electricity that blazed through her and rendered her little more than ash and need.
He closed the distance between them, pulling her up hard against the unyielding expanse of his chest. She gasped, even as his other hand came around to her opposite hip, anchoring her against him, her back to his front, their two bodies coming together like missing puzzle pieces.
She could feel him everywhere. The sweet burn where his powerful body connected with hers, and even where he did not touch her at all. Her toes curled in her shoes. Her lungs ached. Deep in her belly she felt an intoxicating pulse, while between her legs she felt herself grow damp and ready. For him. All for him, as always.
How could her body betray her like this? How could it be so quick to forget?
“Take your hands off me,” she demanded, her voice hoarse with an emotion she refused to name. At once, he stepped back, released her, and all that fire was gone. She told herself she did not feel a hollowness, did not feel bereft. She turned slowly to face him, as if she could not still feel the length of his chest pressed against her.
She thought of Jeremy. Of what she must hide.
Of what Tariq would do if he knew.
“Is this what you think of me?” she asked, her voice low, her temper a hot drumbeat inside her chest. She raised her chin. The hoarseness was gone as if it had never been. “You think you can simply turn up after all this time, after vanishing into thin air and leaving me with nothing but your lies, and I’ll leap back into your arms?”
“Once again, you seem to be confused,” Tariq said, his voice hushed, his gaze intent. Almost demanding. But there was something else there that made a shiver of silent warning slide along her spine. “I am not the one who ran away. I am the one who has reappeared, despite all the time that has passed.”
“You are also the one who lied about who he was,” Jessa pointed out. “Hardly the moral high ground.”
“You have yet to mention where you disappeared to all those years ago,” Tariq said, his voice sliding over her, through her, and making her body hum with an awareness she didn’t want to accept. “Exactly what moral high ground are you claiming?”
And, of course, she could not tell him that she had found out she was pregnant. She could not tell him that she had suspected, even though she had loved him to distraction, that he would react badly. She could not tell him that after days of soul-searching, she had come back to London to share the news with him, only to find him gone as if he had never been. As if she had made him up.
And she certainly could not tell him that he was a father now. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that Tariq’s reaction to the news would be brutal. She sucked in a breath and forced a serene expression onto her face.
“The truth is, I have no interest in digging up the past,” Jessa said. She shrugged. “I got over you a long time ago.”
His eyes were like jade, and glittered with something darker.
“Is that so?” he asked in the same quiet voice, as if they were in the presence of something larger. She shoved the notion away, and had to restrain herself from reaching out and shoving him away, too. She knew better than to touch him.
“I’m sorry if you expected me to be sitting in an attic somewhere, weeping over your picture,” Jessa said, trying to inject a little laughter into her voice, as if that might ease the tension in the room and in her own body. Tariq’s eyes narrowed. “But I’ve moved on. I suggest you do the same. Aren’t you a sheikh? Can’t you snap your fingers and create a harem to amuse yourself?”
She thought for a tense, long moment that she had gone too far. He was, after all, a king now. And far more unnerving. But he looked away for a moment, and his mouth curved in something very nearly a smile.
“I must marry,” Tariq said. Then he turned his head and captured her gaze with his. “But before I can do that particular duty, it seems I must deal with you.”
“Deal with me?” She shook her head, not understanding. Not wanting to try to understand him. “Why should you wish to deal with me now, when you have had no interest in me for all these years?”
“You and I have unfinished business.” It was a statement of fact. His eyebrows rose, daring her to disagree.
Jessa thought for a moment she might faint. But then something else kicked in, some deep protective streak that would not allow her to fall before this man so easily. He was formidable, yes. But she was stronger. She’d had to be.
Maybe, on some level, she had always known she would have to face him someday.
“We do not have unfinished business, or anything else,” she declared, throwing down the gauntlet. She raised her chin and looked him in the eye. “Anything we had died five years ago, in London.”
“That is a lie.” His tone brooked no argument. He was the king, handing down his judgment. She ignored it.
“Let me tell you what happened to me after you left the country,” Jessa continued in the same tone, daring him to interrupt her. His nostrils flared slightly, but he was silent. She took a step closer, no longer afraid of his nearness. “Did you ever think about it? Did it cross your mind at all?”
How proud she had been of that internship, straight out of university that long-ago summer. How certain she had been that she was taking the first, crucial steps to a glittering, high-powered career in the city. Instead, she had met Tariq in her first, breathless week in London, and her dreams had been forever altered.
“You were the one who left—” he began, frowning.
“I left for two and half days,” she said, cutting him off. “It’s not quite on a par with what you did, is it? It wasn’t enough that you left the country, disconnected your mobile phone, and put your flat up for sale,” she continued, keeping her gaze steady on his. “Actually telling me you no longer wished to see me was beneath you, I suppose. But you also withdrew your investments.”
His frown deepened, and his body tensed. Did he expect a blow? When he had been the one to deliver all of them five years ago, and with such cold-blooded, ruthless efficiency? Jessa almost laughed.
“What did you think would happen?” she asked him, an old anger she had thought she’d forgotten coloring her voice. She searched the dark green eyes she had once artlessly compared to primeval forests, and saw no poetry there any longer. Only his carelessness. “I was the intern who was foolish enough to have an affair with one of the firm’s biggest clients. I had no idea you were the biggest client. And it was smiled upon as long as I kept you happy, of course.”
Jessa could picture the buttoned-up, hypocritical investment bankers she had worked for back then. She could see once more the knowing way they had looked at her when they thought she was just one more fringe benefit the firm could provide for Tariq’s pleasure. Just another perk. A bottle of the finest champagne, the witless intern, whatever he liked. But then he had severed his relationships—not only with Jessa, but with the firm that handled his speculative investments, all in the span of three quick days following the September Bank Holiday.
“I thought it best to make a clean break,” he said, and there was strain in his voice, as if he fought against some strong emotion, but Jessa knew from experience that his emotions were anything but strong, no matter how they might appear.
“Yes,
