Sheikh's Blackmailed Love (3 page)

It was about then when she had realized that the embassy had never appeared, and the fear from being in Christensen’s camp came back.

When she had demanded to speak with the embassy, a large and stern military official had come to speak with her. He was nothing like Dario, who had treated her with such kindness; he was perfectly blunt.

She could either continue her convalescence at the hospital, or she could be taken to a detainment area.

“Detained?” she had sputtered. “What for?”

“You are under investigation for the crime of attempting to remove priceless national treasures from the country of Jabal, part of the Christensen case. At the moment, your role in the case is unclear, and you are staying put until that role is understood.”

“My role…?”

“Or do you intend to call Sheikh al-Nejem a liar?” he said coldly. From the look on his face, that would be a very bad idea indeed.

“Who?” she blurted out.

The man looked at her, obviously impatient and ready to be done with her.

“You told him you needed the money and that you were involved. Obviously, this must be investigated further, before you can be cleared.”

She stared at him, feeling as if the world had turned upside down. The words he was saying made sense in and of themselves, but together, they felt like nonsense.

“Are you talking about Dario?”

If anything, her outburst made the official look at her even more coldly.

“Yes. Dario al-Nejem, First Among Ten Thousand. The Sheikh of Jabal.”

Bailey’s mouth went dry. She couldn’t match it up. The highest law in the land could not be the man who had rescued her, could not be the man who had sat by her bed.

The official left the room, leaving her lost in her thoughts and pondering what her fate might be.

The next few days passed slowly. The bruise on her forehead faded until it was a mere smudge, and the pain went away before that. Soon she was pacing restlessly in her room. They allowed her to send a message to her mother telling her that she was fine, but beyond that, she was not allowed her phone.

A day after she saw the military official, a representative from the embassy came to see her.

“You were breaking the law,” the woman said, not without sympathy. “You came to this country to work with criminals.”

“But I didn’t know,” Bailey said for what felt like the thousandth time.

The woman shook her head.

“Jabal, like many other parts of the Middle East, has had many sacred treasures taken from their shores. They are protective to say the least, and they do not tolerate theft in this regard.”

Bailey swallowed, on the verge of tears.

“What’s going to happen to me?” she asked.

The woman sighed.

“We’re not quite sure yet,” she said gently. “The wheels are turning, however, and I believe that most would rather just let you go. Just sit tight and don’t cause trouble, all right? We’ll figure something out for you.”

The days dragged out until she thought they had forgotten her utterly. Perhaps this was her punishment, to stay in a small hospital room, overlooked and forgotten until she went insane.

Finally, almost a week after she had seen the representative, a woman she had never met before showed up with a shopping bag for her.

“All right, Miss Tyler, you need to get changed. We’re leaving the hospital now.”

For a moment, she thought she was being told to change into prison coveralls, but then she looked down and realized that she was being given robes of the kind worn in the countryside. When she put on the dark robes and the headdress, she felt as if she was being muffled in fabric.

“What’s going on?” she asked, keeping her voice as calm as she could. “Where am I going?”

“You are going to the excavation site close to the Sinn mountains. Things will be explained to you there.”

It occurred to Bailey that she could dig in her heels, protest, kick and scream. The idea of being taken back to the scene of one of the worst nights of her life was terrifying. Instead, she swallowed her protests and dressed as the woman waited impatiently.

“Does… does the American embassy know where I am going?”

The woman nodded.

“They have been apprised, and they will be in contact with you later.”

With that, Bailey had to be content. The woman ushered her down to a waiting car outside the hospital. Bailey was slightly shocked at the number of people walking around, living their lives, checking their phones and getting food from the falafel stand. Her life had felt so intense for so long that she couldn’t even remember what normalcy felt like. She envied them immensely.

The car took them to the edge of town, where she was transferred to a jeep. The driver settled her comfortably into the back, which was something of a comfort, before he started driving.

It took almost four hours to get to the site in the desert, and though she was comfortable and given food and water, Bailey couldn’t stop the stab of fear going all the way through her. What was happening?

She could tell they were back at the excavation site, but a huge change had come over it. The trailers had been replaced by state-of-the-art mobile homes, and at the center of it, improbably and quite gorgeously, was an enormous brocade tent.

“What’s going on here?” she asked, but the driver only shook his head.

“Not for me to tell you, I’m afraid. Here, I’m to show you to your mobile home.”

He took her to a small but comfortably appointed mobile home, where she found all of her things she had thought lost forever waiting for her. After that, there was nothing for her to do but wait.

Almost an hour later, there was a knock on her door. Bailey had spent the last week with people making free with her personal space, and for a moment, she barely knew that she was meant to allow them in. Cautiously, moving as if there were some kind of dark beast waiting for her, she opened the door, and there stood Dario.

Since they had seen each other, she had somehow convinced herself that he couldn’t be that handsome, that she was simply overwhelmed because he had saved her life. Now that Bailey was confronted with the man face-to-face, she realized that had not been an exaggeration or a hallucination.

Dario was an exceptionally handsome man, tall enough that she had to tilt her head back to look at him, muscular enough that it made sense he had been able to lift her on his horse so easily. Dressed casually in the fatigues, boots, and white tank top that were worn by so many off-duty soldiers around the world, he was almost breathtakingly handsome.

The only problem was that now she knew who he was.

She didn’t see the tentative smile or the bright hopeful look on his face. Instead, she dropped her eyes and dipped down in the half bow that was so common in this part of the world.

“Your highness,” she said, her voice low.

“No, that’s not necessary,” he said. To her surprise, he took her shoulders, straightening her up. Bailey looked up into his dark eyes, shocked at the simple humor there.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

It had been so long since someone had asked her permission for something, she hesitated a moment before she gave it to him.

“I’m not sure that I can stop you,” she said, stepping aside.

When he walked into her trailer, Bailey wondered with a slightly wry humor how she had never noticed before that he was a sheikh. He walked in as if he owned the place and everything in it. When he glanced at her with the same kind of proprietary gleam, she could feel the anger that had been fraying at the back of her mind start to slip.

“How are you finding your accommodations?” he asked, and it was a simple enough question. If she had been a visiting dignitary or scholar, it would have been fine. However, she was not.

“I’m finding them a little confusing,” Bailey said bluntly. Dario looked slightly taken aback by her bluntness, and right now that suited her just fine. Let him see what happened when he kept her in the dark too long.

“Ever since I woke up, I’ve had no idea what is happening to me. At first I thought I was going to go home, and now, for some reason, I’m in the Sinn mountains again. No one is telling me what is happening, and… and…”

Dario waved his hand as if he could make all of her frustrations disappear. She prickled at being shushed like a child, but for the moment, she subsided. Whether she wanted to or not, apparently, she needed to hear what he had to say.

“Your position after what the press is calling the ‘Christensen affair’ is murky,” he said. “I am not sure if you know, but most of the people involved in that particular bit of banditry are currently awaiting trial with the possibility of very long prison terms ahead of them.”

Bailey refused to let herself flinch. Instead, she met Dario’s eyes with iron resolve, waiting to hear what he had to say.

“You’re different,” he said. “Going through some of the records, it seems as if Christensen had issues getting an academic of your caliber out to Jabal. He’s been turned down by every one of them that he contacted, until he decided to dispense with appealing to greed and simply decided to lie.”

Bailey did flinch at that. When she looked back at how she had been brought on, she knew that there was something wrong. She knew that Christensen wasn’t telling her everything, but she had convinced herself that it was simply a part of getting her first big job in her field. That little voice had started screaming ever since she made it to the Sinn mountains with Christensen’s convoy, and she wasn’t sure it had ever stopped.

“So on one hand, we have a bunch of robbers who were looking to steal my country’s very history, and on the other hand, we have a press that is baying for them to receive the justice that they so richly deserve.”

Bailey wondered if she should drop to her knees and kiss his feet now. She wondered if she should beg for her life, or try to sweeten her plea by appealing to his ego. She did nothing. Instead, she only lifted her chin slightly, waiting to see what her fate would be.

“And here, in the Sinn mountains, we have an academic who was caught up in a web of lies that was designed to strand her in one of the most desolate mountain chains in the world.”

“Oh, what do you do with a problem like Bailey,” she muttered, and Dario smiled a little.

“What indeed. I think I should tell you openly that your embassy is interested in your release but wants desperately to avoid challenging Jabal. What was finally decided was signed off by the American embassy quite quickly.

“Some of the press sees you as an innocent victim, while others are painting you as robber queen who wants nothing more than to despoil the history of Jabal. So, it has been decided that you will work this dig for a while, under the custody of the person in charge of the dig, and doing what it is, after all, you do so well. This will placate the people who believe that you deserve some kind of punishment, and it will soothe those who want you out of harm’s way.”

Bailey stared at him, her hands clenching hard. Just a few hours ago, she was in one of the most modern cities in the world. She could have taken a cab and gotten on a plane that would have had her back on American soil in a day or less. Now she was… right back where she had started.

“You can’t be serious,” she said finally.

When he raised his eyebrows, her temper snapped so hard she was surprised it wasn’t audible.

“What are you—”

“Don’t you understand? They blindfolded me to bring me here! Christensen on more than one occasion threatened to make sure I wouldn’t make it home if I didn’t do exactly as he said! I thought I was going to die here… and now you’re telling me that there’s nothing I can do but work here some more?”

For a moment, she wondered if she saw some kind of sympathy on Dario’s face, but then it was replaced with something colder.

“The press corp in Jabal is evenly split on whether you should be delivered to the embassy or whether you should be put on trial. The more vicious members of the press are whipping up the populace. If you are free to go, some of those people will be incensed, endangering you, and even endangering my position.”

“So because you don’t want to deal with a scandal, I’m being held prisoner in the desert,” she spat.

“You are being protected against the dangers of a populace that wants you punished,” he snapped.

“I would be safe enough in the United States,” Bailey snarled, and apparently, that was where Dario had had enough.

Suddenly, she found herself pressed back against the wall, one large hand on her shoulder holding her still. He loomed above her, blocking the light from the window behind him and shrouding her in his shadow. For one delirious moment, she thought that she had pushed too far and that he was going to kill her then and there. It took her a few moments to realize he was talking very quietly.

“You are an American, so I will give this to you,” he said, almost conversationally. “Things are different here. Jabal is a progressive land. We cherish justice and compassion. However, we are a land that has been hard done by in the last century. Before we found our own strength and our own wealth in the oil underneath the sands, we were easy pickings for the world—for Britain, France, even your own beloved United States.

“These days, we trade and we smile and we give, but we are very, very careful about what is ours. It would have been better if you had fallen in with bank robbers, little American. It might even be better if you had fallen in with murderers. What Christensen did, and what you were a part of… there is no forgiveness for that. Not really.”

Bailey started to speak, but Dario made a cutting motion with his hand, forbidding it.

“Here it is. You will stay here. You will do the work that is assigned to you, and you will do it gratefully and competently. That is what is going to happen.”

He smiled a little, and that smile was a cruel thing.

“You are welcome to leave, if you can get across the desert yourself and to an airport. Feel free.”

She stared at him, appalled. “I would die in the desert—there’s no way that I can cross that myself. That’s blackmail!”