"Well, my goodness," Yasmine crooned, her lilting voice somehow filling the entire luggage return hangar. "No wonder you did not win Miss Congeniality in the Miss Texas Pageant."
A hand clamped over Sydney's mouth tighter than a Texas lasso around a neck.
She swallowed down her scream mixed with bile. Hollering would only bring trouble to her friends.
God, she'd thought this part of the nightmare was over. Facing another sexual assault was more than she could bear. Especially after the horror of being forced to watch a public stoning. If they discovered her pregnancy, would she be executed in the same way?
Nausea roiled. But the will to live burned.
She allowed herself to breathe. Exhale before she passed out. Inhale.
Her nose twitched. She smelled—
"Shh."
Blake. Sweaty, stinky, just-out-of-the-field Blake. Oh, God. So amazing and perfect.
"Is it really you?" She muffled against his hand.
His face lowered closer until he whispered against her ear, "Don't talk. Just listen. Okay?"
She nodded against his wonderful, warm, American hand.
"Are you all right?"
She nodded again.
His hand clenched, twitched, then slid free. "Soon, I'm going to get you out of this hellhole. I promise. I'm here to give you instructions so you can be ready."
Not now? No! Agonizing regret poured acid over her relief. Followed by stark reality and reason. He was giving her hope rather than making her wait in ignorance. She needed to be grateful for that. He trusted her with information about a possible escape when she hadn't even been willing to share with her dearest friends her pregnancy and plans to run.
Oh, Blake. Her eyes blinked against the pitch dark, the side of his face a near indiscernible blur.
"Hang on just a little longer, not more than a couple of days. Hopefully this will go fast and easy. But there's a chance we may have to set explosives and mouse-hole in. If you hear the whippoorwill call I used to make when we went hiking, I want you all to flatten against the south wall. Okay? The south wall. Hang in there. Help is on the way."
Big help. Serious help. Wipe-these-bastards-off-the-face-of-the-earth help.
"Thank you," she mouthed, the words a mere brush of air.
"Are you really okay?"
No. Hell, no, she wanted to cry and vent and finally let down and grieve over what had happened to her. Except she couldn't. If he knew, he would scoop her up now and ruin the plan. The temptation to leave immediately was agonizingly strong, but not strong enough to risk his life.
"I'm all right," she dared to whisper, prayed she was convincing.
A shudder ripped through him just before he pulled her close. Fast. Too fast for her to think or react to hide the telling bulge. And then her torso was flush against his.
Would he guess? She was only three months along, and he was a bachelor with no experience about pregnant women. Maybe he wouldn't notice. Maybe he would have forgotten what she felt like before. Maybe she could will him not to know if she just kept quiet.
He stilled against her.
His heart pounded so hard she could feel it against her own, so loud she feared its echoing bounce through the cell would wake the others. A shudder that could only be realization raced through him.
"Oh, God, Sydney." His hoarse whisper stroked her ear into her hair. "Is there any possibility it could be..." Mine.
The lone word stayed unspoken but easily understood.
He had to know the chances were next to nil given she wasn't showing much and they hadn't been together in four months. Four long months ago—their last time together followed by a fight in bed about her decision to leave for Rubistan when he wanted her to quit, to get married and start a family with him. He wanted a baby of his own so damned much.