And yet his eyes had drawn her, compelling and insistent and communicating to her a dark promise that her body seemed instinctively to understand—and instinctively to respond to.
A dark promise that had spawned dark thoughts of all kinds of forbidden pleasures.
No wonder she had run.
For what did Amber Jones even know of forbidden pleasures? Cameron hadn’t exactly encouraged creativity in the bedroom. Or in any other room come to think of it. And there were times when he’d fallen asleep alongside her and she’d lain there in the dark and wondered if there wasn’t more.
For surely there had to be more.
And then she’d seen more in a stranger’s eyes and she’d fled.
More fool her.
Damn.
And not for the first time, she wished she were that strong, independent woman she wanted to be; the way her great-great-great-grandmother must have been, to venture as a young woman of twenty so far from her home amongst the rolling fields of Hertfordshire, in search of adventure in the Middle East all those years ago.
So courageous.
But as she pulled her jacket back on she could see why her namesake Amber had wanted to come. Istanbul was everything she’d imagined it must be. Colourful. Historic. Exotic. She might not be half as brave, but already she could see she was going to love her time in Turkey.
Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she’d risen and left the hostel before breakfast, sick of slamming doors and a body refusing to sleep when it knew it should be daylight. And there, just across the plaza was one of the carts she’d seen selling bread shaped like bagels and sprinkled with sesame seeds. It would do until she could find something more substantial.
She was waiting for the bread to be bagged when a hunched old man with a walking stick approached. ‘Inglis?’ he asked, with a gappy smile in a nut-brown face, with skin that looked as if it were made from leather. ‘American?’
‘Australian,’ she said, getting used to the drill, knowing she stood out as a foreigner with her colouring and dress and that she was an easy target for every street vendor going.
‘Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!’ he said and his smile became a grin, as if they now shared a common bond. She just nodded and turned her attention to the man with the cart, accepting her bread. ‘I have some coins,’ the man whispered conspiratorially, as if bestowing upon her a favour. ‘Good price. Cheap.’
She barely glanced his way. Sam had a coin collection and she’d promised to bring home her change to add to the few overseas coins her younger brother already had. But she had no wish to buy more. ‘No, thanks. I’m not interested.’
‘Ancient coins,’ he persisted, unmoved, ‘from Troy.’
That got her interest. ‘From Troy? Really?’ That would make a pretty cool souvenir to take home for Sam.
‘Very old. Very cheap.’ He drew her away from the bread cart and pulled something from his pocket, slowly unwinding his nuggety fingers so she could see the grubby coins resting on his palm. ‘For you, special price.’
He named that price as she peered at the two small discs, wondering how she could tell if they really were coins from that ancient city, wondering if Sam would care if they were fake because they looked as if they could almost be real. But they were way out of her price range anyway. ‘Too much,’ she said, almost regretfully, knowing that her meagre budget would never stretch if she started impulse buying on her first day, only for the man to immediately halve what he was asking.
‘Very special price. You buy?’
Wariness warred with temptation. Converted to Australian dollars, what he was asking for now in Turkish lire was a fraction of the spending money she’d allowed herself. She could afford them—just—if she didn’t splash out on too many other souvenirs. Still...
She flicked her eyes up to his face. ‘How do I know they’re genuine?’
His free hand crossed his chest, as if she had offended him. ‘I plough them myself from the ground. In my field.’
She could believe he had. His hands certainly looked as if they had endured a half-century or more of hard manual work, and his grizzled face seemed honest enough. But still... ‘And nobody minds if you dig up coins at an archaeological site? Especially like somewhere famous like Troy?’
He shrugged. ‘There are too many coins. Too many for the museums.’ He shoved his hand still closer, his brow more creased, and halved the price again. ‘Please, I need medicine for my wife. You buy?’
* * *
So the rabbit had been snared by a different kind of hunter.
Kadar had imagined her long gone, the way she’d all but fled from their brief encounter, but there she was, talking to an old man across the plaza, those red jeans like a flag and her blond hair gleaming even in winter’s thin sunlight, and he once again felt that familiar spike of heat to his groin. He’d bet that if she looked his way, he’d see a matching flare of heat in her blue eyes.
A shame she was so skittish.
He phoned his driver and told him he was ready, while he casually watched the interplay between the old man and the woman, the old man holding out his hand, the girl peering closely, asking questions.
He watched as the old man shook that hand and spilled whatever was in it to the ground, and he watched the way those red jeans stretched lovingly over her behind as she quickly bent over and dived down to retrieve what had fallen. Coins, he figured, frowning. In which case, she’d better be careful. She held them almost reverentially in her hand before attempting to return them to the old man.
He made no move to accept, clearly determined to finalise the sale. Kadar’s frown deepened as she shrugged and juggled coins and paper bag and dug around in her satchel for her wallet.
Foolish girl.
He spied his car weaving through the traffic towards him.
Just before he spied the two uniformed men pouncing on the old man and the girl.
‘HEY,’ AMBER PROTESTED as someone took her arm, only to look up and find herself staring at a younger man, this one wearing a dark blue uniform of the polis. One of two, she realised, the other officer holding the arm of the old man, who smiled thinly while his eyes were laced with fear.
Fear that leached into her bones and made her blood run cold as the coins were taken from her hand and inspected and a nod given in judgement before they disappeared into a small plastic bag.
What the hell was going on?
One officer barked out something in Turkish at the old man and he pointed at her, tripping over his words in his rush to answer.
‘Is this true?’ The officer’s head snapped around to her, his voice as stern as his expression, but at least he had figured enough to address her in English. ‘Did you ask this man where you could buy more coins like these?’
What? ‘No...’
‘Then what were you doing in possession of them?’
‘No. I wasn’t. He approached me—’
The old man cut her off. ‘She lies!’ he shouted before following with a torrent of Turkish, angry now and spluttering out his words, pointing ferociously some more at her with his free hand, that caused the polis to scowl at her again.
And even though she couldn’t understand the language, she knew enough to know it didn’t look good. ‘You have to believe me,’ she pleaded, her eyes darting from one officer