have you—over and over again—for however long it takes until I can think straight again.’ A note of unmistakable bitterness entered his voice. ‘You’ve done it, Sylvie—you’ve got me.’
She finally broke free from Arkim’s grip and sat back, as far away as she could. ‘I don’t want you.’ Liar, whispered an inner voice. She ignored it. She hated Arkim Al-Sahid. ‘As soon as this car stops I’m out of here, and you can’t stop me.’
Arkim merely looked amused. ‘Each time we’ve met you’ve demonstrated how much you want me, so protesting otherwise won’t work now. Where we’re going has no public transport, and it would take you about a week to walk to B’harani—days in any other direction before you hit civilisation.’
Sylvie crossed her arms over her chest, a feeling of claustrophobia threatening to strangle her. ‘This is ridiculous.’ The thought of being alone with this man in some remote desert for the next two weeks was overwhelming. ‘You can’t force me to do anything I don’t want to do, you know.’
He looked at her, and there was something so explicit in his gaze that she felt herself blushing.
‘I won’t need to use force, Sylvie.’
And just like that the humiliation she’d felt that night in the study of her father’s house came back and rolled over her like a wave.
She fought it. ‘This just proves how little you really felt for my sister. Hurting me will only hurt her.’
The expression on Arkim’s face became incredulous at the mention of Sophie ‘You dare speak to me of hurting your sister? When you were the one who callously humiliated her in public?’
Words of defence trembled on Sylvie’s tongue, but she bit them back. She would never betray her sister’s confidence. Sophie had just been a pawn to him. It never would have worked. She had to remember that. She’d done the right thing.
But then she saw something in the distance and became distracted.
Arkim followed her gaze and said, ‘Ah, we’re here.’
Here was another, even smaller airfield, with a sleek black helicopter standing ready.
Slightly hysterically Sylvie remembered something she’d learnt when she’d taken self-defence classes after a—luckily—minor mugging in Paris. The tutor had told the class the importance of not letting an attacker take you to another location at all costs. Because if he did get you to another place, then your chances of survival were dramatically cut down.
It would appear to be common sense, but the tutor had told them numerous stories of people who had been so frightened they’d just let themselves be taken to another place, when they should always have tried to get away during the initial attack.
And okay, so technically Arkim wasn’t attacking Sylvie, but she knew that if she got into that helicopter her chances of emerging from this encounter unscathed were nil.
The car came to a stop and he looked at her. ‘Time to go.’
Sylvie shook her head. ‘I’m not getting out. I’m staying in this car and it’s going to take me back to wherever we landed. Or to B’harani. I hear it’s a nice city—I’d like to visit.’
She hoped the desperation she was feeling wasn’t evident.
He turned to face her more fully. ‘This car is driven by a man who speaks only one language, and it’s not yours. He answers to me—no one else.’
The sheer hardness of Arkim’s expression told her she was on a hiding to nothing. A sense of futility washed over her. She wouldn’t win this round.
‘Where is it that you’re proposing to take me?’
‘It’s a house I own on the Arabian coast. North of B’harani and one hundred miles from the border of Burquat. Merkazad is in a westerly direction, about six hundred miles.’
The geographical details somehow made Sylvie feel calmer, even though she still had no real clue where they were. She’d heard of these places, but never been.
Something occurred to her. ‘This...’ her mouth twisted ‘...this fee you’ve paid Pierre. I assume it’s conditional on my agreeing to this farcical non-existent dance tuition?’
Arkim nodded. ‘That’s good business sense, I think you’ll agree.’
Sylvie wanted to tell him where he could stick his business sense, but she refrained. She didn’t doubt that there really was no option but to go with Arkim. For now.
‘Once we’re at this...this place, you won’t force me to do anything I don’t want to?’
Arkim shook his head, eyes gleaming with a disturbing light. ‘No, Sylvie. There will be no force involved. I’m not into sadism.’
His smug arrogance made her want to try and slap him again. Instead, she sent him a wide, sunny, smile. ‘You know, work has been so crazy busy lately I’m actually looking forward to an all-expenses-paid break. The fact that I have to share space with you is unfortunate, but I’m sure we can stay out of each other’s way.’
Arkim just smiled slowly, and with an air of sensual menace, as if he knew just how flimsy her bravado was.
‘We’ll see.’
* * *
Sylvie had never been in a helicopter before, and she’d been more mesmerised than she cared to admit by the way the desert dunes had unfolded beneath them, undulating into the distance like the sinuous curves of a body. It all seemed utterly foreign and yet captivating to her.
Her stomach was only just beginning to climb back down from her throat when she heard a deep voice in her ear through the headphones.
‘That’s my house, Al-Hibiz, directly down and to your left.’
Sylvie looked down and her breath was taken away. House? This was no house. It looked like a small but formidable castle, complete with ramparts and flat roofs. It was distinctly Arabic in style, with ochre-coloured walls. Within those walls she could see lush gardens, and in the distance the Arabian sea sparkled. What looked like an oasis lay far off in the distance, a spot of deep green. It was like something out of a fairytale.
It distracted her from the shock she still felt after realising that Arkim was co-piloting the helicopter, and the way his hands had lingered as he’d strapped her in, those fingers resting far too close to her breasts under her thin T-shirt.
He should have looked ridiculous, getting into the cockpit still dressed in his suit, against the backdrop of the stark desert, but he hadn’t. He’d looked completely at home, powerful and utterly in control.
And now the helicopter was descending onto a flat area just outside the walls of the castle, which looked much bigger from this vantage point.
Sylvie could see robed men waiting, holding on to their long garments and the turbans on their heads as the helicopter kicked up sand and wind. When the craft bounced gently onto the earth she breathed out a deep sigh of relief, unaware of how tense she’d been.
The helicopter blades stopped turning and a delicious
