by Diana Palmer
"I'm not such a monster that I enjoy ravishing innocents," he told her calmly. "Although I do find you attractive, and if you were willing, and I were still whole, I might be tempted."
Her eyes asked the question her lips couldn't form. He laughed coldly. "You have no idea, have you?" He leaned forward. "Since you will not leave this place for some time to come, I can answer the question you fear to ask me. I stood on a land mine in Palestine on a business trip; a leftover horror from one of many conflicts in this great region. The wounds were so terrible that I ceased to be a man/' he added harshly.
"Hence the fiction that I have perverse appetites." He made a distasteful gesture. "It was kinder than the gossip I would have attracted had the truth been known."
"I'm sorry," she said, and she was, in spite of her overwhelming relief that she didn't have to worry about her own seduction now and his curious statement that she would never leave the island. “It must be... terrible for you.''
“Terrible.'' He savored the word as he stared blankly at the tip of his small cigar. "Yes. It was...terrible." His eyes lifted to her face and remained for a time, as if he were searching for mockery or sarcasm or amusement. He found none of these in that quiet, gentle face. He grimaced. "A woman like you can make a man ashamed of his baser instincts. If I had met someone like you before this, I might have been very different. As it is, the well-being of my people is all I have to substitute for any other pleasures I might lack in my life."
"What are you going to do with Mr. Hutton's bodyguard and me?"
He shrugged. "Those decisions will have to be made later. Hutton will surely come looking for you, and that could cause me some problems. You' see, your stepfather and I have concocted a way to provoke your so-protective government into sending troops to protect our oil fields while we open them to drilling in the near future."
"Kurt?"
He nodded. He got up and paced the room, making a grimace of distaste at her surroundings. "This is uncomfortable, I know, but it was hastily arranged. I will try to improve your surroundings when I can." He turned back to her. "Kurt has sent in a band of mercenaries to attack us, before our enemies rush to do the same thing and without pretence. We will then blame the attack on the government presently hostile to yours, and plead for American intervention to stop them before they realize how weak we are right now as a nation and rush over our borders. Kurt has a friend in the Senate who has persuasive powers, and I think that your government will not need much excuse to launch an attack against our mutual enemy,"
Brianne stood up. "You mustn't," she said earnestly. "You-could start a world war!"
He shrugged again and puffed on his cigar. "Better that than let the oil fields be captured by our enemies before we can start exploiting them for the benefit of our people. Believe me, it has not been easy persuading the sheikh that the oil our country possesses must be drawn out of the earth to save our economy from collapse. He believes that it is wrong to depend on the West, even for the development of our potential wealth. I have argued long and hard to convince him that the benefit to our people will be worth the foreign interest here."
"Benefit to your people...?"
He glared at her. "You have an interesting picture of me. I am a monster, yes? A vicious, perverted man who enjoys nothing more man despoiling women and making himself richer!"
She made an impotent gesture with her hands.
"My grandmother's village, the place where I was born, is a wasteland of poverty, of malnutrition and disease and ignorance. All around us, the oil-producing nations are counting their wealth while we stand at the door knocking, to be turned away by servants richer than we are.'' She was utterly speechless for a few seconds. "But there is foreign aid..."
He smiled wearily. "How naive you are," he said. "How naive and trusting. You live in the decadent West. You have plenty to eat and drink, clothes to wear, cars to drive you, airplanes to fly you anyplace you want to go. You have no idea how most of the rest of the world lives, Miss Martin."- He puffed on his cigar. , "You might find a month in my country enlightening. Unlike the metropolitan cities of our neighbors, here in Qawi you can live in a mud hut with no indoor facilities, draw water from a sandy well, kill and dress whatever small animal you can catch to cook over an open fire, spin wool to make thread to weave cloth to make your own clothing, and watch your babies starve to death or die of dysentery and fever for lack of medicine. We have no Europeans here, and no modern cities." He nodded at her look of consternation. "You seem stunned."
"It sounds primitive."
"It is primitive," he said shortly. "Primitive and hopeless and useless! Without money there is no hope of educating my people. Without education, there is only poverty forever."
She was at a loss to make suggestions. Astonished at what he was telling her, at the warped picture she had of him and the world he lived in, she was absolutely without the ability to debate him.
"And now we face the problem of what to do with you while Kurt bargains for me in America," he continued.
She looked around her worriedly. "Are you going to keep me here? But, why, if you don't want me for, well, for nefarious purposes?"
He sighed. "I brought you here to ensure Kurt's cooperation with the fiction that I wanted to marry you and bring our families into an alliance," he said-honestly. "He was most anxious to agree to my plan, which appealed to his unbridled greed. But I understand that his wife tried to talk him into backing out of the deal. He dealt with her in a way that brings no respect from me. I have no patience with men who hit their women, whatever the reason." He held up a hand. "She is not much hurt. I made sure of it."
Brianne's first thought was for her mother's safety. So she was relieved to hear Sabon's reassurance that Eve was all right for now.
She jerked her mind back to the present. "You mean, I'm here so that Kurt won't try to go against you."
"Exactly," he replied. He smiled coolly. "Of course, he thinks I have...other plans for you, and it was convenient to let him believe so." His eyes briefly sparkled with humor. "I believe your mother actually threatened to leave him if you are harmed. Surprising, no, such concern in such a mercenary woman?"
She caught her breath. "How do you know so much about my mother?"
"I have spies everywhere." He studied her soft features with real regret. "You are no conventional beauty, but you have a quality of compassion that is so rare as to be precious. I look at you and grieve for the loss of the man I once was. I would have cherished you."
Her breathing suspended at the statement, so unexpected, and so sincere. He seemed so vulnerable then, so tormented, that her heart ached for him.
He saw that expression cross her oval face and he winced. "Child, the sight of you hurts me," he said hoarsely, and he turned away. "I never meant to involve you in this, in any way. Kidnapping was the last thing on my mind, but it was as much for your sake as mine that I brought you here. Kurt is unpredictable, and his temper has become unmanageable. I would not have you hurt for the world," he added huskily, glancing at her.
Unexpectedly touched by his attitude, she got up out of her chair and moved toward him. He was nothing like the monster she'd made of him in her mind. He was nothing like the man the world saw and hated. Hesitantly, she touched his arm, no longer afraid. She felt pity for him.
He looked down at the soft hand on the expensive material of his sleeve with astonishment. His black eyes, so different from Pierce's, so foreign, met hers.
He reached toward her in a moment of suspended time, hesitantly like a young boy alone for the first time with a girl. His lean hands gently touched her upper arms. "You will... permit?" he asked, slowly drawing her toward him.
She let him draw her into his arms and hold her. It was the most incredible experience of her life, there in me room where she was a prisoner, to stand in the circle of that man's arms and let him hold her. That was all he did. He made no move toward intimacy or violence. He touched her hair as if it fascinated him,
and she could hear his breath sigh out roughly at her ear. For an instant, she felt his cheek against the top of her head and heard a soft groan pass his lips. A shiver ran the length of his tall, lean body. They called him a monster. A criminal. A beast. He trembled in her arms.
"Can't they do anything for you?" she asked quietly.
He swallowed. "Nothing." His voice broke on the word. His hands cradled her head, and after a minute, they framed her face and lifted it to his eyes. They were wet. He was un-
ashamed of his reaction as he studied her in a painful silence. He clenched his teeth as he saw the stuff of dreams so close that he could breathe it in through his nostrils, and so far away that it might have been a distant star.
Her fingers reached up to his cheek and touched it lightly. "I'm sorry," she said.
He didn't blink. "All I had left were memory and dreams." He managed a faint smile. "Now I will have the look in your eyes as well." He moved away and took her hands, palms up, to his lips. "Thank you," he said huskily, and dropped them at once.
He moved away to the door and stood there for a minute, gathering his self-control. "You will not be harmed, ever, by me or anyone close to me," he said, glancing back at her. "I give you my word. And if you ever need help, for any reason, I am yours to command."
She stared at him with faint wonder. "Why?"
One of his shoulders moved almost imperceptibly. "Perhaps because you have a heart more fragile than any I have ever known, a heart that can pity a monster like me."
"You aren't a monster," she said.
His eyes hardened. "Yes, I am," he replied. "And I never realized it until today."
She drew in a long breath. "Mr. Sabon, what about Jack?"
"Philippe," he corrected her quietly. "Who is Jack?"
"Mr. Hutton's bodyguard," she said, hoping against hope that he wouldn't find out who "Jack" was. "He was brought in with me. They put him someplace else."
"So Hutton sent a bodyguard with you," he mused. "He must think me a great threat to your virtue."
"Yes, he does," she agreed at once.
His laugh was hollow. "There was a time," he said gently, "when that threat would have been a very real one. With hair and skin like that, you would truly have been 'white gold' to a man like me. Perhaps it is fortunate for you that I went to Palestine that day."
“What is 'white gold' ?'' she asked, diverted
"There was once a flourishing slave trade in this part of the world, where a white woman would bring her weight in gold." He chuckled. "You would have brought a very nice price."
While she was working out a reply, he glanced at his watch. "I have business to conduct. You will have everything you need," he promised as he turned back toward the door. He paused and glanced at her again, with a soft, curious smile. "Mufti and Rashid speak highly of you. You are not what any of us expected you to be."
Her shoulders rose and fell. "Neither are all of you," she replied. "I suppose we all think in stereotypes until we know something about the people behind the politics."
He nodded. "This is true. And I am indeed sorry for your confinement. But too much is at stake to risk letting you go."
He knocked on the door. It was opened and he left with his two men.
Brianne gnawed on her lower lip while she cursed silently at her inability to sway him from this maniacal course. It seemed perfectly logical to him, to start a war in order to save his country from conquest. But it was her country he expected to fight it for him! She had to stop this. She had to get to Washington, to stop Kurt from what he was planning, to tell someone what Sabon was planning!
But first she had to escape, she and Pierce. How would they get away? And despite his courtesy to her, what might Sabon do to Pierce when he found out who he had in his power? Surely he'd use Pierce's capture to his advantage! He could hold him for ransom if nothing else. Here, in this poor place, a rich Westerner would be in the greatest danger.
She paced the floor, turning plans over and over in her mind. She couldn't scale the wall or break through iron bars. That left the door, and the men were guarding it. Could she play on their emotions, weaken them and then overpower them? Of course, she thought, amused at her own nerve. She could weaken them with pity and then knock them out, two big strong men with loaded automatic weapons. Despite their regard for her, they probably wouldn't hesitate to shoot her if she threatened their boss's plans.
She sat back down again, perplexed by Sabon's strange behavior. She recalled being so afraid of him, so repulsed by the man she thought he was. Now her own sympathy for him put those memories aside. As long as she lived, she would remember tears in that man's eyes as she let him hold her.
She got a sudden picture of herself with a sign around her neck offering hugs to the madman two countries over, and she laughed to herself. She was getting Stockholm Syndrome identifying with her captors. Pierce would laugh himself sick.
Pierce. She wondered what they were doing to Pierce. She flushed, remembering their earlier encounter. Wouldn't he feel terrible when he realized what he'd done, that there was no threat from Sabon at all and Brianne wasn't on the pill. He might have made her pregnant. That would play hell with his own plans, because he'd said that he wanted to be alone, and did not want a permanent relationship with Brianne. Things were very complicated and she had no idea how to resolve them.
Right now, she had to think only of escape. Later, when she was safely at home again, she could worry about the things she didn't have time to consider right now.
Tate Winthrop had just gotten off the phone with one of the men in his personal network of "interested observers" of the world situation. His wide, chiseled mouth pulled into a thoughtful expression as he stared out the window of his luxurious Washington, D.C. apartment at the city's night skyline. It glittered like diamonds and sapphires and rubies. It was beautiful, he mused, but a far cry from the natural colors of a South Dakota sunset near the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation where he'd grown up. He studied the face of a young, dark-eyed blond woman in the simple wood frame on his desk. He hid the photo of Cecily whenever she came over for supper, which she did occasionally when the Smithsonian could spare her. He couldn't let her know the depth of his feelings for her. She was a forensic anthropologist, and she often worked with the FBI to examine skeletal remains. It was a grisly profession for a sensitive young woman, but it had been her dream to escape her stepfather's clutches and get an education. Tate had made that possible for her. She had no idea how much she owed him, and he wanted to keep it that way. He felt responsible for her, but he'd never permitted even the slightest intimacy between them. He was Sioux and she was white. He wanted no mixing of blood, no child of two separate races growing up without a true identity. Except for that, he might easily have given in to his feelings for her, he mused as he studied the delicate features of her face in the photograph, Cecily Peterson wasn't beautiful. She was pretty and slender, and she had courage and spirit and a keen, cutting wit. If he had a weakness at all, Cecily was it. And just lately, she'd bothered him more than ever before.
Pierce Button's phone call had come at an opportune time. It would get him away from Cecily while he refortified his defenses against her. He had to do that periodically. Sometimes it was agony not to just reach for her and have done with it. A man of lesser scruples and willpower would have, years ago.
He smoothed long, dark fingers over the desk and pondered how to proceed. Pierce had wanted him to bring two men and meet him in Freeport. Now a contact in Freeport reported that Pierce's plane had landed, but Pierce had never shown up at the hotel where he was registered under an alias. Neither had the young woman who was supposed to be accompanying him.
That meant that Pierce had been snatched. And Tate had a fairly good idea who'd snatched him. Philippe Sabon and Kurt Brauer were up to something, and Pierce had landed himself right in the way.
He got to his feet, tall and lean and powerful in the light from the window, stretching his six-foot frame
to unknot the muscles in his long back. He smoothed a hand over his long, thick black braid. It was silly not to cut his hair, since he lived in a white world, but he still harbored some faint superstitions and beliefs that had been handed down in his family for generations. He believed in talismans, and his long hair was powerful medicine. The only time he'd cut it, he'd been shot in the chest and almost died while working for a secret government agency overseas. Since then, it was occasionally trimmed and nothing more.
He went to the closet and pulled out a small case with some items he was going to need. Then he phoned two of his best men and told them where to meet him. His heart raced at the thought of what lay ahead. Small surges of adrenaline kept him alive during the monotony of security work. This might be dangerous, but it was also going to be fun.
Pierce Button, locked in a much smaller room than Brianne's, tried unsuccessfully to pick the lock with a paper clip he'd found in a table drawer. There was some rust inside the old lock, and it wouldn't budge. He dropped the twisted paper clip to the floor with a muffled curse and threw his shoulder against the door. It didn't budge. The damned thing must have steel right through it, because it made his arm sore. He looked up, only to find another of those high barred windows that seemed to be everywhere in this fortress.