Robyn Donald – By Royal Demand (страница 8)
‘That is a foul thing to say,’ she retorted, shoring up her composure with anger, only to tamp it down because it wouldn’t get her anywhere. She drew in a jagged breath and tried reason. ‘Gabe, holding me prisoner isn’t going to work because I don’t know anything about the theft. For the same reason, seducing me won’t achieve anything. Acting like one of your robber baron ancestors might satisfy your need for revenge, but it won’t get you what you want.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t want revenge,’ he said briefly, and poured more champagne into her glass, his angular, clever face reflective.
Hope warmed into life inside her. Perhaps her refusal of his insulting offer had begun to—oh, not to convince him, not yet, but make him wonder if he might be wrong about her? This whole situation was so unlike him. Although he had a reputation for dangerous manoeuvres, his career had been marked by a keen intelligence that carefully calculated every risk.
Until they’d met. And now, this kidnapping…
‘You could let me go,’ she said quietly, knowing that if he did it would be another, final ending. She’d never see him again except in the newspapers and on television. ‘I won’t tell anyone what happened.’
His expression hardened into cynicism. ‘Nothing’s happened, Sara. And you can stop looking at me with those wide, scared eyes. I don’t plan to torture the truth out of you, or lock you in a dungeon for the rest of your life.’
‘So what do you intend to do?’ she shot back.
He handed her the champagne flute, seemingly not aware of the way her breath caught in her throat when their fingers touched.
Picking up his own glass, he said abruptly, ‘I’ll make a deal with you. If you didn’t have anything to do with stealing the Queen’s Blood, you might still know something that would help—some scrap of information that doesn’t seem important, something that will lead to the thieves. We’ll go over what you recall, and if at the end of the week nothing comes of it then you can go.’
She crushed a spark of angry rebellion. Gabe was arrogantly playing with her life, ordering it to suit himself because she didn’t have the power to prevent him. But that last offer sounded as though he was prepared to compromise.
Dared she trust him? She scanned his handsome, enigmatic face.
No way.
Yet it would soothe some yearning part of her if she could persuade him that she had nothing to do with the theft. Warily, she said, ‘I don’t—’
He cut her off, his expression brooking no further shilly-shallying. ‘Just give me an answer, Sara.’
She said coldly, ‘I have no choice, do I?’
‘No.’
‘I think I’d rather be a prisoner than go through the pretence of being a guest and helping you with your enquiries.’ She loaded the phrase with sarcasm. ‘At least that would be honest. But if it will convince you that I truly don’t know anything, I’m game. And of course I’ll work on the bedrooms as well. However, what will happen at the end of the week when I’ve come up with nothing?’
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