Something twisted in Kasimir’s chest.
He suddenly wanted to tell her he was sorry. Sorry he’d brought her here. Sorry he’d dragged her into his plans for revenge. And sorry above all that when she discovered the blackmail against her sister, it would be a crime that even Josie’s heart would be unable to forgive. She would despise him—forever. And he was starting to realize hers was the one good opinion he’d regret.
But when he opened his mouth to say the words, they caught in his throat.
Clenching his jaw, he turned away, pointing at the wardrobe. “You have fresh clothes here.” He gestured towards the large four-poster bed, the sumptuous wall-to-wall Turkish carpets. “I will ask the women to bring you refreshment and a bath. When you are done, we will have dinner.” He gave her a smile. “A wedding feast of sorts.”
But she didn’t smile back. She didn’t seem interested, not even in the bath—a rare luxury in the desert. Sitting down heavily on the edge of the bed, she lifted her gaze numbly.
“I don’t want to stay here with you,” she whispered. She was so beautiful, he thought. His gaze traced from her full, generous mouth down the curve of her long, graceful neck. Like a swan. So unself-conscious, as if she had no idea about her beauty, about the way her pale skin gleamed like cream in the shadows of the tent, or the warmth and kindness that caused her to glow from within, as if there were a fire inside her.
And that fire could be so much more. Standing beside the bed, he felt how alone they were in his private tent. He could push her back against the soft mattress and see the light brown waves of her hair fall like a cascade against the pillows. He could touch her skin, stroke its luminescence with his fingertips and see if it was as soft as it looked.
He had to stop thinking about this. Now.
Kasimir turned away, stalking across the tent. He flung open the heavy canvas flap of the door, then stopped. Standing in the late-afternoon sun, he heard the sigh of the wind and the distant call of desert birds. Shoulders
tight, without turning around, he said in a low voice, “I never should have kissed you.”
He heard her give a little squeak. He slowly turned back to face her.
“I was wrong.” He took a deep breath. And then, looking into her shocked brown eyes, he spoke the words he hadn’t been able to say for ten years. “Josie,” he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
CHAPTER FIVE
AN HOUR LATER, Josie was in the tent, bathed, comfortable and wearing clean clothes. And more determined than ever to escape.
Okay, so her phone didn’t work and her impulsive escape attempt had been laughable. But she couldn’t stay here. Whatever Kasimir thought, she couldn’t just be patient. She had no intention of abandoning Bree for weeks in her ex-boyfriend’s clutches and trusting all would be well.
Why had Kasimir even insisted on keeping her here? There was no reason he couldn’t have her sign some kind of letter of intent or something, promising to give him the property. Something just didn’t add up. She felt as if she’d become almost as much a prisoner as Bree was. Two prisoners for two brothers, she thought grimly.
And yet…
Josie brushed her long brown hair until it tumbled softly over her shoulders. Somehow, he’d also made her feel free. As if she, of all people, could be daring enough to travel around the world, learn to drive on a Lamborghini and boldly catch a powerful man in a lie.
You are reckless, Josie. Powerful. Fearless.
Could he be right? Could that be the voice inside her, the one she’d ignored for so long, the one she’d been scared to hear?
Dropping the silver-edged brush, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Well, she was listening to it now. And that meant one thing: maybe she would have accepted being in a cage once…
But she’d be no man’s prisoner now.
Josie stood up in her pale linen trousers and a fine cotton shirt she’d found in the wardrobe, in her exact size. She’d just come back from the bathing tent, where she’d been delightfully submerged in hot water and rose petals. As she’d watched the Berber servants pour steaming water into the cast-iron bathtub, she’d felt as though she was in another century. In Africa. In Morocco.
“He’s called the Tsar of the Desert,” one of the women had whispered. “He came here with a broken heart.”
Another woman tossed rose petals into the fragrant water. “But the desert healed him.”
A broken heart? Kasimir? If she hadn’t already heard his story about his lost love, Josie would have found that hard to believe. With a shiver, she pictured him, all brooding lips and cold eyes… and hard, broad-shouldered, muscular body, towering over her. A man like that didn’t seem to have feelings. She would have assumed he didn’t have a heart to break.
But now she knew too much. An orphan who’d been stabbed in the back by his beloved older brother. A romantic who’d waited to lose his virginity, then fallen for his first woman, even planning to propose to her. If she’d known Kasimir when he was twenty-two…
Josie shivered. She would have fallen for him like a stone. A man with that kind of strength, loyalty, integrity and kindness was rare. Even she knew that.
She knew too much.
Now, as she left his tent, she looked out at the twilight. Stop having a crush on him, she ordered herself. She couldn’t let herself get swept up in tenderness for the young man he’d once been—or in desire for the hard-eyed man he’d become. She couldn’t get caught up in the romance of the desert, and start imagining herself some intrepid lady adventurer from a 1920s movie matinee. Kasimir was not some Rudolph Valentino-style sheikh waiting to ravish her, or love her.