Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
“No,” I say, and surprise myself by smiling fondly. “I didn’t. If anything, she stalked me.”
40
Sara
* * *
Shocked, I stare at my tormentor, caught off-guard by that soft, almost tender smile. I fully expected him to explode at the question, and as I watched his fingers tighten on the glass stem, I was sure he would.
Instead, he smiled.
Chewing on my lower lip, I consider dropping the topic, but even with the threat of kidnapping looming over me, I can’t resist the chance to learn more about him.
“What do you mean?” I ask, picking up my wine glass. The risotto is amazing, but my stomach is tied in knots, preventing me from finishing my portion. Wine, though, I could use.
Maybe if I drink enough, I’ll forget his terrifying promise.
“We met when I was passing through her village almost nine years ago.” Peter leans back in his chair, a wine glass cradled in his big hand. The candlelight casts a soft, warm glow over his handsome features, and if it weren’t for the stress-induced adrenaline in my veins, I could’ve bought into the illusion of a romantic dinner, into the fantasy he’s trying so hard to create.
“My team was tracking a group of insurgents in the mountains,” he continues, his gaze turning distant as he relives the memory. “It was winter, and it was cold. Unbelievably cold. I knew we had to crash someplace warm for the night, so I asked the villagers to rent us a couple of rooms. Only one woman was brave enough to do so, and that was Tamila.”
I take a sip of wine, fascinated despite myself. “She lived by herself?”
Peter nods. “She was only twenty at the time, but she had a small house of her own. Her aunt died and left it to her. It was unheard of in her village, for a young woman to live on her own, but Tamila was never big on rules. Her parents wanted her to marry one of the village elders, a man who could give them a dowry of five goats, but Tamila found him repulsive and was delaying the marriage as much as she could. Needless to say, her parents weren’t pleased, and by the time my men and I came to the village, she was desperate to change her situation.”
I gulp down the rest of my wine as he continues. “I didn’t know any of this, of course. I just saw a beautiful young woman, who, for whatever reason, welcomed three half-frozen Spetsnaz soldiers into her home. She gave her bedroom to my guys and put me into the second, smaller room, saying that she herself would sleep on the couch.”
“But she didn’t,” I guess as he leans in to pour me more wine. My stomach feels tight, something uncomfortably like jealousy roiling my insides. “She came to you.”
“Yes, she did.” He smiles again, and I hide my discomfort by drinking more wine. I don’t know why picturing him with this “beautiful young woman” bothers me, but it does, and it’s all I can do to listen calmly as he says, “I didn’t turn her down, naturally. No straight man would. She was shy and relatively inexperienced but not a virgin, and when we left in the morning, I promised to swing by the village on the way back. Which I did, two months later, only to learn that she was pregnant with my child.”
I blink. “You didn’t use protection?”
“I did—the first time. The second time, I was asleep when she started rubbing against me, and by the time I woke up fully, I was inside her and too far gone to remember the condom.”
My mouth drops open. “She got pregnant on purpose?”
He shrugs. “She claimed she didn’t, but I suspect otherwise. She lived in a conservative Muslim village, and she’d had a lover before me. She never told me who he was, but if she’d gone through with the marriage to the elder—or if she’d turned him down and married someone else from her village—she could’ve been publicly exposed and cast out by her husband. A non-Muslim foreigner like me was her best bet at avoiding that fate, and she seized the opportunity when she saw it. It’s admirable, really. She took a risk, and it paid off.”
“Because you married her.”
He nods. “I did—after the paternity test confirmed her claim.”
“That’s… very noble of you.” I feel inexplicably relieved that he didn’t fall head over heels for this girl. “Not many men would’ve been willing to marry a woman they didn’t love for the sake of the child.”
Peter shrugs again. “I didn’t want my son exposed to ridicule or growing up without a father, and marrying his mother was the best way to ensure that. Besides, I grew to care for Tamila after my son was born.”