Unexpectedly Expecting the Sheik's Baby - Elizabeth Lennox Page 0,58

desperate now. Besides, the way things were going, she would be in his bed in no time flat. Just like the last time.

Stepping back, she was relieved when he allowed her some space. “I can’t do this, Nasir! I can’t have sex with you again and then deal with the guilt and the humiliation once you decide you’re finished with me. Besides, you hurt me when you left me. I felt…something for you. Something that I didn’t want to feel but…that just makes this so much harder.” She saw the fury in his eyes and shook her head. “I can’t! That’s not who I am, how I’m made.”

The decision to tell him about the baby was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment. This was survival. “Please, don’t touch me.” She took a deep breath and stepped further back. “I understand that you play by different rules Nasir, but please understand what I’m used to. My parents were married for thirty years. I’m an only child and, in my world, people stay together. They support each other. They are there for each other no matter what. What we shared…it meant something to me. Our time together was special.”

“We can be together, Cassy. Just say the word and I’ll make it happen.”

She shook her head, not wanting a short-term affair. Not with her emotions involved. “That’s not good enough for me.” She took a deep breath. “I can’t do that. Not to myself.” She bowed her head again. “This is going to give you more information than I want you to know, but I was devastated when you weren’t with me that last morning. I was humiliated and hurt. I felt like a prostitute that you’d hired for those few days.” She lifted her hand to stop his argument. “You even paid for my time through my firm. If that’s not prostitution, then I don’t know what is,” she told him. Staring into his eyes now, Cassy didn’t even try to hide her tears. “You paid for services rendered.”

“That’s not the way it was! I paid for your hourly rate so that your firm wouldn’t ask any questions about our time together.”

She smiled slightly, accepting that, in his world, that was okay. “That’s probably just the way you do business.”

“Exactly,” he said with a dismissive shrug.

She smiled slightly, and bowed her head. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“Do business that way.”

He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Cassy, I’m not sure what you want from me! I know what I want from you, but you keep pulling away from me and I’m confused. I need clarity.”

His words startled her and she blinked up at him. “What do you mean?”

He threw up his hands in exasperation. “I want you in my life, Cassandra!”

As she watched him, she realized that he was being completely honest with her. “This is how you conduct all of your affairs with women?”

His hands fisted on his hips as he glared down at her. “No! What we have together is different.”

She stepped forward almost against her will. “Nasir, I don’t understand what you’re asking of me here. You want an affair, but you don’t want an affair. You want me to spell things out for you but, I’m just…I don’t understand.”

He sighed. “I want all of you, Cassandra. No holding back.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Nasir, I can’t do that. Can we just…talk about this?”

“We have been talking.” His hands moved back to her waist and she didn’t stop him this time. “I talked to you more than I have ever talked to a woman.”

She couldn’t stop the amusement when he shook his head. It was almost as if he couldn’t believe he’d had conversations with her. “And was it horrible?”

He thought about that question for a moment, then looked startled as he said, “No. I enjoyed our conversations.”

Her smile brightened. “And normal people say goodbye when emergencies happen, so the other party’s feelings aren’t hurt.”

His hand lifted, his palm cupping her jaw. “I hurt your feelings,” he whispered.

She didn’t have to confirm that statement. He could see it in her eyes and it explained why she’d been so angry with him. “I’m sorry. That was not my intention. I didn’t know that you would react that way.”

Her anger melted away with his words. “I didn’t understand why you’d left.”

He pulled her closer, pressing his lips to her forehead gently. It wasn’t a sexual kiss, but comforting. “I should have known that you were different, that