Page 9 of Twins to Tame Him

Laila stared, stunned. For just a second, she wondered if he was manipulating her by giving her that. But he wasn’t. Whatever his reasons, even with the past tangled in knots between them, he was willing to believe her reasons for showing up today and spilling a life-changing secret. It was more than she’d hoped for. “Thank you for that.”

“Now, you have to see that I do not go around offering to marry women who hide big, life-changing things from me.”

His words made perfect common sense, but Laila was afraid to go with her gut feeling, even when it made her feel good. Especially then. And something about Sebastian had always found a weakness in her.

“Tell me what would sweeten the deal,” he added, leaving no doubt in her mind that he’d do anything to ensure Nikos and Zayn’s future was tied to his.

“Nothing you offer could make me interested. I don’t believe in love and marriage and...‘all those relationship traps’ for me,” she said, using his own words.

“We’re at an impasse, then,” he said with a shrug, olive skin gleaming across taut shoulders, inviting her fingers for a touch. “The boys won’t leave my side in the foreseeable future. And knowing the part you play in their lives, I’m loath to separate you from them, even for an afternoon.”

If he’d said that in a threatening way, Laila would have sprouted thorns. But all she heard was his sense of loss at not knowing about them, his need to make it right. Was that the thing that drew her to him even now when she didn’t truly know what kind of a man he was? Because she had seen that keen loss and that sense of purpose in another man’s eyes?

“Baba...my father...” She cleared her throat. “He was a man who loved deep and true. I’m...sorry for depriving you of the boys until now. I only did what I thought was right for them.”

His gray gaze held hers, a flash of emotions passing through, far too fast for her to catch any. For a second, Laila had the sense of standing at the edge of a cliff, looking into an abyss that promised untold delights if only you jumped. She wanted to run away with her sense of self intact just as much as she wanted to take a leaping dive.

Then his gaze flattened, leaving behind a touch of warmth. “You loved your father very much.”

She nodded, feeling the loss deeply, even after all these years. “I did. Really, I’ve been fortunate...” She swallowed the sentimental words.

Even with all of Baba’s love and care, she’d missed her mother. She’d desperately wanted to be part of her colorful life, wanted to drink in her exuberant personality, wanted to travel with her to all those fancy places that Nadia constantly teased her about. But that wouldn’t be her sons’ fate. “If you promise that Nikos and Zayn will have that... That’s more than enough.”

Sebastian’s hand came up to tuck a curl behind her ear and every inch of Laila’s body wanted to bow into the touch.

She shivered and swallowed, wondering how she was supposed to resist a man who could set her alight with one innocent touch, who was everything she shouldn’t want and couldn’t have. It was the same fight she had fought that night and lost.

The more time she’d spent with him, the more she’d realized there was more to Sebastian Skalas than the charming playboy or the ruthless predator of innocent men. So much so that she’d done the unthinkable and followed him to his bedroom and lost herself with him in a way she’d never done with a man, or even wanted to.

Now, again, he proved he was so much more even without answering her burning question. Even with the thorny knot of lies and half-truths between them, Laila felt that connection flare to life with one single touch, felt the need to give herself over into his hands. But there was so much more at stake between them now, more than just each other.

The worst part was that he was dangling himself in front of her, just within reach—a delicious, decadent prize, in some tragic parody of her deepest wish.

“Stay a few months here at the villa,” he finally said. “Take as much time as you need to revive your career. Then you’ll see that marrying me is giving the boys the best chance to thrive, with their parents together under one roof.”

The need to ask his expectations if they married, to demand he promise her fidelity and more...hovered on her lips. Was it even possible after everything they had done to each other? Even now, he refused to tell her why he had targeted Guido in such a ruthless way. Even if he promised her the world and she accepted it, he’d soon tire of her. And she’d rather not face that inevitability.

“I agree, to stay here for a few months,” Laila said, cautiously.

He leaned closer, temptation incarnate.

Laila dug her teeth into her lower lip to catch any wayward question and his gray eyes danced with a wicked light as if he knew how tempted she was.

“I hoped to provide some more data for your reassurances. But let’s do this instead. How about I grant you three wishes, Laila?”

“Like my very own genie?” she said, unable to contain her excitement. She’d grown up living on those stories, hearing them in Baba’s voice, always fervently wishing for the same one thing. “Except you’re far too stud-like for any genie I ever imagined.”

He laughed. It was a real laugh with deep grooves on the sides of his mouth and it tugged at her heart and somewhere else. “Yes, like that. Please feel free to rub me any which way you want. Though I will grant you three wishes without that, too.”

She flushed and he grinned, the rogue. “You’re a billionaire. A world-renowned artist, even if the entire world doesn’t know it. You could probably charm the panties off a woman by smiling at her. Whatever I ask for, you can grant it to me easily.”

“But there’s the catch, Dr. Jaafri. I’m giving you a chance to up the stakes. You get to decide what you will ask me. But if I do grant you something...that truly makes you happy, that should count as a point in my favor, ne?”

“You can’t...cheat your way through this, if that’s what you’re planning,” she said, getting into the spirit of the challenge. It was a ridiculous bet, they both knew that. And yet, the spirit of playfulness beneath it had her arrested.

“I’m not the one who began our relationship on that note.”

Laila sighed, knowing she deserved that. “So if you grant me three wishes that I truly want, I have to marry you,” she said, laughing at the absurdity of the challenge. “If somehow you fail to grant me these three wishes, then you will agree to do this my way?”

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