But he slammed down on all that now. Sentimental nonsense. This whole plan would only succeed with the element of surprise. No one could know.
Liyah got out of the bed, naked. She grabbed Sharif’s shirt from where it lay on the floor, slipping into it. It fell to her thighs. Her hair was tousled and she looked thoroughly bedded.
She held the edges of the shirt together. ‘I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. Goodnight, Sharif.’
Sharif watched as Liyah left the room, an acrid feeling in his gut. For so long in his life he’d been certain that what he was doing was the right thing. The thing that would finally bring him a sense of vengeance meted out. And then peace.
And yet now all he could see were Liyah’s huge eyes, looking at him reproachfully. He could hear her soft voice... I think you can trust them.
He turned around to face the window again and cursed. She was making him lose his focus. Damn her. Damn her for not being the wife he’d envisaged—unobtrusive and on the sidelines. Far from that, she was in his bed, under his skin, and every time he looked at her she made his mind go blank with lust.
Damn her for making him want to spill his guts.
And damn her for suddenly making him doubt everything.
Not even a hot shower could warm Liyah up. She wrapped herself in a towelling robe and curled up on the sofa in her bedroom. The extent of Sharif’s ambition to avenge his mother and destroy his father even at the risk of alienating his brothers should have shocked her, but it didn’t. After all, he’d been prepared to marry a total stranger purely to gain any advantage he could in the run-up to realising his ambition.
She felt cold at the thought of Sharif bearing this heavy, toxic burden for so long. And then she thought if she felt cold, how must he feel? He’d been alone for a lot longer than her. Trusting no one.
Obeying an instinct she couldn’t ignore, Liyah went back to Sharif’s room. He wasn’t in bed. And then she heard running water. He was in the shower.
She undid the robe and let it fall to the ground and opened the door. Sharif was standing with his hands on the wall, his head down between his shoulders. There was something so...isolated about his stance that Liyah’s heart cracked for him.
She went into the shower and inserted herself between him and the wall. He tensed at first, and those dark eyes with gold around the edges stared at her as if he couldn’t believe she was there.
She put her hands on his chest and rose up on her tiptoes, pressing a kiss to his mouth, which was in a hard, flat line. At first he didn’t respond. She thought he was going to reject her. But then, as if a dam had burst, Sharif put his arms around her and lifted her up.
She put her legs around him and he leant her back against the wall, running his hand over her breasts, cupping one heavy weight before bending his head to suckle on her eager flesh.
He thrust up into her body, stealing her breath and her soul. It was slow, deliberate torture, as if he was making her pay for extracting a confession he hadn’t wanted to make.
Liyah absorbed it all, and afterwards she wrapped her legs around him even tighter, felt him shudder his release into her body.
Manhattan
Sharif sat in the back of his car and pulled out his mobile phone. He texted Liyah.
I’m on my way home.
Then he stopped, deleted ‘home’ with a scowl and replaced it.
...to the apartment.
The woman was turning his brain to mush. Since that night in London, almost three weeks ago, they hadn’t discussed the subject of his plans again. When Liyah had appeared that night in his shower he’d been consumed with so many tangled emotions that he’d almost told her to leave him alone, but then she’d put her hands on him and he’d lost the will to tell her to go.
It was as if she’d sensed what he needed and taken all of him, absorbing his need to exorcise what was inside him.
The following morning, when he’d woken, he’d felt as close to a sense of peace as he’d ever experienced before in his life.
His phone pinged with a response.
Good for you.
He smiled.
It will be good for me. And for you.
After a couple of seconds:
Promises, promises...
And an eye-roll emoji.
Sharif’s blood leapt. He’d make her pay for that. He put his phone away, the smile still on his face.
The past three weeks had been...interesting. He’d had a few events to attend, accompanied by Liyah, and he’d found that as she’d grown more comfortable in his milieu she’d become quite happy to talk to people and not depend on him. If anything, he was the one looking for her now, and he didn’t like how used he’d got to having her by his side.
He’d found her in a corner the other evening, talking to a septugenarian professor in Arabic about Taraq.
And one day, at the end of the working day—for normal people—she’d appeared in his office with tickets that she’d bought for a sold-out Broadway show. At first he’d been inclined to refuse, aware that he had enough work to keep him there for hours. But Liyah had looked so crestfallen that he hadn’t had the heart to say no.
Sharif couldn’t recall the last time he’d gone to a show that hadn’t been a premiere, or part of a gala night. It had been revelatory...how such a regular thing could be so enjoyable. Although in truth he’d got more enjoyment out of watching Liyah enjoy the show. Wearing those glasses that made her look like a sexy academic.
And now he was going home—early, for him—because all day he hadn’t been able to get the image of how she’d looked that
