Olivia Gates - Midnight on the Sands

Of course, unlike his ex, Katharine wouldn’t be running.

“It means beauty ,” he said, discarding the towel, crossing his arms over his chest.

She looked slightly surprised to hear the translation. “Oh. Well, I thought it might mean ‘pain in the rear’ or something.”

A sharp twinge of amusement forced a laugh to climb his throat. “Not quite.”

Full, pink lips curved into a smile and cut through the defense he’d put up between them. She appealed to his body, as a woman did to a man. A whole man. And for a brief moment, he felt as though he were.

It only took a sharp, shooting pain from his diminished thigh muscle to remind him that wasn’t the case. Just like the desert would wilt a rose, he would wither Katharine, would steal the life from her.

Her pretty face contorted. “Oh, no, that’s from the table, isn’t it?”

He jerked his head back. “What?”

“The bruise on your leg and …” She moved toward him and he took a step away. “Your hands.”

“What?”

She moved forward another step. “Let me see them.” She reached out and took one of his hands in hers, palm up, examining the torn skin, moving the tip of her finger around one of his injuries. “Painful?” She was so soft. So warm. Alive.

It made him want to ask why she was touching a dead man. A man who was dead in all the ways that counted.

“Not in the least.” He pulled his hand back, the burn of her touch lingering. “I have endured worse. This is nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing earlier.”

“I was angry.”

“I know. At me. And my flowers had to die a horrible death because of it. Not that I really blame you. I didn’t think, and I’m … I’m very, very sorry.”

He held his hand up. “This? This will heal.” Unlike the rest of him. That was the unspoken portion of that statement, hanging in the air between them.

He stood before her now, defiant, daring her to look away, she was certain. But she couldn’t. He held her captive. He turned away first. “What is it you want?”

“I have … I want you to have dinner with me.” For the first time, she faltered, showed a hint of true nerves and vulnerability. His first instinct, one so long suppressed, was to reassure. And yet he couldn’t figure out a way to do it, couldn’t find it in him.

She pressed on. “I had your chef prepare some of your favorite foods. And some of mine. I thought we might … get to know each other a bit better.”

The last thing he wanted. He needed her life and his life to remain separate, for his routine to be uninterrupted. He needed to keep his control, his order. He didn’t need her making him want to … comfort. Because when the heat spread through him, his control slipped. And when his control slipped …

“How much money will be saved annually by the trade agreements our marriage will enact?”

Confusion flashed through her eyes. And he felt nothing. He embraced that. Embraced the void and the security it offered.

“Ten billion, conservatively.”

He chose his next words carefully, designed to keep distance. Designed to make her as disgusted with him as she should have been from the start. “That is all I need to know about you.”

She looked at him for a moment, eyes glittering, a determined set to her jaw, arms crossed beneath full breasts. “I’ll be there. In the dining hall in half an hour.”

Zahir cursed himself as he buttoned his shirt midstride, making his way through the maze of corridors toward the dining hall. What had happened to routine? And distance?

He cursed again.

He rarely ate in the formal dining area. Only if he was forced to entertain visiting dignitaries. Even then, he tried to send his advisor in his place. He wasn’t the best face to put forward for Hajar. Most of his people—at least those in control of the media—would attest to that. He was no diplomat, no master of fine negotiations. He was a strategist, a planner. He had built up his nation’s economy from behind the doors of his father’s office. But when it came to physical meetings …

He was not the man to handle things in person.

He only had to think of Katharine’s face when he’d slammed his bloody palm down on the table to drive that point home. He had frightened her. And he cared. He had no idea why he cared. Or why the image of her sitting at the table alone in that knee-length, red silk dress she’d been wearing made him feel … anything.

And yet it did. And he could not afford it. He knew it, knew the cost of a weak moment. A weak moment, a lax moment, could mean the difference between life and death. It had for his family. And now … a weak moment could mean the loss of his control.

Still he had come.

He walked through the arched doorway into the ornate dining area. The table was low with cushions lining it on all sides. Katharine was there, at the head of the table, naturally, her pale legs curled beneath her, her expression neutral. Her plate was empty, despite the fact that there was an abundance of food laid out on the table.

He knelt at the other end. “Sorry I’m late.”

“No, you’re not. You’re late on purpose.”

“No. I’m here on accident,” he said.

She laughed, an annoyed laugh, if there was such a thing. “What does that mean?”

“That I wasn’t going to come.”

“I see.” She stood up and took her plate with her, walking slowly down the side of the table until she was right in front of him, the view of her legs from his position on the cushions an intoxicating and unexpected sight. She was close enough that he could reach out and touch her. Feel if those long legs were as soft as he imagined.

He had a brief flash, an image in his mind and he braced himself for the inevitable. But it wasn’t a picture of chaos and violence. It was him, curling his fingers around her calf, pressing a kiss to her thigh, running the tip of his tongue up along her skin until …

He clenched his teeth together, fighting to keep himself, his body, on its tight, self-imposed leash.

She sat next to him, her arm brushing his, and his fantasy was disturbed.

“I’m not sitting across the room from you.”

“Why not? Most people would.” He picked a tray up from the table and put some figs, meat and cheese on Katharine’s plate before serving himself.

“I’m not most people.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that.”

She always met his eyes. Always looked straight at him. No one did that. Not even staff who had been here before the attack. Though there were few of those left. It had been too hard for them to stay. Too frightening. Always wondering if the same people responsible for killing his family would come for Zahir. If they would be caught in the cross fire.

Amarah hadn’t been able to look at him. She had tried. She’d worn his ring, was meant to be his wife, had professed to love him. And she had tried to take on the responsibility of caring for him.

He’d been half out of his mind then. Not wholly in the past or present. Not certain of what had happened. Sometimes sickeningly certain of what had happened, everything playing in his mind with horrifying clarity. From beginning to end, like a film he couldn’t stop.

Even now, he only kept it all down with years of practice. Of keeping total, full control over his mind at all times.

Amarah hadn’t been able to endure it. Had not been able to handle the changes that had happened in him. If the woman he loved, the woman who loved him, couldn’t stay … couldn’t face him … it was no surprise when no one else could, either. He was glad, in a way, that no one had ever tried. There was no point bringing them into his personal hell.

“This is my favorite,” she said, reaching past him and picking up a platter. “Obviously it’s not like my mother made it for me, but our chef did. Wild rice with pecans. Not a state dinner type of thing but … sort of comfort food for me.”