Read Only You for Free Online Page A

mess.
    “If you pull another stunt like that,” he hissed at Fenton, “I will skin you alive.”
    Fenton peered up at him with wide blue eyes.  “What stunt?”
    “You can fool your cousin all you want, and I’m sure you can fool your mother.  But you can’t fool me.  You left her in that bazaar on purpose.”
    “I did not.”
    Soloman’s fingers pinched tighter, making Fenton squirm.  “This isn’t some parlor game in London.  This is Cairo, Egypt.”
    “I know that.”
    “It’s dangerous for a woman to walk about on her own.”
    “Nothing happened to her,” Fenton snidely claimed.  “She’s fine.”
    “Despite your mischief.  If you play such a nasty trick on her ever again, I’ll take a switch to you.”
    “You wouldn’t.”
    “I would.”
    “I’ll tell my mother,” the little miscreant threatened as he had earlier.
    “By all means.  Tell her.  Then I will tell her what you did to your cousin.”
    “Try it.”  Fenton grinned a malevolent grin.  “Mother would never believe you over me.”
    Soloman shoved him toward the grand front doors, and he laughed and raced away.  Soloman thought about chasing after him, administering a few hard whacks alongside the head just to prove that he could, but the spoiled brat wasn’t worth it.
    Besides, Miss Postlewaite had finally realized he wasn’t right behind her.  She spun and asked, “You’re coming in, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, I suppose I will.”
    “My Aunt Edna will like to thank you for bringing us home.”
    He didn’t imagine her aunt would think any such thing.  If he was lucky, she wouldn’t recognize his name.  Miss Postlewaite hadn’t, but her aunt might.
    For that very reason, he rarely involved himself with the British tourists who wandered through Cairo, and over the prior decade, he’d met boatloads of them.  Their world was a small one, and he could spot a Brit at a hundred paces.  But his self-imposed exile suited him, so he couldn’t figure out why he would deliberately put himself in a situation where he would stir new gossip or be insulted to his face.
    Yet apparently, he wasn’t finished with Miss Postlewaite.  From the moment he’d seen Akbar marching off with her, he’d been fascinated.  The silly woman was a menace who was in need of constant protecting.  No doubt she assumed the event was ended by his kicking Akbar several times, but once he’d chatted with her aunt, he’d return to the bazaar, would find Akbar and deliver a louder message.
    More and more often, his temper was spiking, and he couldn’t seem to rein it in.  Miss Postlewaite’s appearance in his paltry universe had given him cause to vent a bit of ire at a reprobate who thoroughly deserved it.
    She asked, “Could you speak to someone in a position of authority about the porters abandoning us at the bazaar?  I’m not sure who to tell or how to say it.”
    “Don’t worry, I’ll definitely tell someone for you.”
    “Is it common for them to do that?  We’ve only just arrived, so I’m not certain what’s customary and what’s not.”
    “Yes, it’s common.  Typically, women are too sheltered.  They don’t have the experience or sense to avoid hazardous circumstances, so in a place like this, it’s easy for a criminal to take advantage.”
    “What a charming compliment,” she sarcastically replied.  “I love being told I have no sense.”
    “While you’re here, you have to be more cautious.”
    “I plan to be.”
    She flashed a smile that he felt clear down to the tips of his toes, and he gaped at her, wondering why she had such a strange effect on him.
    It wasn’t as if he never crossed paths with European women.  It was all the rage to sail the Nile and explore the pyramids, so tourists were a penny a dozen.  And it wasn’t as if he was longing to interact with a beautiful female.  His paramour, Cassandra Valda, supplied plenty of entertainment.
    Miss Postlewaite was very different from Cassandra