If You Dare Read Online Free PDF

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    Court debated how to handle Annalía when she came for their meeting, and had to admit he was at a loss with a woman like her. She seemed complicated and mysterious, which meant she wasn’t like straightforward Highland women at all.
    And as much as he was unused to a woman like Annalía, she was surely accustomed to gentlemen, to polite behavior and nonthreatening men. So he decided to stay in bed and act as though he couldn’t rise easily, to appear less intimidating, but the gentlemanly behavior was proving elusive. Court didn’t exchange pleasantries because he wasn’t a pleasant person. He was brusque and direct. She would not respond well to brusque and direct.
    When she glided in hours after her ride, smelling of the flowers she’d been tarrying among earlier, he bit out, “Good afternoon.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d said that phrase, when in fact it hadn’t been a better-than-average afternoon.
    â€œTo you as well.” She appeared surprised by his gruff words, then suspicious. “Vitale said you desired to speak with me. What do you require?”
    Her words rolled from her tongue in that foreign way, and he found he liked listening to her, even as her obvious reluctance to be near him grated. A woman whom he found beautiful and who was kind to others was disgusted with him. He felt like a caged animal she was wary of—and all because he was Scottish?
    And perhaps he’d found the exact chink in her armor and had hurt her that first day, a voice in the back of his mind reasoned.
    â€œI’d like to ask you a few more questions.” Pleasant enough.
    She gave one tight nod.
    â€œHow have you escaped Pascal’s notice this far?” Court had never heard of this place and wondered why Pascal hadn’t looted it.
    She didn’t hesitate to say, “Probably by not dragging his mercenaries into my home.”
    â€œI answer to him no longer.”
    â€œHis ex-mercenary, then,” she said with a flick of her hand as if the difference was trifling. “Vitale told me as much.”
    At his irritated look, she added, “I don’t know why we’ve been spared.” She was clearly lying, but he let it go.
    â€œI have another question.”
    She remained there, though she didn’t deign to meet his eyes, and he found the question he’d meant to ask forgotten, replaced by, “Why do you hate Scots?”
    She blushed to the tips of her small ears, her skin pinkeningagainst her crisp white blouse and her ever-present choker. “If you please, I would rather not discuss my dislike of Scots with a Scot.”
    â€œYou can tell me. I will no’ bite.”
    She gave him a wide-eyed look that said she wasn’t sure on that count at all and hadn’t thought about the possibility until he’d brought it up. Finally she said, “I’ve heard very unfavorable things about them—about you. Worse than any of the other outsiders Pascal has lured here.”
    Court exhaled, reckoning it might be time to admit that his crew’s Highlander tales had worked too well.
    Whenever they arrived in a new area, his men spread rumors to the people underlining the Highlanders’ brutality, their lust for blood, and their enjoyment of torture. Then, when the thirty-five Scots in their company, some painted, some in kilts, all nearing or exceeding six feet tall, gave a savage battle yell and charged with the requisite crazed look in their eyes, the combatants ran. They almost always ran.
    The farmers and ranch hands in Andorra had fled so fast that even his quick cousin Niall could barely swat the last one on the arse with his sword.
    Only one leader and his men had stood their ground. . . .
    Court’s eyes followed her slim hand when she smoothed an already immaculate crease in her skirt—today a bright red one. “And what did you