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“I mean it.” His eyes were intense. “Why won’t you let me help you? It’s abargain, Val, not a way to trap you. I have no desire to trap you.”
She swallowed and focused on the fine china on the table in front of her. Ultimately, she had no choice, because the lie had already been sold to the sheikh, and the thought made her want to cry from frustration.
When she spoke, her voice cracked the way she feared it would.
“Fine.”
* * *
She didn’t like it, and Desmond didn’t like the fact that he felt so uncomfortable about the situation. It tainted their night with an ugliness that reeked of coercion—something he recoiled from with all of his sensibilities.
And so, to his surprise, he found himself saying, “Forget it.”
Her dark head jerked up, those enormous eyes fixed on him in surprise.
“I mean, I still want you tohelpme, don’t get me wrong,” he said crossly. “But I don’t like how this feels.”
He wanted that horrible cornered look to be gone from her face.
He wanted her to look at him the way she had the night before.
He reached down and picked up his leather laptop bag that held the assortment of devices that never left his side. He placed an electronic tablet in front of her and handed her the stylus.
“Give me the details of your loan account,” he said.
One of her hands flew up to her throat.“What?”
“No strings. Consider it compensation for a very painful lie,” he continued, somewhat dryly. “You don’t have to influence Sheikh Rashid on my behalf, either. My work can, and should, stand on its own. Just allow me to maintain this…fiction, for both our sakes, until I hear either way.”
He didn’t know what he was doing, but he had no idea how else to lift that burden from her shoulders, and have her accept it. Even if she left his life completely, after this, he had plenty of his own sins to atone for.
Shock had drained her rich brown skin of its glow and she looked wrung out. He wanted to tell her his real motivations—that he knew exactly what it was like to be trapped by circumstance, and that something as banal as money would not be a barrier to freedom in a just world—but he said nothing.
She was shaking her head. “No. It’s very generous, but I can’t accept that.” Her mind was racing; he could tell by the way her full mouth was pinching in the middle. “I—I won’t deny that this will get me out of a terrible situation that has crushed me for years, Desmond. I won’t deny it. But I have to…earn this. I’ll help you with Sheikh Rashid.”
“Valentina—”
She stuck out her hand, still not looking at his face.
He took it, and in an instant, it was there, that absurd desire, overcoming all propriety, all common sense. Familiar heat was coiling low and slow in his abdomen. Last night was coming back to him in sounds and images that were brief but intense. Sighs. Gasps. Moans. Those nails on his skin.
Desmond, please…
He could still taste her on his tongue if he tried hard enough, that honeyed sweetness born of arousal she hadn’t even known how to hide.
“Your husband,” he said softly, “must have been out of his mind.” He wanted desperately to lift a hand and stroke her cheek with his fingers the way he had last night.
She closed her eyes briefly as if gathering strength, then looked at him steadily.
“This can’t be part of…whatever this is, Desmond,” she said after a beat. “You know it would be a terrible idea. We have to keep our minds clear if this is going to work. It’s got to be—”
“Strictly business,” Desmond finished for her.
“Yes.” He saw her throat contract as she swallowed. “When we go back to the real world,myreal world, I need to be able to separate what’s real and what’s not. This was…lovely. It was the loveliest night I’ve had in a very long time. Magical, really—”
Desmond held up a hand. He felt as if he were being rejected, although he completely agreed with every word she was saying. Not to mention her husband, for goodness’ sake, and his own…complications.
“We mustn’t be greedy, must we?” she said, but it seemed more like she was telling herself rather than him.