Читать книгу Rayan - Son of the Desert - Indira Jackson - Страница 17

Carina did not suspect anything about the events that had happened during the night at the prison of Dubai.

After waking up that morning, she had allowed herself the luxury of clinging onto her dreams for a little while longer.

Then she had decided, full of energy that she was going to visit this lawyer. What could he do besides throwing her out?

In her most dreadful fantasies she saw an angry lawyer calling her boss in Munich, or even suing the publishing house. Then she told herself off for being silly, although she could not prevent some of the doubt from staying somewhere in the back of her mind.

The hotel in which she stayed was located in the center, very near the famous spice market. She decided, therefore, to start the day on foot.

As was usual for her, she plunged full of enthusiasm into the turmoil of the Arab world. All the odours and colours; the stand’s of the merchants; the exotic fruits and dishes – all this had fascinated her since she had been to an Arab country as a child with her parents.

As often as possible she went on vacation to the Arabian Peninsula. She was even able to speak some words, which she was very proud of, but she was far away from handling a conversation.

Even the importunity of the Arab men did not bother her: they liked it only too much to talk to a good-looking blond woman with green eyes and they invited her to all kind of things. She used to friendly but firmly refuse all their offers. For the more offensive men she used to wear a ring, pretending it was a wedding band. This helped a lot. However, she only realised now for the first time, that she had never been all alone in Arabia. Normally her boyfriend or at least some other girl had been with her. Well, wasn’t that going to be fun?

For a short moment she thought about her boyfriend Stephan, who also lived in Munich. Or rather: ex-boyfriend. He had shown no understanding at all about her going on this journey, telling her scornfully that she would come running back to him after one week. What an arrogant, self-adoring egocentric!

It seemed that despite being a couple for two years, he still did not know her very well. Even if the trip went horribly wrong, Carina was far too proud to go back to Stephan of all people.

She would prefer to go begging in the streets of Munich.

She was pleased that she never gave in to him urging her to move in with him. She still had her little apartment in Munich, her own realm, and also her job, so she was independent.

She forced these thoughts away. She was in Dubai, in the middle of an adventure and Munich – as well as Stephan - were far away!

Instead she made herself look at all the products the merchants were trying to sell. She took her time to move along the narrow gaps between the stands. Strangely enough, she was hardly spoken to and, unusually, bothered less than normal.

“Well, maybe I am now past the interesting age?”, she thought. With a critical gaze she stopped in front of a mirror at one of the stands at the bazaar. In spite of not normally being vain at all, she was content with what she saw:

Her long, dark, blond hair was bound into a ponytail and she wore a light, linen headscarf. Along with that, she wore a dark green linen blouse, which emphasised the colour of her eyes well. With her 1.65 m she was rather short, but that had been seen as an advantage by her Arabian admirers so far.

Additionally, she was wearing cream-coloured trousers, which were ankle-length, and colour-matching sandals. The clothing fell softly around her body, not pointing out her slim, sporty figure too much. In Arabic countries it was better to wear more clothes than show too much skin for your own safety.

Of course the men liked less fabric (and naked skin), which some of the female tourists liked to show off, as for them that was just like an invitation. At first that could be exciting but the novelty tended to wear off very fast. However, much worse were the Arab women, especially the elderly ones; they would throw glances at you that could kill you. Carina had had that experience as she went naively through some bazaar in Egypt in hot-pants and a top with spaghetti straps at the age of 16. After a few minutes she had felt like she was running the gauntlet. Since then she has always carefully considered her clothing.

She thought about the Sheikh: why had he talked to her like that? Was it really only because of the article? She tried to remember his looks: he was tall – surely almost 1.90 m but additionally he was in perfect shape – those muscles!

And of course she had to picture again those impressive, dark-blue eyes. She just could not get away from the intensity of his gaze. Yet she pondered: why did an Arabian Sheikh have blue eyes? He had to have some foreign ancestors, surely that was the only logical explanation?

The black turtleneck had fitted perfectly to his dark jacket and had shown just enough for her to suspect that underneath lay a heavily trained body full of muscles. What would he look like naked? Just when she started to picture this in more detail, in the turmoil of the market someone bumped into her from behind, bringing her back to reality. She tried to concentrate more on her surrounding, after all there were more than enough thieves in any bazaar. Caution, therefore, was essential. However, the moment she paid more attention to the people around her she realised, suddenly, that some of them had been just about to talk to her in that famous and so typical way;, then they suddenly turned away to go on with other business, as if they had changed their minds.

Only when she reached the end of the long row of stands a jeweller solved the riddle for the woman from Munich: ”Young lady, wouldn’t you like to underline your beauty with one of these priceless pieces? Maybe a necklace? Or – but you already have one… - then perhaps these earrings? For sure they will fit perfectly? May I?“ And without waiting for an answer, he moved his hand to touch her new amulet. Right before she could phrase her usual protest that she had specifically ready for this kind of case, the hand of the merchant stopped dead where it was before even touching the gold. Then he suddenly drew back his fingers as if he was afraid of burning himself. His face had gone pale. “Excuse me Madam, that I have bothered you.” Then he bowed deeply in front of her and quickly disappeared into his store.

At that moment the pieces of the jigsaw-puzzle fell into place. She was still wearing the necklace with the emblem of the Sheikh around her neck. Exactly like the guy Mazin had told her, she did not remove it. Not so much because she had really been counting on the result, but rather more because she regarded it as a sign of good fate to help her on her search. She could hardly believe that the Sheikh’s influence reached that far: yet she had just witnessed it. Happily she decided that this was going to be helpful. Some way further away from the market she got herself a taxi and told to the driver the address of the lawyer’s office.