Sheikh's Desert Duty

“I know where.” A bit of an overstatement. He wasn’t entirely certain where he was going to take her, or what he was going to do with her. He didn’t know if she knew who he was, or what she had overheard. And he needed to find a way to ascertain that without giving away any more than he needed to.

He only knew he had to keep her. That this was his chance to seize control of this situation. To fix it.

“Oh, how interesting,” she said. “I might appreciate being let in on that information.”

“Sorry, that sort of information is a privilege.”

“What are you doing? Why are you bothering with me? I’m not anyone. No, scratch that, I am someone. I work for a very prestigious newspaper and if you don’t let me go...”

“You’re a reporter?”

“Yes,” she said, seeming to change tactic abruptly. “I am. An intrepid one. A real one. Kind of a big deal.”

“What were you doing in that alley?” He had to know now, because if she was telling the truth, that meant that she was far more dangerous to him than an ex-lover of Chatsfield’s would be. She was the very thing he feared most. The very thing that could do the most damage to his family.

To Leila.

Leila had made a mistake in sleeping with James. But ultimately, Leila was so innocent that her stake in it was much lower than Chatsfield’s. She had been taken advantage of, of that Zayn was certain. And this woman would drag her before the press, who would tear her apart like ravenous wolves. Because she was a woman, because the media, and the public, would see her fault as the greater fault.

Because she was a princess and being royalty she would be the bigger target.

No, he could not allow it. He had already put one innocent sister in harm’s way. He’d already failed her. In a way there was no coming back from. He would be damned if he’d do it again.

He would fix this. By any means necessary. A disgruntled lover might have taken a payoff, but not a reporter. No, this would require more extreme measures.

He would remove her from contact if need be. Even if he had to pick her up and carry her back to Surhaadi.

She hesitated, clearly trying to decide what she could say now that would help her out of her current situation. That was enough to inform him that whatever she said was very likely to be a lie.

“I was following James,” she said finally. “I’m working on something that concerns the Chatsfield family.”

“Clearly not something they would be very happy about.”

“Well, probably not. But I can see you’re not James’s biggest fan. It would please you to know that I’m not a big fan of the Chatsfield family as a whole. And I don’t think they necessarily deserve the somewhat pristine reputation in the public they seem to have cultivated recently.”

“So what is it you’re after?”

“A scandal.”

“Of course, I should’ve known you were after a scandal. What good reporter isn’t?” Unfortunately, she was very close to a scandal. One that would involve his family, his sister. One that was simply unacceptable to have out in the open.

“Well, exactly.”

“And you know that I’m not James’s biggest fan?”

“Well, clearly not. As he seems to have gotten himself involved with your sister.”

Instantly he realized that whatever else she knew, she knew too much. With an entire newspaper to back her, she would be parlaying this information to interested parties, who would likely do much more digging than he would like done.

“Yes, indeed.” And just like that, he made his decision. He leaned forward and pressed the intercom button on the partition between the backseat and the front seat. “We are not going back to the hotel. We will be going straight to the airport.”

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_7847171d-32e7-552c-beb7-41aa5e12b932)

IT TOOK QUITE a bit to rattle Sophie Parsons. She hadn’t gotten where she was in life by being a shrinking violet. But currently, she was feeling extremely rattled. And slightly like shrinking.

She figured it was understandable. As she had just been forced into a limo by a man who stood nearly a foot taller than she did, and who must outweigh her by more than one hundred pounds of lean muscle. And now they were going to the airport, apparently.

She eyed the speedily passing scenery and considered attempting doing a tuck and roll.

“The doors are locked.”

It seemed he was a mind reader in addition to being a kidnapper. Except he seemed to take offense to the term kidnapper. Did she really care? She took offense to being forced inside of a limo and taken to God knows where.

“Right, well, it’s not like I was going to go jumping out of a moving vehicle.” Except she had been thinking of doing just that. “Although you’ve given me no reason to believe that I wouldn’t be better off taking my chances with the asphalt than I am staying here with you.”

“You have nothing to fear from me. I do not intend to hurt you.”

She assessed him, his hard expression, his dark eyes glittering. She had yet to get a good look at his face; from the dim lighting outside, to the even dimmer lighting in here, it made it difficult to assess his features fully. But from what she could tell, he was an exceptionally handsome man. An odd thing to observe about one’s captor, but in her line of work observation was everything. He had high cheekbones, a square jaw and a strong chin. The planes and angles of his face cast into sharp relief each time they passed a brightly lit building, or row of streetlights.

“What do you intend for me, then?” It was important to know. Because if he was intending evil things for her she needed to know whether or not she should be trying to fashion a weapon out of the paper clips and Chapstick in the bottom of her purse.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“Inconveniently for you, I find I’m exceptionally worried about what exactly a stranger intends to do with me. Even if it is rather mundane. Even if you just intend to ask me about different styles of napkin folding, which I could give you a comprehensive lesson on because I am something of an expert.”

“I do not wish to learn to fold napkins.”

No, of course he didn’t. And she didn’t, for one moment, think he had. But it was a better thought than the others swirling in her head. Because as far as she knew, men only had a few things they wanted from women when they removed them from a place forcibly. None of them were any good. None of them were anything she wanted a part of.

She really was in over her head now. She’d wanted to help Isabelle out, and she still did. But she had not realized that digging up scandal on the Chatsfield family to get Spencer Chatsfield off her friend’s back would end with her being shoved into a car by an angry stranger. No, indeed, she had imagined she would do a little bit of reconnaissance, and catch James doing what James did. He had been, in her mind, the easiest target.

The Chatsfields were currently making it their mission to take over Harrington Hotels, Spencer Chatsfield doing his best to ruin Isabelle Harrington’s life, as if he hadn’t already done enough years ago. That was why Isabelle had asked her to do what she could to dig up the scandal on the family, to throw the press a headline bone they couldn’t ignore and keep the Chatsfields busy scrambling to cover their butts while Isabelle shored up the defenses for The Harrington.

No, she wasn’t exactly a lead reporter for the Herald. She was more lead coffee maker and vapid party summarizer for the society pages. But, given that, she had the authority to run a piece on the Chatsfields.

Though, as much as Sophie loved Isabelle, as much as she wanted to help out her friend, she wasn’t sure if this was what she signed on for. No, she was certain this wasn’t what she’d signed on for.

“So what is it you want?”

“It’s quite simple, really. I need to keep you busy for a while.”

“I like a scavenger hunt. If you wanted to set up some kind of elaborate game, I might be persuaded to participate. That could keep me busy for a bit.”

“That is not what I had in mind.”

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, goose bumps breaking out over her arms. “Organizing your sock drawer?”

“Getting warmer.”