scarcely believe she was standing in the oldest part of Istanbul, her cheek still tingling from his touch, let alone having this conversation with this man.
‘So,’ he prompted, ‘what’s it to be, Amber Jones? Duty or pleasure?’
All her life Amber had done the right thing, making sensible choices, playing it safe, never taking risks. All her life she’d been responsible.
Sensible.
And just look where that had got her.
With an equally safe choice of boyfriend who clearly hadn’t valued her and who hadn’t turned out to be a safe choice at all.
Her blood fizzed with the possibilities this man was offering. As, if she was honest, it had been fizzing ever since she’d seen him watching her in the Spice Market.
God, she was in Istanbul, exotic, colourful Istanbul, and she might as well have been a million miles from her old life. And maybe it was foolhardy to agree to spend a night with a stranger in a faraway country. Maybe it was reckless.
But maybe it was time to be a bit reckless. Time to pay heed to the excitement in her blood and take a step on the wild side, as her great-great-great-grandmother had been brave enough to do more than one hundred and fifty years earlier.
She looked up at this man, with his golden skin and dark-as-a-hot-desert-night eyes, her heartbeat thumping loud in her chest at just being close to him, and knew that if she played it safe, she’d regret it for the rest of her life.
And her answer came as clearly as the calls of the seabirds wheeling in the sky above.
‘Pleasure.’
His dark eyes flared with heat, his lips turned up in approval as he enclosed her hand in his. ‘Then pleasure, it shall be.’
* * *
He smiled to himself as he led her towards a nearby restaurant that had windows overlooking the park, the glass frontage, he knew, would be filled with colourful dishes, from stuffed eggplants and peppers, casseroles of chicken and chickpeas and lamb, and rice, spiced and fragrant, alongside which lamb and chicken roasted on vertical spits.
So his meek little rabbit had turned out to be less timid than she’d first appeared? She’d fled from him in the Spice Market, and he’d been prepared to let her go.
But there was spirit there, under that nervous exterior, even if he’d had to dig to find it. But it was there, and given the choice again she’d chosen pleasure. At least the time spent babysitting her wouldn’t be completely wasted.
Not that he trusted her, despite all her innocent claims of not knowing the laws—after all, what else did foreigners claim when they were caught red-handed but tried to plead ignorance?—but then, he didn’t have to trust her. All he had to do was keep her out of harm’s way until he got her on that tour bus and sent her on her way and his job would be done.
Keeping her out of the way of illegal street vendors would be no problem given what he had in mind.
Blond tendrils of her hair bounced enticingly on the breeze as they walked, the leather of her jacket brushing against his coat sleeve, and as he turned his head towards her he caught a hint of her perfume, floral and light. He had never been a fan of such scents. He preferred his women dressed in musk and spice and preferably not a lot more, but on her the scent seemed to make sense. Innocent, with a hint of sensuality. A hint of promise.
He liked the fit.
He liked the promise even more.
He smiled. If only his three friends could see him now, they’d laugh. They’d tell him to be careful, that he was tempting fate. He remembered the last time they’d been together at Bahir’s wedding. He remembered the taunts of the two newly married desert brothers. Who would be next? Zoltan and Bahir had laughed. Which of Kadar and Rashid would be next to fall into marriage?
And Kadar and Rashid had both pointed at the other and laughed.
Of course, the very idea that the two remaining friends would soon follow was ridiculous. Zoltan had married Princess Aisha in order to secure his kingdom of Al-Jirad and Bahir had been reunited with Aisha’s sister and his former lover, Marina, along the way. Both marriages had been bound to happen, even if the idea that two of the desert brothers would be married in short order had been unimaginable once.
Well, it had been a good three years since Bahir’s wedding and he didn’t know about Rashid, but he was no closer to marriage than he’d ever been. And why should he be?
The four men were as good as brothers, bound together by more than blood. They had met while they were at university in the States and, apart from Mehmet, they were all the family he’d ever needed.
And now, while their bond was still strong, he didn’t feel any desperate need to follow his friends into the state of matrimony. Marriage was for people who were whole. People who wanted family. But he’d been alone since he was six years old and he was doing just fine. He couldn’t see that changing any time soon, especially not when every woman he’d ever met was only too pleased to move right along. So his friends could think what they liked, but if anyone was to marry next, it wouldn’t be him.
He wasn’t planning on marrying anyone, let alone a woman he’d saved from the clutches of the polis.
So he was hardly tempting fate merely spending a night with her.
She was nothing but a pretty tourist.
A short-term visitor to Istanbul.
Temporary.
Perfect.
THE SCENT OF roasting meat and two dozen delicious-looking dishes wafted out of the open door to tempt Amber, and for a moment she almost forgot that she’d just committed herself to a night dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh. But right now she had more important things on her mind. ‘I think I’m starving.’
He ushered her inside. ‘You can choose from here or there is a menu if none of these dishes appeal?’
For a woman whose most recent meals had been airline food, fast food or no food at all, she didn’t have to think about it. ‘No,’ she said, mouth watering, in no desire to wait for an order to be prepared when there was such an array before her to choose from, ‘this is perfect.’
They made their selections and were shown to a table near a window upstairs while their order was prepared. And then, once again, she was awed—by their vantage point, offering a glimpse of the domed roof of Hagia Sophia with its dancing fountain to one side of the window, and the minarets of the Blue Mosque to the other.
By the man sitting opposite now being greeted by a smiling waiter welcoming him back, a man larger than life with his dangerous dark looks and heated eyes. Long-lashed eyes, she realised as she took advantage of their proximity to study him in more detail. Satin black lashes and long as sin...
And by the knowledge that he’d guaranteed there would be no more trouble with the law while she was
