In Too Deep (12 page)

So she told him that she wasn't interested in marriage, but in graduate studies and a career.

After years of pursuing her with insistence that marriage didn't preclude a career, Thomas gave up, leaving her to her plans. She now realized he only did because he'd plunged into depression and debt. Then, just after she obtained her degrees, he had his heart attack.

But all through her dread and desperation, she'd been strong for him. Then he'd died. But Adham had been there, and she wasn't alone. She had him. Or so she'd thought. She
was
alone. She had no one. Certainly not Adham.

She gazed at her reflection in the gold-framed, full-length mirror. It felt like she was looking at herself inside a gilded cage. Completing the picture of captive luxury was one of the outfits he'd sent her. They'd all been beyond breathtaking. Not that she'd appreciated their exquisiteness. She hadn't chosen the outfit she was wearing now, discerning that it would best suit her as Hasnaa had implied. She'd dragged it haphazardly off the rack.

She looked at it now, seeing it for the first time. A ravishing red outfit that blended all the ornate lushness of Adham's native Khumayran culture with stunning modern twists.

The sarilike, handmade, intricately worked and embroidered creation and its
dupatta
—what Hasnaa was now busily securing over her “wild curls”—were a masterpiece. A dream of silk, georgette and organza worked in fine gold threads, semiprecious stones, sequins, cutwork, mirror, pearl and crystal work.

To top it all off was one of the sets of jewelry he'd sent her. Hasnaa had chosen for her what she deemed went best with her outfit, a set consisting of two necklaces—a choker and a longer piece that framed her cleavage to maximum effect—earrings that reached to her shoulders, and bangles that covered half of her right forearm. Each piece had carefully cut and polished multicolored gemstones embedded into delicate twenty-four karat gold.

And to think she'd thought he was being indulgent when she'd found the enormous collection lining that extensive dressing room. She'd felt uncomfortable, accepting all that, even from the husband who could afford endless luxuries. She hadn't wanted the shadow of materialistic considerations between them. But she'd reluctantly conceded it was part of looking the part in appearances vital to his status.

But now she knew the truth. This wasn't an indulgence.

This was part of her price.

And she was to wear it, like a tag. Another check on his status report.

A bubble of nausea pushed against her diaphragm. She thanked and dismissed Hasnaa, and collapsed on the nearest chair the moment the door closed. She lowered her forehead to her knees.

She fought back a wave of sickness that seemed to rise from her soul. Suspicion struck her, deepening her distress.

This could be what Adham had hoped for.

She could be pregnant. It would be so easy to find out.

She couldn't find out. Not yet. She didn't want to know one way or another when she asked him to end their pact.

But first, she had to play the delirious bride again.

This time she would indeed have to act.

But it would be the last time she did.

“O
h, my, Sabrina. You look a-
mazing!
” Julia exclaimed, her chocolate-brown eyes wide with admiration.

“You look like a princess right out of a fairy tale!” Catherine exclaimed, awe sparkling in her eyes.

“Okay, the verdict is in!” Vanessa Hughes, Sebastian's sister, said as she finished her inspection of Sabrina, looking every bit the fashionista with her killer body wrapped in a gold second-skin, plunging-neck, floor-length gown. “This is the most incredible outfit I've ever seen in my life!”

Sabrina flashed a smile at the women she'd come to like immensely, a smile as genuine as her condition allowed. “You are just too kind, ladies. I feel like a prize idiot here, coming all dressed up as if for a masquerade, while you're all floating around looking like supermodels fresh off the runway.”

“Are you kidding?” Vanessa scoffed. “I'd give anything for an outfit like that. But I doubt I'd carry it off half as
well as you do. You have that exotic tinge to your looks, that…heat to your coloring—you just set the whole thing on fire.”

“See?” Sabrina smiled again. “Too kind, I tell you. But let me say something else. All the ego boosting is very much appreciated.”

“As if you need our ego boosting,” Julia said, winking, “with a man like Sheikh Adham, who has the female population drooling, literally composing odes in homage to your charms.”

“
And
accompanying every word of his sonnets with a white-hot look,” Vanessa added. “The guy showers you with more ego boosts than most women could handle.”

“Ah, those hot-blooded desert princes.” Julia sighed. “If only our men were that demonstrative and vocal.”

“But Sheikh Adham is far from being either,” Catherine, who knew Adham well, interjected. “He's certainly the best employer I could ask for, but in my opinion, reserved and uncommunicative are his middle and last names.”

“Then this is an even greater testament to your charms, Sabrina.” Vanessa held her hands together beneath her chin in a swooning gesture. “And their effect on him. I've never seen a man so overtly in love before!”

Each word hit Sabrina like a whip. She wanted to beg them to stop, to tell them that he'd only been putting on a show. That it had fooled them, these intelligent, discerning women. Just as it had fooled her. Until he'd slammed her with the truth about his emotions—or rather, his lack of them.

The memory of his passionless gaze as he'd decimated her world lanced through her once more. She felt her smile splintering, its cracked edges driving into her flesh.

She had to excuse herself before the heat pricking behind her eyes dissolved into an unstoppable flood.

Yeah, that would ruin her image as “his princess.”

Perhaps she shouldn't fight the tears after all.

No. She wasn't only his so-called princess, she was a Grant. Foremost, she was herself. She didn't break down. Not in public. And she
would
stop doing it in private. She was done letting him control her emotions, her life. She was taking control, as of now.

“And I thought
you
looked right out of
Arabian Nights,
Adham.”

Sabrina swung around at hearing Sebastian's amused comment. He faded from her awareness the moment she registered him.

Adham was beside him. Adham as she'd never seen him. In the garb that revealed what he was underneath the projection of modernity, the polish of advancement.

A raider of the desert who seized whatever he wanted, made willing slaves of his conquests, whose ruthlessness was only matched by the heartlessness of his seduction. A being from another world where everything was laced with mystery and magic, edged by danger, drenched in excess, in passion.

In a pitch-black
abaya
that spread over his endless shoulders and billowed around him like a shroud of mystery, a high-collared top embroidered with
zari
gold thread, and pants fitted into leather boots, he looked like a supernatural being who descended to earth to rule, to conquer, an avenging angel from the realm of oriental fables.

She swallowed. What felt like ground glass slid down her throat. His beauty, his majesty…hurt. Her stupidity, in believing he'd fallen for her as totally as she had for him, hurt more.

“I did tell you to wait until you saw Sabrina, Seb,” Adham murmured as his arm snaked around her waist,
his hand dipping beneath her top's edge to singe her flesh with the heat of his electricity-wielding fingers. “But even I couldn't have imagined how spellbinding the trappings of my culture could be until her beauty and grace adorned them.”

Her instinctive reaction was to swoon at the extravagance of his praise, to melt into the possession of his touch. It took all of three heartbeats before reality sank its fangs into her and had her lurching away as if from burning tentacles.

Adham's eyes didn't betray any change of expression, apart from the fluctuation in his pupils' size. Without missing a beat, he pulled her to him again, as if he hadn't realized she'd pulled away. Or maybe he wouldn't let her in front of those whose opinion mattered to him. “I hope I didn't leave you waiting long,
ya jameelati.
I should have escorted you here or at least been here to receive you, to be the first to look on your enchantment tonight. But there was an emergency with one of the ponies.”

“What?” Catherine eyes widened, her smile fractured, alarm catching her off guard. “What happened? Which pony?”

“Rahawan,” Adham answered, sparing her a glance before returning his sizzling focus to Sabrina. “He had severe colic. I called Dr. Lima and stayed until Rahawan started recovering.”

“Oh, I'll go.”

This made Adham relinquish his hold over Sabrina's eyes, stretch an arm in Catherine's way, cutting her movement short. “Of course you won't, Catherine.”

“But I am still working for you until the end of the season,” Catherine protested. “Even if I weren't, your horses will always be mine, too, Sheikh Adham. I have to make sure he's all right.”

“He is. But thanks for your continued caring and
commitment. Richard is a lucky man to have such a loyal, compassionate woman. Now put your mind at ease and enjoy the party. I intend to.” He turned to Sabrina, hugging her closer. “Now that I'm with you, it's a certainty that I will.” He looked to the women. “May I borrow my bride, ladies? It's been a long day without her.”

The women giggled and fanned themselves, winking at her as he swept her away.

Once they were out of earshot, she tried to step back from his embrace, struggling to make it look like she wasn't pushing him away. He only tightened his hold, bearing down on her with his heat and voracity. His fake voracity.

He bent to take her lips. She turned her head at the last second. His lips latched on her cheek instead. He burned it with his kiss. “I thought I could wait for later, but I can't.”

She pushed harder at him, managing to put him at arm's length. “Listen, nobody can hear you now, so you can quit it.”

“Quit what?”

“The act. Go light on the theatrics. Less is more and all that. Look around and learn from your friends how a man in love is supposed to behave. Sebastian and Richard are not oozing all over their women.”

“Oozing?” His frown was spectacular.

“Yes, oozing. You better watch it. You're crossing from convincing underacting to ridiculous overacting.”

His glower deepened. Then something flared over his features, so sexual and savage she felt her core melt in ferocious response.

“Suheeh?”
he drawled, slow and devastating, a predator certain his mate was in the bag, certain he could prolong her torment and his gratification to his heart's content.
“Really? The only under and over I'm interested in are when they involve you and me during lovemaking. So let's drop all acting and get down to the truth.” He tugged her hand and brought her slamming against his steel length. One hand splayed across her back, searing the flesh exposed by the dipping back of her top through the sheer
dupatta
covering it, the other hand sinking into her left buttock, yanking her to him, grinding her against his thigh. A moan of unwilling stimulation bubbled from her depths. Her head fell back, her mouth opened, her lips stung and swelled as if he'd already ravished them. He documented her reaction, merciless satisfaction blazing in his eyes. “
This
is the only truth. That you want me. As much as I want you.”

She tried to break free, feeling as if she were drowning. As she was—in sensation, in yearning. Every syllable he uttered, every press of his fingers, every abrasion of his clothes on her exposed skin, every gust of his breath brushing any oversensitive part of her, was an aphrodisiac overdose. She felt she was being submerged in him, in her need for him.

It made her angrier.

He was only manipulating her, feeling nothing himself. And she'd be damned if she'd let him pull her strings like that.

She wrenched free, any attempt to make this look like anything but an all-out fight dissipating.

For she was fighting. For her sanity, her sense of self. What he was taking over, with such ease, just because he could, not because he wanted her.

“Oh, no, you don't,” she spat. “You told me how it is this morning. You don't get to change the rules as you please. I don't know why you're doing this and I don't care. Just let go of me.”

He hauled her back, crashed her into him once again, his arms a vise. “I'm never letting go of you.”

She stilled in his arms, chagrin and embarrassment drenching her. “For God's sake, stop. Everyone's watching us.”

“Let them watch.”

“But this isn't what you want them to watch. At least, if you don't let me go, it won't be.”

“Is this how you want to play it now, Sabrina? You want me to make you succumb, take it out of your hands? You want me to arouse you out of your mind and take you so you can have what you want and not be responsible? I'd be happy to oblige. I made you beg for me once. This time, I won't have to take it easy or go slow, to make allowances for your inexperience and discomfort. This time I can show you just how much you inflame me and hold nothing back, exploiting every inch of your made-for-pleasure body, giving you so much satisfaction you'll faint with it.”

She felt the world distorting, as if she'd pass out from testosterone overexposure. She struggled to focus, choking, “Stop it, Adham. If you don't, I
will
make a scene. And not the kind of scene you want your friends and the paparazzi to witness.”

The sensuality on his face deepened as he leaned back, his hands shaping her, exploring her curves, cascading fire through every cell. He stopped at her breasts, kneaded and weighed them, rubbed circles of insanity around her nipples through the layered material of her top. “Show me, Sabrina. Do your worst.”

A second before she felt she'd faint for real, she smacked his hands off her and spun around.

She didn't get far. He caught her at the tent's entrance, turned her and snatched her off her feet. His hands clamped her back, her buttocks, opening her thighs in her flaring
lehenga
over his hips. One hand held her in place as the other snatched her
dupatta
out of the way to sink into her curls, holding her face upturned to his, her neck arched back.

He swooped down to latch his lips on her pulse, growling against its frantic beating, his voice feral. “I shouldn't want you, I should keep this cold and all business. But you inflamed me, drove me mad, from that first moment I laid eyes on you.
W'hada gabl mat'sallemeeli nafssek
—And this was before you surrendered yourself to me.
Men hada'l yaum w'ana fen'nar
—I've been in hell since that day, craving you and knowing I shouldn't. But I don't care anymore why we married. You're caught in the same trap, you crave me just as much. And desire this fierce can't be denied.”

Everything stilled inside her, desperation and anguish extinguished like a candle in a hurricane.

He wanted her, too? It hadn't been an act to make her succumb to his plans? He'd tried to keep it business, but his desire for her was overriding his intentions and his control?

If this was true, then his desire was fiercer than anything she'd wished for. This meant there was hope for their marriage. Far more hope than she'd dared imagine. “Adham…I don't…”

He misinterpreted what she'd started saying and overrode her. “You do. I can feel your desire, can sense it. Your body is humming with need for me against your will—seeking, offering, begging for mine. I can feel your heart racing mine, your blood thundering below my fingertips.”

She would have been mortified that he could read her reactions so explicitly if her reserves of mortification hadn't been depleted thinking of the scandal they were creating.
And if she didn't want him to know how he made her feel. But now she did.

Then everything ceased. Adham wrenched his lips from her neck, raising his head only to swoop down again to claim her mouth.

She cried out at the feel of his heat and moistness, of his tongue driving inside her, rubbing against hers. His growls poured into her, welling in surges of pleasure throughout her body.

He finished her, drained her, layering arousal in bolts to her breasts, her gut, her core. Heat built until she writhed with it, opening herself up, inviting his domination.

He raised her, brought his erection grinding into her long-molten core. Sensation sharpened, cleaving a cry from her depths.

And despite the pounding in her head, the shearing from her lungs and his, she felt it.

The commotion of curiosity and amusement and disbelief. The shuffling and whirs and flashes of people rushing to document their mindless disregard of everything but their conflagration.