The Sheikh's Accidental Bride by Holly Rayner Read Free Book Online Page B

her. She got herself together as quickly as she could and headed to the elevator. And waited.
     
    Traditionally, Nadya thought, it was supposed to be the woman who took longer to get ready. She considered, for a moment, just leaving right there and then; getting into the elevator and running, as she’d planned not long before. But the chances that someone would see her in the lobby, or that his security in the lobby below would catch her, was just too high. The whole machine was too settled in here to make a clear getaway. She saw that now.
     
    “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you think we were taking the elevator?”
     
    Salman’s voice came from the living room, in the direction of the patio and the dinner they had had the night before, when she’d let herself get lost in it all.
     
    He walked into view… He was awash in sunlight, and she lifted her hands to shield her eyes in an attempt to see him better. She could make out the movement of his hand, motioning for her to come out to the terrace. She hesitated, looking at the door to the elevator; the exit from this world back into the one she knew, where he family was waiting for her, where she wouldn’t be pulled further into this mess.
     
    But that world didn’t have any mystery to it. It didn’t have the sun. If didn’t have him. She turned, and walked to towards where Salman was standing.
     
    She felt overdressed when she saw him. She’d assumed that he was taking her somewhere fancy and expensive, and that they would need to dress to impress the people around them. But he was in a polo and shorts, and looked more comfortable in the warming day than she was.
     
    “Come on,” he said, taking her hand. “Come see the other reason I picked this place.”
     
    He led her around the plants of the terrace to a staircase leading up. The guardrails were made out of Plexiglas, and it gave Nadya the heady sensation of climbing a staircase at the top of the word.
     
    The stairs led to a platform, up above the penthouse. And there, in the middle, waited a helicopter.
     
    Salman grinned like a little boy watching the look on her face. “New York traffic is terrible. I try to avoid it.”
     
    They headed north, over the city. First the high-rises disappeared, and then the city. Then there were only towns smattered about. And then the towns grew less and less frequent, and there were only odd houses nestled amongst the forests and hills.
     
    As they flew, Nadya grew more and more certain that her plan was useless. They were going too far. They’d passed Hastings-On-Hudson quite some time ago, and they were still moving quickly. Out here, cabs would be too rare to count on getting one quickly, before Salman and his people realized she was gone. And there was little to no public transport, so even though she wasn’t that much further physically from where her sister was, she might as well be back in Seattle for how much she’d be able to reach her.
     
    She saw their destination before Salman pointed it out to her. That had to be it. It was less of a house and more of an estate. From up here, it was hard to tell much about it, other than that it was large, and the architecture appeared to be somewhere in between Western and Middle Eastern.
     
    “Why would they build a hotel all the way out here?” Nadya asked, struggling to be heard over the headset.
     
    Salman shot her a confused glance, and she thought he hadn’t heard her, but when she tried to repeat herself, he shook his head. “Wait until we’re on the ground,” he said, although she understood it more from reading his lips than from being able to distinguish his words over the beating of the rotors.
     
    They landed out front, in the middle of a circular driveway. There were no cars, nor, as far as Nadya could tell, were there any other guests. Just the same usual milling about of people who she knew were intended to help in some ill-defined way.
     
    “Where are we?” she asked, though it wasn’t the