Page 102

“Your s-sorry is not enough—-”

“Then what do you want?” he demanded bitterly. “To punish me for something I couldn’t help?” Tears started running down her face, but it was different this time. “What do you want, damn you?” The sight of her crying made him want to explode, made him want to beat something up until the impotent rage inside of him was completely spent—-

Kyria was crying harder, but it only fed his rage.“Say it!”

She started shaking her head. “I c-can’t—-”

“Say it, damn you,”he raged. “Just say it—-” Because that was the only way for things to end between them. He needed her to tell him to get out of her life, needed her—-

“I just want it to stop, okay?” she choked out.

Her head lifted, her red-rimmed eyes clashing with his, begging for something he dared not think of.

“Since that morning,” Kyria wept, “I’ve become so weird, and I just can’t change it.”

The sheikh slowly shook his head. “Kyria—-”

“No!” And to his surprise, Kyria started to babble. “You have to listen.Listenuntil the end! You have to understand how much things have changed since that morning. I hear your voice, and I panic—-”

Malik stiffened.

“I see your face, and I panic—-”

And there was that word again, he thought grimly. “Are you panicking at the thought that it would happen—-”

“Oh, Malik.” She let out a laugh that sounded crazy even to her own ears. “Don’t you get it? Do you really need me to spell it out loud?” Her lips curved in a smile that pierced his chest. “I’mpanickingbecause that morning changed e-everything, and when I’m n-not mentally prepared to see you, or even hear you, I can’t help but think of things—-” Her arms wrapped around herself as her voice lowered to a shamed whisper. “Weird things.”

Malik could only stare at her. “But at the club—-”

“That was different,” she said miserably. “There were people around. We weren’t alone. And I...I saw you first before you saw me so I had time to prepare. But the other times and even just now, when I saw you taking off your tie—-”

“My tie?” he echoed blankly.

“It made me think of really weird things.” And again, her whispered words were ridden with guilt. “Things that a s-sister—-” Her voice came to a choking stop. “A sister shouldneverthink of her brother.”

Ah.

Their eyes collided, hers still wet with tears that flowed endlessly down her face, while his—-

Kyria’s lips parted in bemusement, and her heart started to ache and race at the same time.

Why?

Why was it—-

Why was he looking at her like he wanted...to do the same weird things with her?

“Kyria.”The sheikh’s tone was grave and hoarse, and the light in his beautiful dark eyes glittered like diamonds wrapped in midnight.

“Come here.”

Said the flame to the moth, lion to the lamb, Kyria thought hysterically. And now, it was Malik to Kyria—-

But even knowing this, she found herself taking that one small step—-

Her feet crossed the doorway of her bedroom, and his arms closed about her.

He had hugged her earlier, but this...was different.