The Life She Left Behind by Maisey Yates Page B

stretching in front of her. But she’d told Taj the truth. She’d traded all that for self-respect. For a chance to control her own life and find out what she could be other than a pawn.
    A hard knock vibrated the door behind her and she turned sharply, her hand over her mouth. He’d followed her. She shouldn’t be surprised.
    The worst thing was, she wanted to open the door. Her hand was already on the knob. Just like three years ago, what she truly wanted, was to be with him.
    But then, she hadn’t wanted marriage without love. And Taj hadn’t loved her. He’d wanted to acquire her, along with a significant merger with her father’s oil company.
    Of course, she hadn’t known that. She’d thought the young, Arabic leader had been smitten with her. That he’d looked at her and seen something special. That he’d been as crazy about her as she’d been about him. She’d been so young then. So naive. Love had seemed an easy, wondrous find. It had seemed the be-all and end-all.
    She’d learned since that that wasn’t true.
    If love was so powerful, so important, then the moment her love for Taj had died, all of her thoughts of him would have dissolved and blown away like desert sand. They hadn’t. He still plagued her sleep. He was still the man her body desired.
    The absence of love hadn’t changed that. It was a sobering realization, just how much Taj still mattered. How much power he still possessed. That he could make her run. She gritted her teeth. No. She didn’t run. At least, she wouldn’t run now. Wouldn’t give him that satisfaction, that level of importance.
    She took a breath and her hand turned the door handle before she’d fully processed the action, and she found herself staring into Taj’s obsidian eyes.
    â€œDon’t run from me again,” he bit out.
    â€œAgain? Don’t flatter yourself. I was never running from you. I was running to independence. I’m not a frightened child. I don’t run from things.” She crossed her arms beneath her chest.
    â€œLiar. In the hall just now, you were very much running from me. From the attraction that still exists between us.”
    â€œAttraction? Have you been drinking tonight?”
    â€œI don’t drink. You know that. And yes, attraction. It has always been there, or have you forgotten the night we spent in your father’s barn?”
    â€œYou make it sound like we…” His gaze dropped to her lips. “We kissed. That’s all.” And they’d cuddled up together, looking at the night sky through a hole in the roof, her hand on his chest, her mouth spilling out all of her stupid dreams for the future. Dreams she’d believed he’d shared in. But while she’d been counting stars, he’d been counting money. The money he would make when he married her.
    â€œThere are simple kisses, Angelina, and then there are the kinds of kisses we shared that night. And they are not the same thing.”
    No, they weren’t. But the only reason they’d been different was because she’d been barely twenty and had fancied herself in love. They’d felt new and precious, and more exciting than anything else ever had.
    â€œWe just kissed, Taj.”
    â€œAnd if we kissed again? You think you would feel…?”
    â€œNothing,” she whispered. “I would feel nothing.”
    He leaned in and her breath caught. She didn’t back away from him. She couldn’t. “Is that so? You have not thought of me since you left? Not once?”
    Always. “No.”
    â€œYou lie again,” he said, his voice rough, his eyes glittering in challenge.
    If he was trying to intimidate her, it wouldn’t work. Her eyes were open now, to the world, to the people around her. People she’d thought loved her.
    She was not a child anymore. And she would not act like one. Wouldn’t allow him to walk into her