Feeling her cheeks burn red, she was annoyed with herself for showing her feelings and glanced at the ambassador, who, thankfully, hadn’t noticed.She couldn’t bear for her father to think that she was enjoying herself, let alone dangerously close to flirting with the man he’d chosen to wed her.There was no love lost between father and daughter.The ambassador regarded her as nothing more than a commodity to be dressed up and paraded to impress his clients.In his eyes, Karolina was a sample of the quality standard they could expect of his product.
“You have your father’s attention,” Conor warned discreetly.“I suggest you smile back.”
Conor was right.After the briefest gap, the ambassador was watching them again.Briefly acknowledging him with a dip of her head, she knew that if her father was pleased with her tonight, the women in the cellar might have the benefit of some leftovers from the banquet.
The ambassador must be patting himself on the back, believing he’d snagged the biggest fish of all.Conor Murphy, tech genius, billionaire, highly respected member of exclusive clubs that her father could only aspire to.And a world-class polo player to boot.
She must do nothing to change that opinion.She’d heard the ambassador gloat that a dozen or more charities depended on Conor Murphy for support.Who better to whitewash his murky dealings?And Conor’s business interests were all legitimate, the ambassador had informed her.But were they?Karolina had no proof of that.
“You okay?”
She stared into Conor’s eyes.How could he make her feel so safe, when she was standing on the edge of an abyss?Safety was an illusion.In Karolina’s world there was no such thing as safe.
“I’m fine, thank you,” she replied with a thin-lipped smile.“I hope this evening hasn’t been too tiresome for you?”
“Not at all,” Conor was quick to reassure her.“I’m only sorry I can’t take you home.”
“Home?”She frowned in puzzlement, then smiled.“Ah, joke.Hilarious.”
Attracted by Conor’s laughter and her sarcastic comment, the ambassador was back on their case again.She had to be careful with what she said next, but when he turned away, she went for broke, hinting at the darkness beneath the glittering façade of the embassy of Kasiki.
“These main rooms are very beautiful, aren’t they?”The look she gave Conor was intense.
“Very beautiful,” he agreed, betraying by the merest flicker in his eyes that he was alert to the fact that she was trying to tell him something important.
“So they should be, since the embassy is the face of our country,” she said, hoping beyond hope that she hadn’t misjudged Conor.“We all have living quarters within the building…” She paused to flash a smile of reassurance at her father.“Naturally, not all of the rooms are like this.”
This wasn’t the time to mention that her father’s quarters were every bit as sumptuous as the banqueting room, or that captive women were held in a dank, dark cellar without light or warmth.Karolina was on the top floor in a sparsely furnished attic room, as far away as her father could contrive for her to be from the desperate souls she was determined to help.
“Are these agreeable areas generally out of bounds to you?”Conor asked with the same care she’d taken, turning at an angle so her father couldn’t overhear.
“Unless I’m specifically invited to join the ambassador, yes, these rooms are forbidden to me.”She was lucky to have a cold-water shower.The captives in the cellar would be hosed down prior to being dressed and groomed by an army of personal shoppers and stylists before being auctioned off on the dark web.Which would be Karolina’s fate if she messed up tonight, her father had made abundantly clear.
“You seem to live a rather restricted life,” Conor observed with the lift of a brow.
“I have my training and the gym.”
“Still,” he mused, “being confined in the embassy doesn’t sound healthy to me.”
“Marriage to you should solve that problem.”
“And yet you’re frowning at the thought of it?”
She was frowning at the thought of those she’d leave behind.But she’d come back for them, she pledged silently as Conor invited her to dance.
“You should enjoy dancing now we know each other a little better,” he suggested with one of his easy grins.
“You can take your tongue out of your cheek now.We hardly know each other at all.”
He dismissed her comment with a shrug of his powerful shoulders.“Let’s just say that I’m guessing you’d like to escape the scrutiny of your father.”
“Don’t think he’ll stop watching us while we dance.I’m surprised he’s allowing you all this time with me before we’re married.He said once that if anyone touched me, he’d kill them.”
“He was grandstanding, surely?”
“You don’t know him, do you?”she murmured as Conor waved the waiter away and pulled out her chair.This was the frankest she’d been with Conor, and Karolina knew she was taking a chance, but if she said nothing, nothing would come of tonight.
She glanced at her father presiding over the banqueting table like a sweating, well-dressed toad.Sensing her interest, he threw a look back that chilled her.The ambassador hadn’t made a fortune in crime by being slow on the uptake.
