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Nothing changed that. Nothing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHEWASNUMB. She had been... Foolish. An absolute idiot. She thought about calling Cairo for another update, but what was there to say? She had done something incredibly stupid, and then she had the audacity to get angry at Riyaz for being... Whatever he was.
She had thought that he was tortured because of his time in the dungeon, but she almost wondered if he just was...This.
If he didn’t connect to people. If he didn’t feel anything.
Maybe that was why he had survived.
Maybe he had been like that before, and there was nothing more for him to get back to.
Except... She could remember when he had been all fury that day in the library. She could remember when he had held her last night. When he had made love to her with all the passion that he possessed.
He did have feelings. She knew he did. She just had no idea how it related to... The way that he attached to people. Or didn’t. Was she just the same as Ariel? Did it not matter who she was?
Maybe he would just talk the way he did to anyone. Maybe that was the other side of his strange sort of honesty.
That he would simply say those things to anyone. The same that he might make love to any female body.
She had always known that Cairo was a bit like that in his sexual pursuits. The person didn’t matter to him. Not in the least. It was simply about pleasure, and how he might find it. Maybe that was just some way that they were. Maybe it was in his blood, just like that right to the throne.
She went to her room, took a shower and scrubbed her skin, cried while she did, because she didn’t actually want to rid herself of his touch. She had enjoyed it too much. She cared about him too much. She was angry now, but she was already beginning to question that anger. Maybe he hadn’t meant anything by it. She knew that he hadn’t. He didn’t understand how that would hurt.
Or he didn’t care.
Well, he wasn’t for her. That was the thing. It was just that she had gotten caught up in the fantasy, and she had told herself that she was okay with it. She had told herself that it was all right that this wasn’t going to be forever. She had told herself that she didn’t want more from him. But...
She stayed away from him that day. And the next. She didn’t bother to go looking for him. When she finally came out of her room the next morning, she was told by the staff that he had not come to any meals the last days.
“Well, where is he?”
“I think he’s gone back to the dungeon,” one of the men said.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered.
He was having a tantrum, was what he was doing. He was angry because she was like a toy that had been taken away from him. Nothing more. So he was down in the dungeon being a misery. That was about right. That was in keeping with who he was. The kind of man that wouldsaythat you had given him agreatlesson.
She gritted her teeth and before she knew it, her feet were carrying her down to the dungeon. Why couldn’t she stay away from him? Why wasn’t she angry enough to not care right now? She should only care about herself and her own pain and she was still drawn toward him like a magnet.
He was sitting on the bench. Staring. And then he looked up at her. “Why did you remove yourself from me?”
It was so raw and rough, so real and visceral and did he really not understand?
“Because I wasangryat you,” she said. “You’re so fond of honesty, and yet when it’s given to you, you don’t seem to be able to understand it, and you are not a stupid man, Riyaz, so it begins to seem disingenuous. I was angry at you.You hurt me.You shouldn’t have said what you did.”
He looked her up and down, as if searching for wounds he could see.
“I am sorry,” he said.
“Are you sorry because you know that it hurt me? Or sorry that you hurt me? Or are you simply sorry that Iremoved myselffrom you so you could not play with my body?”
“Of course I’m sorry that I could not have you again. What foolish man would not be? Yes. I want you. For more than one night. Yes, I was furious that you deprived me of your company at meals. What is the point in having them if I’m not sitting with you? I might as well go back to the dungeon.”
It was... A declaration of feelings, and nothing could have surprised her more.
“Riyaz...”
