Sheikh's Blackmailed Love Read Free

to push her toward the car again. She wanted nothing more than to look behind her to see if the man had read her note, but she didn’t dare.
    Please ,she thought. Please, please.
    *
    Dario maintained his uninterested demeanor until the convoy was nothing more than a cloud of dust on the horizon, and then he made his way back to where they had left the horses. Behind the sheltering bulk of his own black mare, he opened the tiny note. It had been folded until it was a hard pellet in his hand, stained with sweat and fear.
    He read the note, and he felt his temper, which had been a low burn for the last several days, rise up higher and hotter.
    My name is Bailey Tyler, and I am an American woman. I have been working at a camp run by a man named Christensen for the last eleven months, removing artifacts from the Sinn mountains. I am not allowed to leave, and I am afraid of what might happen to me.
    Please tell the American embassy in Jabal that I am here.
    Please, I am very afraid.
    Bishr, a lean man with a truly impressive mustache, came up behind him.
    “You were right,” he said. “The convoy was from the camp after all. The people in the market told me that they come for supplies and repairs every week or so. These are the ones we have been looking for.”
    “Things have quickly become a little more complicated, my friend,” Dario said finally. “They seem to have some innocent people on the base.”
    He showed the military commander the note, and Bishr swore.
    “That does make things more complicated,” he agreed. “And some of the villagers say that they are more well armed than we thought they would be. May I respectfully suggest…”
    “You may not,” Dario said shortly. “This is my place here, both as a commander in the Jabal military myself and as the First Among Ten Thousand.”
    Bishr might not have liked it, but he knew better than to argue, which Dario decided was a blessing of sorts anyway.
    “Yes, sheikh. Your order, then?”
    “We wait until the sun is a little lower in the sky. We assess the situation, and if possible, we act as soon as we can. There may be some people who cannot wait much longer.”
    He took the note back from Bishr and placed it in his pocket. There had been something so desperate and so afraid about the girl who had bumped into him. She was brave to try to get word out, but from the glare of the man who had come to collect her, she might be punished for that bravery.
    What stuck with him, though, were her enormous gray eyes. They were as clear as water, and it felt as if he could see right down into her soul.
    Save me, save me please ,her eyes seemed to say, and he knew that he had to do everything he could.
    The other men had appeared, the forward guard for this particular expedition. Outside, waiting behind the rise, were the military vehicles to provide them with the support they would need.
    “All right,” he said. “We’re moving out.”
    *
    Back in her trailer, Bailey couldn’t relax. She stripped off the headdress, but she stayed in the robe, pacing back and forth in her tiny space. Abdul had threatened he would tell Christensen that she had been flirting with men in town, but it was just as likely he would hold the knowledge over her head for some kind of gain.
    There was a rough pounding on the door. She knew she should go see who it was, but instead, she picked up a small paring knife that she used to cut fruit, holding it down flat against her thigh. Bailey retreated into the farthest corner of the trailer, which she knew painfully was not very far away from the door at all.
    After a few minutes of cursing, the key turned in the lock, and she realized that it was Christensen after all, who had keys to all of the trailers on the site. To her dismay, she realized that he was drunk, and there was that mean glint his eye.
    “Abdul tells me you went to town to find yourself a man,” he snarled. “What the hell are you on about, then, Tyler?”
    “Abdul is a