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Of course his friends had all scoffed at the bet until Mahindar had fallen in love with the one and same woman he pledged to marry. He’d soon after commissioned an architect to build his grand ballroom with checkered black and white flooring.
And without not one word of complaint.
But Hamid was certain his smitten friend would have built a dozen new ballrooms just to be with his wife.
Camille crested the next sand dune with another bellow, pulling Hamid out of his introspection even as a flash of dusty, metallic red caught his peripheral vision. The sedan—a ridiculous choice for driving in the desert—was pulled to the side of the road AKA goat track that snaked around the dunes.
“Just the diversion I need,” Hamid announced to his steed.
Taking another glug of date liquor from his flask, he ignored the distant shouts from his guards and pressed Camille into a fast gallop toward the car.
Chapter Two
Holly Petersen left her precious Nikon camera inside the slightly cooler interior of the sedan as she climbed onto its roof and held up her cell phone in the vague hope she’d get a signal.Nothing.
Pushing back her banana-yellow bandana that clashed perfectly with her bright red hair, she pressed a hand to her damp brow. What had she been thinking to drive alone in the desert? Her stubborn independence was going to get her killed, and her body possibly never recovered with the local people no doubt imagining she deserved her fate.
Thank goodness her practical sandals were a deterrent against the baked-in heat on the metal of the car or her feet would be cooked by now.
She shielded her eyes from the relentless sun and peered up at the nearest dune. Perhaps she’d get a signal from there? She squinted, her heart in her throat at the distant speck that quickly grew larger. Surely she wouldn’t be seeing a mirage just yet? But the camel that loped effortlessly down the dune and its rider that stuck to its back with even less effort was surely real?
It was only when the camel bellowed and grunted as it gained its footing on level ground, before its rider stopped next to Holly, that she knew for certain she wasn’t seeing things. The camel and its rider were all too real.
She locked eyes with the man whose dark, intense gaze trawled across her like she was the first woman he’d seen in years.
She swallowed hard, her nipples pebbling beneath her yellow kaftan. She only hoped the black beading on its bodice would conceal any illicit thoughts. Good grief, the man was clearly a savage, with his overlong hair and haphazard plaits, his stubble that was almost a beard and his sweaty, sandy skin.
Her throat dried and her pulse stuttered.Shit.What were his intentions? If he was a savage she’d expect no help. She took a backward step, closer to the edge of the sedan’s roof. Hewasdangerous. She knew that now. And she’d been beyond foolish to trek around the Middle East alone.
But how else could she prove herself as a freelance photographer if she had to bribe a team to go along with her? Not that she could ever afford such a luxury anyway. She was just beginning her career after leaving Australia almost three months ago.
The itch to photograph the man who sat so nonchalantly on his camel, the same man who also exuded such dangerous intensity was too irresistible for her artistic brain. Putting up a placating hand, she said, “If you wouldn’t mind staying just like that for a minute, I would love to take a photo of you.”
His eyes narrowed and gleamed, but he said nothing as she clambered awkwardly from the sedan’s roof. Dropping her phone on the driver’s seat, she reached inside for her camera, placed its strap around her neck then clambered awkwardly back on the roof.
Lifting the camera, she took some shots of the man sitting astride his camel. With a scowl, he issued an order that had the camel drop obediently to its knees and then onto its haunches. The rider then slipped gracefully out of the carved saddle and onto the sand in his sandals and thobe, and approached her with flashing eyes.
He gestured at her with clear, universal signals that communicated she stop taking his photo. She ignored him. Her whole body hummed, excitement and delight surging through her. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity! He was a nomad living in the desert, surviving in one of the harshest landscapes in the world! And these shots were magnificent, amazing!
Her finger was still busy clicking when he jumped lithely onto the roof and all but ripped the camera off her neck and out of her hands. His dark, swarthy face was red with rage, his eyes bleak and his breath boozy. “No. More.”
Those two words were filled with angst and throbbed with danger. And her damn body responded to his alpha maleness like a headstrong mare did to a hot-blooded stallion.
It’s just the adrenaline of the photos, nothing more, a little voice reasoned.
Yeah, right.
Already the man, whose headdress was noticeably absent, held the camera in one big, callused hand like it was an explosive and he was about to throw it out of harm’s way. She shivered. That he was also a little inebriated meant there might not be any talking sense into him.
She had personal experience in that regard. Her dad had been an abusive alcoholic whose one true love was the bottle. That her mother had become a withdrawn, drab gray mouse scared of her own shadow had been Holly’s biggest influence in life.
Her bright red hair might be natural, but her even brighter clothes reminded her to never allow someone to strip away any color or joy from her life. All she wanted was her freedom and the right to capture the world—the colorful and the dreary and everything in-between—with her camera.
She shook her head as his arm flexed, ready to throw away her most precious possession. “No. Don’t destroy my camera.” she managed a smile, though her voice came out stupidly husky. “It’s all I have in the world and the only reason I’m even here.”
His lip curled at her words, like he blamed the camera for her predicament. “Then you’re a fool,” he muttered, before he threw the Nikon high into the air. It bounced on the nearby dune, then rolled and finally lay still in the sand.
Horror for a moment left her disabled. Then something flicked a never-before-seen-madwoman switch inside her.“No!”she screamed. She beat her fists against his chest even as her tears came and she sobbed as she hit him, over and over again.
