The sense that this couldn’t be happening almost overwhelmed her. It had to be a dream.
Azir Mustafa swept into the room, his black eyes locked on her, his desert-dark face worn and creased with bitter lines. The long white thobe, the loose, ankle-length garment mostly worn in the Middle East seemed to ripple around his broad, overweight body. The ghutra, or keffiyeh, the large white square cloth secured to his head by a black cord, swept out behind him only to reverse direction and swirl around him as he came to an abrupt stop. He stared back at her as though mesmerized.
His eyes appeared dazed and damp. His expression filled with deepening hope as he watched her carefully, as though frightened she would disappear at any moment.
He lifted a shaking hand as though to touch her from a more than ten-foot distance, before he let it fall limply back to his side.
“Marilyn,” he whispered, his lips trembling as he took a step forward, bemusement and mesmerism slackening his expression. “You stayed so young, Marilyn. And I have grown so old. What trick is this that you return to me, the same as you left?”
Paige gripped the sheet between her br**sts and stepped back, her eyes narrowing at the proof of Azir’s weakening sanity. He thought she was her mother.
“I’m not Marilyn.” Paige informed him cautiously. She didn’t look that much like her mother.
“Marilyn,” he whispered again. “My precious Marilyn. Why did you leave? Why did you corrupt my sons?” Pain, bitter and filled with a little boy’s confusion, he watched her with tears in his eyes. “Did I not love you above all others? Did I not whisper my love to you each time I held you?”
Paige inhaled sharply. Her mother had said Azir was insane, even when he was younger. Paige had always argued that it wasn’t insanity, it was criminal arrogance. Now, she wondered if her mother hadn’t been right all along. It was obvious the man had some serious, delusional issues.
The crazed belief that filled Azir’s face as he stared at her wasn’t in the least bit comforting. He truly believed that somehow, Marilyn had returned to him.
Paige moved back another step as Azir came forward the same distance. She felt like a mouse being toyed with by a very large cat, and she had no hole to hide in.
“Come to me, Marilyn. His expression tightened in anger as she kept retreating. “Do not test my anger, beloved. You know you will lose and I will feel remorse for the need to punish you. You are my wife. You may not refuse me.”
He actually thought she was going to let him touch her? If he was playing a game, then he was doing a damned good job of it. And if he wasn’t, then he was far crazier than anyone suspected and she was in a hell of a lot more trouble than she had imagined.
“There’s been a mistake,” she stated warily. “I’m not Marilyn. I’m her daughter, Paige.”
Azir stopped and frowned at her, his body poised as though ready to jump on her. He eased back, his eyes narrowing on her before pure, furious hatred snapped into his gaze for a quick second. In the next second, his eyes cleared and he stared around the room as though wondering how he had found himself there.
He turned back to her slowly.
“Paige Galbraithe,” he murmured, his rasping voice the sound of a nightmare in her mind. “The daughter of my faithless, adulterous wife and the whore’s son that stole her from me. A diseased bastard daughter. You should have been stoned to death at birth.”
As he spoke, his voice became louder, harder, and more furious until the enraged tone sounded grating and filled with the very insanity Paige had doubted he suffered from.
Oh, he was insane all right. There was no doubt in her mind now that he was bat-shit crazy.
“Mother wouldn’t be pleased if you killed me, Azir,” she told him with subtle, flippant mockery, as though he might really give a f**k. “She might never come visit you before you die.”
“You mock me,” he rasped. “No worries, I can have it done whenever I please. It is a matter easily taken care of. The sins of the mother become the responsibility of the daughter.”
She couldn’t believe this. It was a nightmare. He was past insane.
“I’ve committed no sin.” Her fingers tightened on the sheet as his gaze flicked to her br**sts then back to her eyes. She actually felt dirty from the look.
“Your mother did, that’s enough.” He smiled almost pleasantly. Pretty much crazily. “I could have you dragged to the courtyard and stones would be battering your weak body within minutes. I could take that very pretty face, so much like your mother’s, and I could crush it.” His hand lifted, his fingers snapping into a fist in emphasis.
She could see the rage in his eyes and in his face. He was flushed with it, his gaze becoming demented with it. There was a need glittering in his eyes to hurt her, to destroy her. He looked at her and he saw the mother, not the daughter. But he also saw what he called her mother’s sins. Hell, she wasn’t going to win here.
Strange, her horoscope hadn’t mentioned to beware of crazy kidnappers or demented desert sheikhs this week.
If Abram didn’t get here, really fast, then she was going to be in a hell of a lot more trouble than she could pull herself out of on her own. Maybe. It was kind of hard to find options that involved being dressed in nothing but a very expensive, very soft sheet.
It was apparent Azir thought he could punish the daughter because the mother had escaped him. And she didn’t doubt he had all intentions of doing just that.
Marilyn Girard had escaped and taken his three-month-old son, and she had married another man and had a child by him as well. Paige was that child, and as he stared at her, she realized he could easily choke the life right out of her and never regret it. He could happily throw her to whomever would stone her, and feel nothing but cheerful glee as each heavy blow broke her body further.
Oh God, where was Abram?