‘What I dislike, Mr Lazarov, is that you find it so easy to shove all my class into one pile, simply because we were born with money.’ She exhaled heavily. ‘In my opinion, that says far more about you than it does me.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes, it is. I may have been born into wealth, but that does not automatically take away the fact that I am human.’ She stood up, pacing to the stone ledge of the terrace before turning back to him. ‘You know nothing of my life—just as I know nothing of yours.’
Roman watched as she looked out at the distant black waves for a moment, with that same faraway look in her eyes that he had seen the night before. He almost felt guilty for goading her.
He cleared his throat loudly. ‘We are getting off-track here. This is about repairing your trust in Sheikh Khal.’ He sat a little straighter and laid one leg over his knee. ‘Not that it will pose much difficulty. Khal is a good man.’
‘I appreciate the vote of confidence,’ she said, her voice rasping slightly. ‘But I believe the point of this time away is for me to come to a decision alone.’
‘No one know
s him better than I do. Allow me to put your mind at ease.’
‘You are not my friend. And I would do well to remember that. I am taking advantage of some time to clear my head—nothing more. I won’t speak of this marriage business with you again.’
Roman raised a brow in question, getting to his feet and walking to stand beside her. ‘“Business...” An interesting word choice.’
She shrugged one slim shoulder, still looking away from him. ‘It’s the reality.’
‘It is a very complex arrangement, from what I know—it’s not just about you.’
* * *
It was as though he were reading straight from a script her father had written. The sudden reminder of her dilemma settled painfully like a dead weight in between Olivia’s shoulders. She was so tense she could scream. She had barely slept in the past twenty-four hours, and that coupled with being in this man’s presence made every nerve in her body feel completely on edge.
She felt her throat tighten. ‘I may be more sheltered than your average twenty-six-year-old woman, but I know what kind of situation I am in.’ She cleared her throat, steeling herself. She would not show weakness. ‘It’s never been about me—that’s the point.’
‘Are you telling me you feel you truly have no choice in the matter?’ he asked, a sudden seriousness entering his eyes. ‘Because a woman being forced into marriage is something I know Khal would never condone. Nor would I.’
Olivia looked up, taking in his broad stance and the furrow between his brows. Logically, she knew that his concern was for his friend, and not for the inconvenient charge he had been landed with. But for a moment she imagined what it might be like to have that kind of protectiveness completely to herself. She imagined that when a man like Roman cared for a woman he would do it fiercely—no prisoners taken. It seemed that he brought intensity into all aspects of his life.
She shook off the fanciful thoughts, suddenly hyper aware of his broad presence looming mere feet away from her. The warm headiness of his cologne teased her nostrils on the night air. His was the kind of scent that made a girl want to stand closer, to breathe it in. It was dangerous, that smell. It made her want to do dangerous things.
‘Your silence doesn’t exactly give me any insight.’ He leaned back on the stone ledge so that he faced her, his grey eyes strangely dark and unreadable in the warm light of the outdoor lamps.
Olivia sighed, shrugging one shoulder with practised indifference. How could she tell him that the only alternative she had to this marriage was to walk away and lose everything she had grown up to value?
‘I am not going to be handcuffed and frogmarched up the aisle, if that’s what you mean.’
He raised a brow. ‘But there would be consequences if you refused?’
She nodded once, unable to stand still in the face of his intense gaze and unwilling to discuss those consequences with a man who’d made it clear he was firmly on the opposite side. She might have escaped her father’s imperious presence, but it seemed she had simply swapped one judgemental know-it-all male for another.
She suddenly felt more alone than ever. Her restless feet took her to the end of the terrace, where the stone tiles gave way to soft, spongy grass.
‘I can’t remember the last time I walked barefoot in the grass,’ she said, more to herself than him, and she took a few tentative steps and sighed with appreciation.
One look back showed her that he was still watching her with that same unreadable expression. It was as though he were trying to categorise her, to pin down exactly what he needed to do to fix the very problem of her.
He had said the Sheikh trusted him to problem-solve. That was all she was to him—a problem. It seemed that was all she was to everyone these days, unless she shut her mouth and did what she was told.
‘Olivia, come back from there.’ Roman’s voice boomed from behind her. ‘This time of night it’s—’
‘You know, I think I can make that decision for myself,’ she said, cutting him off mid-speech. It was rude, but she was too irritated to care. ‘If I want to walk in the grass, I will. I don’t need someone to manage every second of my day.’
She took a few more steps across the grass, putting some space between herself and the surprised, strangely amused smirk that had suddenly spread across his face.