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  “Real as can be,” she said, her voice hushed, and then she took a step closer to him. Suddenly he could see the incredible blue of her eyes and that dark rim of black around her irises that gave her that startled look she got sometimes. He saw the small freckle on the point of her chin that he had kissed so many times, and he saw her beautifully full lips, bitten and so red in the cold.

  He could barely resist her three years ago, and he certainly could not resist her now.

  She came just a few bare inches closer to him, and then he was sweeping her into his arms, wrapping her up close, enveloping her. God, but he had forgotten how tall she really was, just a few inches shorter than his own six feet. She could be quite imposing sometimes, but that was before he got his hands on her, found out how delicately she was built. She was all long bones and sweetness, and for a moment, she melted against him.

  It was as if the past three years had swept by, but rather than London they were in Ealim. He thought his heart might burst if it became any fuller.

  Hugging her made sense. Kissing her certainly did not.

  However, no matter what he might have thought or what she might have thought, their lips met, and somewhere in his mind, it was as if fireworks were going off.

  It’s her. It’s her, and she was the only one who ever mattered, the only one who was more than . . .

  The kiss made his heart beat faster, and Halil found himself clinging to her, as if afraid and half-vicious over the idea of someone taking her away. In her as well, he could feel a deep and powerful response that took her over as it took him, and in that moment, there was no reason in the world why he shouldn’t simply drag her to the nearest bed and make her his again as she had been what felt like so long ago.

  Then slowly sanity reasserted itself and he forced himself to relax his grip on her, to pull his mouth back from hers. This was madness. He had no idea what had happened to her over the years they had been apart. She might have a lover, hell, she might even be married, and Halil tried to stop the rush of fury that flooded his body at that idea.

  She said something, and he had to loosen his grip on her so he could hear.

  “What did you say?”

  “You let the man go.”

  “Do you care?” he said, feeling a trace of guilt.

  That guilt was swept away by her sweet smile.

  “Not even a little. Oh my God, it really is you.”

  Her husky words brought him back to himself, at least a little, and he stepped back, all too aware that there were people all around, watching him and waiting to see what he would do. It wasn’t London after all, and he was still himself. Halil could almost bring himself to curse this time and place, but this was not the way to bring this gorgeous woman back into his arms.

  “It is really me,” he said at last. “But we cannot do this reunion here. Will you come with me?”

  She didn’t even hesitate, and it felt as though it had only been a few moments since the last time she smiled at him in the rain, just a second since he had last kissed those lips.

  “Yes. Always.”

  Chapter Three

  Myriah

  It was as if a spike of adrenaline had gone through her when she realized her purse was getting grabbed, and she hadn’t come down from it ever since.

  Realizing it was not a handsome stranger, or even just the Sheikh of Ealim who had gotten her purse back, but instead the man who had almost stolen her heart clean away three years ago took her breath away, even as she had to shake her own head not connecting the dots.

  “I knew your last name was a fake. I knew it. I even remember looking at your passport once and realizing the name was different. I didn’t care.”

  He gave her a sideways grin that made her heart beat a little faster.

  “Really? And I thought I was being so subtle.”

  “You really weren’t! Everyone at the cafe thought that you were either in organized crime or on the run from it.”

  Halil looked at her with fascination even as he walked her down the street.

  “Truly? They genuinely thought that?”

  “Yes! And those were honestly two of the more likely theories. Some of the other ones got to be pretty absurd.”

  She blinked when she realized he was escorting her past the glass and gold revolving doors of one of the most exclusive hotels in the capital.

  “Oh, um . . .”

  “Don’t think for a moment that I am going to ask you to pay,” Halil said with a grin. “I think you have suffered enough at the hands of my countrymen tonight.”

  “Well, more like I’m hardly dressed for . . . much of anything besides a kebab, maybe.”

  She gestured at her attire, which was looking plainer and plainer by the moment as they walked into the rarefied atmosphere she knew had only been bought with a great deal of money and influence.

  Halil shook his head with some amusement.

  “You are with me. As such, believe me when I say that you are completely beyond reproach.”

  “Really?”

  As it turned out, he was right. The maître d at the fashionable restaurant in the lobby didn’t bat an eye at her strange attire or the fact that she was obviously not the sort of woman who usually passed time with Halil. She saw gorgeous women all around, wearing their clothes like male peacocks did their feathers, with haircuts that cost more than she made in a week and striding like panthers on tall heels that might have cost more than she made in a year.

  Despite the sore difference between herself and the other luminaries of the party, the only thing that Halil had to do was grin and say a few easy words in Arabic, and they were shown to the back of the restaurant, where there was a private room with a gorgeously intimate table for two waiting for them.

  “Wow. If I didn’t know you were the sheikh, this would totally make me think that the stories about you being in organized crime were right.”

  Halil grinned at her across the table, watching her with eyes that seemed to take on some of the glow of the candles that illuminated the space.

  “You must remember that I love hearing about myself. What else did they say about me?”

  Myriah laughed because it was such a perfectly Halil thing to say. How many times had they sat just like this, gazing at each other across a small table, the air between them crackling with a certain kind of promise, a certain kind of energy that neither of them could deny?

  Of course, the circumstances the last time they had done this were nowhere near as luxurious.

  “Oh, let’s see. There was one where you were gallivanting across Europe to mend a broken heart. Some gorgeous person in Italy or Barcelona or someplace equally exotic had thrown you over, and all you cared about anymore was losing yourself in pleasure.”

  “How hedonistic of me.”

  “Quite! There was also the one about how you were some kind ex-soldier who had come to London to spend all your back pay before you had to head back to some war zone or another.”

  “Oh. Did that one start because of that one man I beat up?”

  “After he threatened that cashier? Yeah, pretty sure it did.”

  “He didn’t even have to go to the hospital.”

  “Yeah, you were pretty scary, and I think that’s what people focused on. Let’s see. There was one where you were a famous writer’s muse.”

  Halil looked intrigued by that one. “Really?”

  “Yes. Some incredibly brilliant and lonely woman who spent all of her time wasting away on the beaches of Cannes, only praying that you would come back to her so she could finish her novel.”

  “You and your friends at the cafe were an inventive lot,” Halil observed, and Myriah laughed again.

  “Well, you can’t blame us!”

  “Pretty sure I can. I was just there to get my morning coffee and to flirt with the pretty barista.”

  Myriah blinked, because she hadn’t expected that part.

  “Oh, do you mean Leslie? Because she was really into
that one girl who came in to write her book every day . . .”

  Halil stared at Myriah for a moment and then suddenly burst into laughter.

  “It was you! Did you not know before that one day? Is that what you really thought, that I was into some other girl?”

  “Well, Leslie was objectively the prettiest girl at the cafe!”

  “She was not.”

  For some reason, Myriah’s breath caught in her throat when he took her hand. It was such a simple touch, such a sweet and simple thing, especially compared to everything that they had done together before, but somehow, it sent chills through her body.

  I thought I would never do this again, she thought in wonder. I thought I would never, ever touch this man again . . .

  Somehow, the thought almost made her cry, and she had to swallow it back quickly before it got to her any worse. She couldn’t find a way to let go of his hand, so she simply didn’t.

  “Don’t you know how gorgeous you are?” Halil murmured, and when she started to push the compliment away, he reached over to cup her face with his hand. It should have been too much. It should have been too intimate by far, something reserved for a man she had actually seen in the last three years.

  Instead, she leaned into the warmth of his hand, something in her relaxing that had been tense for a long time. She had never thought to be touched by this man again, to feel his hand against her cheek, to smell the faint scent of his familiar cologne, to feel his gaze settling over her like a wealth of adoration.

  “You used to tell me I was all the time. I didn’t need it, it was just . . . so nice . . .”

  “It was the truth. And you still are. Perfectly gorgeous, I mean.”

  There was a discreet chime as the door to their private room opened up and an elegant waiter dressed all in black came in. Halil pulled his hand back with a smile, and Myriah had to hide a blush that was staining her pale cheeks red. They hadn’t been doing anything more than the most gentle and innocent of touches, but there was something in her that was convinced they had been caught doing something incredibly intimate.

  “Do you mind if I order for you?”

  “No, please do. Whatever you think is good.”

  He grinned at her briefly. “It’s all good. I think you’ll like it.”

  He spoke with the waiter earnestly in Arabic for a few moments, and after the man left, he turned to Myriah again, this time with a teasing smile on his lips.

  “So what did you think?”

  “Hm?”

  “You obviously never guessed that I was the son of the Sheikh of Ealim. Who did you think I was?”

  “At first? I was solidly on team organized crime.”

  “Oh, thank you!”

  “You asked! And then . . . And then after I got to know you, I thought something else.”

  “What was that?”

  Myriah paused for a moment, and then shrugged. It was the truth, and even if he had withheld a part of it from her, Halil had never lied to her. She couldn’t lie to him. Well . . . that was somewhat true.

  “I thought you were lost; that you were alone and spinning through space, and maybe you didn’t know how to grab on to anything.”

  Halil swallowed slightly, and she could tell that she had surprised him.

  “I didn’t expect that,” he said softly. “Do I look like I’m a little less lost these days?”

  She started to respond, but then the waiter came back in, far sooner than she thought he would have. This time, Myriah did jump a little, and she blinked when she saw that he had brought not a tray, but a cart.

  The cart was laden with a half dozen little dishes, each with no more than a tablespoon or so of food. He lay the dishes on the table between them, but when he started to tell them about each one, Halil waved him off with a friendly smile.

  “Halil, what is all this?” Myriah asked when the waiter was gone.

  “Well, it’s been quite some time since we’ve been together. I remember what you liked then . . .”

  “Do you?”

  He grinned. “So young, and to have lost so much faith in me already. Cheddar and apple sandwich, pickles, apple cinnamon ice cream but only from the one place around the corner . . .”

  “Chesney’s! Yes! You do remember . . .”

  “I wouldn’t forget. But I thought maybe since you were in Ealim, you could try a few things that you perhaps had not had the chance to try before. This is the first course, and the things tend to be fairly light . . .”

  Myriah watched in curiosity and fascination as Halil explained a bit about each food in front of her, gesturing over the array with his gorgeous hands. God, how in the world had she forgotten how beautiful his hands were? There was a time when she had dreamed of them . . .

  “And here . . . let me do this for you.”

  To her surprise, after Halil cleaned his fingers in the small finger bowl of water that was included with the tray, he expertly scooped up a small bit of fried mushroom with wilted scallion on top and brought it up to her lips. It should have been strange and awkward, but for some reason, it was neither of those things. Instead, Myriah plucked it from his fingertips with her meat, letting the deeply salty and rich flavors roll across her tongue.

  “Oh that’s good . . .”

  “It’s all good, I promise, here . . .”

  He fed them both as the meal went on, explaining the food to her in a way that made her feel oddly cared for. He wasn’t doing this to show off, as so many men in his position might have done. He wasn’t doing it to try to clumsily seduce her, though there was more seduction in the air than she might have expected from her night before everything had happened.

  It was an odd pleasure watching Halil eat, as well. He did it as gracefully as he did everything else, bringing the food to his lips and enjoying the flavors as much as she had. It occurred to Myriah about halfway through how expensive everything must have been. She had to stifle back the urge to tell him that of course she would pay for half. She imagined the look on his face, amused delight, that she would even try, and in the end, she didn’t even bother fighting him about the bill.

  “That was amazing,” she said. “I’ve never had another meal like it, and I know I never would have learned as much about it at all if it wasn’t for you.”

  “Perhaps someday we’ll go to your home in Boston, and you can show me some of the food that you love around there.”

  The mention of Boston made her smile give way. This wasn’t, she realized, a fairy tale meet-cute with the one who got away. She wasn’t an innocent little barista anymore, and he wasn’t the handsome stranger who showed up every day to smile at her and make her heart beat faster.

  For a moment, Myriah felt as if she were at a loss for what to say, for the words to deny him, but Halil got there first. Suddenly he was taking her cold hand in both of his, and she couldn’t look away from his eyes.

  “Darling? What’s the matter?”

  She swallowed, because it was on the tip of her tongue to say nothing. It would have been a patent lie, however, and she didn’t want to lie to him.

  “You can’t. Come to Boston, I mean.”

  He went still, and she could see him drawing several conclusions, each as wrong as the next.

  “Are you married?” he asked, and she shook her head.

  “Engaged? Have a lover?”

  “No, nothing. There’s been no one since you.”

  No one but him for many years before that, in fact, but he didn’t need to know that. As it was, his face still softened, and there was a sweetness there that tugged at her heart.

  “Really? Why not?”

  There were several answers to that, three that she could never, ever tell him, but there was one that was true, and she didn’t care if he knew it.”

  “Because after you, who else was there I would ever be content with?”

  She knew it wasn’t exactly true. There were men out there who would have treated her well, made her happy. She could even
have married one, become the wife and mother that everyone had thought she would become. But deep in her heart, she would have known that there was a piece of her that she would not give over entirely, a part of her that would always be waiting and watching for the one who she still saw in her dreams, who she could still feel on her lips.

  She wondered if she saw Halil look slightly guilty at that, and when he cleared his throat, she was shockingly afraid that he might want to make some sort of confession to her.

  “Myriah . . .”

  She held up her hand.

  “No.”

  “ . . . No?”

  “No, there was . . . there was nothing wrong with what we did. I don’t regret it, and just because I’ve had . . . other things . . . on my mind since we ended things, it doesn’t mean I’m enough of an asshole that I expected you to do exactly as I did. You went out. You met other women. You . . . did other things with them that I’m not all that fond of thinking about. That’s fine.”

  “Is it? Fine, I mean?”

  Myriah wished it wasn’t on the tip of her tongue to say how she really felt about that, but the truth was that no, it was not fine at all. However, she wasn’t going to embarrass herself by saying anything like that.

  “As far as you know,” she said with a grin, and she relaxed when he smiled at her. The tension went out of the moment, but in its place there was a kind of warmth, something she wasn’t sure she trusted.

  You cannot be warm with this man. As a matter of fact, you cannot let down your guard at all. Do not do that. There is . . . so much at stake.

  “I should . . . I should get back to my hotel,” Myriah said softly. “It’s been a long day and all.”

  “Don’t.”

  She swallowed as he stood up and threw a careless stack of bills on the table. He never took his eyes off of her as he offered her his hand.

  “Halil . . .”

  “The penthouse here belongs to me. Come upstairs with me. Stay the night.”

  Some of the adrenaline that had dissipated over the course of their meal returned, and she gazed up at Halil with eyes that were surely too wide. She hadn’t drunk anything stronger than water at dinner, but her head spun as if she’d had strong wine. Through it all, through the nerves telling her she was doing something profoundly dangerous, through the firecracker sparks shooting through her body, she could feel a deep yearning go through her.