Innocent in the Desert: The Sheikh's Impatient Virgin / The Sheikh's Convenient Virgin / The Desert Lord's Bride. Trish Morey

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СКАЧАТЬ her spine as her eyes flickered across the headline. Two phrases leapt out at her: Virgin Princess and Night of Passion.

      She closed her eyes and thought, Let me die.

      ‘Tomorrow’s tabloid—it gets better inside,’ he promised.

      ‘Tomorrow’s …?’ Hope flared—did that mean there was still time to kill the story?

      ‘Read it,’ he suggested, watching the emotions flicker across her face. ‘It will save explanations.’

      ‘I’ve seen enough. I already feel sick. They can’t write this sort of stuff, can they? Not once you tell them it’s all lies.’

      A spasm of irritation contorted his lean features as he leaned back in his seat. ‘The editor gave it to me as a courtesy, so he said, but it was clear he was hoping for a quote. Why would I give him one?’

      Eva pursed her lips and slung him a furious glare. ‘So you didn’t tell him it was all lies?’

      He expelled a sigh through clenched teeth, muttered something in his native tongue and bowed his head before retorting, ‘It is one version of the truth and, frankly, a lot more believable than yours.’

      Eva didn’t want to, but the lurid headline exerted a sick fascination and she found herself scanning it once more.

      It did not read better the second time around … ‘I feel sick.’

      ‘Feeling I can cope with. Do us both a favour, though, and control your gag reflex.’

      This heartless response drew a narrow-eyed glare from Eva. ‘How did they get this?’ she choked, shaking her head in utter mystification.

      ‘From your reaction I’m assuming I can discount the possibility you are the source.’

      Eva was not conscious she had raised her hand until he caught her wrist and leaned into her. The action was a signal for every nerve in her body to go haywire.

      ‘Bad idea.’ The unmistakable warning in his steely eyes belied the lightness in his tone.

      Eva twisted her wrist and to her intense relief his fingers unfolded and his hand fell. She sat there, rubbing her wrist. ‘You actually thought that I would …?’

      ‘It was a possibility, but your friend was always the obvious candidate.’

      ‘Luke!’ she exclaimed. ‘He would never betray …’

      ‘You would be surprised how often people will betray you when there is a cheque involved … and sometimes,’ he added, dragging his hair back from his broad brow with a hand, ‘it doesn’t even take a cheque.’ In his experience revenge for an imagined slight was often enough.

      Eva began to shake her head in instinctive rejection of the cynical interruption. Was he born this distrustful or had life made him this way?

      ‘Luke is the least avaricious person I know. He definitely wouldn’t …’ She stopped, recalling how he became very willing to confide his life history to total strangers after a beer or two.

      Reading the sudden flicker of doubt in her face, Karim shrugged. ‘Or maybe he would?’ he suggested.

      Eva lifted her eyes, her lips thinned in distaste as she glared at him. At that moment she would have given a lot to be able to wipe that smug look off his face.

      ‘It’s possible the information leaked through Luke,’ she conceded, able easily to imagine the scene. ‘But he didn’t do it deliberately and he definitely didn’t do it for money.’ She shook her head and added firmly, ‘He wouldn’t.’

      Karim, whose initial strong dislike of the blond man had not faded in the last few hours, observed with a sceptical sneer, ‘You have a lot of faith in your boyfriend.’

      It contrasted strongly with her determination to assign the worst possible motives to his own actions.

      ‘He is not my boyfriend,’ Eva said, even though she didn’t think her denial would have any more effect on his opinion now than it had on the previous occasion.

      ‘So you do not have an exclusive relationship, but you have been together for …?’

      ‘I’ve known Luke for some time and he’s not …’ She stopped and threw up her hands in frustration. ‘What is it—don’t you think a man and woman can be platonic friends?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Just because you look on women as sex objects …’ Eva gave a contemptuous sniff and promptly lost the thread of her argument as her glance drifted across the strong contours of his amazing face.

      ‘Friendship between …’ Her voice trailed away to nothing as she recognised the powerful sensuality carved into every perfect line, every plane and hollow of his face. Some women might not consider it a trial to have him consider them as sex objects … actually quite a lot of women.

      He shrugged. ‘I do not pretend to be a modern man.’

      Her laugh almost tipped over into hysterical, but it did help break the spell that had her in its grip.

      ‘You’re a throwback to the Dark Ages.’

      ‘And that is a bad thing? If you have any doubt turn to page eight. I believe the multiple-choice quiz there will tell you whether you are turned on by a sensitive contemporary man in touch with his female side or if you are one of that number who is drawn towards the masterful macho lover—in the “treat them mean keep them keen” vein.’

      ‘Very funny,’ she began, then stopped, adding in a hoarse horror-struck whisper, ‘Page eight … there’s more inside?’

      ‘Oh, yes, quite a lot more. I’m especially fond of the insightful little piece on page five….’

      Eva flicked through the pages and went paper-white. ‘This is not funny!’

      The anonymity that had allowed her to take up her old life had gone—the consequences would be a lot more serious now than bodyguards watching her flat.

      Karim’s mobile lips twisted into a grimace of angry distaste. ‘You think I enjoy having my personal life made gossip fodder?’

      Eva realised for the first time that the mocking repartee hid an underlying anger … More than anger, she corrected, studying his face. Karim was incandescent with rage.

      ‘This is your fault!’ she accused as panic clutched like an icy fist in her belly.

      ‘On what do you base that charge?’

      ‘I’m ordinary—people do not write about me in tabloids. Is this even genuine?’

      ‘Your lack of realism is beginning to irritate,’ he observed. ‘Your father was a prince, you are part of a powerful family, your actions have consequences and you did not spend the night with just anybody, you spent it with me.’

      ‘You have to do something to stop them printing it!’

      ‘There СКАЧАТЬ