s what I want.”
“I thought you wanted discretion?”
“Bend her over the balcony for all I care,” she said, letting anger fuel her now, anger and fear, “it won’t bother me.”
She turned and walked back into the palace, fighting against the tears that were threatening to fall. She sat down on the lavish, four-poster bed that had been provided for her in her room and unbuttoned her shirt with one hand, unclipping her nursing bra and guiding Aden to her breast. She was getting used to this. To this part of motherhood. But Sayid…
She’d never been so confused, so afraid of her own body, in her entire life.
And the man who was causing her all this grief was the man she was marrying tomorrow.
There were few guests at the beachside wedding, and none of the usual Attari pre-ceremony traditions were being observed. No three-day feasts, no group dances and the henna party had, blessedly, only included one woman.
Chloe was thankful for those small favors, but she was still nervous about the event itself. Especially