The Ice Maiden's Sheikh Read Online Free Page B

him?”
    Her eyes popped with reaction to the arrogance; her mouth opened.
    â€œAnd how exactly does a man go about it?”
    At the look in his eyes now she gasped as if she’d been punched in the stomach.
    â€œWho is your fiancé, that you do not understand a man’s power over a woman?” asked the Cup Companion.

Four
    J alia sat up with a jerk. A chasm seemed to be opening up before her, and without having any idea what it represented, she knew it was dangerous.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” she said mockingly.
    The car stopped at a traffic light on the outskirts of Medinat al Bostan. Below them, in the magnificent tapestry that was the city, sunlight gleamed from the golden dome and minarets of the great Shah Jawad mosque and glittered on the sea. It was a heart-stopping sight, she couldn’t deny that. Talk about your dreaming spires!
    Latif turned and gazed at her for an unnerving few seconds.
    â€œYou know what I am talking about,” he accused through his teeth.
    She didn’t, if he meant from personal experience. No man had ever reduced her to adoration on sheer sexual expertise alone, and what he said was just so much masculine arrogance!
    â€œSo sex is a crucible in which to melt your wife’s independence?”
    â€œHer independence? No. Her dissatisfaction.”
    â€œAnd how many wives are you keeping happy?” she asked sweetly.
    â€œYou know that I am not married.”
    â€œBut when you are, your wife will love you? Oooh, I almost envy her!” she twittered, while a kind of nervous fear zinged up and down her back and she knew that the last woman in the world she’d envy would be Latif Abd al Razzaq’s wife. “I don’t think!”
    His eyes burned her.
    â€œSo what is the secret of eternal wedded bliss?” Jalia pressed, against the small, wise voice that was advising her to back off.
    His jaw tightened at her tone, and he turned with such a look she suddenly found herself breathing through her mouth.
    â€œDo you wish me to show you such secrets in the open road?” he asked, and she was half convinced that if she said yes he would stop the car where it was and reach for her….
    â€œNot me!” she denied hastily, and a smile, or some other emotion, twisted the corner of his mouth. “But if you look around—well, it can’t be well-known, or there’d be more happy marriages, wouldn’t there? I can’t help feeling you could make your fortune marketing this secret.”
    She was getting under his skin, she could see that, and she pressed her lips together to keep from grinning her triumph at him.
    He looked at her again, a narrow, dangerous look, and Jalia’s eyes seemed to stretch as she watched him. “In the West, perhaps. But I think even a How To book would not help your fiancé.”
    â€œI—what—?” Jalia babbled furiously.
    Latif moved his hand from the wheel to where her hand lay on the armrest between them, and with one long, square forefinger fiercely stroked the three opals of her ring.
    Jalia snatched her hand away in violent overreaction.
    â€œDo you intend to marry this man?”
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    â€œI think you would be a fool.”
    The light changed and he let out the brake and turned his attention to the road. Fury swept over her like a wave. Though he spoke perfect truth, he could not know it. She laughed false, angry, deliberately mocking laughter.
    â€œHow kind of you to have my interests at heart! But you don’t know anything about Michael.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhat, exactly, do you profess to know? You’ve never even seen him!”
    â€œI have seen you.”
    â€œAnd you don’t know anything about me, either!”
    â€œAll I need to know for such a judgement.”
    â€œAnd what have you learned about me that allows you to prescribe for my future?” she couldn’t stop herself