The Sheikh's Pregnant Prisoner. Tara Pammi

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      She’d swallowed his lies all too willingly.

      Instead, he was the ruler of a nation and, if the media was to be believed, one who had seized power from the previous sheikh. He was the very embodiment of power and ambition she despised, far from the rootless man she had thought him to be.

      The black-and-white tiles swam in front of her eyes. She slid into the chair in a boneless heap, tucked her head down between her knees and forced herself to breathe.

      The fine hairs on her neck prickled, the air coated with an exotic scent that her traitorous body craved all too easily. Standing over her, his presence was a dark shadow stealing every bit of warmth from her.

      His long fingers landed on her nape and her skin zinged. “Lauren?”

      The concern edging into those words tugged at her, but she resisted its dangerous quality. Because it was reluctant at best. “Don’t pretend you care.”

      Shock flared in his gaze. At least, that’s what her foolish mind told her. But when she looked back at him, it was gone. Before she could move, he trapped her behind the table, his arms on either side of her head. “Did you know already?”

      “Know what?” Her answer croaked out of her, every cell in her pulsing with awareness at his proximity.

      Her gaze fell on the thin scar that stretched from the corner of his mouth to his ear, on the left side. The memory of tracing the scar with her tongue, the taste of his skin, the powerful shudder that had gone through him, it all came back to her in a heated rush.

      “Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” he said, his tone dark and gravelly.

      More than impatience colored his tone. She pulled her gaze upward, her stomach doing a funny flip. His nostrils flared. The same memory danced in his eyes, making the irises a darkly burnished gold.

      With a curse that reverberated around them, he clamped his jaw, until the memory and the gold fire was purged from those eyes.

      The ruthlessness of his will was a slap.

      She was tired, hungry, and her composure was hanging by a very fine thread. All she wanted to do was crawl into her bed and never look at the world again.

      “What did I know, Zafir?”

      “Did you know who I was? Is that why you slapped me and had your friend record the whole thing?”

      Her sluggish brain took several seconds to react. When it did, it destroyed the barrage of unwanted memories and their effect on her. “What the hell does that mean?”

      He bent down toward her, swallowing her personal space. Until their noses were almost touching and his breath fanned over her heated skin. “Your journalist friend David had a tiny camcorder and shot the whole...incident.”

      “So? Which part of the word journalist confuses you?” she said, confusion swirling within her. “He was running that thing all day...”

      “Did he know what you were about to do? Did you plan it?”

      His voice was no more than a raspy whisper yet each word dripped with menace.

      Shredded everything she’d ever felt for him. “Is that how much you know me?”

      * * *

      Zafir ruthlessly tuned out the hurt resonating in Lauren’s words.

      The feel of her soft, warm flesh under his fingers was already disturbing his equilibrium.

      His muscles tightened, his blood became sluggish and the spiraling desire to kiss her mouth was a relentless hum in his veins.

      He closed his eyes, and let the pictures of Behraat from six weeks ago swim in front of his eyes...the people who had died in the riots, the destruction Tariq had wrought on it. The mindless carnage instantly took the edge off his physical hunger.

      A sense of balance returned to him, a cruel but efficient tether to control his body. He swept his gaze over her, letting the harsh reality of his life creep into his words. “Do we really know each other, Lauren? Except for what we like in—”

      Pink seeped into her cheeks, her fiery gaze shooting daggers at him. “Stop it, Zafir.”

      “We knew each other for two months. I brought Huma to the ER. She told you I was...rich and you pursued me for a donation. You recklessly challenged me and I...rose to it. Against my better instincts, I started an affair. The fact that I hadn’t been with a woman in a few months could have been one factor.”

      He continued like the ruthless bastard he was, refusing to let her pale face, the way she retreated from him, the way she shrank into the wall as though she couldn’t bear to be touched by even his shadow, thwart him. “And we continued to sleep with each other because it suited us both.”

      He tucked away a distracting lock of hair from her cheek and she flinched. “So no, I don’t know what you’re capable of.

      “What I do know is that you were always, what is the word, chummy with the press. That reporter friend David, that lawyer, Alicia and you...”

      She ran long, trembling fingers over her forehead. “To set up an abuse shelter in Queens. I have nothing to gain by exposing your true colors to the world.”

      Frustration made his words harder. “I need that video, Lauren. The current political climate of Behraat is volatile. Even something as simple as a lover’s tiff can be interpreted in so many different ways. My...predecessor abused his power, toyed with women as if they were his personal playthings. Your act questions my credibility, paints me in the same mold as him.”

      She shot her hand out, her slender fingers spread out, defiance shining out of her gleaming gaze as she ticked off her fingers. “Abuse of power? Check. Toys with women as though they were personal playthings? Check. It seems you’re the perfect man for the job, Zafir.”

      His skin crawled to think she would cast him in the same mold as Tariq. “I’ve never treated you with anything other than respect.”

      “Respect?” The words boomeranged in the sterile room, mocking him. “If you respected me, you wouldn’t be treating me like a criminal, questioning my actions, you wouldn’t have walked out in the middle of the night and disappeared.

      “The only thing missing was a bunch of cash on the nightstand and a recommendation to your friends.”

      “Enough. How dare you speak as if you sold yourself to me?”

      “Because that’s what you’re implying, Zafir,” Lauren shouted back at him. With an increasing sense of emptiness, she fell against the wall.

      He trapped her against it, his hot gaze burning, his body a seething cauldron of aggression and sensual intent. There was no control now, only a sense of possession. She had truly angered him and still, Lauren didn’t feel fear. Not when he stood close like that.

      Silly, stupid Lauren.

      “Is that why you did it? Because you’re angry with me, you thought to teach me a lesson?”

      “You СКАЧАТЬ