The Inherited Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

space of a few hours.
    A hand clamped onto her arm, fingers biting into her flesh like a vice as she was pulled into an alleyway between the penthouse and the
boulangerie
next to it. She opened her mouth to scream, but one of her attacker’s arms locked like a steel bar across her chest, bringing her tight against a hard, warm body. Her assailant’s other hand clamped over her mouth and stopped her shriek before any sound could emerge.
    She looked around wildly, trying to see if any of the people who lingered on the street had seen. No one had. She struggled impotently. The strong body behind her didn’t even move as she kicked and thrashed, spraying muddy water from the puddles into the air, throwing all her weight into her attempt to gain freedom. She might as well have been struggling against solid stone.
    “Your manners leave a lot to be desired.” The sound of Adham’s familiar, faintly accented voice made her sag with relief. For a moment.
    She swore violently in Italian—very colorful and inappropriate words she’d learned from her brother, muffled by Adham’s hold.
    “Will you keep quiet if I remove my hand?” His tone had an edge to it—anger, extreme annoyance, and something else that she couldn’t place.
    She nodded, and he let his hand fall away from her mouth but kept his arms around her.
    He held her tightly against his solid body. She tried to wiggle out of his hold and his arms tightened, making her extremely conscious of all the hardened muscle of his body. All that finely honed masculinity. For a moment she could only be fascinated by the feel of him, by each and every minute difference between the male and female body.
    Her breasts felt heavier, and she could feel her nipples tightening against the silken fabric of her bra. Her pulse beat heavily. In her neck, her head, down to the apex of her thighs.
    “Do you have any idea what you’re asking for?” he asked, his voice rough.
    No. She truly didn’t. Her body was asking for, craving, more of his touch. But she didn’t have a clue as to why. Why she wanted to lean into his strength rather than struggle against it. Why she wanted his arms to stay locked around her. Why she wanted more of the sweet languor that was spreading through her.
    “You’re asking to be
killed,”
he growled. Clearly he was letting the subject of their mutual attraction drop. “I could have been anyone. You’re walking around out here in the middle of the night with designer luggage. You
look
as wealthy as you are. Worse, you look as ridiculously naive as you are. You’re asking to be robbed. Or worse.”
    “I didn’t … I didn’t think of that.” Logically, she knew crime rates in urban areas were much higher than in the small island nation she was from. But the thought had never crossed her mind. Her only thought had been escaping Adham. She’d set out to prove a point about her abilityto look out for herself, and she’d done a spectacular job of not thinking it through.
    He turned her so that she was facing him, her arms still pinned tightly to her sides. His hands held her steady, preventing her from running.
    “What do you think you’re going to do with all this freedom you seek, Isabella? You have no job, no skills. You are so naive you shouldn’t be allowed to cross the street on your own!”
    His words hurt. They hurt because, as much as she hated to acknowledge the truth in them, it was there. He was right. She’d never had a job. She didn’t know how to go about getting one. Or an apartment. She didn’t know how to drive. She had a lot of knowledge, but all that had come from books. She had never had to apply the things she’d learned to anything real or practical.
    “I can find something to do,” she said, pushing her reservations to one side.
    “With a body like that there will be many men willing to help. For a price.” His eyes raked over her, hot, glittering. There was nothing passive in those black depths—not now. There was