fallen in love with him.
She fought hard against the pain that was threatening to overwhelm her. So much of her life, of what had happened in the past three years, was tied to Taj. All of it, really. Because without Taj, without her father’s deception, she never would have run away from Texas. Never would have ended up in Italy, taking care of Princess Carlotta’s son, Luca.
Without Taj, she would never have known what it felt like to love someone, and find out how much it hurt when they didn’t love you back.
A muttered curse in Arabic brought her head up, and her gaze collided with Taj’s coal colored eyes. He looked the same. Dark and commanding. His black hair cropped short, no sign of the slight curl at his neck that she’d loved to twirl around her fingers.
It was the same Taj, yet different somehow. Leaner. Harder.
The impact he had on her hadn’t changed, either. Her heart was pounding, her body shaking, a surge of adrenaline making her blood run hotter, faster.
He was the man who haunted her dreams. The reason she woke up in a cold sweat, aching and unsatisfied. The reason no man had appealed to her in the least since she’d left home.
He exhaled a breath and for the first time since spotting him from the balcony, she drew breath in.
“It is you.” He sounded like a man addressing a ghost. He looked about like that, too.
She tried to smile. “And it’s you.”
“I was invited to help celebrate this occasion. What escapes me is why you’re here. No one has heard from you in three years.”
“How do you…how do you know that?”
“I keep in touch,” he said, his voice cold as stone and just as hard.
She bet he did. Her father had one of the things that Sheikh Taj prized above all else. Oil. Their money was slick with it, and they had been ready to make an alliance. She imagined they had made it, even without her as the glue to hold it together.
Without her as the sacrificial virgin.
“You and my father always did have a lot in common,” she said, her tone sharp and lofty. Rich, considering she was standing in front of him in jeans and a ratty ponytail while he was in a custom made suit.
“Not as much as you might think,” he said.
“I don’t have time to wonder what that means. I have to get back.”
“To?”
“Luca. He’s asleep he…”
“You have a lover with you?” he asked, his voice going cold.
She laughed in spite of the situation. “Luca is a child.”
He jerked back as though she’d hit him. “Your child?”
“Princess Carlotta’s child. I’m his nanny.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “You traded your life, your future, as my queen to be a nanny?”
“No. I traded being your queen for some self-respect.”
She turned and walked away from him, her entire body shaking, regret threatening to climb up from her chest and strangle her.
She closed the door to her room behind her and leaned against the doorway. She’d lied to escape from him, but hey, who could blame her?
Luca was sleeping in his own room, and he didn’t require her care at night. That was one reason she’d felt confident enough to sneak down to the engagement party. To catch a glimpse of the life she no longer lived. Glittering royals, an undercurrent of drama beneath the smooth, refined setting. It was all so familiar.
That had been her three years ago, down among the people with her formal gown and fake smile. An heiress with a comfortable, wealthy life stretching in front of her. But she’d told Taj the truth. She’d traded all that for self-respect. For a chance to control her own life and find out what she could be other than a pawn.
A hard knock vibrated the door behind her and she turned sharply, her hand over her mouth. He’d followed her. She shouldn’t be surprised.
The worst thing was, she wanted to open the door. Her hand was already on the knob. Just like three years ago, what she truly wanted, was to be with him.
But then, she hadn’t wanted marriage without love. And Taj hadn’t loved her. He’d wanted to acquire her, along with a significant merger with her father’s oil company.
Of course, she hadn’t known that. She’d thought the young, Arabic leader had been smitten with her. That he’d looked at her and seen something special. That he’d been as crazy about her as she’d been about him. She’d been so young then. So naive. Love had seemed an easy, wondrous find. It had seemed the be-all and end-all.
She’d learned since that that wasn’t true.
If love was so powerful, so important, then the moment her love for Taj had died, all of her thoughts of him would have dissolved and blown away like desert sand. They hadn’t. He still plagued her sleep. He was still the man her body desired.
The absence of love hadn’t changed that. It was a sobering realization, just how much Taj still mattered. How much power he still possessed. That he could make her run. She gritted her teeth. No. She didn’t run. At least, she wouldn’t run now. Wouldn’t give him that satisfaction, that level of importance.
She took a breath and her hand turned the door handle before she’d fully processed the action, and she found herself staring into Taj’s obsidian eyes.
“Don’t run from me again,” he bit out.
“Again? Don’t flatter yourself. I was never running from you. I was running to independence. I’m not a frightened child. I don’t run from things.” She crossed her arms beneath her chest.
“Liar. In the hall just now, you were very much running from me. From the attraction that still exists between us.”
“Attraction? Have you been drinking tonight?”
“I don’t drink. You know that. And yes, attraction. It has always been there, or have you forgotten the night we spent in your father’s barn?”
“You make it sound like we…” His gaze dropped to her lips. “We kissed. That’s all.” And they’d cuddled up together, looking at the night sky through a hole in the roof, her hand on his chest, her mouth spilling out all of her stupid dreams for the future. Dreams she’d believed he’d shared in. But while she’d been counting stars, he’d been counting money. The money he would make when he married her.
“There are simple kisses, Angelina, and then there are the kinds of kisses we shared that night. And they are not the same thing.”
No, they weren’t. But the only reason they’d been different was because she’d been barely twenty and had fancied herself in love. They’d felt new and precious, and more exciting than anything else ever had.
“We just kissed, Taj.”
“And if we kissed again? You think you would feel…?”
“Nothing,” she whispered. “I would feel nothing.”
He leaned in and her breath caught. She didn’t back away from him. She couldn’t. “Is that so? You have not thought of me since you left? Not once?”
Always. “No.”
“You lie again,” he said, his voice rough, his eyes glittering in challenge.
If he was trying to intimidate her, it wouldn’t work. Her eyes were open now, to the world, to the people around her.