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I sighed and went in search of my bags, finding them empty just outside the closet door. Had someone unpacked them for me during the night? I jerked open the closet and found everything hung neatly and my shoes lined up along the wall. Whoever it was, probably a housekeeper, must have come while I was still sleeping. I dressed in a flowery dressing gown and padded down the hall in search of the kitchen. A steaming cup of coffee and some hot breakfast sounded amazing right now.
The kitchen was on the main floor near the back of the compound. It was a long, rectangular room with large glass doors that stepped directly out into a yard encircled by a steep hill that provided plenty of privacy. Out in the yard was an oval pool with a gazebo on the far end set with lounge chairs.
In the kitchen was a long countertop that doubled as a table with a french press of steaming coffee on the far side by the stove. I made straight for the coffee and filled one of the mugs hanging over the sink.
Then I went to the glass doors and pulled them ajar, stepping out into the yard. The lush grass was clearly fake and it felt strange and prickly under my bare feet as I walked to the pool.
The heat was intense although it was still morning and the sun was just cresting over the hills. The pool sparkled, looking irresistibly cool and inviting. I sauntered down and checked over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching before slipping off my dressing gown. Setting my coffee on the edge of the pool, I slid beneath the crystal water and flipped onto my back to look up at the pale sky overhead.
When I righted myself, I noticed Duran was standing in the doorway. There was a faint smirk on his face as he moved close, looming over me with his hands in his pockets.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, pulling myself up onto the edge of the pool and letting my legs float. “Where did you go this morning?”
“I had a few phone calls to make,” he said. “Lucien has your family at a compound, safe and sound, and he’s handling the situation with the Russians.”
My night with Duran had almost made me forget the potential danger they were in and a pang of guilt went through me. I knew they were both thinking of me, wherever they were. Hopefully Lucien was assuring them that I was safe; otherwise they would be frantic. Tears welled up in my eyes and I shook my hair back, wiping my face with the back of my hands.
He squatted down in front of me and put his fingers under my chin, lifting my face up. “Hey, princess, trust me. Okay?”
“I do,” I whispered.
His face changed, a flicker of something I’d never seen move through his gaze. It almost looked like tenderness, but it ran deeper than that. Then he blinked and stood up, unbuttoning his shirt and kicking off his shoes.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting in,” he said.
He stripped and slid noiselessly into the water beside me. The sun glinted off his hair, dark as a raven’s wing, and as he caught my eye his face split into a grin. It wasn’t mocking as it had been when I’d first got to know him. Instead it was free and for a moment I saw the man he could be without the constraints of the outfit.
What could we both be without the outfit? Could I release my reservations about sex and just let him have me for the pure pleasure of it? Or would I always be racked with horrible guilt at the thought of losing my virginity to a man who wasn’t my husband?
“I like it when you smile,” I said softly.
He touched my face. “Thank you. You’re beautiful this morning.”
Somewhere along the way he’d started using words like beautiful to describe me. The realization made my heart beat faster and I turned away and picked up my coffee, taking a sip from the lukewarm liquid.
“Ahmed and Adriana will be here this afternoon,” he said, after a while. “We’ll have dinner with them and then Ahmed and I have some business to discuss. I’m sure you’ll get along well with Adriana in the meantime.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I know we’ve only been here a night, but it was strange not to see Olivia this morning.”
“We’ll be back before you know it, princess.”
“I know.”
We swam a little more and then I basked in the sun, stretched out naked on one of the lounge chairs. It felt glorious to lay in the heat and let it tan me to a beautiful gold while Duran worked on his computer beneath the gazebo. Then it was time to get ready for lunch so we walked hand in hand up to the bedroom. Neither of us mentioned how natural it felt to walk together with our fingers entwined.
Just as we stepped into the bedroom, Duran’s phone rang and he ducked into the hall to answer it. I lingered near the door, wondering if it had something to do with my family. I could hear his voice rising and falling and his pacing footfalls. When he stepped back inside there was an air of tenseness about him that warned me not to ask about the phone call. It took everything in me to keep my mouth shut and go shower instead of interrogating him.
I did my hair in the bedroom while Duran got in the shower. I could hear him splashing for a while and then he got out and wandered into the bedroom with a towel around his waist. He looked a little more relaxed. My eyes raked over the hair trailing up to his naval before I dragged them away and focused back on the mirror.
“You look amazing,” he said. “Naked and doing your hair in front of the mirror like that.”
I smiled and watched him as he leafed through the closet and took out a pair of black dress pants. He didn’t seem to have an interest in keeping a varied wardrobe. All his clothes were the same handful of shades of black, white, and blue.
I finished my makeup, putting the final swipe of lipstick on and getting to my feet. Duran turned around with a beige dress and held it out to me. I took it without comment, secretly liking that he wanted to see me in it, and slipped it on. It was fitted and came down to my ankles with a slit that ran up to the middle of my thigh, exposing almost all of my leg. The material gathered around each breast and fastened on the shoulder in a Grecian style cut. The draping neckline fell down past my breasts, exposing my cleavage more than I was used to and I shifted uncomfortably, trying to pull it up.
