wedding night?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m feeling afraid of the local thugs and the police.”
But deep down inside, she was feeling sentimental about her wedding night. Because, no matter what the language, she’d married Harrison today. It was his name on her passport, and they were bound in the eyes of the law.
She glanced down. She might not have a ring on her finger, but she did have the stamp of their wedding all over her hands.
“It will wash off in a couple of weeks,” he told her.
“Fitting,” she mused. “Most women get a diamond that lasts forever.”
“You want a diamond?”
She glanced up. “That would be silly.”
And it would make more of this than there was. As soon as she was out of the country, either she or Harrison would start divorce proceedings. Six months from now, this would be nothing but a strange footnote in her life.
He gazed at her with a smirk and a challenging lift of his eyebrows. “So which will it be? In the name of protection, do you want me in your bed, or just in your room?”
Good question.
“Lord
“We are back.”
“So all is well?” she asked, her expression worried.
“Yes. It is now.”
She smiled. “Are you hungry?”
“We’re tired,” said Harrison.
Leila reached for Julia’s hands.
And before Julia could hide them, Leila spotted the henna.
Her eyes went wide, and she stared at Harrison. “Brittany?”
“It’s complicated,” said Harrison.
Julia jumped in. “This keeping it a secret isn’t working out so well.”
Leila rapidly shook her head. “I will not tell a soul.”
“It’s temporary,” Julia explained. “Just until I get out of the country.”
Leila nodded, but her eyes were still wide.
“We can rely on your discretion?” Harrison asked in a stern voice, clearly driving home the point.
Leila bobbed her head.
He smiled at her. “Good. Can you help Julia with a bath?”
“Of course.”
Julia resisted an urge to reach for Harrison. Leila was fine company. She genuinely liked the girl. But she doubted Leila could fight off kidnappers or assassins should any of them sneak into the palace.
“I’ll come up later,” he said to Julia. “We can talk then.”
About whether or not to sleep together.
She supposed she should come up with her own answer to that question.
In her wildest dreams, Brittany never thought making love would last twelve hours.
She and Alex had barely left the bed all day long. They’d ordered room service a couple of times, and took a bath at one point, and now they were snuggled under the comforter. He was stroking her hair and telling her a story that was supposed to be about his first parachute jump. But, so far, they hadn’t made it past his tenth birthday.
“The race was the talk of the school,” said Alex.
His cell phone rang.
“Don’t you move,” he told her, kissing the tip of her nose.
She smiled in response. “Are you kidding? Before I find out how it ends?”
The phone rang again while he gazed at her with a goofy smile. Then he slipped from beneath the covers and tracked down his suit jacket, retrieving the chiming phone, his back toward her.
“Yeah?”
She stared unashamedly at the play of muscles across his shoulders, his taut buttocks and muscular legs.
“You’re back?” he said into the phone, lifting one of the hotel bathrobes and slipping into it.
“We’re in Abu Dhabi,” Alex said into the phone. “The Emirates Palace.”
Brittany sat up, pinning the comforter across her chest with her arms, trying to figure out who Alex would reveal that information to.
He turned to face her, and she raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“Julia okay?” asked Alex, with a meaningful look at Brittany.
Harrison.
Alex was talking to Harrison.
A weight settled in the pit of Brittany’s stomach. Her soon-to-be fiance had been fleeing through the desert on a rescue mission while she had been frolicking in bed with his employee.
Alex saw her expression and shook his head.
Ignoring him, she scrambled from the bed and stuffed her arms into the other robe. She scooped up her clothes and headed for the bathroom. But Alex grasped her arm on the way by and refused to let her go.
“We’ll be back tomorrow,” he said to Harrison.
She glared at him, trying to wrestle her arm free. But private-school phys-ed class was no match for navy basic training, and she didn’t gain an inch.
“You are?” he asked Harrison.
He finally let go of her arm, but it was only to wrap his own firmly around her waist and jerk her against him. She didn’t dare yell, didn’t dare utter a word, but that didn’t stop her from kicking her heel into his shin.
“I’ll talk to you then,” said Alex.
Brittany twisted her head to glare at him.
“Glad to hear it,” said Alex.
Then he flipped the phone shut.
She wrenched against him. “I don’t believe you did that!”
His arm remained firmly around her waist, holding her back against his chest. “Where were you going?”
“To get dressed.”
His tone was implacable. “You agreed to stay put.”
“That’s before you started talking to Harrison.”
“So what?”
“I’m supposed to lie there naked in your bed with my fiance on the phone?”
“He’s not your fiance.”
“We have an understanding.” Well, they sort of had an understanding. She presumed they had an understanding.
If there wasn’t an understanding, why had Harrison invited her to Dubai in the first place?
“We agreed you were free,” said Alex.
“We hung our consciences on a technicality.”
“Yes, we did. And we can’t put your virginity back, and I’m still quitting my job in the morning. The only thing we have to decide, Brittany, is whether we spend one last night together or alone.”
“Alone,” she asserted.
He was silent.
Then his warm lips touched the crook of her neck.
“You sure?” he whispered, all trace of frustration gone from his tone. His hand splayed against her stomach.
“Yes.” She nodded.
He nibbled his way up her neck, drawing her earlobe into his mouth.
Despite herself, she felt her body respond to his gentle touch.
