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“Your move, kid. You gonna put on your shoes or you want to take this trip barefoot?”
“I told you, I am not a kid!”
“Fine. You’re Methuselah. Just get going.”
“I’ll make a scene at the airport!”
“I know you’re out of touch with the real world,” Jake said grimly, “but you pull a stunt like that I can almost guarantee you’ll end up in handcuffs.”
“Not after I tell the police everything. How you’re forcing me to leave the country. How you have no right to—”
Jake dropped her satchel and the suitcase. Catarina cried out as he caught her by the shoulders and lifted her to her toes.
“You don’t have any rights,” he said coldly, “unless I say so.”
She was staring at him as if he really was a monster, but he didn’t care. She didn’t want to go with him? Tough. He didn’t want her going with him. What she couldn’t seem to grasp was that what she wanted, what he wanted, didn’t matter.
He’d never believed in an afterlife, but he was sure as hell starting to change his mind. Why else would her parents and his son of a bitch of a father have put them into this situation if they weren’t sitting on a fluffy cloud, laughing themselves sick over what they’d accomplished?
And now, damn it, she was starting to cry. Big, perfect, tears were streaming down her cheeks. This time he wasn’t going to let them affect him.
“Stop that,” he said gruffly.
“How can you do this? I’m not a—a package you can transport and dispose of.”
“FedEx deals with packages,” he said, in a desperate attempt at humor. “We’ll be flying first class.”
She gave him exactly the sort of look a remark that pitiful deserved. Maybe it was time to try a different approach.
“Deal with what’s happened, Catarina, and move on.”
“Oh, that sounds so brave. Deal with it. Move on. Except you aren’t the one whose life is being turned upside down.”
Jake picked up the bags so one was under his arm. “It damned well is,” he said, grabbing her elbow, “and I’ve had it with this discussion.” He felt her start to pull away and slid his hand to her wrist. “The sooner you accept that we’re stuck with each other, the better.”
Her eyes met his. All the bluff was gone, the pride that had protected her from accepting her fate. She looked terrified.
And he felt like the biggest son of a bitch in the universe.
He told himself he didn’t have to do this. He could say to hell with Enrique, to hell with everything and walk away—or he could take this woman in his arms, rock her against him until her panic faded while he told her that everything would be okay.
Except it would be a lie.
Things weren’t going to be okay. Not for her, not for him. Not until they’d both finished dancing to the tune played by a trio of cosmic jokesters—and even then there’d be no guarantees.
“Did you hear me?” he said sharply. “No more tears. I’m tired of the routine.”
“I hate you,” she whispered.
“That’s a kid’s response.” He wanted to sound angry but he had the feeling he wasn’t quite pulling it off. Maybe it was because he could see the fight going out of her, see resignation dulling her lovely eyes.
“I hate you, hate you, hate—”
Catarina cried out as Jake dropped the bags again, hauled her to her toes, pulled her against him and crushed her mouth under his.
He kissed her unmercifully, with an adult passion he knew would only add to her terror. It was deliberate. Let her see what it meant to be a woman instead of a child…
And then he stopped thinking.
