She’d refused but he hadn’t given up and neither had he regretted the pursuit, because he had enjoyed her company more than he could have imagined possible.
She’d...enchanted him.
He hadn’t known about her father. When he thought about that now, he could remember that there were times when he had surprised her wearing a lost expression on her face and times when there had been a hyper quality to her that had seemed at odds with her reserved nature.
Then he flashed forward to him leaving, and then to imagining her discovering that she was pregnant.
When he thought about that, something inside him twisted and he suddenly found it hard to swallow. An imagination he’d never known he had fired up with a series of graphic images, heartbreaking images of her searching for him, gradually coming to terms with the reality of his disappearance.
He had been called away, yes. Events had galvanised him into returning to Qaram and that in itself had been a frightening time for him. He had really and truly thought that he had done the right thing walking away from a situation that could never have developed into anything permanent and he’d already been navigating a very fine line delaying his departure more than once to remain in her bed. He’d never done that before for any woman, but he’d repeatedly pushed that thought away at the time. He genuinely hadn’t known just how emotionally vulnerable she had been because she hadn’t told him about her father’s death. Would he have pursued her in the first place, slept with her, if he’d known?
Abe had a sinking feeling he’d have been drawn to her regardless, but it was a moot point anyway.
The fact of the matter was that she was here now and those winds of change he had mentioned were about to blow her ordered world to pieces.
‘But you can’t really think about that at the moment, can you?’ he murmured understandingly, and she stared at him in silence. ‘You’ve been wrenched out of what you have spent the past four years building and now you feel you’ve lost your foothold.’
‘It’s...’
‘I know. Scary.’ He half smiled and glanced around at the magnificent bedroom that made her seem small and wide-eyed and lost all of a sudden.
This was where he’d grown up. He barely noticed the opulence of his surroundings any more. He was accustomed to living in a palace, where rooms flowed into other rooms, where there was so much space that the problem was what to do with it all.
And, yes, had he had an arranged marriage, he would have found a wife whose background would have fully prepared her for this lifestyle. She would have moved in exalted circles, would be acquainted with all the unspoken mores and traditions and customs that would have been expected of her.
No wonder Georgie was at a complete loss.
‘And you don’t want scary, do you?’ he asked pensively. ‘You want stability.’
‘More than anything in the world,’ she breathed with heartfelt sincerity. ‘I lost my mother when I was young, but life grew around that loss, like skin growing around an open wound until it scars over and stops hurting so much. When my dad died, my whole world fell apart. Now that I have Tilly, I want to make sure that she has all the stability in her life that I haven’t had...’
Abe privately thought that she was making an extremely good case for marrying him, but that was a point he wasn’t going to make just yet.
‘I understand.’ He looked to the door. ‘You should try and get some sleep now. Is there anything you need? Food? My private plane is usually well stocked but if there’s anything you want...’
‘I’m okay.’
‘Still nervous about meeting my father?’ He smiled, reassuring her, wanting her to have a good night’s sleep as free of worry as possible given the circumstances.
It was important she didn’t see this as an ordeal. It was also important that he establish a footing between them in which conversation could be had without the past overshadowing everything.
‘Where does he live?’
‘Would you be alarmed if I told you that he, too, lives in a palace?’
‘I would be surprised if he didn’t.’ She smiled.
‘It’s smaller than this one, though.’
‘I guess it couldn’t be any bigger. What on earth do you do with all these rooms, Abe?’
‘They’re occasionally filled with diplomats, members of state, visiting dignitaries...’ He laughed, his dark eyes drifting to her mouth. She had a perfect mouth. He could remember exactly how it had tasted and he wanted to kiss it again now. His pulse picked up a gear and he shifted uncomfortably.
This pull of intense attraction felt even stronger than those recollections of the many times they had spent together in her bed. He was uneasily aware that what was supposed to have been a brief fling had never really felt like that to him, but it had taken meeting her again to really bring that point home. He tensed, but then reminded himself that not everyone shared such an intense physical connection. Yes, that was all it was, amazing sexual chemistry. There was no question of it being anything else. At that thought, his tense muscles relaxed.
‘Weren’t you ever...lonely?’ Georgie asked, interrupting his unwelcome thoughts.
‘Lonely?’ Abe opened his mouth to deny the suggestion, his long-standing habit of politely knocking back anyone daring enough to try and venture into his private life, but instead he heard himself say, thoughtfully, ‘I guess...maybe there was a point in time...’ He laughed but when their eyes met, hers were sympathetic.
