He leaned closer, pressing his advantage. “This is not social. This is you and me. The moon has nothing to do with the magic brewing between us. It’s only shedding a stronger light on it. The champagne, we only bathed in.”
“Yeah. Maybe it’s champagne-fumes intoxication?”
He had to chuckle. He wanted to remain intense and focused, but everything she said stimulated his humor as much as his libido. “Intoxication is right. You’re just looking for a far-fetched reason when you’re right here, a vision from a fairy tale who keeps blurting out the most amazing things.”
“A vision? Sure. The word you’re looking for is a sight.”
And the amazing thing was, he felt she wasn’t fishing, that her comment carried conviction. And consternation.
He insisted, his voice lowering, roughening, praise coming easy, flowing true. “A vision. So much more potent for being real. And you think the same about me.”
She nodded, without hesitation. Then her eyes squeezed and she groaned again. Was it possible this persona, the one who seemed devoid of even an ounce of feminine wiles, was real?
She echoed his skepticism. “But how can any of this be real? What is this, anyway?”
“You know what this is. Something you thought you’d never experience. Something I certainly didn’t believe even existed. Instant attraction. Total and brutal.”
Her eyes filled with concession, with bewilderment, as the music built to climactic heights, as if underscoring his assertion, a manifestation of the charge building between them.
Suddenly her wavering gaze wrenched from his.
He dragged it back with a touch brooking no resistance. She wasn’t dismissing him like she had the fates of two kingdoms.
He closed the remaining inches between them until he was a breath away from imprinting himself all over her. The music rose to a crescendo, then held its breath. He pressed his point home. “Don’t try to escape the truth. Acknowledge it.”
“How can I? W-we don’t even know each other’s names.”
The music came to a dramatic end, as if punctuating her gasped protest. So…she’d introduced the subject of exchanging personal details. Good. It was time he introduced her to the alter ego he’d created in the past month for this purpose.
“That’s easily fixed.” He reached for her right hand, so soft and pliant and sweaty, took it to his lips. “My name is Shehab Aal Ajman.” He pressed a hot kiss in the middle of her palm. “Now all you have to do to meet your condition for sanctioning our attraction is to tell me yours, ya jameelati.”
Her eyes widened as she snatched her hand away, fisted it as if it itched, burned. “Is that Arabic?”
“It is…my beauty.”
“Oh-oh…oh.” Her faltering eyes widened. “You’re him? Sheikh Shehab Aal Ajman? But you can’t be!”
“I assure you, I can.” His lips spread in satisfaction. “So you know of me. How’s that for proof that this is fate at work?”
Realizations piled up in Farah’s mind. But stunned or not, his last statement incited her enough to contradict it.
“Oh, no. Fate’s got nothing to do with it. How could I not know of the venture capitalist who’s been rocking the financial world? In my line of work I know of anyone who’s making or has the potential of making waves. And you’ve been making tsunamis.” She exhaled her still-climbing incredulity. “Excuse me as I struggle with my misconceptions. I had this image in my head, and it seems hilarious now side-by-side with the truth…your truth.”
“And what was that image that my name and reputation summoned to your imagination?”
“A repulsive blob in traditional Bedouin garb, with a high nasal voice and a painful accent, reeking of musk and…”
Somebody gag and sedate her already.
God. What she’d give to rewind and replay their whole meeting. Not that it would turn out any better. Not without her borrowing someone else’s personality along with the gown.
But wonder of wonders, instead of looking affronted, Shehab-whose name now summoned only heated visions of virility and sweeping strength-seemed even more amused. “You mentioned a line of work. You actually work?”
She raised one eyebrow, hackles priming to rise. “Yeah, I work. In fact, I don’t do much besides work. And the reason behind the condescending disbelief would be?”
“Looking at you in this gown fit for the head concubine in a sultan’s harem, my Scheherazade, it’s hard to believe you’re anything but some blessed man’s pampered possession.”
Chagrin shot up inside her. Just as she was about to spit out an obliterating comeback, she realized what he was doing.
“Oh…you’re…Oh! OK…touché,” she mumbled. “I deserved that.”
His smile became all indulgence. “Yes, you did.” He wound a lock of her hair around his forefinger. “So what is this work that’s taken over such a vibrant siren’s life?”
She pretended to look around, her heart skipping. “Siren? Where? Me? Man, this gown is really projecting a false image.” She huffed in irony. “Far from being a siren as the costume suggests-and it was imposed on me, by the way-I have what has to be the world’s most un-sirenlike job. I’m head financial advisor for Bill Hanson of Global View Finance.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly. Was he impressed? Not? What?
His comment didn’t even hint at his opinion. “Sounds as if you find the position…lacking. Why do it then?”
She shrugged. “I know nothing else. My father-uh, adoptive father, as I lately discovered-inhabited the world of high finance, and he raised and bred me to live there. After he died, it was even more imperative that I walk in his footsteps. But by the time I was old enough to take over his business, there was nothing left. So I’m lucky to have landed such a position. I never thought about whether it appeals to me or not. I just do the best job I possibly can.”
Something fired in his eyes. It was gone in seconds, but it made her rush to add, “Listen…about those things I said a minute ago. That was one piece of prejudiced garbage. So, I’m sorry, not only for harboring it, but for actually voicing it-”
His hand rose in a silencing gesture, before he turned it, swept the back of his fingers sensuously across her lips. “What have I told you about apologizing? Never ever, ya helweti.”
She squinted down at the hand feathering her flesh, the perfection of long, strong fingers encased in taut bronze, adorned with just the right amount and pattern of silky black hair. Her mind crowded with images of nuzzling those fingers, suckling them. And as if his touch wasn’t enough, there were the foreign words he kept scalding her with, the way the mobile sculpture of his lips embraced them, the way his awesome voice caressed them…