My watch timer beeped, and I pulled over. Now for the next part of the plan.
I dialed the number Sunshine had given me on the burner phone I’d gotten from a convenience store and then lowered my voice.
“Heston Pryce?”
“Yes?”
Damn. The poor old fucker sounded like he was already shitting himself.
“We have taken your daughter. She will be released when you pay 10 million dollars to an account number we will give you.”
“Wait! What are you doing to her? Please, can I just talk to her—”
“Papa, I’m okay!” a voice cried from the back.
Well, if it wasn’t little Miss Society Princess herself.
I hung up the phone, grabbed the gun, and, twisting around, pointed it at her.
“Put the gag and blindfold back on and shut up.”
Our gazes locked, and for a few seconds she stared at me, her eyes moving in a triangle from my eyes to my lips. Her lips parted. Then fury flared through her eyes.
“Or what, you’ll kill me?”
She froze, let out a little gasp, as if she were just as surprised as I was by the stupid thing she had said. As my eyes traced her face, I asked myself, really, what I was going to do if she ran or if he didn’t pay up. What was I prepared to do if things didn’t go according to plan?
I aimed the gun at her foot.
“Some injuries you can live through.”
Her eyebrows crinkled in exasperation, and she jerked her chin up at me, apparently trying to return her gag to its former position.
Oh yeah, her hands were tied up. I went back and put the gag and then the blindfold in place.
Until the black thing slid over her eyes, they were glaring at me with an emotion I couldn’t quite identify.
Even minutes later, once I’d returned to the front seat and pulled back onto the highway, my heartbeat was still hammering like a series of gunshots against my chest.
What was I prepared to do if things didn’t go according to plan? And those eyes, those blue, accusing eyes… Would I be able to do what I had to?
Worse still was that attraction I had seen in her eyes. But so what if it had been there?
I turned the radio back on. As some annoying song I didn’t know twanged away, the question returned once more, this time more anxious: Just what had I gotten myself into?
Chapter Three
Alice
Why was I thinking about how the kidnapper man was hot?
Here I was, tied up, gagged and blindfolded, and, like an idiot, I was thinking about how handsome the man who had done this to me was. Though it wasn’t really my fault. With that sculpted face and those thick-lashed green eyes, my kidnapper probably got it all the time.
I opened my eyes and then closed them again. Right, I was blindfolded.
The strangest thing of all, as I lay there with my life in danger, my father threatened, my wedding without a doubt ruined, was that amid the fear, anger, and hopelessness, there was another feeling. Relief. Could this kidnapping have been exactly what I needed?
I shifted farther down in the seat. If only Lux were here, then she could whack me. What was I thinking? This wasn’t what I needed. This was ruining everything. By the sounds of it, I might not even make it to tomorrow, and I was thinking about how relieved I was that this had happened?
The car went over a bump, and I was sent flying onto the floor.
“You can sit up now,” the kidnapper said.
I started to say a sarcastic “thank you” before remembering that I had a gag in my mouth.
“I said shut up,” he snapped, evidently hearing my useless mumbling.
The rest of the ride was a black boring nothing. I tried making a short list of people who wanted to kidnap me, but considering that my dad was Heston Pryce, superstore magnate, my “short list” soon encompassed basically anyone within a ten-mile radius who needed some extra cash.
Poor Papa. And poor Paul, too. He had been so excited for this day, texting me countdowns—only 10 more days, only 9, 8, 7. Little had he known how each text had filled my belly with a nervous nausea, how I’d only sent an emoticon happy face back because I’d had nothing else to say.
Now who knew when I’d see him again? My phone was back in the Ritz-Carlton dressing room, along with everyone I cared about and my entire life. God, what was going to happen now?
After what seemed like forever, the car finally stopped. The door was opened and my arm was grabbed.
“I’m taking you inside. If you’re good, the blindfold and gag can come off and I’ll untie your feet,” he said as I was carried out of the car and over what sounded like gravel.
Then it was up some wooden stairs and over a mat. We stopped. There were some sounds of what must have been a key in a lock, then a door creaking open.
“Up we go,” the voice said, and I complied.
One step up, a few steps in, and I was pushed onto something soft, cushy. A couch. The blindfold was slid off, the gag was taken out, and my feet were untied. When I looked up, the man was already at the door, pushing what looked like a giant old stove in front of it.
Now he was going to the fridge and taking out a can of soda.
“This all seems pretty ordinary for a kidnapping,” I said.
He walked over to the couch and sat beside me.
“What did you expect?”
“A dark room, closet maybe. More men. I don’t know.”
He shrugged.
“Sorry to disappoint. Can’t say I’m really experienced at this.”
His two scarred fingers popped open the cola, and he put his two full lips to the hole. I glared at him.
“So why did you do it then? What did my dad or I ever do to you?”
Mid-drink, the man held up a finger. Then, lowering the can, he shrugged again.
“Nothing. I’m not the one who wants you kidnapped or who’s getting the money; I’m just the middleman.”
As I studied his nonchalant face, he took another long guzzle of cola.
“How do you live with yourself?” I demanded.
Smirking, he lowered the can. Patting my cheek, he said, “Just take it day by day, baby.”
There was something terribly sad in his eyes as he said it. Looking away, he rose.
“So, if you’re the middleman,” I said, “then what’s the middleman’s name?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Think I’m dumb enough to tell you my name? Why does it even matter?”
“No reason,” I muttered, looking at the floor. “Just so I’d know what to call you.”
“You don’t have to call me anything,” he said, his footsteps pounding on the wood as he stormed away. There was a pause, and this time when he spoke, his voice was softer, kinder. “But you can call me Jake, if you want to.”
By the time I peeled my eyes off the floor, he was at the top of the stairs and taking off his shirt. Just then I noticed how well-built he was. His arms were toned and huge, his chest broad and sculpted.
“I’m taking a shower. If you try to escape, I’ll shoot you,” he said casually.
As he unzipped and pulled down his pants, he added, “Though good luck getting that stove away from the door.”
I stared at him, speechless at the sight of his ripped muscles and the black tattoos snaking all over them.
The sound of clothing snapping made me start, and I looked at Jake to see a cheeky grin on his face, his underwear band in hand.
“What? You wanna join?”
“No!” I declared, turning away.
Just before he sauntered off, he said, “If I were you, I wouldn’t blush while trying to be convincing.”
As soon as I heard the bathroom door shut upstairs, I raced to the front door. Stopped there, I directed my glare to the ancient-looking stove. It was taller than me and wider than two of me. There were tufts of dust everywhere. I sneezed. Great. Now was not the time for my allergies to flare up.
I too
k another step toward the stove, put the sides of my bound hands on the side, and froze. What was the point? Clearly, it was hopeless. The thing probably weighed over 300 pounds.
I looked down at my wedding dress—still pristinely white, though now definitely ridiculous, all cooped up here and kidnapped as I was. I thought of Papa, the tears in his eyes when he had told me what had happened to Mom. The same tears that no doubt gathered in that mustache of his now. Yes, that was the point. I had to try—if not for myself, then for Papa.
And so I put my bound hands against the side of the huge black thing, leaned back, and then threw my whole weight forward.
All I accomplished, however, was smacking my cheek into its hard metal side and falling to the ground. Stunned on the wooden slats of the floor, I stared up at the stove’s mocking immobile immensity. Despite the quickness of my desperate push, the thing hadn’t so much as trembled. I collapsed back onto the floor, finally letting the tears come.
Now there was no denying it. I was stuck here with a man who had threatened to shoot me—and would, no doubt. I was stuck here with a man I was strangely, dangerously, attracted to. I was stuck here with a man in this foreign place where anything could happen.
The sound of water running upstairs got me back up. Maybe he had blocked the door but missed another way out—a window, something. He had said that he wasn’t used to doing this after all. So, I made my way around the small downstairs, which was really one room, the kitchen and sitting area separated by nothing but a beat-up-looking set of table and chairs.
The windows looked equally untended. They were full of spider webs and wouldn’t open. I banged on the one over the couch, the one big enough for me to crawl out of—the one between me and freedom. With both bound hands, I yanked up on its handle and banged on the glass with my hands. Then the water stopped. I froze as the creak of the door sounded. I raced back to the couch and sat down, trying to look unsuspicious as footsteps thudded above and then behind me.
I turned to see Jake stopped at the first window I had tried, grinning at me.
“Hey, you cleaned my windows. Thanks.”
He was shirtless, little beads of water still clinging to the wolf tattoo on his right pec.
Sitting beside me, he patted my face again and grinned as I twisted away.
“Poor princess. Even if you got out, don’t you know there’s nowhere to go?”
I searched his face.
“What do you mean?”
Jake strode over to the door and, in one swift motion, shoved the stove away.
Then he opened the door and gestured me over.
“You see?” he said, throwing his arm out at the expanse of trees in the rectangle of the doorway. “We’re in the middle of the forest. There’s nowhere for you to run.”
Faced with the spread of tree after mocking tree, I was frozen for a minute.
“Then why did you put the stove in front of the door?” I asked.
He gave another shrug, his face twisting with laughter.
“Thought it would be funny.”
I raised my bound hands, and he grabbed them. With his other hand, he patted my cheek.
“Careful.”
I ripped myself free and stormed back to the couch. As soon as I flopped down, my belly let out an angry roar.
Jake closed the door and glanced at me.
“You hungry?”
I kept my gaze on the wood-slatted ceiling and said nothing.
“Well?”
He walked over and then his still-smirking face was blocking my ceiling view. I turned my gaze away and down to the floor.
“Fine. Whatever.”
“Okay, princess.”
He leaned down to pat my face again, and I jerked away.
We struggled and I fell onto the floor.
“What is your problem?” I burst out as I scrambled away.
Jake froze.
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you doing this? Why do you hate me?”
He looked away, back to the door.
“I already told you. And I don’t hate you.”
“Yes, you do. You hate me and my father and people like us. It’s obvious in how you sneer whenever you talk to me.”
“I don’t,” he said softly.
“You do,” I shot back, and he rounded on me, his green eyes wild.
“And so what if I do? What’s not to hate about pampered people who haven’t done shit all their lives and are rewarded for it? What’s to like about pompous assholes who cheat their way to the top and screw people over to stay there? What’s so great about entitled shitheads who treat anyone who doesn’t have as fat of a bank account as they do as lesser creatures not worthy of respect?”
As he spoke, he advanced, fingers of both hands spread and tensed into open claws.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I hissed.
He smiled.
“You’re right; I don’t.”
As he left, I continued. “You’re wrong about me and my father. We’re good people, not stuck up at all. You don’t know anything about us.”
At the fridge, his hand was clenched on the handle. He sighed and didn’t look at me when he said, “Whatever you say, princess.”
Chapter Four
Jake
Whaddya know, the princess liked grilled cheese. I had made it just to piss her off, just to prove that her whole “oh, I’m just a regular old nobody like everyone else” was full of shit.
But after I’d grilled the two slices of white bread with the slab of cheddar between, as I’d carried it over to her on my cracked porcelain plate, her face had lit up.
And now there she was on the couch, face still delighted, trying to lift the slightly burned thing to her mouth. After a few tries, she finally dropped it onto the couch.
So, picking it up, I lifted it to her lips. After a long suspicious look, she dipped her head down and took a big bite. She swallowed and then licked some crumbs off her soft lower lip.
“Thanks.”
I looked away.
“No problem.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“What is what?”
“Why were you looking at me like that?”
I lifted the grilled cheese again, but she shook her head.
“Oh, it was nothing,” I said. “Just…there’s crumbs on your lower lip.”
She pouted, lifted her hands, sighed, and then flicked out her tongue again. Still, however, a few crumbs persisted.
“Here, I’ll get ‘em.”
As I brushed them away, I glanced up and caught her eye. Her gaze was locked on my lips.
I lifted the bread again and she took another bite, chewed, and then swallowed. When I lifted the now half-finished sandwich, she advanced and then paused.
“It would be easier if you just untied me.”
I shook my head.
“Sorry. Orders are orders.”
She responded by taking an extra big bite and groaning as crumbs fell on her wedding dress.
“Could you at least let me wear something different? I don’t know how much longer I can stand being in this stupid thing.”
In spite of myself, I smiled.
“Don’t girls love their wedding dresses?”
She shrugged.
“I didn’t even choose this or ninety percent of what was going to happen at my own damn wedding.”
I chuckled.
“Sounds like I did you a favor.”
Falling silent, she scowled. Finally, after another minute, she flicked her gaze down at her dress and then back up at me.
“Well?” she said.
“Finish the grilled cheese. Then we’ll see.”
In two swift bites, the sandwich was gone and her expectant look was back.
“Well?”
I rose.
“Damn. You really want out of that thing, huh?”
Such a desolate look passed over her face that I almost regretted saying it.
“Isn’t it enough that my wedding was ruined without me having to wear a reminder of it?”
Flopped there in her glistening ivory and gold dress, her lashes lowered, her lips drawn together, she looked so sad I almost wanted to sit down there beside her, take her in my arms, and comfort her. But instead I headed for the stairs.
“Fine. I’ll see what I can find.”
Lucky for her, in the bottom of my closet there were some forgotten sweats that had shrunk in the wash.
Tossing them over the railing down to the first floor, I called, “You can wear these.”
Silence. When I got down there, Alice was glaring at me.
“What?” I asked.
“How am I supposed to get into them?”
“I’ll help you,” I answered, patting her rosy cheek as she scrambled back.
“I don’t want your help,” she said.
“Fine. Have it your way.”
I turned on my heel and walked to the stairs. Once I was on the top stair, however, she whispered my name.
“Jake?”
She was standing now, looking straight at me.
“Okay,” she said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. Please help me.”
I intended to wait there on the top step for a bit, maybe see if I could get her to grovel. But she looked so helpless all tied up that I ended up going back down the stairs right away.
“First we’ll get you out of the dress,” I said, walking around her as I looked at the insanely intricate thing.
“What?” Alice asked after another minute of my motionless silence.
“How do you get out of this thing?”
She laughed and jerked her head toward the back.
“It’s got a zipper.”
I gripped the zipper and pulled down. I meant to go fast, but the zipper didn’t want to budge. It would only consent to be slowly, painstakingly lowered down. So down the little white metal the thing swooped, revealing a sequined bra strap and then, farther down, an ivory white back with the odd freckle here and there. Then, once it got to her lower back, it stopped. I pulled and I pulled, but it wouldn’t move.
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