Page 15 of The Sheikh’s Christmas Present

This was such a bad idea.

Jarik already looked right at home as he stripped off his shirt. She took one look at the sinewy muscles of his back and immediately whirled around. “Dinner,” she blurted out. They needed to eat, right? Dinner. In a public place.

“Is that your way of telling me that you’re hungry?” he asked in an amused voice.

Maria cleared her throat. “Well, it’s not like we have a lot of things to do. Dinner would be good.”

“I can think of a few things that we can do.” His dark voice wrapped around her and made her shiver. “You can turn around now.”

Slowly turning her head, she couldn’t decide if she was relieved or disappointed that he’d changed his shirt so quickly. “I don’t suppose you have some ideas of where we could eat? We could probably ask the concierge, but I don’t think I have the type of clothes that would be required for the restaurants they’d recommend. Not that I’d want to eat somewhere fancy anyway.” She grimaced at the thought.

He raised an eyebrow, and she flushed. Cocking his jaw, he studied her. “I can’t decide whether I want to ask about your distaste for the rich.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’d really like to know, but I feel like you don’t have very pleasant things to say.”

Shrugging, she trailed her hands on the smooth red couch. “I just don’t like how rich people throw money around. I think it leads to a careless attitude. You assume that it doesn’t matter if you screw something up because you can fix it just by throwing money at the problem. It’s not that easy for most people, you know. I work with refugees—people who had to leave everything behind, who are struggling to scrape by on next to nothing. When I look at how hard they have to fight to survive, the amount of money you waste on pointless extravagances rubs me the wrong way. Money doesn’t matter toyoubecause you’ve never had to be without it. Life doesn’t work that way for everyone else—not that I imagine you spend much time thinking about other people or what they have to deal with.”

Jarik narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “I’ll have you know that my country can boast a less than one percent homeless population rate, and we’re working on eradicating even that. We have universal healthcare and if anyone is hungry, there are always options for food and assistance. I head a foundation that sends fifty impoverished students to college a year free of charge.”

Maria stiffened and turned her head. “And yet you throw two-hundred-thousand dollars at a stranger for a plane ride.”

“While yes, I did offer money for a ride, if you recall, I specifically offered to give you that money as a donation—and you added the stipulation of helping to offload the crates. Neither of which is throwing money around,” Jarik said softly. “And since you have no idea where I’m going, or why I’m going there, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your judgmental opinions to yourself.”

His words hit her hard, and she winced. He was right. “Jarik,” she said softly. “I don’t really know…”

“Save it,” he said gruffly. “I know plenty of rich bastards who are just as careless as you think. I happen not to be one of them and neither is any member of my family.”

He stared at her while she fidgeted. She knew that she owed him an apology, but she couldn’t get the words out. Instead, she gave him something even more. “I…I’ve had some bad experiences with people trying to buy me off. The first time it happened, I was just a kid. My mother wasn’t exactly faithful. She did her best to keep it from my father, but I walked in on her one day. I was young enough to be horrified and old enough to know exactly what was going on. He tried to pay me to keep quiet.” She paused, chewing her bottom lip. “The man opened his wallet and pulled out five one-hundred-dollar bills and suggested I go buy something pretty. My mother didn’t try to stop him, even if she wouldn’t look at me.”

“What did you do?”

Rubbing her eyes, she squared her shoulders before looking at him, “I dropped the money on the floor and walked out.”

“That’s only one person,” Jarik said softly. “You shouldn’t base everyone on the actions of one person.”

“He was thefirstperson. I deal with rich people all the time, and a lot of the time, it seems like they’re all the same. I’ve actually turned down donations because the donors put conditions on who could receive the gifts or what types of toys we could buy. I won’t do that to children. Especially refugees. They don’t deserve that type of treatment. I’d rather not take the money.” Maria’s voice had dropped to a whisper, and he stepped closer to her.

“Maybe you could give me a chance to prove that I’m not like them?” He reached up and softly tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

More than anything, she wanted to touch him. Instead, she took a step back. She may not know Jarik enough to judge him, but she could judge her reaction to him, and it spelled danger. The faster she could quit being in intimate situations with him, the better.

“Dinner,” she blurted out again. “We were talking about dinner.”

A slow smile passed over his face. “You really are hungry, huh? Let’s order room service.”

“Room service?” That sounded like a very bad idea. “Or we could go out. Some place public. Crowded. Maybe a dive bar with greasy food and awful lighting.”

“That sounds terrible. Why would we want to go there?”

Because it would be unromantic and borderline gross. That seemed safe. That was also something that she couldn’t really explain. “Um…because I have a craving?”

“We’re going to have room service,” he said firmly. “Take a look at the menu and let me know what you want. I’m sure you’ll find something to crave that’s far better than cheap, greasy food.”

Maria felt her cheeks heat when he smiled smugly at her. It was almost as if he knew that what she craved was right there in the room.

It was going to be a very long night.

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