PRÓLOGO
“Marry me instead.”
The words ricocheted around the room, finally hitting me square in the chest, where each syllable felt like a smack.
I licked my lips, forced myself to speak through the haze. “You want to get married.”
Whit kept a steady gaze on me, blue eyes searing and red rimmed, and said with no hesitation, “Yes.”
“To me,” I said, needing clarification. Some light to cut through the fog. I pushed away from him, and he let me go. I eyed him uneasily as I rounded the bed, needing something tangible in between us. The distance cleared my head from the scent of whiskey curling around him, smoky and rich.
Again his reply came sure and quick. “Yes.”
“Married,” I repeated, because clarification wasstillin order. He had been drinking and, by the look of it, not one tidy glass. “In a church.”
“If need be.”
“It’d have to be,” I said. The idea sounded normal and sane. Unlike our conversation. Getting married in a church was something I would have done—seemingly in another life. The one I’d been groomed to live in Buenos Aires. I would marry the handsome Ernesto, a young caballero my aunt approved of, and presumably live as her neighbor, where she could keep an eye on me for the rest of my life. There would be no trips to Cairo. My days of drawing temple walls in my sketchbook would be over. Instead, my time would revolve around someone else and, eventually, my children. I couldsee that future as if I were already living it. My heart raced in protest, and I had to remind myself I was here in Egypt.
Exactly where I wanted to be.
Whit arched a brow. “Is that a yes?”
I blinked. “You need an answer right this moment?”
Whit swept his arm across my luxurious hotel bed, currently covered in skirts with ruffled hems and jackets with brass buttons. To my horror, several pairs of stockings were strewn over a plump pillow, next to my favorite chemise, which was practically threadbare. He followed my gaze and then, with admirable restraint, didn’t remark about my underthings.
“I don’t necessarily need one right now, but I’dpreferone, yes,” Whit drawled. “For a little thing like my peace of mind.”
His manner was beginning to infuriate me. This was one of the most important decisions I would make, and if he wanted me to take it seriously, then he should, too. I shoved my clothing off to the side, then bent to drag my suitcase out from under the bed and dropped it onto the cleared-off space. Without ceremony, or care for wrinkles, I began throwing in my clothing. In went my Turkish trousers, cotton shirts, and pleated skirts. I bundled up my underthings and tossed them inside.
He looked at the growing pile in my trunk with alarm. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” I tossed in my satin slippers, the boots I wore while on Philae, and leather heels. I looked around the room, my hands on my hips. What else?
“We are in the middle of a conversation and you already have one foot out the door.” Whit reached forward and pulled out several articles of clothing, and then he removed the pair of boots I’d dropped in.
“Excuse me, but I am packing,” I said, shoving a shirt back into the trunk.
“Nowhere on this planet would anyone call what you are doing packing,” Whit said, eyeing my balled-up shirt in disgust.
“Now you’re being mean.”
“I asked you a question, Inez.”
I glared at him and held out my hand for my boots. “I need those.”
“Not right now you don’t.” Whit dropped them onto the floor and, without taking his eyes off me, grabbed my trunk with both hands, turned it upside down, and dumped everything back out.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?” he asked.
Cielos, he wasinsufferable. “You’ve been drinking.”
“So?”
My voice rose by several unladylike decibels. “So?How do I know if you mean it?”
Whit rounded the bed. Sure on his feet, his hands steady. His words weren’t slurred. They came out clear and sharp edged, as if they were the last ones he’d say in front of a firing squad. “I want to marry you.”
