She was drawing closer, his brothers cutting in on each other to take turns on her arms. She was laughing at something one of them said and Rashid was struck by her beauty and her joy. She was radiant. She looked up then, and the laughter died on her lips as their eyes locked. He saw the cognac-coloured eyes darken with smouldering need and the smile that she gave just to him and his heart swelled.
And then she was there before him and his three desert brothers lifted her hand to place in his, before, with a slap to his back, they peeled away to stand on his right.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said softly. ‘I love you.’
‘As I love you,’ she said, unable to stop the two tears of joy that squeezed unbidden from her eyes. ‘For ever.’
It was a fairy tale, it occurred to Tora in that moment as she looked up into the dark gaze of the man she loved. A tale of trials and tribulations decorated with palaces and pavilions, peacocks and fountains. A tale of the exotic. And yet a tale of the most basic human needs.
Like life.
She glanced towards her friend Sally where she sat beaming alongside Steve in his wheelchair—Steve, who was growing stronger by the day. Sally blew her a kiss and Tora smiled back, before looking up to the sky and feeling her mother and father soaring in the heights and beaming down upon her on her proudest day. They were here, she knew, and it was good.
Even better when she felt Rashid’s lips on her cheek. ‘You have made me the happiest man in the world,’ he whispered, and she wondered just how much joy it was possible to feel before one exploded with it.
For together they had conquered the tests put before them, had overcome their own fears and confronted their own feelings, and as their reward they had won the greatest prize of all. Had earned the greatest gift of all, for even life itself was worthless without it.
Love.
‘Dearly beloved,’ the celebrant began then as the gulls wheeled in the sky above and the passing ferry drivers tooted their horns in celebration, ‘we are gathered here today for this very special Christmas wedding...’
* *
Keep reading for an excerpt from BOUGHT FOR HER INNOCENCE by Tara Pammi.
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Bought for Her Innocence
by Tara Pammi
CHAPTER ONE
“I HAVE A proposition for you, Jasmine, that would allow you to pay off your brother’s debt within a year.”
Fear was a cold fist clamped over her spine, but Jasmine Douglas forced herself to stare steadily into the chilly green eyes of Noah King.
That word proposition from any other man of her acquaintance, while wholly unwelcome but an awful reality of her life, was something she was used to.
The clientele of the club where she worked, owned by Noah, was constantly under the impression that her scantily clad, gyrating-around-a-pole body was up for sale. That she was for sale.
She wasn’t and never would be.
Only soul-wrenching fear of the consequences of owing a debt to this man who owned three underground gambling clubs in London, and who was even now contemplating her future without blinking, had forced her into it.
She had barely buried her brother Andrew when she had learned of the debt he had piled up with Noah King, of all people. Desperation to resolve this debt and a need for survival forced her every night to take the stage.
So coming from Noah, that dangerous word turned the very blood in her veins into ice. “I’ve not missed a single payment, Noah,” she finally said through a dry mouth.
“Yes, but you’re barely making a dent. You have no assets that you could sell off, either.”
Her skin turned cold in the comfortably warm warehouse that was the headquarters of Noah’s empire. A couple of completely harmless-looking men had showed up at her flat this morning and very politely accompanied her to see Noah here.
Sweat pooling over her neck, Jasmine realized how foolish she was to assume that anything related to Noah King was harmless.
“Am I a prisoner, then?” she said, before she could hold back the reckless question.
Noah didn’t even blink as he casually peeled an orange and offered her some. “Until we find a satisfactory resolution, yes.”
Her gut dropped and she fought the instinct to turn around and run. No phrase had ever scared the daylights out of her like satisfactory resolution.
Why, oh, why hadn’t Andrew thought of where his debt would lead him one day? How could he have left her to deal with this dangerous man?
How, after all the promises he had made to her, could he have left her even worse than they had already been?
She had slaved for five years and was still stuck in this man’s power, like a fly stuck in a spider’s web. The more she tried to get out, the more she was ensnared.
On the heels of that thought came instant guilt. Andrew’s face flashed in front of her, his eagerness shining in his eyes, his expression so kind, lodging a lump in her throat.
We’ll get out of this dump one day, Jas. You just wait and watch. I’ll get us out of here.
Her brother had only wanted what was best for her, had only wanted to improve their lot in life. Had watched out for her for years.
Equipped with no skills, saddled with their mother’s drinking and responsibility for Jas, he had seen no other way out of the hellhole they had been born into except by trying his luck in Noah’s gambling den.
Not his fault that he had died so suddenly at only twenty-nine in an accident. Not his fault that everyone they had counted on had disappointed them.
And just like that, as though he was a thorn forever lodged under her skin, like a memory that had been burned into her brain, Dmitri came to mind.
Dmitri Karegas—godson of Giannis Katrakis, textile tycoon and internationally renowned playboy, collector of expensive toys like yachts and Bugattis and...beautiful women.
Dmitri, who had grown up along with them on the streets of London after his English father’s business went into bankruptcy, whom Andrew had shielded from his alcoholic father numerous times, Dmitri, whom Andrew had treated like a brother, Dmitri, to whom Andrew had gone in need and who had refused to help an old friend while he led a filthy rich life, who had looked at her so coldly at Andrew’s funeral and offered her cash.
Dmitri, whose exploits she followed with something bordering on obsession.
Thinking of Andrew would only weaken her; thinking of the man who might have helped was definitely a certain waste of her energies now.
It was as if there was glass in her throat as she looked back at Noah. “How much do I owe?”
“Thirty thousand pounds. It would take you another decade to pay it off if you continue as you do. But if you added a little something more personal to your menu at the club, then I see this going somewhere. You’re a huge hit, Jasmine, and I’ve been getting offer after offer...”
Noah’s words came as if from a distance, as if it was happening to some other person, as if it was the only way her mind could deal with it... Sweat gathered over her forehead and the back of her neck, the pungent odor of alcohol and sweaty bodies that clung to the walls of the warehouse cutting off her breath.
The only thing that did burn into her mind was that she would be one step closer to selling herself, if not all the way. That was what Noah had decided for her. If she didn’t get out now, she never would.
But how? Her lungs burned with the effort to draw breath; her knees locked in utter fear.
“...unless someone offers to buy out your debt, you have no choice.” Noah’s words floated into her mind again.
That was it. That was all she needed—someone to pay off her debt, to buy her from Noah.
And that someone had to be Dmitri.
No, that ashamed part of her screamed. If she went to him for help, he would know how low she had fallen. He would...
Better to sell herself to a known devil than an unknown one, the rational part of her asserted.
But even Dmitri couldn’t just extract her from Noah King with all the power he had amassed. Not after he had turned his back on this life and everything in it.
Not if he had become a soft man who spent his days lounging about on his yacht and nights with women who did his every bidding.
Jasmine would have to provide Dmitri an opening and pray that he would take the bait. And if he didn’t, the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.
The article she had seen in the tech magazine that had been wrapped around the loaf of warm bread she had bought at the bakery only last week came to her. She had nothing to lose at this point and still, everything to gain.
“Put my virginity up for an auction,” she said loudly, the words burning her lips. “Give me a chance to pay it off at once.”
A deafening silence filled the hall. Jasmine could feel ten sets of eyes on her, her skin crawling at the obviously male interest in her. Steadily, she held Noah’s gaze, immensely grateful that at least his gaze was free of the openly nauseating lust she usually found herself the target of.