The Royal Collection. Rebecca Winters

didn’t get crazy over anything.

      Except Tarek. She had already admitted that everything about him was different. That he was reaching places she’d thought unreachable. There was no point playing as if she was confused now.

      They completed the elevator ride in silence, and Olivia wondered what had happened to all of her social graces. She’d had them at one point, she was certain. In another life she had been a queen, confident both in her position, and in how to deal with her marriage.

       Because you wanted nothing from it. But you need to matter to him. And you want to understand him.

      She blew out a harsh breath, singularly frustrated with herself. She didn’t want deep personal insight. Not now, possibly not ever. But then, reflecting on the past wasn’t really very helpful, either. Particularly, because when she thought of the past, she felt as though she was pondering a different woman. She barely recognized that woman. In many ways, she barely recognized the woman she’d been when she’d walked into the throne room to tell Tarek she thought they should marry.

      Because her reasons had been different then. They had had nothing to do with Tarek and everything to do with herself. With her desperation to find a place in life. To keep herself surrounded by enough things, enough people to feel as if she wasn’t alone. To cover up the yawning pit of need that was in the center of her chest.

      Suddenly, Tarek mattered. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about not being alone. Though she was tired of that, too. Because she realized that she’d been alone for a very long time. Even when surrounded by people. Even when sleeping next to the first man she had married.

      She watched her current husband, the only one who mattered, walk out of the elevator and up to the only door in the narrow hallway. He used the key card in the lock, the light turning green instantly.

      “You know how to use one of those?”

      He raised a brow. “It’s fairly self-explanatory.”

      “Well, I’m having a hard time figuring out what is self-explanatory for you and what isn’t. The female body, obviously, was fairly self-explanatory. Female feelings, on the other hand...”

      He held up the key card, the strip facing her. “I dare say this is a much more simple device than your inner workings. Also, if I could swipe this across your forehead and gain access to your secrets, I would.”

      “Are you saying women are complicated?”

      “I am simply saying I do wonder sometimes if life is better lived alone. And if sex is perhaps not worth the trouble it causes.”

      “One time and you’re an expert in the consequences of sex?”

      “I am living them,” he said, his tone telegraphing his foul mood. Well, she was just as foul. Fouler even.

      “If it was just sex it wouldn’t be a problem.”

      “Is it not just sex?”

      She shook her head. “No. Don’t you know that?”

      “How would I know? I don’t know what only sex is supposed to feel like.” He pushed the door open and revealed an opulent suite, beautifully appointed.

      It was indeed the epitome of modern luxury. But as she had spent most of her life steeped in modern luxury, there was a limit to how impressed she could be. Particularly when she had other matters on her mind.

      “Are you supposed to feel as though your internal organs were ripped out through your chest and displayed for all the world? Are you supposed to feel like you can’t breathe whenever you remember what it was to be skin to skin with another person? Are you supposed to ache down to your very bones? If so, then I suppose I have an all right understanding of what it means to engage in sex.”

      “No,” she said, her chest so tight she could barely breathe. “Just sex makes you feel good. I don’t even know what this is.”

      “You will see that I am delighted to be unique to you, my queen.” He sounded nothing close to delighted at all.

      “Oh, you could never be anything but, my sheikh,” she said, taking a step closer to him. “I have never experienced anything remotely similar to you.”

      “For a start,” he said, his tone brittle, “I do not know how to smile.”

      She took another step toward him. “Not well.”

      He gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and held her fast, dipping his head suddenly and kissing her, hard, deep. The kiss bruised, wounded. And she didn’t mind. Because it reflected what was going on inside her. And then, just as abruptly as he descended, he pulled away. “I need a shower,” he said, turning and walking from the room.

      He left her standing there, feeling dizzy. Angry. What was happening to her? Why was this man...this...virgin...causing her so much trouble? She had been married to a man whose skills as a lover were world renowned. Why was she so much more affected, why was she destroyed, wrecked, by a man who had never even kissed a woman before her? Her heart twisted tight. That was why. That was why she was so affected. She was unique to him. She made him feel. She reached him.

      Had she ever been special to anyone else in her entire life? Had she ever been special to her parents? Had she ever been special to her husband?

      Had she ever been special to herself? Or had she simply been so afraid she’d set about to make herself whatever she needed to be in order to keep from feeling lonely? Keep from feeling exposed? Had she ever mattered enough to her own self to demand a thing?

      Not beyond that one failure.

      Because in that moment, when she’d shouted her parents down for missing the party she’d thrown for herself, she had to face the fear that she wasn’t worthy of all she craved.

      Face it. Live it. Accept it.

      But it didn’t stop her from needing. And she’d been so sure that her neediness was wrong, shameful, because no one would ever want to meet it.

      But now she was tired of it. So tired of feeling as if she was living behind a wall, with the walls of everyone around her standing between both of them. She was tired. Tired and alone, and she hated it. She wanted to be touched. She wanted to touch someone in return. She didn’t want nice; she didn’t want pleasant. She wanted real.

      She stripped her jacket off, letting it fall to the floor, followed by her gold top, and her pants. As she made her way into the bathroom she rid herself of her undergarments, opened the door, stopping when she saw the broad expanse of Tarek’s naked back. He was standing beneath the hot spray, water droplets rolling down his skin.

      And she was transfixed. Not just by the beautiful musculature she saw there, not just by his bronzed skin and the perfection of his butt.

      It was the scars.

      She had examined the front of him, his chest, his abs. Had touched him there. But she realized now she had never really looked at his back. He had been whipped. More than that, tortured. And it was written across that beautiful flesh, as bold as any pen stroke.

      Olivia had never hated before. She did right now. Right now, she hated the man who would have been her brother-in-law. Hated him with a scorching fire that would never be satisfied.

      He had done this. She knew he had.

      She would kill him herself were he not already dead, and not lose any sleep over it.

      She said nothing, approaching the shower and opening the solid glass door, stepping inside behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his scarred body. “I’m sorry.”

      She didn’t know if she was apologizing for the words they had exchanged outside or for the atrocities he had endured. Possibly both. Possibly for everything, even things she didn’t know about yet. Things she hadn’t done yet.

      He was unique, this man. So special. And