12 Gifts for Christmas. Джулия Кеннер

words she dared not say. “But I still don’t see anything that I would classify as an emergency.”

      He moved into the room, and Lucy regretted suddenly that she was already standing with her back to the wall of windows. There was nowhere else to go. She swallowed and felt her pulse race, as if she were nothing more than prey. He stalked toward her, dangerous and male, and Lucy could do nothing but watch him and pretend she didn’t wish for all the things she could never have. That she knew she shouldn’t even want. Not with him.

      “That depends on your definition of an emergency,” she said, as he drew close and loomed over her, making heat bloom in her cheeks—and in other, secret places. “It is Christmas, after all. And your wife is leaving you. Some men might consider that an emergency.”

      “I don’t see a head wound,” he said, his voice that same sardonic lash, his eyes flicking over her, cold and cruel. “No trauma of any kind. You appear to be in perfect health, Lucy. As ever. And for this I raced home from Berlin.”

      For a moment she couldn’t speak. His fingers rose, almost brushing against the skin of her cheek, making her want to weep. It had been so long since he’d touched her. It had been so long. But she couldn’t let herself think about that. About the sweet madness of his kiss, his touch. Of the incandescent heights she had never dared dream of before this man had taken her there.

      He dropped his hand. She told herself he had no doubt meant to check for a fever.

      “I’m surprised you remembered this place at all,” she managed to say, calling on some deep well of determination and courage she hadn’t known she possessed. That he had forced her to find. “You haven’t been here in so long I had begun to think you’d forgotten about it entirely.”

      “I see your flair for the melodramatic is with you still,” he said evenly, his gaze hard on hers. “What do you really want, Lucy? What is the purpose of all this theater?”

      “I told you,” she snapped at him. “I’m leaving you, Rafi. And unlike you, I am not doing it the cowardly way—by inference. I’m not making sure to be ‘away on business’ for the better part of three months. I’m not going to make you sit and wonder what it means when I disappear, or take exactly one phone call from you and then be unavailable ever after. I’m saying it to your face. Right now.”

      His dark eyes moved over her, and his mouth twisted.

      “Did you just call me a coward, Lucy?” he asked, his voice deceptively light as his jaw knotted—warning signs she knew she should heed. “Did I hear that correctly? Shall I share with you my thoughts regarding pots versus kettles?”

      “I am your wife, Rafi,” she ventured. “And yet you haven’t set foot in this house in months. You refuse my calls. Your horrible aide speaks to me as if I’m part fractious child and part evil, scheming witch.”

      “Is this your rendition of the neglected, sorely abused wife?” Rafi interrupted coldly, his brows raised. “The performance needs work. And an audience unaware of the truth.”

      “I’m not like you!” Lucy cried, unable to control herself, to keep all of her misery at bay. Not when she could feel the heat of him—see the light at the back of those mysterious, impossible eyes. “I can’t pretend!”

      Rafi let out something resembling a laugh, hollow and frozen.

      “On the contrary,” he said, shaking his head slightly, his gaze trained on her face—making her feel so small, so alone. “All you do is pretend.”

      “I’m not the liar you’ve convinced yourself I am, Rafi!” she hissed at him. “I never have been!”

      He was too close, then. His eyes like fire, his mouth a grim, condemning line.

      “I know every lie you’ve ever told, Lucy,” he said. “And most of them to me. You should just count yourself lucky that I have a particular weakness for the lie of your body.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      “I DON’T care what lies you think I’ve told you,” Lucy said bravely.

      Rafi almost admired her. Almost.

      “And it doesn’t matter anyway,” she continued. “I’m still leaving you. I should have done it a long time ago.”

      She looked so small. So fragile. Her arms were crossed over her chest as if she were holding herself together by sheer force of will. Her coffee-colored eyes were huge and dark beneath her pale blond curls, giving her the look of an innocent. That was her deepest deception, the one that he had believed so fiercely no matter what those closest to him—including all of his staff and Safir—had told him when he’d first fallen under her spell. No matter what proof they’d claimed to have of her manipulative ways.

      Until that phone call three months ago when she had revealed the truth in that hollow, shameless way, and he had been more devastated than he could remember ever being before.

      Sometimes he thought he still was.

      Rafi stepped away from his wife before he did something he would regret. Like taste her again. Hadn’t that been what had caused all this trouble in the first place?

      He was a man who prided himself on his rigid code, his steely commitment to his duty. He lived for his name, his honor, his family and the responsibilities that were his by virtue of being the oldest male Qaderi of his generation. His cousin Adel might have been the current king’s chosen successor, but Rafi was charged with making sure the future king’s family maintained its wealth and power, the better to serve and support Adel when he ascended the throne. Rafi considered it an honor.

      More than that, he was a man hewn of the very mountains of Alakkul itself, like his ancestors before him. Many empires had tried—and failed—to take this little valley, to use it for their own ends. But Alakkulians did not bend. They did not break. Rafi felt the truth of that like the very blood that ran through his veins, marking him, defining him.

      And then one day he’d glanced up at a cocktail waitress in a club in Manchester, England, and lost his head. Lost himself. It was those damned eyes, soft and vulnerable, over a mouth that made him hard every time he looked at it. Even now.

      And what a pretty mess she’d made of him, hadn’t she?

      “I know it’s important to you to believe the worst of me,” she said, her voice clipped, color flooding her porcelain cheeks. “After all, how better to excuse your own appalling behavior?”

      “My behavior?” Temper pounded through him, threaded with that desire for her that never left him, no matter how much distance he put between them. He bit out a laugh. “I’m sure that in your mind, your deceit and betrayal is as nothing.” He held her gaze until her skin reddened. “Unfortunately for you, Lucy, I live in the real world.”

      He realized they were too close when his hands found their way to her upper arms, holding her there. He let go as if electrocuted. But he could not dismiss the beguiling satin feel of her skin as easily. He let his eyes travel over her.

      It took a moment, but the difference in her appearance filtered through. She looked … perfectly appropriate. Her messy curls were tamed into a chignon, which only drew his attention to her mouth. The dress itself was exquisite, tailored to showcase her femininity without broadcasting her sensuality.

      He felt a pang in the vicinity of his chest, but thrust it aside. She had been all bold colors, garish and exotic, when he’d brought her here. Hadn’t that been what had lured him in when he’d met her, in the midst of all that British rain? Her artless delight. Her simplicity.

      But, of course, that had all been a lie, too. Hadn’t it? He shouldn’t mourn its loss. He should be pleased that his uncultured wife had bettered herself in his absence and now more closely suited the image of what his wife should be. So why did he want to thrust his fingers into her hair and shake it from its bonds, see it wild and free?

      “Are