Being attacked by a desperate woman wielding a knife hadn’t ruffled his composure one iota!
Nor had it affected his exquisite manners. With another graceful movement he reached for a ewer and bowl and silently invited her to wash her hands. Despite her dire situation, or perhaps because of it, his old-fashioned courtesy soothed her shredded nerves.
Slowly Cassie extended her hands over the bowl. He poured water over her fingers, waited till she rubbed them clean, then poured again.
He passed her a towel of fine cotton, careful not to touch her. Cassie drew in a quick breath of relief and dried her hands, trying not to notice that even his hands were attractive—strong and well shaped.
Instead she concentrated on the soft comfort of the towel. How different the luxury here compared with the Spartan tent where she’d been held!
Only the best for a royal sheikh.
‘Besides,’ he continued as if uninterrupted, ‘the chain could have been a ploy.’
‘A ploy?’ Cassie’s voice rose and her body froze in outrage. ‘A ploy? You think I’m wearing this thing for fun? It’s heavy and uncomfortable and … inhuman!’
And it made her feel like a chattel, a thing rather than a person.
Cassie pulled the thick cloak tighter round herself, seeking comfort in its concealing folds.
The abduction had been shocking and terrifying, but being tethered with a chain like an animal plumbed the depths of her darkest fears. It put her captors’ intentions on a new and horrible level.
Even her mother, whose life had revolved around pleasing a man, had never faced a reality so brutal.
‘As you say. Even in this lawless part of the world, I didn’t expect to find kidnap and slavery.’
At her wide-eyed stare he went on. ‘In the old days, centuries ago, slaves were held that way.’ He nodded curtly to the chain that snaked across the floor towards the bed. ‘It’s a slave chain. I thought it possible Mustafa had used it symbolically, rather than seriously.’
‘You thought I might have agreed to this? That I chose to dress this way?’ Cassie snapped her mouth shut, remembering her struggles as the women had stripped her clothes away. The horror when they’d produced this gaudy outfit that barely covered her breasts and drew attention to every curve.
She remembered too the searing look, quickly veiled, in this man’s eyes when she’d been brought before him in the communal tent. It had heated her as no fire could.
‘I didn’t know what to think. I don’t know you.’
Cassie drew a calming breath. Finally she nodded.
He was right. He knew as little of her as she did of him. The chain could have been a stage prop worn for effect—there to spice the jaded appetites of a man who got turned on by the idea of a woman totally at his mercy. A woman with no function but to please him.
Was Amir that sort of man?
Without warning that ancient memory broke through her weary brain’s defences again. The one memory she usually kept locked tightly away. Of Curtis Bevan, who’d been her mother’s lover the year Cassie turned sixteen. How he’d strutted around her mother’s apartment with condescending pride, knowing everything there was bought with his money. Even his lover. How he’d turned his proprietorial eyes on Cassie that day she’d come home for Christmas—
‘Cassie?’
The sound of her name in that soft-as-suede voice shattered the recollection. She looked up into a cool obsidian gaze that she would swear saw too much. Her breath snared and for a moment she foundered, caught between her nightmare past and the present.
Deliberately she straightened her shoulders.
‘For the record, I don’t want to be here! When you came in I thought …’ Her words dried at the recollection of what she’d thought. That he’d come here for sex. That it wouldn’t matter if she was unwilling.
‘You thought you had no choice.’ His voice was low and his expression softened. ‘The pre-emptive strike was a good move. A brave one.’
Cassie shook her head. ‘Just desperate.’
It had become clear within seconds she had no chance against him. He’d subdued her so quickly, lashed her threshing limbs into immobility and toppled her with an ease that merely reinforced his physical superiority.
Whatever happened now she had more sense than to try to overcome this man physically. She needed him fighting for her, not against her.
‘Who is this Mustafa? What makes him think he has the right to give me to you like this?’
Amir shrugged, his wide shoulders drawing her unwilling gaze. She told herself her fascination with his sculpted features, his aura of power, was because he was her only hope of getting out of here.
‘Mustafa is a bandit chief. He rules these mountains down to the border with Tarakhar. We’re in his camp.’
Silently he offered her a plate of orange segments and dates. It was her first food in over twenty-four hours.
Yet she hesitated, wondering at the possibility it had been tampered with. That fear had kept her from devouring it earlier while she waited alone, frantically trying to break the chain.
But he had no need to drug her. She was already at his mercy.
Determined, Cassie forced her mind from the insidious thought.
Carefully she reached for a piece of orange. Its flavour burst like sunshine in her mouth, stinging like blazes where she’d bitten her tongue during their skirmish. Her eyes almost closed in sheer bliss despite the pain. She swallowed and reached for another piece.
‘You were going to tell me how you got here.’ The dark voice jerked her attention back to the man seated opposite her.
His hooded eyes gleamed with an expression she couldn’t name. Was it curiosity, as he’d said? Had she imagined that flash of predatory male interest when he’d first seen her and again as she lay beneath him?
Cassie recalled his touch on her bare skin and shivered. Anxiety swirled in her stomach, and a flutter of something else she couldn’t put a name to.
‘I was travelling through Tarakhar by bus.’
‘By yourself?’ Was that disapproval in his tone?
Cassie’s spine stiffened. ‘I’m twenty-three and more than capable of travelling alone!’
Circumstances had forced Cassie into independence early. She’d never had the luxury of relying on others. Besides, her destination—a rural town near the border—wasn’t on the tourist route. She’d had to travel overland for the last part of the journey.
‘Visitors are welcomed and treated with respect in Tarakhar. Yet it’s advisable not to travel alone.’
‘So I’ve discovered.’
