An easy smile curved his lips—practiced, unshaken, utterly composed. “What harm can come from a warm bath, a good meal, and an excellent rest?”
The thought was tempting.
Too tempting.
Malik must have sensed my hesitation because he turned back to Emily.
“I’ll have the maid retrieve you when the bath is ready. There are fresh clothes for you in the armoire.” He glanced at me. “I’ll show Olivia to her room.”
“Thank you,” Emily said dreamily, rolling onto her back with a sigh.
I hesitated, then followed Malik.
I had no choice.
We moved down the hall, entering another bedroom.
This chamber was even larger than Emily’s—lavish, decadent, every detail drenched in rich burgundy and gold.
The bed sat like a throne at the center, the kind of thing a queen would have draped herself across. It called to me like a siren’s song, my eyelids growing heavier just looking at it.
A bath and rest may help.
After that, I’d be able to think more clearly.
Malik moved—or rather, he glided. His emotions were so seamless, so fluid that it was as if he weren’t bound by the same physical rules as the rest of us.
I was startled, jerking back.
“Stop doing that.”
He tilted his head, amused. “Doing what?”
“That… that now-you’re-there, now-you’re-here thing!” I waved my hands frantically, motioning to where he had been a second ago, then where he stood now.
Malik only smiled, ignoring my unease.
Instead, he took a step closer, lowering his voice.
“How are you feeling?”
His eyes—vast, endless, like staring into the swirling depths of a nebula, full of mysteries I didn’t dare try to understand.
My breath hitched.
Like I was standing on the edge of something vast, something consuming.
Something I wasn’t sure I could pull away from.
“What?” I blinked, forcing my feet to step back. “I’m utterly fatigued. That’s how I’m feeling.”
Malik studied me, his gaze unblinking, assessing. Then, in a voice as smooth as midnight silk, he said, “The last time I saw you, you were grieving the loss of your child. Have you… sufficiently healed?”
He lifted a hand and ran a lazy finger across my collarbone.
It was a touch too intimate. Too knowing.
No.
