Chantelle Shaw - The Sheikh Who Blackmailed Her - Desert Prince, Blackmailed Bride / The Sheikh and the Bought Bride / At the Sheikh's Bidding

She saw with horror blood well along the line of his knuckles as he ground his flesh into the hard surface. It had to be hurting, but he didn’t appear to notice—not the pain, nor her breathless panting efforts to pull his arm down. She could barely get a purchase. The muscles under her fingers were tense and bulging and they had about as much give as a steel bar. Her efforts were futile. He appeared not to even notice her.

He relaxed his arm suddenly, and, breathing a sigh of relief, Gabby knelt there, panting, her fingers still curled around his forearm.

‘Your poor hand.’ She winced, raising his hand to examine the broken skin across his knuckles. ‘You need—’

Rafiq sucked in a deep, shuddering breath and fixed her with a blazing stare so intense it stripped bare her defences, leaving her feeling emotionally exposed and trembling. ‘Need …?’ he echoed, giving a laugh that made her heart twist in her chest in empathy.

Anger rose inside her as she lifted his hand to her chest and nursed it there. Tears filled her eyes. He needed life, and it was being denied him. Misery lodged in her chest like a lump of lead—there was simply nothing she could say that wasn’t utterly clichéd.

‘Sorry.’

Her whispered comment brought his eyes to her face. He felt tenderness twist his heart. No woman had ever touched him this deeply.

‘I am sorry too. Sorry that I did not imagine for a heartbeat … not for a heartbeat—’ He broke off, lifting the hand that she held to his own chest and pressing it against the area where his heart rested.

Gabby, her hand trapped beneath his, could feel the heat of his body and the steady thud of his heart.

Oh, God, but I love him! The anguished admission was drawn from her very soul.

‘I did not imagine that a brother of mine could be so totally without honour. He actually left me a note,’ he raged, lifting his other hand to frame her face with long brown fingers.

It struck Gabby that to the casual observer they would look like lovers. A shiver slid down her spine.

‘What did Hakim say in the letter?’ she asked, wondering if she ought to tell Rafiq why his brother had gone. It weighed heavily on her conscience that she had inadvertently broken her promise.

But, while unburdening herself might ease her guilt, it was not going to make Rafiq feel any better to know why his brother had run away.

Gabby felt livid every time she thought about the young Prince and his feeble behaviour. She was definitely not inclined to make excuses for him, especially as it seemed to her people had been making excuses for Hakim for too long.

She believed that everyone faced tests in their lives. This was the most important test Hakim had ever faced and he had flunked it! If she had Hakim here now she’d tell him exactly what she thought of him. Of course it hurt like hell to know someone you loved was in pain and that there wasn’t a damn thing you could do to help, but you had to put your own feelings to one side.

That was simply what you did when you loved someone. Time enough later to indulge your own pain—too much time, she thought bleakly.

In that moment she was conscious of nothing but Rafiq. Every other thought was obliterated from her head as she soaked in sensations: the warmth radiating from his lean, hard body, his masculine strength, the fresh male scent of his skin.

‘People use love as an excuse—as if that justifies everything.’

Gabby felt a moment of guilty panic —had he guessed?

Then he added with a sardonic sneer, ‘My brother is apparently in love.’ Rafiq’s fingers fell away from her face, and his upper lip curled with contempt as he contended, ‘He doesn’t know the meaning of the word.’

Rafiq’s eyes swept her face before he turned his head away from her, expelling a hissing breath through flared nostrils. ‘He writes to say he is getting married to some woman—a divorcee. Apparently I have said something which has made him realise he has to do this. He never has been able to take responsibility for his own actions.’ He flung up his hands in a gesture of disgust before giving a shrug and pronouncing, ‘Their children will be idiots.’

‘He’s getting married?’ Gabby cried, sinking back onto her heels. ‘I didn’t see that one coming,’ she admitted, wondering if there really was a woman, or if Hakim had invented her to explain his absence.

Rafiq looked at her downbent head and felt a rush of emotion he avoided analysing. ‘My brother is an idiot …’ he said. He could have had Gabby, he thought. He is an imbecile!

‘You’re angry because all your careful plans have gone up in smoke,’ she said.

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