Awakened by Her Desert Captor by Abby Green Page B

scathing response again, she was tired of playing a role that wasn’t really her. ‘There’s something else you don’t know.’
    Arkim arched a brow.
    She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve never actually...stripped. The main act I do in the show is the one with the sword. I do other routines too, but I’ve never taken all my clothes off. What I did just now... I made it up... I was just proving a point.’
    He frowned, shook his head as if trying to clear it. ‘Why don’t I believe that?’
    Sylvie lifted her chin. ‘Because you judged me before you even met me, and you have some seriously flawed ideas about what the revue actually is. Why would I lie? It’s not as if I have anything to lose where you’re concerned.’
    She saw a familiar flash of fire come into Arkim’s eyes and went on hurriedly.
    â€˜The man who runs the revue—Pierre—he knew my mother. They were contemporaries. When I arrived in Paris I was seventeen years old. He took me under his wing. For the first two years I was only allowed to train with the other dancers. I wasn’t allowed to perform. I cleaned and helped keep the books to pay my way.’ Sylvie shrugged and looked away, embarrassed that she was telling Arkim so much. ‘He’s protective of me—like a father figure. I think that’s why he doesn’t allow me to do the more risqué acts.’
    When she glanced back at Arkim his face was inscrutable. Sylvie realised then that he probably resented her telling him anything of the reality of her life.
    When he spoke his voice was cool, with no hint of whether or not he believed her. ‘Go to bed Sylvie, we’re done here.’
    She felt his dismissal like a slap in the face and realised with a sense of hollowness that perhaps she should have been honest from the beginning. Then they could have avoided all of this. Because clearly Arkim had no time for a woman who didn’t match up to his worst opinions.
    He turned to walk away again and she blurted out before she could stop herself, ‘What do you mean, “we’re done”?’
    Arkim stopped and looked at her. He seemed to be weighing something up in his mind and then he said, ‘We’ll be leaving as soon as the storm has passed.’
    Then he just turned and walked out, leaving Sylvie gaping. ‘We’ll be leaving...’ She’d done it. She’d provoked him into letting her go. She’d finally made him listen to her—made him listen as she tried to explain who she really was. And now he didn’t want to know. Yet instead of relief or triumph all Sylvie felt was...deflated.
    * * *
    â€˜I don’t feel anything for you except physical desire.’ Arkim’s own words mocked him. He couldn’t get the flash of hurt he’d seen in Sylvie’s eyes out of his head. And he tried. He couldn’t deny that it made him feel...guilty. Constricted.
    He’d lied. What he felt for her was much more complicated than mere physical desire. It was a tangled mess of emotions, underscored by the most urgent lust he’d ever felt.
    He didn’t ever say things to hurt women—he stayed well away from any such possibility by making sure that his liaisons were not remotely emotional. Yet he seemed to have no problem lashing out and tearing strips off Sylvie Devereux at every opportunity.
    It should be bringing him some sense of pleasure, or satisfaction. But it wasn’t. Because he had the skin-prickling feeling that there was something he was missing. Something in Sylvie’s responses. He would have expected her to be more petulant. Whiny. More obviously spoilt.
    She’d shown defiance, yes, and even though her dash into the desert had been foolhardy she’d shown resilience.
    Arkim sat in his book-lined study with its dark, sophisticated furniture and classic original art. He’d always liked this room because it was so far