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Tally shoved a hand through her hair, pushing it off her face. She was so hot she wanted to scream. Throw things. Pick a fight. “You didn’t. You’re bluffing.”
“Bluffing?” His gaze locked with hers. “Is that what I think you just said.”
Her heart pounding, she held his gaze, showing him once and for all she wouldn’t be intimidated. “Yes. That’s what I said. Bluffing.”
“I don’t bluff, and what I did was test you.” His dark eyes burned. “You failed.”
“I’m not surprised,” she flashed. “And just a little FYI, it’s hard to feel sympathy for you, or your causes, when you so blatantly disregard other people’s needs and feelings.”
“You have no idea who or what you’re dealing with, do you?”
She did, actually. He was a bandit and a kidnapper and it wouldn’t be wise to push him too far but she was so angry now she wasn’t thinking straight. “You don’t test people.”
“Of course you do. It’s smart. It’s strategy. One must know others strengths and weaknesses.”
“And you think you know mine?”
“I know you’re not to be trusted.” His lips compressed, and he looked hard, knowing, controlled. “But then, few people can be.”
She looked away, eyes burning and for some reason this last trickery hurt more than anything. He’d manipulated her all along. Played her. But it wasn’t just what he’d done, it was his attitude that hurt. “You have a terrible way of looking at life.”
“It’s practical. It keeps me, and my people, alive.”
A voice spoke from outside and then the tent flap was pushed aside and the elderly man from last night appeared with a large breakfast tray heaped with fresh and dried fruits, a mound of round, flat flour-dusted breads, and steaming cups of mint tea. The man disappeared as soon as he placed the tray on the carpet in front of the bed.
Her captor motioned to the carpet. “You’ll join me,” he said, and it wasn’t a question or invitation but an order.
“I’m not hungry.” She was still seething over the loss of all her photos. So much work. It was a loss of devastating proportions.
“You need to eat,” he answered with a snap of his fingers. He jabbed downward to the ground, pointing at the carpet.
“I’ve never met a ruder Berber man,” she muttered under her breath but she knew he heard—and understood—from the look he gave her.
He took one of the small flat breads. “There are worse.”
She watched him eat, eyes burning, head throbbing. She did need to eat, as well as drink, but she was afraid of getting sick, and at the moment her nervous system felt as though it were in overdrive. “What do I have to do to get my pictures back?”
“I don’t wish to discuss this topic anymore.”
“It’s important—”
“Not anymore. You’re not taking pictures here.”
“So what will I do while I’m here?”
He looked at her for a long, tense moment, his expression blank, dark eyes guarded, shadowed. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
His broad shoulders shifted carelessly. “I’m not going to make you do anything. I’m perfectly content now that I have your film to wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“The truth. It will emerge. It always does.”
“Maybe, but it could take a long time.”
“Indeed. And if that is the case, you’ll get to enjoy desert life for an indefinite period of time.”
“Indefinite.”
“Unless you care to tell me the truth now, Woman?”
“I’ve told you the truth and my name isn’t Woman, it’s Tally.”
“I’ve never heard the name Tally before. That’s not a name.” A glint of light touched his dark eyes, something secret and perverse and then the corner of his mouth nearly lifted, the closest thing she’d seen to a smile yet. “I shall call you Woman.”
She didn’t know if it was his words, his tone or that perverse light in his eyes but it annoyed her almost beyond reason. “I won’t answer to it.”
“You will.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.” And more fire flashed in his eyes. “Even if it takes days. Weeks.” He hesitated, and his dark gaze slid over her, the first openly assessing look he’d given her, one that examined, weighed, understood. “Years.”
