A Bride for the Taking by Sandra Marton

Author:Sandra Marton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1992-12-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

THE pass merged with a dusty, unpaved road at the base of the mountain. Jake was waiting for Dorian as she skidded down the last steep section. He caught her in his arms, but there was nothing welcoming in his embrace.

‘No more lagging behind,’ he snapped. ‘From now on, I want to know where you are at all times.’

‘Is that so?’ she said coldly.

‘And I don’t want to hear a word out of you. Have you got that?’

Dorian wrenched free of him. ‘Come off it, Jake. The macho act gets tiresome after a while.’

‘Behave yourself,’ he said in a soft, ominous tone.

‘Or?’

‘Or you might just turn our little adventure into something you’ll never forget.’

‘You’re very good at making threats. Let’s just see how good you are at keeping promises—like the one you made me about getting us to Kadar.’

Jake smiled grimly. ‘Just do as you’re told and everything will be fine.’

He didn’t know how right he was, she thought as he clasped her elbow and tugged her unceremoniously into place beside him. Everything would be fine—just as soon as she notified WorldWeek that she was coming in with the story of the decade. Walt had wanted her to find a way to wangle an interview with the next abdhan. What he’d meant was, get this story even if you have to go to bed with the guy, and she’d told him where he could shove that idea.

Dorian smiled. In the end, what she’d done was a lot more creative.

She’d trotted across half of forever with the publicity-shy Jake Prince or Jack Alexander or whatever in hell he wanted to call himself, learning more about him in two days than others had in years of trying.

No other reporter’s story would be able to hold a candle to hers. She would get the full treatment when the news of her exclusive broke, but she didn’t want it to happen in Kadar. She wanted it the minute they came trudging through the Valley of the Two Suns. She could see it now: TV cameras. Radios, microphones—she wanted it all.

And she knew exactly how to set it up. All she needed was two minutes alone with a telephone, once they reached Quarem.

Jake glanced at her. ‘Keep that scarf up.’

‘I thought you said there were blondes in Barovnia.’

‘What did I tell you about giving me a hard time?’

‘Forgive me, my lord,’ Dorian said pleasantly, and she pulled the shawl high up on her head.

He gave her a glowering look. ‘That’s better.’

Of course it was, she thought gleefully. It was perfect! Not her ridiculous compliance: if he thought she’d believed all that stuff about the horrors that awaited her in Quarem, he was crazy.

No. What was perfect was the story she was bringing with her—and the fact that Jake, in his pitiful male arrogance, still thought she had no idea that he was the abdhan.

Did he really think she was that simple-minded? Was she supposed to accept the explanation that he’d been talking about his

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