Dark brows locked together. “What is this word?”
“It means you’re being a jerk. But more than a jerk even,” she said. “Worse.”
“No one talks to me like this,” he said, his tone firm, not imperious. He was simply stating a fact, and she wasn’t all that surprised by it. She didn’t know why she felt empowered to speak to him like that. Maybe it wasn’t empowerment so much as a need to push him away. Anger was safer than the pull she felt toward him. Much safer.
“No one who has any idea of how to act in polite company talks to people the way you do,” she said.
“I spend a lot of time outside of polite company.”
She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Clearly.”
“Our discussion is through.”
“What about dinner?”
“Suddenly, I am thinking I might take it in my room. Or an enemy prison. Either is preferable.”
“You… You…”
“I will set up an account in your name. You will be paid a generous salary. I will be meeting with the press tomorrow.” A sudden rigidity came over him, his body tensing, his jaw tightening. “Aden will not be brought outside, but he will be in the smaller meeting room with the members of the media who possess special passes. You will hold him for the duration of the interview, but you will not speak.”
“I will not speak?” she repeated, incredulous.
“No one will be asking questions about string theory which means it will not be necessary for you to do so. Now, you are dismissed.”
“I am dismissed?”
“You keep repeating me. It wastes time.”
“I’m… I can’t believe you’re… dismissing me.”
“You didn’t want to come and eat with me in the first place and now you’re complaining that you don’t have to?”
“Unbelievable.”
“I concur.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Not on the same thing, I don’t think.”
“Very likely not.”
“Do I at least get dinner in my room?”
The look he gave her was almost comical in its seriousness. “No. It’s bread and water for you, or nothing. Same as the rest of my staff. Didn’t you know we’re barbarians out here in the desert?”
“Be serious.”
“I am. Be careful or you might wake up to find yourself leg-shackled to my bed.”
It was as if a conduit had powered up between them, sparking to life and sending heat and energy on an invisible path between them. It held her in its thrall, forcing her to look into his eyes, dark, fathomless and magnetic. Completely and utterly compelling. And then it was as though the electricity had found a way beneath her skin, traveling along her veins, wrapping itself around each fiber in her body.
She couldn’t look away, even though she wanted to—needed to.
And then the image he’d evoked suddenly hit her, clear as day. Her, tied to the bed, with his large, muscular body looking over her. Absolute strength. Absolute power. With her completely helpless, at the mercy of a man who possessed no tenderness.
A surge of fear overrode the strange electricity in her blood, snapped her out of her trance.
“You are… despicable,” she spat.
“Perhaps I am,” he said, dark eyes unchanging, unflinching. “I have been called a great many things, it’s not inconceivable that some of them are true. It’s very likely most of them are.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Why should I care what anyone thinks? I was created to get results, no matter the consequence. I was not designed to win public favor, but to keep my people safe. By any means necessary. The grit to do that does not come from a beautiful place. Damn my image. It is worth nothing.”
“But you… you’re the leader now. Your job isn’t the same as it was.”
Black eyes turned to ice. “I am only the stop gap. I’m only here until Aden can step into his position. Not a moment longer.”
“And what about Aden? You’ll be his closest family. Will you… will you at least try to be decent for his sake?”
A shadow passed over Sayid’s face, his expression horribly flat now. Dead. “The best thing for Aden would be if I stayed well away from him. And that is what I plan to do.”
“HOW DID YOU NOT REALIZE the child had survived?”
Sayid swallowed, looking out at the sea of people who sat, awaiting an explanation on how it was that an heir who had been lost to them, was now found.
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, dripped down his back. The irony of it was not lost on him. He had looked into the cold eyes of death and had felt nothing, had stared down men with guns, dodged land mines on the battlefield, and he had felt nothing. No fear. No hesitation. But here looking down at the reporters, he felt cracks forming, felt something in him starting to break.
He was not a public speaker. He was not a man of words at all.
“There was much confusion following the death of my brother and his wife. The accident was… there were many people involved and it was not immediately made known to us that the sheikha had survived long enough to give birth.”
“And is this the nanny?”
“Yes,” Sayid said, focusing on a spot on the back wall, not letting his focus stray to Chloe, or the tiny bundle she clutched in her arms. “Chloe was simply doing as instructed. Protecting the heir of Attar.”
“A true heroine,” said a female reporter in the back.
Sayid nodded, trying to come up with something to say, something that wasn’t on the carefully planned script he’d gone over in his head, but his brain was moving slowly, words hard to grasp on to. “Chloe took a potential risk to her own safety to protect the child. She is indeed a heroine.”
“And when will the heir be free to step into the position of ruler?” This from another reporter at the back.
Sayid gritted his teeth, fighting against the hostility burning in his veins. He craved the desert right then, the freedom of it. Craved the heat of the sun, the cleansing quality of it. It had the power to strip a man, burn away everything but that which was necessary.
Right now he felt as
