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What kind of game was he playing?

Her cell phone rang. She stared at it numbly before she realized it was the special tone she’d assigned to Adham.

She pounced on it, sending it flying off her nightstand.

By the time she answered, she was panting. Air crammed in her lungs when his dark voice poured into her ear.

“Sabah’al khair, ya galbi.”

Just hearing him say good morning in his mother tongue would have been enough. Hearing him say anything. But when he called her his heart, in that intimate, possessive way…

Before she could cry out her confusion, he went on, “I hope you’ve had some…rest.”

The way he paused before he said rest. He thought she was so distraught, she couldn’t rest even when she managed to fall asleep?

No. There was satisfaction, not concern, in his voice. As if he liked the reason she needed rest. Anyone hearing him would assume he’d been that reason, after he’d tested her stamina in an exhausting session of passion and possession.

More confused than ever, she breathed, “I slept. Sort of. I—I missed you.”

“And I more than missed you, ya kanzi. But I have to be here the whole day. I have back-to-back practice sessions. If you’re up to it, Jameel will drive you over. You can watch me practice, or you can mingle with the ladies. You don’t have to stay long.”

“I want to watch you. I’ll stay as long as you do, and go home with you.”

“Then—come.”

The way he said that—her nipples stung, her core clenched.

And suddenly, she was angry. Enraged.

She felt like a mouse after a capricious feline had taken turns licking and petting it, then knocking it around. She felt battered and desperate.

And she’d had enough.

“On second thought, I won’t.”

There was a prolonged silence on his end after her sudden change of tone. She could feel tension mushrooming through the ether, sending its electrifying tentacles into her body.

But when he spoke again, his voice betrayed no surprise or irritation. “I thought so, ya ameerati.” His voice dipped into its darkest reaches, like it had only once before when he’d been driving inside her, scalding her with growls of praise and pleasure. “Do get all the rest you can. You’ll need it.”

Then he ended the call.

She felt she’d explode with frustration. She quaked with the force of it, with the urge to storm to the farm, grab and shake him, scream at him, demanding an explanation for his tormenting behavior.

Then the seizure passed. The calm of resolution slowly descended.

She’d take his advice. She’d get all the rest she could. She was going to need it. For the showdown she’d have with him.

She’d have this out with him, even if it was the last straw that would break their marriage. Their non-marriage.

Anything was better than this limbo.

She didn’t rest.

Adham must have known she wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

Not that he cared. He’d come home very late and disappeared somewhere. As usual.

At eight in the morning, she’d been sitting in the grand foyer for two hours, waiting for him to make an appearance. She would intercept him before he pulled another disappearing act.

Then she heard his steps. Her heart clanged in her chest as he approached. Then its beats scattered as they receded. He’d made a detour, entered his study.

She rose on quivering legs. Her breath jammed in her chest as she approached it. She felt as if she was nearing a landmine.

She grilled herself over her stupidity and weakness.

Just get it over with. Once and for all.

She ground her teeth as she turned the handle. Then with one last bolstering gulp of oxygen, she walked in.

She knew he felt her come in, but he didn’t raise his eyes from the dossier he had open before him on his hand-carved, polished mahogany desk.

Well, she was damned if she’d let him ignore her again and continue playing this sadistic game with her.

This ended now.

“Adham.”

It took him several nerve-fraying seconds to raise his eyes at her curtness, his face a study in blankness.

There he was again. The remote stranger he reverted to when they were alone. She suddenly realized they had only been alone