you doing?”
Raj’s voice. Relief slid through her, made her weak. If he’d been out to harm her, as he’d pointed out so recently, no one could have stopped him.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she said.
Raj crossed the room so silently that when he arrived at her side, she jumped. Then he was cranking the window closed again.
“Hey,” she said. “I want it open.”
“Too bad,” he replied. “It’s not safe.”
She could only blink into the blackness. But then light flooded the room as he snapped on her bedside lamp. The bright spots left from the light he’d shined when he’d first entered still marched across her vision. Big green splotches that made him indistinct if she looked directly at him. She turned her head, peered at him sideways.
He loomed, big and solid and oh, so unapproachable. He was completely different than he’d been earlier. He’d charmed her, held her, soothed her. Kissed her.
And now he was back to treating her as if she was something unappealing that he’d found on the bottom of his shoe.
Her temper sparked. “Do you mean to tell me that it’s not safe if I open the window a crack on the tenth floor of a hotel? For a few minutes?”
“Precisely.”
She popped her hands onto her hips. “What kind of world do you live in, Raj? Because I’m not sure I want to be a part of it.”
“You already are,” he said. For the first time, she noticed that what she’d always assumed to be a mild British accent had taken on a distinctly American twist. “It’s your world, not mine. You entered it when you ran for president. You bought it when you got elected.”
What had gotten into him? Before she could dwell on it, something else occurred to her. “How did you know the window was open?”
“A small sensor,” he said matter-of-factly.
A sensor. He’d put sensors in her room. She was familiar with that tactic. She’d been thinking of him when she’d dressed with such care tonight, and he’d been busy thinking of how to control her.
Her blood ran cold. She’d snuck out of her father’s house once, when she was sixteen. He’d been so furious once he’d caught her that he’d had the place wired like a military compound.
Oh, yes, she knew about sensors.
Veronica worked hard to control her temper. What had happened to her as a teenager had nothing to do with now. She was someone who needed protecting, someone with big responsibilities. Raj had only been doing what she’d agreed to let him do.
“You could have told me,” she said tightly. “I wouldn’t have opened the window if I’d known.”
His look was dark. “Most people don’t open the window at 3:00 a.m. in the middle of winter.”
“I won’t be caged in,” she said, panic rising in her throat as her insides clenched in fear. “I won’t be controlled.”
“Then you should have considered another career path,” he said coldly.
She hugged her arms around her body. Her vision was still splotchy, but she could see that Raj was still in his tux. Or, partially in his tux. The jacket and tie were missing, and the top couple of studs were gone. His sleeves were rolled partway up his forearms. She realized that she’d never seen his bare arms before.
A shiver rippled over her.
Raj swore. “You’ll catch a cold,” he said gruffly as he came and put an arm around her, herded her toward the bed. “I thought you had more sense than this.”
“I’m fine,” she protested.
“Then why are you shaking?” he demanded.
She couldn’t answer, not without giving away the secret of how he affected her. Because, though she was slightly chilled, it wasn’t that making her shiver.
She wanted to shrug away from his touch, but couldn’t. She was still so angry with him—and yet there was that electricity between them, that spark and fire that sizzled along her nerve endings the instant he touched her. It took her forcibly back to that moment outside the hotel when he’d told her he was hungry. Her insides had turned to jelly then. Her legs had wobbled. She’d wanted to take his hand and lead him to her bedroom.
She hadn’t done it because she’d been confused. Did she want him because she felt close to him after the conversation in the car? Because she’d told him about the baby and she’d felt vulnerable? Because he’d held her hand and said he was sorry?
She wasn’t sure, and in the end she’d done nothing.
But right now all the same thoughts and needs were crashing through her again. And she was asking herself once more how she could want this particular man when she’d wanted no man for over a year now.
Because he was wrong for her.
He was beautiful, strong, proud, fierce. And too wild to ever be tamed. No woman would ever own this man, and she was no longer willing to be the sort of woman who was temporary.
But oh, how her insides rippled and churned at his nearness. How her heart wanted the one thing that was forbidden to her.
He pulled the covers back and held them.
“Get in,” he said. She obeyed because she was starting to shiver in earnest now. But she hardly believed it had anything to do with the ten seconds of fresh air, and everything to do with him.
“Don’t think I did it because you told me to,” she said when he dropped the covers on top of her.
His mouth twisted. “I would never think that, Veronica. You would just as soon die of exposure than do what I say. If you’ve gotten in bed, it’s because you wanted to.”
She closed her eyes. “Too right.”
“Don’t open the window again.”
“I understood the first time,” she said. “Raj?”
He turned back to her. “Yes?”
“Will you stay and talk to me for a little while?”
He didn’t move, and she wondered if he would tell her no. But then he nodded, came over and sat on the edge of the bed farthest from her.
She didn’t know why she’d asked him to stay, except that she’d suddenly not wanted to be alone. She couldn’t remember her dream, but it hadn’t been a good one. She felt restless, keyed up, anxious.
There was a time when she couldn’t stand to be alone at all, when she’d had twenty-four-hour parties full of all the laughter, music and chatter she’d been denied growing up. She was no longer that person, but she still sometimes felt the weight of silence pressing in on her.
She deserved that silence, considering
