‘IS THERE ANYTHING I can get for you?’
The words roused Hannah from her semi catatonic state. She surged to her feet and flung the man mountain before her a look of profound scorn before pushing past him into the adjoining cabin, which contained a seating area and a bed on which her tall, rude rescuer was stretched out, one booted foot crossed over the other, his forearm pressed across his eyes.
‘I thought you were working.’
‘This is a power nap. I want to look good in the wedding photos.’
Breathing hard, she stood there, hands on her hips, glaring at his concealed face—noticing as she did the small bloody indentations on the sides of his wrist, presumably from where the hawk had landed on his bare skin.
‘Can you be serious for one moment, please?’
He lifted a dark brow and with a long-suffering sigh dropped his arm. Then, in one sinuous motion, he pulled himself up into a sitting position and lowered his feet to the ground.
He planted his hands on his thighs and leaned forward. ‘I’m all yours. Shoot.’
Hannah heard shoot and shuddered, recalling the scene on the tarmac where but for his lightning reflexes there might have been more than one bullet discharged—a disaster narrowly averted.
‘You should put some antiseptic on those.’
His dark brows twitched into a puzzled line.
She pointed to his arm. ‘The bird.’ She angled a wary glance at the big bird. ‘You’re bleeding.’
He turned his wrist and shrugged in an irritatingly tough fashion. ‘I’ll live.’
‘I, on the other hand, am feeling a little insecure about being on a plane with a total stranger going...’ she gave an expressive shrug ‘...God knows where. So do you mind filling in a few blanks?’
He nodded. She didn’t sound insecure. She sounded and looked confident and sexy and in control. What would it take to make her lose it? It could be he was about to find out.
‘My father sent you?’
He tipped his head in acknowledgement and she gave a gusty sigh of relief. ‘He sends his love.’
‘I’m sure Dad appreciates your sense of humour, but I’m a bit...’
‘Uptight? Humourless?’
Her blue eyes narrowed to slits. She had very little energy left, and being angry with him was using it all up. She took a deep breath and thought, Rise above it, Hannah. People had said a lot worse about her and she’d maintained her dignity.
It was a power thing. If they saw it got to her they had the power and she lost it. It didn’t matter who they were—school bullies, journalists—the same rule applied. If you showed weakness they reacted like pack animals scenting blood.
‘I’d prefer to know what’s happening, so if you could just fill me in...? Tell me where the plane is headed and then I’ll let you sleep in peace.’
‘Surana.’
The mention of the oil-rich desert state fired a memory. That was where she’d seen the crest on the plane before, and it fitted: her father had called in some favours. She knew he counted the King of Surana as a personal friend; the two men had met forty years earlier at the public school they had attended as boys. The friendship had survived the years—apparently the King had once dandled her on his knee but Hannah had no recollection of the event.
‘So Dad will be there to meet us?’
‘No, he’ll be waiting at the chapel.’
Hannah fought for composure. Was this man on something? ‘Hilarious.’ She tried to laugh but laughing in the face of the ruthless resolve stamped on his hard-boned face was difficult. She hefted a weary sigh and reminded herself she was free. It was all up from here, once she got a straight answer from this man. ‘This is not a joke that has the legs to run and run.’
His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug that suggested he didn’t care. ‘Look, I wish it were a joke. I have no more wish to marry you than you have me, but before you start bleating for Daddy ask yourself what you would have preferred if I’d offered you the option back there: marrying me, or spending twenty years in a boiling-hot jail where luxury is considered a tap shared by several hundred. Or even worse—’
‘How does it get worse?’
‘How about the death penalty?’
‘That was never a possibility.’ Her scorn faltered and her stomach clenched with terror. Had she really been that close? ‘Was it?’
He arched a sardonic brow.
‘So if I’d signed the confession...?’ Her voice trailed away as she spoke until ‘confession’ emerged from her white lips as a husky whisper.
‘You didn’t.’ Kamel fought the irrational feeling of guilt. He was only spelling out the ugly facts; he was not responsible. Still, it gave him no pleasure to see the shadow of terror in her wide eyes. ‘So don’t think about it.’
The advice brought her chin up with a snap. ‘I wouldn’t be thinking about it at all if you hadn’t told me.’
‘Maybe it’s about time you faced unpleasant facts and accepted that there are some things we cannot run away from.’
Not several thousand feet off the ground, but once they landed Hannah intended to run very fast indeed from this man. ‘I’m grateful to be free, obviously, but I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘You entered a sovereign state illegally, carrying drugs.’
Hannah’s clenched teeth ached. His righteous attitude was really getting under her skin.
‘I got lost and I was carrying medicine. Vaccines and antibiotics.’
‘Morphine?’
Feeling defensive, Hannah rubbed her damp palms against her thighs. With his steely eyes and relentless delivery he was a much more effective interrogator than her captors had been. ‘Yes.’
‘And a camera.’
‘No!’
‘Isn’t there a camera on your phone?’
He would have thought better of her if she had the guts to hold up her hands and take responsibility for her own actions, but that obviously wasn’t her style.
‘Weren’t you told to stay with the vehicle if it broke down?’
How did he know? ‘It was an emergency.’ And that was the only reason she had been entrusted the responsibility. There simply had been no one else available.
‘And you were the one on the ground and you made a tough call...fine. But now you have to take the consequences for that decision.’
Struggling
