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Something flitted in and out of those thickly fringed eyes, too fast for her to catch it. “I was nearby when you tore out of the garage as if a demon was chasing you.”
“I didn’t realize I was so important to you that you’d come all this way to pay your respects to my grandfather,” she said, going on the offensive.
There was no other way to act around him. Shields up one hundred percent and donning titanium armor, like the prickly heroine in her favorite sci-fi show. Also based on a novel this very man had written.
Seriously, her obsession with him had no chance of petering out when she gorged herself on every word he’d ever written—novels and articles and newsletters and political treatises—like a wanton glutton.
“Clearly, it was a self-indulgent fantasy to imagine I’d find you behaving like a responsible, normal adult in the throes of grief.” The cigar that she’d barely taken two puffs of was roughly yanked away from her lips and put out with a pinch of fingers that should have burned him but drew not even a quiet hiss. “That’s a disgusting habit and a lethal one, too.”
“Did you miss me so much that you came all this way to harass me, Nasir? No one else to look down on and feel better about yourself?”
“I came here because I need you.”
Yana sat up with the force of a coiled spring that had been stretched too far back, for far too long. Her head swam, the reason anything from starvation to the special kind of dizziness only he could cause. “Huh! The world is upside down today, I guess. Or I’m traveling through parallel universes like Uzma does,” she said, mentioning the intrepid heroine of his latest novel. Plucking her phone from her jeweled designer clutch, she opened the camera app and thrust it in his face. “Care to repeat that so that I can record it?”
Silence lingered, full of his infinite patience and her childish taunts.
“Fine.” She straightened her posture on the chaise, tucking her knees away from his. They were both tall people and in the tight space of his legs, her awareness was on steroids.
She tried to not linger on the way his black trousers bunched at his thighs, or the way the white shirt open to his chest drew her gaze to the swirls of hair on dark olive skin. Or the large platinum-faced dial of his watch on a corded wrist. Or the long, bare fingers that had once—only once—lingered on her jaw with something almost bordering on tenderness.
“I have a serious proposition for you.”
God, even after all these years of mutual dislike and loathing, even after he’d married another model, a woman a few years older than she was, whom she’d nevertheless considered her mentor and close friend, whom he’d had a child with, even after he’d blamed her for helping his marriage to Jacqueline combust, how could she still feel this giddy anticipation? When was she going to get over this...ridiculous fascination with him?
“How interesting,” she said, pouring her excitement on thick even as her belly twisted into a knot. Leaning toward him, she mock-whispered, “But my kind of propositions are not usually your...forte.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, the scar twisting with the action. He thrust a hand through that thick, wavy hair he usually kept military short. “Oh, believe me. Having found you in a nightclub two days after your grandfather’s death, smoking a cigar, looking like you do... I’m questioning my common sense in even being here.”
“Ahh...now, that’s the guy I know and love to loathe.” A tinkling laugh escaped her. “Come, Nasir. You might be a diplomat in the biggest political circles and the hottest bachelor on the planet but it’s the lowest denominator of you I get, no? Let’s not try something new today, of all days. I’ve had enough shocks, thank you very much.”
Remorse flashed through those usually inscrutable eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss, Yana. I know that grief takes different forms—”
“You don’t know anything about my relationship with Thaata.”
“Fair enough.”
Irritation and hunger and something more danced across Yana’s skin as she studied him.
“It’s about Zara.”
His daughter. Her facade fell away like snakeskin. She reached for his hands but pulled away at the last minute. “Why the hell couldn’t you have opened with that instead of insulting me?”
“Your worry about her is real.” He sounded stunned.
“And you’re an ass.”
Feeling caged, her breaths coming shallow, she stood up. Her foot had fallen asleep on her, forcing her to grab him to keep her balance.
His white linen shirt proved no barrier to the firm muscles underneath and the heat coming off him. Under her fingers, his abdomen clenched.
The sensation of his hot, hard body under her touch stung her palm. His grip on her tightened as she tried to yank herself away. “Damn it, Yana! Stay still.” The tips of his fingers pressed into her bare arm; one corded arm wrapped around her waist. It was too much contact and hyperventilation wasn’t far away. “Or you’ll ruin that pretty face and any hope of—”
“What’s wrong with Zara?”
Now that she’d managed her overreaction to his proximity, she could see the exhaustion beneath his calm. It made the light, slightly raised tissue of his scar stand out in stark contrast to the rest of his skin. Worry and fatigue carved deep grooves around his wide mouth.
An answering pang vibrated within her chest.
