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Page 236

| ''Well, I'll be damned," he said, smiling smugly. "Sasha has decided that she likes my company after all. What a willful woman! She's come searching me out." |

| "Sasha?" Bianca said softly, paling. |

| Stanford squared his shoulders as he turned to face Bianca. "Yes, Sasha," he said. "It seems that I won't have to depend solely on your bedroom activity to amuse me. Sasha will be my plaything for a while." He went and talked down into Bianca's face. "And she ain't no whore. She's a woman with class." |

| Bianca was cold with fear and this time it was not for herself and her unborn child. She was afraid for Sasha. Stanford had a heart of stone, and Sasha was too sweet and gentle to be a recipient of the sort of cruelties that he enjoyed inflicting on women. |

| Yet Bianca still could not speak up in Sasha's defense. As far as Stanford knew, Bianca and Sasha had never met. |

| Then a fearful thought suddenly came to Bianca. What if Sasha had come to see hernot Stanford! Then he would know that they had met and had talked. Would he believe Bianca when she told him that she had lied to Sasha about who her husband was, just as Stanford had ordered her to do? Or would he accuse her of lying to him? |

| Either way, she expected another beating as soon as Sasha left. |

| Stanford ignored the marked fear in Bianca's eyes, having grown used to it since they arrived in the outback, and sauntered from the cabin. |

| Sitting stiffly in the saddle, Sasha met Stanford's stare courageously as he moved toward her. She |

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