more men, both of them like the first, darkly dressed, wearing leather and decorated with tattoos and multiple piercings.
The taller of the two grinned. “Don’t keep her to yourself, Ty. We’d all like to help the lady.”
Jaw set, Sarah debated trying to get back into the car and locking the doors, but decided against that. If she did, they could prevent her from closing the door and before she knew where she was, they would be inside the car with her and she would be in a worse position.
Rape. The horrifying thought shuddered through her. She was a virgin. She had saved herself for love and marriage. The first time she was with a man could not be because she was being forced.
Footsteps sounded across the parking lot. They were no longer alone. Thinking quickly, Sarah’s fingers tightened on her umbrella. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but she would use it if she had to. “I don’t need help. My boyfriend’s here. He’ll fix the car.”
“What boyfriend?” The taller man grabbed her arm as she edged away.
Jaw gritted, Sara brought the umbrella’s wooden handle crashing down on the man’s fingers.
“This one,” a dark voice murmured, as Gabe stepped around a chunky utility vehicle into the light.
Rubbing bruised knuckles, the tall guy, who now didn’t seem large at all compared to Gabe, stumbled backward. “Hey, sorry, man,” he mumbled. “Didn’t know she was taken.”
Gabe glided closer. When he stretched out his hand, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to put her fingers in his. “Even if she wasn’t ‘taken’ you shouldn’t have gone near her. But, as you said, she is taken, so don’t bother her again.”
Tall Guy took another step backward. The other two had already climbed into a car decorated with dents. He held one hand up in a placating gesture as he fumbled open the rear passenger door. “Yeah, man. She’s yours. Totally. We won’t bother her again.”
He clambered into the car, which jolted into motion with a squeal of tires.
Gabe released his grip on her hand. “Are you okay?”
Sarah replaced her car keys in her bag. She was cold and her fingers were shaking, but she barely noticed because she was so focused on the fact that Gabe had come after her. She didn’t know how he had located her in the dark, or why he had walked out into the rain to find her, just that he had. “I am now, thank you.”
“Problem with your car?”
She blinked at the shift of topic. His gaze was still fixed on the taillights of the retreating car. The steely remoteness of his expression sent a chill down her spine. He looked more than capable of backing his flatly delivered challenge with physical force.
A fierce, oddly primitive sense of satisfaction curled through her. Gabe had not only come to her aid, but he had been prepared to physically fight for her.
When he repeated the question about the car, she realized he was deliberately distracting her from the nastiness of the encounter. Suppressing a shiver, she replaced her umbrella in her bag. “I think the electronics got wet.”
Gabe, who had walked around to the front of her car, took a sleek phone out of his pocket and stabbed a short dial. “Is there still a charge in the battery?”
“I stopped before it went flat.”
“Good.” Gabe spoke quietly into his phone in the same liquid Zahiri she had heard him use before then slipped the cell back in his jacket pocket. “Xavier will have a look at the car. He’s not a mechanic, but he spends a lot of his spare time tinkering with cars.”
She hooked the strap of her bag more securely over her shoulder. It was an odd moment to register that the wind had dropped, leaving an eerie calm after the storm. With mist rising off the wet concrete, wreathing the cars and forming a halo around the street lamps, the night now seemed peaceful.
With a reflexive shiver she rubbed at her chilled arms and tried not to let her teeth chatter. Now that she was no longer buzzing with adrenaline the cold seemed to be seeping into her bones. “I suppose Xavier is one of the sheikh’s bodyguards.” The remark was shamelessly probing but she didn’t care. She suddenly needed to know more about Gabe, what he did for a living, how long he would be in Wellington, when or if he was coming back—
His gaze glittered over her, making her aware of the soaked red dress clinging to her skin, her hair trailing wetly around her cheeks. “Only when the sheikh leaves Zahir.”
The answer was confusing, as if the sheikh was still in Zahir when Sarah knew him to be here, in Wellington. But with Gabe walking toward her, dark trousers clinging low on narrow hips, his jacket damply molded to broad shoulders, white shirt plastered to his chest so that the bronze of his skin glowed through, it was hard to concentrate on unraveling subtleties.
He frowned. “You’re cold. Have you got a coat in the car?”
“No c-coat. Someone at the consulate took mine by mistake.”
A moment later, his jacket dropped around her shoulders, swamping her with warmth and filling her nostrils with the scent of clean male and an enticing hint of sandalwood. An electrifying thrill shot through her, reminding her of the sharp, visceral jolt she had felt when Gabe had said she was his.
He was briefly close enough that she felt the heat radiating off his body, and she had to resist the urge to sway a few inches closer to that delicious warmth. Her fingers closed on the fine weave of the jacket lapels, hugging the fabric closer. Despite everything, all of the warnings she was giving herself, she couldn’t help loving that she was wearing his jacket, which was so large the sleeves dropped almost to her knees. After the nasty scenes with Graham and the leather-clad thugs, Gabe’s chivalry—his consideration, as if she truly mattered to him—was a soothing balm.
Gabe checked his watch. “Xavier’s on his way. If you’ll give me your car keys, he’ll take a look. In the meantime I suggest you come with me back to the consulate. There’s a guest suite there, so you can dry off while you wait.”
A vivid flash of the young woman flinging her arms around him made Sarah stiffen. “Won’t your...girlfriend mind?’
His expression registered his surprise at the question. “I don’t have a girlfriend. If you’re referring to the young woman who came into the lecture, she was a cousin I haven’t seen in years. She dropped in because she knew I was leaving in the morning.”
The relief that the pretty girl wasn’t a love interest was almost instantly replaced by the depressing confirmation that Gabe was leaving in a matter of hours.
His hand briefly cupped her elbow as he helped her step up onto the higher level of the consulate parking lot. “Is she the reason you left the lecture?”
Her mouth went dry at the bluntness of the question but after everything that had happened, somehow it didn’t seem as intrusive as it should have been. It would have been easy to say she’d had a fight with Graham and was upset, but the truth was, whatever she had felt for Graham had been utterly overshadowed by her response to Gabe.
He
