His aura, his vibe, hit her like a gut punch.
Then she saw him. Only him.
Everything stilled inside her. In awe. In confusion.
He’d towered over her before, though she’d been five foot seven at fourteen. Now she stood six feet wearing two-inch heels, and he still outstripped her by what appeared to be half a foot. Had she never realized how imposing he was?
No. This wasn’t the Shaheen she remembered. This was new.
He’d been twenty-two the last time she’d seen him up close. She’d seen him in the flesh half a dozen times since, most recently a year ago, across a ballroom in Cannes. But during those stolen sightings, she’d barely gotten more than an impression of vitality and virility, of class and power. She’d seen photographs and footage of him throughout the years, but it was clear that neither memory, nor sightings from afar nor photographic evidence had transmitted any measure of the truth.
Sure, he’d been like a god to her anyway, but it seemed there were levels of godhood. And his present rank was at the top of the scale. A desert god, forged from its heat and hardness and harshness, from its mystery and moodiness and magnificence.
His all-black formal silk suit and shirt clung to a breadth that was almost double his younger size. There wasn’t an inch of padding to his shoulders, no boosting of the power of his chest, no accentuation to the hardness of his abdomen and thighs or the slimness of his waist and hips. If he’d had the lithe power of a young hawk before, he now packed the powerhouse majesty of a full-grown, seasoned one.
And that was before taking the changes to his face into account. He’d always been what the media had called spectacular, with that wavy mane of deepest tobacco hair, those unique fiery eyes a contrast to his natural tan. Now, with every trace of softness and youth chiseled away to leave a bone structure to tear heartstrings over, he was breathtaking.
But it was his expression—and what it betrayed of his inner state—that sent tremors radiating through her.
Shaheen wasn’t happy. He was deeply dissatisfied, disturbed. Distraught, even. It might not be apparent to anyone else, but she could sense it as deeply as she felt her own turmoil.
All hope of reprieve, of closure, vanished.
If she’d found him serene, content, she would have been able to move on. But now…
At least there was one thing to be thankful for here. He hadn’t seen her. And he wouldn’t, if she didn’t go through with what she’d planned. And maybe she shouldn’t.
No. No maybes about it. Approaching him now would have nothing but terrible consequences. If he had this devastating an effect on her while unaware of her presence and standing thirty feet away, what would he do to her face-to-face?
Infatuated, immature moron that she was, she’d achieved only one thing by seeing him again. She’d compounded her problem and added more heartache to deal with. She could now only curtail further damages.
Cursing herself for a fool, she stepped forward to leave. And felt as if she’d slammed into an impenetrable force field.
Shaheen’s gaze.
The impact almost demolished her precarious balance as his eyes bored through her.
She’d always thought they resembled burning coals, even when he’d trained them on her with utmost kindness. But now, with the flare of recognition accompanied by a focus searing in intensity and devoid of gentleness, she felt their burn down to her bones. Her blood started to sizzle, her cheeks to steam.
She’d gravely underestimated the size of the mistake she’d made coming here. She now had no doubt it was one she’d regret for the rest of her life.
She stood, rooted, mesmerized as he approached her, watching him with the same fatalism one would an out-of-control car on a collision course.
Regret had swamped Shaheen the moment he’d set foot in Aidan’s sprawling penthouse. It intensified with every step deeper into the cacophony of forced gaiety.
He shouldn’t have agreed to come. He should have told Aidan this wasn’t a farewell party to him, but a funeral pyre.
And here was his friend and partner, coming to add to his misery with a blithe smile splitting his face.
“Hey, Sheen!” Aidan exclaimed over the skull-splitting techno music. “I thought you’d decided to let me look like a fool. Again.”
Shaheen winced an attempt at a smile. He hated it when his friends abbreviated his name to Sheen. His western friends did so because it was a more familiar name to them, and those back home because that was the first letter of his name in Arabic. He didn’t know why he put up with it. But then again, what was a nickname he disliked compared to what he would be forced to endure from now on?
Shaheen peered down into his friend’s grinning face, his lips twisting on his barely leashed irritation. “If I’d known what kind of event you were planning, Aidan, I would have.”
“You know what they say about all work and no play.” Aidan hooked his arm high up around Shaheen’s shoulder.
Shaheen almost flinched. He liked the man, and he did come from a culture where physical demonstrations of affection were the norm, contradictorily between members of the same gender. Apart from immediate family, he didn’t appreciate being touched. Even in sexual situations, he didn’t like women to paw him, as they seemed to unanimously wish to. His liaisons were about taking off an edge, not about intimacy. He’d made that clear, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, to all the women he’d had such liaisons with.
He could barely remember his last sexual encounter. Such carnal couplings, devoid of any deeper connection, had lost their appeal and begun to grate, to defile. To be expected, he guessed, when the women he liked and respected didn’t arouse any carnal inclinations in him.
He stepped away smoothly, severing his friend’s embrace without letting him feel the distaste behind the move. “If being dull is the opposite of this…frenzy, I assure you, I prefer it.”
A disconcerted expression seeped into Aidan’s eyes, replacing the teasing. After six years of business partnership, the man had no idea what Shaheen appreciated. Probably because he kept Aidan, like everyone else, at arm’s length. But Aidan had set this up with the best of intentions. And though those usually led to hell, it wasn’t fair to show him how wasted his efforts truly were.
He gathered the remnants of his decorum. “But it’s not every day I say goodbye to my freedom. So the…fanfare is…” he paused before he forced himself to add “…welcome.”
Aidan’s face cleared, and his words came out in the rush of the eager to please. “It’s not like you’ll really lose your freedom. I hear these royal arranged marriages are the epitome of…flexibility.” Aidan added that last word with a huge wink and slap on the back.