then one hour had turned to two, and she had found herself emerging not in London at all, but in Paris. France.
To whom, exactly, should she complain? Tariq hadn’t even been aboard the plane to compel her to come here. The scary thing was that Jessa knew full well that she had compelled herself.
“You cannot be angry with me,” Tariq said softly, his voice low but no less intense. Jessa could feel the rich, slightly exotic sound of it roll through her, as if he’d hit some kind of tuning fork and her body was springing to attention. He nodded toward the view of stately buildings and glittering monuments in the cool night air, then returned his dark gaze to hers. “Such beauty forbids it.”
“Can I not?” Jessa folded her hands in her lap and resolved to keep the hysteria at bay no matter what else happened. And if she was honest, what she felt when she looked at him was not hysteria, or anger. It was far more complicated than that.
“You agreed to dinner,” Tariq said with a supremely arrogant shrug. A smile played with the corner of his mouth but did not quite take root there. “You did not specify where.”
“Silly me,” Jessa said. She met his eyes calmly, though it cost her something. “It never occurred to me that one was required to designate a preferred country when one agreed to a meal.” Under duress, she wanted to say but did not. It wasn’t entirely true, was it?
“There are many things that have not occurred to you, it seems,” Tariq replied. Jessa did not care to explore the layers or possible meanings in that remark.
“You mean because of your vast wealth and resources,” she said instead, as if she was used to discussing such things with various members of assorted royal families. “It is only to be expected when one is a king, isn’t it? Surely these things would be much more impressive if they were the result of your own hard work and sweat.”
“Perhaps,” he said, a dark, affronted edge in his voice, though he did not alter his position. He continued to lounge in his chair like the pasha she supposed he really was. Only his gaze sharpened, piercing her, reminding her that she insulted him at her peril—and only because he allowed it.
“Do you find royalty offensive, Jessa?” he asked in a drawl. His brows rose, mocking her. “You English have a monarch of your own, I believe.”
“The Queen has yet to whisk me off to a foreign country for a dinner that would have been uncomfortable enough in the local chip shop,” Jessa retorted.
“It will only be uncomfortable if you wish it so,” Tariq replied with infuriating patience, as if he knew something she did not. This time he really did smile, and it was not reassuring. “I am perfectly at ease.”
“Somehow, that is not soothing,” Jessa said, with the closest thing to a real laugh that she had uttered yet in his presence. It surprised them both. He looked startled as their eyes met and held. The moment seemed to stretch out and hover, locking Jessa in the green depths of his eyes with the glorious shine and sparkle of Paris stretching out behind him.
Her gaze drifted to his mouth, that hard, almost cruel mouth that could smile so breathtakingly and could do things to her that made her feel feverish to imagine. She felt her own lips part on a breath, or perhaps it was a sigh, and the world seemed to narrow and brighten all at the same time. She felt the now familiar coiling of tension in her belly, and the corresponding melting in her core. She felt the arch of her back and the matching curve of her toes inside her shoes. She began to feel each breath she took, as her heart kicked into a heavy, drugging rhythm that reminded her too well of his mouth upon her own, his hands on her skin.
Suddenly, brutally, the veil lifted. And Jessa realized in a sudden jolt, with an almost nauseating mixture of self-awareness and deep, feminine certainty, that this was exactly why she had come so docilely, so easily. Across borders, onto private planes, with nary a whisper of protest. This was why she had taken such pains in her bath earlier, dabbed scent behind her ears and between her breasts. She had told herself she was putting together her feminine armor. She had told herself she would dress the same way for any person she wished to appear strong in front of, that it was not romantic in the least to want to look her best or pin her hair up into a French twist or wear her most flattering and most lethal shoes. She had lied to herself, even as something within her knew the truth and had cried out for the wicked royal-blue dress that exposed her shoulders, kissed her curves and whispered erotically over her legs.
She had come here for him. For Tariq. For this raging passion that coursed through her veins and intoxicated her, this all-consuming desire that the intervening years and her own sacrifices had failed to douse in any way.
With a muttered oath that even she wasn’t sure was a cry of desperation or a simple curse, Jessa rocked forward and to her feet. Restlessly—agitation making her body feel jerky and clumsy—she pushed herself away from the table and blindly headed toward the wrought-iron railing that seemed to frame the Paris street five stories below her feet as much as protect her from falling into it.
The truth seemed as cold as the autumn night, now that she had moved away from the brazier that hovered near the table—and the far more consuming fire that Tariq seemed to light in her.
She wanted him. Arguing with herself did nothing to stop it. She had spent the whole day determined to simply not be at home when he sent his car for her, and yet she had found herself immersed in the bath by half past four. She had ordered herself not to answer the door when the driver rang, but she had had the door open and her wrap around her shoulders before he could press the button a second time.
“Surely this should not distress you,” Tariq said from behind her. Too close behind her, and once more she had not heard him move. Jessa closed her eyes. If she pretended, it was almost as if he was the magical, trustworthy lover she had believed him to be so long ago, and she the same starry-eyed, besotted girl. “It is a simple dinner, in a lovely place. What is there to upset you here?”
What, indeed? Only her own betrayal of all she’d thought she believed, all she thought she had gained in the years since his departure. What was that next to a luxurious meal on a Paris rooftop with the man she should avoid above all others?
“Perhaps you do not know me as well as you think,” she replied, her voice ragged with all the emotion she fought to keep hidden. Or perhaps she did not know herself.
“Not for lack of trying,” Tariq murmured. “But you will keep your mysteries, won’t you?”
It was no surprise when his warm, strong hands cupped her shoulders, then stretched wide to test her flesh against his fingers, sending inevitable currents of desire tingling down her arms. She let out a sigh and bowed her head.
Perhaps this was inevitable. Perhaps this had always been meant to happen, somehow. She had never had the chance to say her goodbyes to Tariq, her fantasy lover, had she? She had run away to a friend’s flat in Brighton to get her head together. The man she had loved had disappeared, and she learned soon after that he had never existed. But there had been no warning, no opportunity to express her feelings with the knowledge that it was their last time together.
A rebellious, outrageous thought wormed its way through her then, making her catch her breath.
What if she took, instead of lost? What if she claimed, instead of letting herself be deprived? What if she was the one in control, and no longer so passive, so submissive? What if she was the one who needed to get him out of her system, and not the other way around?
She turned in his loose grip,
