Chapter 184

• Arni was a man who prided himself on his self-control. It was that control that ensured he would never repeat his father’s folly in allowing his desire for an unworthy and avaricious woman to rule and humiliate him. Arni could give in to his physical desires, but he must always be the one in control, not the other way around.No woman had ever been allowed to intrude into his thoughts when he did not want her to, and yet now here he was, wasting his valuable mental energy thinking about a woman he despised. The mere fact that she was there in his thoughts, occupying space that rightly belonged to far more important matters, angered him far more than the unsatisfied ache of the desire she had left him with.
• Why was he bothering to think about her? She’d probably thought she was being extremely clever, that by offering and then withdrawing she would get far more from him than if she had simply gone to bed with him there and then, but Arni did not allow anyone to manipulate him to their own advantage—especially not the kind of woman who tried to play games with him. He had desired her, she had recognized that fact and responded to it, and then she tried to make capital out of it. So far as he was concerned, that meant "game over."
• Arni wasn’t the kind of man who let his physical desires rule him, and it wasn’t as though he wasn’t used to women coming on to him. Coming on to him, yes. But then walking away from him after that?He wasn’t used to that, was he? It stung his pride—all the more so because of the type of woman she so obviously was. She was a fool if she thought he had been taken in by her puerile attempt to make him want her more by pretending that she didn’t want him. And she was a fool because she had already previously admitted to him that she did want him. But she had still walked away from him. That knowledge rubbed against his pride as painfully as the sand of the nearby desert could rub against unprotected flesh.