Traded To The Sheikh. Emma Darcy

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СКАЧАТЬ at the elbows and briskly marched across quite an expanse of mown grass to a path which eventually led to a massive three-storey white building.

      At least it didn’t look like a prison, Emily thought, desperately trying to calm her wildly leaping apprehension. The many columned verandahs on each level, with their elaborate wrought-iron lace balustrades, gave the impression of British colonial architecture serving some important government purpose.

      Maybe a courthouse?

      But why on earth would Jacques do his drug-running right under the nose of legal officialdom?

      Could it be terribly corrupt officialdom?

      This thought frayed her strung-out nerves even further. She was a lone foreign woman, scantily dressed, and her only tool of protection was her passport which she no longer had in her possession. It took all her willpower not to give way to absolute panic when she was escorted up the steps to the front verandah and was faced with horribly intimidating entrance doors.

      These were about four metres high, ominously black, intricately carved around the edges, and featuring rows of big pointed brass studs. They were definitely the kind of doors that would deter anyone from gate-crashing a party. As they were slowly swung open Emily instinctively decided that a bowed head and downcast eyes might get her into less trouble in this place.

      The first sight she had of the huge foyer was of a gorgeous Tree of Life Persian rug dominating a dark wooden floor. As she was forced forward onto this carpet her side vision picked up the kind of splendid urns one might see in an art museum, which suggested this could be a safe environment.

      A burst of hope prodded her into lifting her gaze to check out where she was being taken. Her mind absolutely boggled at the scene rolling out in vivid Technicolor right in front of her. She was being led straight towards a huge central atrium, richly and exotically furnished in the style of a palatial reception area.

      A walkway to the rest of the rooms on the ground floor surrounded the two-steps-down sunken floor of this incredible area, which was also overlooked by the balconies which ran around the second and third floors. Above it was a domed roof and from the circumference of the dome hung fantastic chandeliers of multicoloured glass that cascaded down in wonderful shapes and sizes.

      As amazing as all this was, Emily’s gaze almost instantly zeroed in on the man who was certainly the focal centrepiece of this totally decadent and fabulous luxury. He rose with majestic dignity from a thronelike sofa which was upholstered in red and gold. His clothes—a long white undertunic and a sleeveless over-robe in royal purple edged in gold braid—seemed to embrace Arabian culture but he didn’t look like an Arab, more aristocratic Spanish. What wasn’t in any doubt was that Emily was faced with the most stunningly beautiful man she had ever seen in her life.

      Beautiful…

      Strange word to apply to a man yet handsome somehow wasn’t enough. The cast of his features was perfectly boned and balanced as though he was the creation of a mastor sculptor. A thick mane of straight black hair was swept back from his forehead, falling in shaggy layers to below his ears but not to shoulder-length. It was a bold and dramatic frame for a face that comprised brows which kicked up at a wicked angle, lending an emphatic effect to riveting dark eyes; a classically straight nose ending in a flare of nostrils that suggested a passionate temperament; a mouth whose upper lip was rather thin and sharply delineated while the lower lip was full and sensual.

      The man fascinated, mesmerised, and although she thought of him as beautiful, there was an innate arrogant maleness to him that kicked a stream of primal fear through her highly agitated bloodstream. He was fabulous but also very foreign, and he was unmistakably assessing her female assets as he strolled forward, apparently for a closer examination.

      Because he was at a lower floor level, Emily had the weird sense of catapulting back in time to the days when Zanzibar was the largest slave trading centre of the world, with herself being held captive on a platform for the buyers’ appraisal.

      He lifted a hand to seemingly flick a hair back from his forehead as he spoke in Arabic to one of the guards holding her. The scarf she’d tied around her head was suddenly snatched away, the rough movement dislodging the pins which had kept her hair in a twisted coil around her crown. The sheer weight of the untethered mass brought it tumbling down, spilling over her shoulders and down her back.

      ‘Hey!’ Emily cried in frightened protest, her imagination rioting towards being stripped of her bikini, as well. She was suddenly feeling extremely vulnerable, terrified of what his next command might be.

      A burst of fluent French came from the Spaniard/Arab. It was accompanied by a cynical flash of his eyes and finished with a sardonic curl of his mouth. While Emily had picked up a smattering of quite a few languages on her travels, she was not up to comprehending this rush of foreign words and she didn’t care for the expression that went with them, either.

      ‘Look, I’m not French. Okay?’ she pleaded. ‘Any chance you speak English?’

      ‘So—’ one black eyebrow lifted in sceptical challenge ‘—you are English?’

      ‘Well, no actually. I’m Australian. My name is Emily Ross.’ She nodded to the waterproof bag still being held by one of her guards. ‘My passport will prove…’

      ‘Nothing of pertinent interest, madamoiselle,’ he cut in drily.

      Emily took a deep breath, pulling her wits together enough to address the real situation here. ‘Then may I ask what is of pertinent interest to you, monsieur?’

      He made an oddly graceful gesture suggesting a rather careless bit of interest he was just as happy to dismiss. ‘Jacques Arnault gave a description of you which I find surprisingly accurate.’ He spoke in a slow drawl, laced with irony, his eyes definitely mocking as he added, ‘This has piqued my curiosity enough to inquire if he spoke more truth than I anticipated.’

      ‘What did he claim?’ Emily asked, her teeth clenching as she anticipated hearing a string of lies.

      ‘That you are a virgin.’

      A virgin!

      Emily shut her eyes as her mind exploded with the shocking implications behind her promised virginity.

      It could mean only one thing.

      Jacques Arnault…who couldn’t lie straight in bed at night even if he tried, the consummate con artist who’d tricked her into crewing on his yacht, the sneaky drug-runner who had no conscience about anything, whose mind was completely bent on doing whatever served his best interests…had obviously come up with a deal to save his own skin.

      She was to be traded off as a sex slave!

      ‘No!’ she almost spat in fierce indignation, her eyes flying open to glare at the prospective buyer. ‘Absolutely not!’

      ‘I did not believe it,’ he said with a dismissive shrug, the tone of his voice a very cold contrast to her heat. ‘Since the evidence points to your being a professional belly-dancer, I’m sure you’ve had many patrons.’

      ‘A professional belly-dancer?’ Emily’s voice climbed incredulously at this further off-the-wall claim.

      He gave her an impatient look. ‘Your costumes were found onboard Arnault’s yacht, along with the other luggage you abandoned in fleeing from being associated with the Frenchman’s criminal activities. Avoiding СКАЧАТЬ