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“Mr. Knight?”
Cam shrugged as if getting a better look at the woman didn’t matter.
“As you wish, Excellency.”
The sultan snapped his fingers. The men dragged the woman forward. When they were a few feet away, she raised her head and looked straight at Cam.
His breath caught in his throat.
She had wide-set eyes the color of the Mediterranean, fringed by incongruously dark lashes. A small, straight nose. A delicate chin and a mouth—God, what a mouth! It was meant for things men dreamed of in the dark hours of the night.
Cam felt himself turn hard as stone, his erection so swift and powerful that he had to shift his weight to ease the discomfort of it.
Asaad barked an order. The guards shoved the woman forward the final few feet. She stumbled, then regained her footing. One of the men snarled a word and she obeyed what must have been an order to bow her head again.
“Well, Mr. Knight?” Asaad’s voice was a purr. “What do you think?” Smiling, he stepped closer to the woman, caught a handful of her hair and jerked her head up. “Is she not exquisite?”
“She is—she is very beautiful.”
“Yes. She is. She has spirit, too. A magnificent creature, yes?”
What was she? A woman from the harem? But her hands were bound. Why?
“She is, Excellency.” Cam paused. He didn’t want to sound too curious. If he did, Asaad would probably stretch out whatever game they were now playing. “Is she a prisoner?”
The sultan sighed. “Yes. Unfortunate, don’t you agree? What you can see of her is beautiful.” Asaad slid his meaty hand down the woman’s throat, over her breast, cupped first one mound of flesh and then the other. When she tried to jerk away, his fingers clamped around her wrist. “But her soul is ugly.”
Cam looked at the sultan’s meaty fingers, biting into the woman’s flesh.
“It’s difficult to imagine that a woman like this—any woman, for that matter—could do something so terrible it would anger a man like you, Excellency,” he said, hoping the barbarous lie would work.
It seemed to. Asaad’s grip loosened.
“You are correct, Mr. Knight. I am a kind man. A generous one. But Layla pushed me beyond human endurance.”
The name suited the setting. So did her costume. But the blue eyes and golden hair threw him. They were rare in this place. Hell, they were all but unknown.
“I imagine you are thinking she is not from here.”
Right on the nose, you greasy bastard. Cam smiled lazily, as if it were something that really wasn’t of much interest. “I did wonder, yeah.”
“I bought her,” the sultan said matter-of-factly. “Oh, not the way it sounds, I assure you. We are an ancient culture, sir, but we abhor slavery. No, the lady came to me willingly. She is a dancer. That is what she prefers to call herself but really, she is… I think your word is whore.”
Cam nodded. He understood. He’d been in this part of the world before. Women like this called themselves models, actresses, dancers…but Asaad was right. Basically they were whores for sale to the highest bidder.
The blonde stood straight and tall under his scrutiny. Was she trembling? Maybe, but the wind blowing in from the desert was cool and she was damned near naked. That could explain it. So could the fact that she was Asaad’s prisoner. From what he’d seen of things, that would make anybody tremble.
Asaad leaned closer. “I met her on holiday in Cairo. She was performing in a club. I sent her a note… Well, surely you know how these things go.” He dug his elbow into Cam’s ribs, as if buying a whore’s favors was something they had in common. “Layla is a woman of, shall we say, significant talent. That is why, when it came time to return home, I offered to take her with me.”
Cam shot another look at the woman. Her head had come up; she was staring almost blindly into the darkness beyond the courtyard and yes, she was definitely trembling.
Not that it meant a damn to him.
“And she accepted,” he said, making it a statement instead of a question.
“Of course. She knew it would be worth her while. All went well for a few weeks. She was inventive. Imaginative.” Asaad gave a deep sigh. “But I wearied of her. A man needs variety, is that not so?”
“Wouldn’t sending her back to Egypt be simpler than making her your prisoner, Excellency?”
