Forged in the Desert Heat by Maisey Yates

Author:Maisey Yates
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2014-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

ANA FELT SELF-CONSCIOUS and a little silly. She had dressed up. Zafar had said he would dress for dinner, and because of that, she’d felt like she should, too.

So she was walking down the empty corridors of the palace in gold heels, provided by Zafar’s very efficient dresser, and in a red dress that came up to her knees and draped over her shoulder like a Grecian-style gown, chiffon flowing over her curves as she walked.

She had her hair swept up into a French twist, her lips painted to match the dress. And she had to wonder why she was doing it. Why she was bothering.

Because the simple fact was, she was attracted to him. In spite of what she said about it not mattering. It was still there. And it was unnerving.

You can’t do anything about it. You don’t like him. And it would be wrong.

Yes. It would go against everything her father had been trying to build up. She had a flash, suddenly, of what Zafar had said when she’d told him about her father. That he wanted to know about her, not about her father.

But, her father aside, she had her commitment to Tariq. And she loved Tariq. Didn’t she?

It was hard to picture him now. He was fuzzy, like there were heat waves standing in the way of her memories of him. And that was just wrong. It shouldn’t be so easy to forget. Zafar’s face shouldn’t be so prominent in front of her mind’s eye.

And she really shouldn’t have put on red lipstick for the man. But since she’d complained about her lack of frills, more had been provided, and she hadn’t been able to resist.

She sucked in a breath and turned the corner into the dining room. And was shocked to find it transformed. There was a formal, Western-style dining table with chairs all around it, and delicate white china place settings. It was something she would have organized for her father. Elegant and restrained, and odd in this setting because it was only for her and Zafar when it could have easily been a dinner for twenty-five.

And Zafar sat at the head of the table. He stole her breath. Her lungs contracted, the air rushing from them, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She could only look.

He was sitting there in a black jacket, a black tie and a black shirt. The picture of masculine grace. The picture of civility.

Such a lie.

Because when she looked closer, at his face, the truth was plain. He was a predator, leashed and collared for the moment, by expectation, by duty. But it was only the leash keeping him from pouncing.

Were it not for the restraint of duty, he would be wholly unpredictable. Wholly frightening. A beast uncaged.

He stood, and she felt light-headed. His physique was outlined to perfection in the suit, exquisitely so. He was broad shouldered, broad chested, his waist and hips narrow. Impossibly hot.

She’d never seen such a good-looking man before. Ever.

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