The Desert King's Blackmailed Bride

burden of all that he had said and her own desperate confusion.
‘Do you have an answer for me?’ Rashad prompted with an air of expectancy on his lean, strong face.
‘Not yet,’ she admitted, matching his honesty.
Her brain had flatly rejected marrying him at first. They barely knew each other and it would be insane…and yet? She did want him, in fact she wanted him more than she had ever wanted any man and she was not an impressionable teenager any longer. In fact, what if she never met another man who made her feel the same way that Rashad did? That terrible fear held her still and turned her hollow inside because he made her feel alive and wanton and all sorts of things she had never felt before. And what was more, she was discovering that she liked the way he made her feel.
‘Perhaps I can help you to make up your mind,’ Rashad murmured with silken softness. ‘You will see it as a form of blackmail but in reality it is the only possible alternative if you do not wish to marry me—’
Polly’s head reared up, blue eyes wide and bright. ‘Blackmail?’ she exclaimed in dismay. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘If you don’t marry me, you will have to leave Dharia immediately. Only your departure will end this madness on the streets and in the media.’
Polly was aghast at that cold-blooded conclusion. ‘You’re willing to throw me out of the country?’
Hard dark eyes held hers. ‘If that is what it takes, yes…and naturally I would not wish you to return in the near future,’ he decreed harshly